Chapter 12
Run Away From the Pain
Belle
I could hardly contain myself on the carriage ride home. My stomach and lower body cramped in knots as my fingers twitched nervously. As soon as the coach stopped in front of my Uncle Jean and Aunt Estelle's anything but modest château, I dashed out the door and inside the house. "Where is my papa?" I cried when I reached the main parlor. Tears had already leaked like a fountain down my face, I was greeted by the confused look of every maid and butler who had stopped their duties to stare at me. My Uncle Jean whom I had not seen in ages got up form his large high back chair and came to put a steady arm around me.
"Belle, he's right upstairs dear. I'll show you." He tried to lead me up the marble staircase but I was so frantic I managed more to drag him along. I saw the first door on my left and pushed it open. I saw my father lying on a bed. The way the candles were lit in the room and how the doctor and my brother stood at the corner, I felt like I had walked in on his funeral. I ran to the bed, but Beau moved forward to stop me.
"Don't Belle, not yet. The doctor still has to give him the medicine." He said trying to retrain me. I just cried harder as he stroked my hair trying to calm me. I saw the doctor give my father a spoonful of liquid and then pulled the covers up against his chin. I managed to find my voice through my tears.
"Beau how long has he been like this?" I asked
"Almost since the day you left. The work, the stress and the cold weather it was too much for him I suppose." I made a choking sound and could catch my breath. The doctor left a bottle of the medicine on the bedside table and started to gather his things in his bag.
"Your father had the scarlet fever, mademoiselle…." He intoned in a stern clipped tone, not bothering even to address me face to face as he spoke. "The medicine and treatment should help him, but he's going to have to find the strength to pull through it." He closed his bad and headed for the door. "I'll be back within the week to check up on him. Good evening." And with that he left. I took slow claming breaths to steady myself but my hands still shook fiercely. I took long strides trying to walk to the bed as dignified as possible. I sunk to my knees beside him slipping my hand over his. It was burning hot but at the same time dripping with cold sweat. I wanted by papa back the way he was so much. I wanted his hands to by warm like when he tickled me as a child, not these hands that felt like death. His eyes were slightly closed and yet he turned his head to me and I was relived to see a grin spread across his pale features.
"Belle?" he asked in a hoarse voice that I barley recognized as his.
"Yes Papa it's me I'm home." I said happily. He looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
"Belle take this blanket off me. I'm practically choking on the heat." He requested. I smiled lowering the covers off his neck and upper chest. Then I leaned down and kissed his forehead. He smelled of the disease, not the scent of pipe tobacco I had been accustom to as his scent. "Oh Belle, my Belle." He exclaimed softly trying to reach up his other hand to embrace me.
"It's all right Papa. I'm home now."
I stayed by my father's side all through the night, despite the protest of my family members, and even the nurse and maid. Finally in the early morning, beau had finally convinced me to go get cleaned and dressed in something not quite as elaborate as the ball gown. So I retired to my sister's chambers and washed my face in a basin of cool water and slipped into a light muslin dress. I hung up the red dress in a closet, looking at it longing. I wish the dance we shared last night could have lasted forever. I shut the dress within the dark closet with a long sigh. It could never be I told myself; Erik and I came from totally different worlds. When I returned to the room I saw my sisters and Beau waiting for me. I took my seat next to my father's head and he awoke as I bathed his forehead with a damp cloth.
"Belle I thought I'd never see you again." He said looking up at the ceiling. "How did you ever escape?" I held the cloth in my hand, thinking of the time when Erik had tended my maladies in the same manner. My chest felt tight under my bodice. Could this be the feeling of heartache I wondered? I glanced around the room at the anxious looks of my family members edger to hear the tale.
"Does it really matter Papa? I'm home now, that's the important thing."
"It most certainly does matter!" Clara snapped fanning herself. "It's a miracle you emerged from that place with your virtue intact." My sister shot me a disgusted glance. "I'm assuming, that is." I felt so crushed by her words and my courage and pride stray from my mind.
"Erik would never do that to me." I whispered softly with my head lowered.
"Oh this creature has a name, does he? That wretched demon that kidnapped you and threaten our father's life. If it weren't for that monster you would have never have left and father would still be well." Clara continued her assault, leaving no mercy to my exposed feelings. I suddenly slammed my fists on the table as I rose to my feet.
"He is not a monster! How dare you call Erik that? You don't even know him!" Angry tears made my harsh words sound more like a feeble choked protest. Clara played her fan across her face to conceal her triumphant smug smile. My sister had always been notorious for tormenting me in my past, and sometimes I felt she was so two-faced, she would stop at nothing to make me miserable.
"But surely Belle, you must admit it is quite odd for a gentleman to reside in the cellars of the opera house?" Beau interjected trying to calm the tension.
Even my oldest sister Marie who was more timid looked up from her needlework. "Oh yes indeed. What did he look like?"
I felt a hard lump form in my throat and I tried to swallow it back. "I never saw his face." I breathed.
Marie cocked an eyebrow in confusion and morbid curiosity. "Why not?"
"He wore a mask." I admitted simply feeling a fresh tear spring from my eyelids. My father turned in my direction.
"Belle my dear, why would he wear a mask?" I could see in my father's eyes his mind was not grasping the serious distress that question was causing me. I stroked a patch of his gray hair by his temple, freeing it from the mass of sweat on his forehead.
"I'm certain that it was because his face must have been horribly deformed. He never let me see. But he was so lonely down there and so sad." More tears as I turned away feeling more like a small child than the noble lady I was brought up to be.
"So he let you leave." My father asked simply.
"Yes he did Papa. I heard you were sick and he said I should leave. I know he seem frightening to you, but I truly believe he is a man who believes in free will. I came to him of my own free will and he let me go of his. Despite his differences, Erik is one of the kindest souls I have ever met."
"Well then I must thank him for returning you to me, for just the sight of you back home already makes me feel better." My father said smiling and resting a hand over mine. I noticed my tears starting to fade and a crimson blush rise to my cheeks to replace them.
"Oh but I promise to return to him, at least to thank him if nothing else." Than a sudden thought occurred to me. Could I really go back to Erik and have things the way they were? I was impossible. As long as my family was still wealthy I would remain trapped by my social class. It was unthinkable for me to go and live with him again, unless I was his wife. His wife, the idea echoed in my brain. Could that be possible? No I repeated to myself, Erik could never live in my world with my family. I realized finally that it was not the world of darkness and solitude that imprisoned more than it was the world of social hierarchy that trapped me inside, away from him. But how I wish that would all just go away. Yes I would more than gladly be willing to be Erik's wife, but would he want me. Did he love me as I loved him? I wasn't sure and I was overwhelmed by the terrible feeling of lost.
"Well all that matters is that you're back, and you did the right thing leaving that beast there to die!" Clara broke my thoughts with harsh tongue. I couldn't take it any more and I left the room. Running down the hall, I buried my face in my hands, cursing myself, I finally found an empty room with large balcony window and flung it open. I looked over the grounds the expansive land looked so bleak to my eyes. Eyes that had been changed and opened to the new wonders Erik had shown