Chapter 72 Numb
"You can't make it stop simply by staring at it all day, you know," Philippe said, glancing over at Isabelle as he straightened the page of his newspaper.
"You're right," Isabelle sighed, turning back from the window to face the room, an uncharacteristic frown upon her face. "But I can't help it. Snow is so entirely disagreeable. We can't go for our walks, we can't ride, and now we can't go into Villarceaux to Church this week as we'd planned."
Philippe reached up to pat the hand she'd placed upon his shoulder as she passed by the sofa he was sitting on. "There, there," he muttered, more interested in the article he was reading than by what she was saying.
Christine glanced up from the Atlas in front of her. Isabelle had pressed her to read the latest novel she'd just finished instead, but a story of love and romance was something Christine couldn't even bear to think about. "It may stop by Sunday," she said, though secretly she hoped for no such thing. She'd managed to avoid joining them for worship in the estate's small Chapel each weekend. Why Isabelle was quite so adamant that she should join them for this Sunday's excursion Christine didn't know, but for once Isabelle would not take 'no' for an answer and she'd had to agree.
But the thought of being in a church filled her with such dread that she tried vainly to simply block it from her mind. To stand on a stone floor, to be surrounded by paintings of angels, to light a candle for her father - she looked back down at the pages open before her, the colours blurring before her eyes. Her heart beat rapidly and her throat closed at the memories threatening to wash over her.
Yet what she'd feel at such a moment would be nothing to what she'd go through if faced with a confessional. To speak of her sins, to answer to God for Buquet's death…. She felt the panic in her begin to rise. 'Belgium is next to France,' she thought numbly, forcing her mind onto the Atlas, placing her finger upon the word for each country. 'France is next to Spain. Spain is next to Portugal. Portugal reaches the sea. That sea is the Mediterranean.' That was better. If she just didn't think of him. If she didn't think of anything at all.
"I can't abide this quiet," Isabelle said with a sigh, rising from her seat by the fire. "Are you all most desperately attached to what you're reading, or shall we have a game instead?"
"What a good idea," Raoul answered, so grateful to be able to put his book down that he didn't even bother to keep his place in it with the bookmark laying in his lap.
"Yes," Christine agreed, equally eager for distraction. "How about charades?"
"Capital," Raoul cried, jumping up out of his seat. "I have one that I've been waiting to try out for weeks now."
Isabelle smiled at Philippe's groan of affected disinclination as Raoul made to move the furniture around slightly to give himself more room for his 'performance'. "Oh hush," she chided him, "We haven't let him play in ages, and you know how much he loves it."
"Just don't pick something so blasted obtuse as you did last time," Philippe said, patting the seat next to him, for her to join him on the sofa.
Christine closed the atlas and moved to sit in a large armchair by herself, to join in the game. It was, indeed, a welcome distraction. There was no reason to think or feel when her mind had to be occupied with saying the right thing, joining in at the right moments, and appearing to be as blissfully happy at her circumstances as everybody else in the room.
There was not one among them who ever realised that since the day she'd arrived there she'd been playing a part. She was successfully playing the future Vicomtess de Chagny - a woman she didn't know at all. She was the one calling out questions and answers to Raoul's charade. She was the one laughing and clapping when someone else guessed an answer correctly and she was the one who stood to take her forfeit with a smile when she lost the game entirely.
Raoul clasped her hand briefly in commiseration as she passed him, and he took her seat.
"Now then," Philippe smiled, for this was his favourite part of most games, thinking up a suitable forfeit. "What shall we make you do to atone for your sin?"
Both Isabelle and Raoul laughed at his jest and Philippe looked towards them to bask in their appreciation of his wit.
No one saw Christine blanch at his words and clutch her hand to her stomach as the façade she tried so hard to maintain crumbled to her feet.
"I know," Isabelle said, turning her gaze away from her beloved fiancé and back to Christine. "Oh, don't worry, it isn't anything as harsh as they'd give you," she said, noting – and misreading - the alarmed look in Christine's eyes. "I think you should say a proverb backwards and the last of these two to not correctly say what it is, should then play a forfeit themselves."
"What?" Philippe said, in mock offense.
"But I played out the charade," Raoul protested. "I should be immune from forfeits."
Isabelle raised a hand to quell their blustering protests, then shushed them quickly as Christine had begun to speak.
"Beholder," Christine began shakily, looking at the floor between them all, yet seeing nothing. "The of eye the in is beauty." As she finished, she bit into her lower lip to stop it trembling.
"The what of the eye is the what now?" Raoul spluttered, hopelessly lost.
Philippe bent his head in thought for a moment, his lips moving as he re-arranged Christine's words. "'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'," he cried, clapping his hands together in elation at not only solving the puzzle, but at beating Raoul in the process.
"I'm sorry," Christine said, almost stumbling as she moved to take Raoul's place when he stood up from the chair.
"Think nothing of it," he said quietly, looking down into her upturned face. If they'd been alone in the room, he would have taken her into his arms again at last - but as it was….
Christine sat down quickly; her heart was beating so fast that she could barely breathe. What had possessed her to say that? She knew hundreds of other proverbs. What had caused her to think of her Angel? To scorn the harsh reality that no one ever looked upon him and saw the man beneath the scars of his twisted flesh? The realisation struck her with the force of a blow as she looked up at Raoul, in the center of the room. Raoul had never been judged by his looks. Her Angel had never been given such a luxury.
Yet where did this burning need come from to protect him and apportion blame for his actions elsewhere? When what he'd done was unforgivable? She should hate him; she should despise him. But after all this time, after all the reasons and realities had gone through her mind over and over again until she wanted to scream at them to stop - she still loved him. She felt the hot sting of hopeless tears prickle her eyes and wanted nothing more than to run from the room and their perfect, oblivious smiles.
"Right," Raoul said, turning to face them all and flinging his arms wide. "What will you have me do, you fiends?"
Isabelle cast a sly glance in Christine's direction and her eyes lit up with mischievousness. "I have one," she said, with a smile. "You must say three flattering things to a lady - "
"That's not hard," Philippe scowled, noting Raoul's relieved smile. "You'll have to do better than - "
"Without," Isabelle's voice rose slightly to silence the protest. "Using the word 'I'."
"Ah," Raoul sighed, reaching up to scratch his forehead as he pursed his mouth in frustration. He took a moment to compose his thoughts, then looked only at Christine. "You are beautiful," he said quietly.
"This is too easy," Philippe said, folding his arms in disgust. "'Forfeit' my foot."
Isabelle merely placed her hand high upon her fiancé's thigh, knowing that small touch would cause his mind to turn from anything Raoul was saying and allow her to enjoy it in peace. She'd been itching to use this forfeit on Raoul, knowing exactly what he'd do. It had pained her to see that Christine did not seem to be as affectionate to her future brother-in-law as she - and Raoul, obviously - had hoped. Perhaps a further declaration of his feelings was needed for Christine to feel comfortable? And with little chance for any of them to be alone - where such things might happen naturally and without coercion - this was the best chance she was going to get.
"You are lovely," Raoul continued, taking a step towards Christine, never once wavering in his steadfast gaze straight into her eyes.
Wrenching his eyes away from Isabelle's hand upon his thigh and his brain away from the thoughts that touch engendered, Philippe looked up to see Christine's wide and frightened eyes. With a sinking heart he realised that she looked exactly as she had that first evening during their escape from the Opera Populaire. Like a cornered creature facing her own death.
"And," Raoul said, bending down onto one knee before Christine and taking her hands in his.
'Oh no,' Christine thought frantically. 'Don't. Please, please don't.'
"I love you," Raoul finished, as he bent to kiss her hand.
"Ha!" Philippe cried, eager to break the tension that both Isabelle and Raoul - the romantic fools – hadn't even been aware of during Raoul's fervent declarations. "You said 'I'."
"I know," Raoul said softly, smiling up at Christine.
They were all looking at her. She had to do something. Taking one of her hands from his grasp, Christine gently stroked his cheek. "Dear Raoul," she said quietly. She couldn't say she loved him back - she just couldn't. She couldn't lie to this kind and generous man who only wanted her to be happy. Who only wanted the chance to be able to love her.
"Right, what next then?" Philippe asked, anxious to turn the attention of everybody in the room onto something else. "How about a game of cards?"
"No," Christine said, rising quickly from the chair and forcing Raoul to let go of her hands and stand up again. "I'm very tired. I think I'll go to bed now."
Isabelle rose to kiss Christine on the cheek. "What a good idea," she said, placing Christine's hand onto Raoul's arm and turning them both towards the door. "Why don't you accompany Christine up to her room, Raoul?" she asked, all innocence. "Albert said something this morning about the lamps in the north corridor being out, the gas line is broken or some such nonsense," she waved a hand in dismissal of the reason. "And we wouldn't want Christine to become lost in the dark."
Raoul shot her a look of unmitigated gratitude and seized the opportunity with both hands as he led Christine away.
"What are you up to now?" Philippe asked, knowing that time alone with Raoul seemed to be the very last thing on Christine's delicate mind.
"Never you mind," Isabelle said with a smile, going up to her fiancé and snaking her hands around his waist, pulling their bodies close together. "Concentrate more on enjoying this moment alone with me."
"Anything you say, my darling," he smiled back, his eyes darkening with desire as he bent to kiss her.
-oo000oo-
Raoul and Christine walked down the hallway in silence. Raoul noticed, with a slightly alarmed frown, that there appeared to be nothing wrong with any of the lamps that lined the way to her bedroom. He glanced sideways at her surreptitiously and was relived to note that she wasn't lifting her eyes from the floor before them and thereby couldn't see clear evidence of Isabelle's white lie.
"This is my room," she said quietly, stopping them both outside her bedroom door.
"Yes," Raoul replied, quite at a loss what else to say. He turned so they stood face to face and held one of her hands in his. "Darling," he began, without any idea of what on earth he was about to say, "I - "
"Good night," she said quickly, trying to pull her hand from his without him noticing.
What did 'good night' mean? Did it mean she was ready for him to kiss her? Did it mean she didn't want him to kiss her, she just wanted him to go? He should've asked Philippe – he'd have known the correct thing to do. "Yes," he said again, "ah, good night." Yet he made no move to leave, nor did he let go of her hand.
"Raoul," she started, her brow creasing in consternation. Should she tell him? Should she confess to him now that she didn't love him? Should she give him the chance to rebuke her and renege on his proposal? But then what would happen? Would she be thrown back to the Opera House and left at her Angel's mercy? To face the violence of his disapproval, or the warmth of his -
Raoul threw caution and proprietary to the wind. Taking her into his arms, he kissed her.
Startled by his action, Christine had no choice but to move into the kiss yet felt even less than she had upon the roof of the Opera when in his arms. Yet again it seemed he enjoyed the act far more than she, as he pressed closer to her - so much so, in fact, that she had to take a few steps backwards and ended up against her bedroom door.
With acute detachment she noted the broadness of his shoulders as her hands moved across them. And yet there was no heat, no longing. She only gasped because the kisses made breathing difficult, and her heart beat more in panic than in a passion for him. 'How different things would be,' her traitorous mind mocked. 'If his eyes were blue and not brown.' With a small cry, she pushed him away and stood back from him, wiping him from her mouth with one hand. "We can't," she said, breathlessly. "We mustn't."
"But darling - " he gasped, reaching for her again.
"No," she said, putting out a hand to stop him. "This isn't right." How could she have let this happen? How could she have led him to believe that her heart was free?
Raoul quelled the ridiculous urge to protest that yes, it damn well was right, and that Philippe and Isabelle were engaged, and he'd never seen Isabelle refuse a kiss. "I'm sorry," he managed, trying to calm himself. "It's just," he moved towards her again, slower this time, and was relieved to find the hand she'd put up to stop his progress now rested gently against his chest. "I love you so much," he whispered, running a hand down her neck. "And I don't see why I can't show it."
What could she say? How could she explain without breaking his heart? Would he turn on her as her Angel had turned on those who displeased him? Was that what all men did when their love was scorned? Would the face that looked upon hers now with such innocent affection soon be twisted with hatred and scorn over her lies? "But - I -" she stammered, "I don't even have a ring."
Of all the things he thought she'd say at such a moment, this was the last he'd expected. "A ring?" he repeated the request dully.
"You asked me to marry you," she said quietly, "but you've never given me a ring." Here was his chance, this was his opportunity to break the vows they'd made so foolishly to one another on that roof. God, if only he would take it.
It was lucky that her eyes were to the floor, and she didn't see him roll his own to the heavens in self-reproach. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have forgotten to get her an engagement ring? And more importantly, how had Philippe not alerted him to such a grievous oversight? He'd send for one immediately. "You'll have the best that money can buy," he vowed. Reaching out with one finger, he lifted her chin so that she had no choice but to look back up at him. "I promise you," he leant down and kissed her again, as gently as he could bear.
It was such a tender, almost chaste, kiss that her young heart could not fail to be moved. Could she learn to love this kind and honest man, in time? Or would her heart and mind be forever locked in this maelstrom of confusing, conflicting emotions?
"Good night," he said, with a warm smile.
She stood and watched his back as he walked away from her down the corridor and felt nothing but resigned to her fate. He hadn't taken the chance to release her; she was still to be his wife. He would always love a lie.
She went into her bedroom and locked the door. She didn't even bother to undress; she simply lay upon the bed and looked up at the ceiling, knowing not even tears would come that night.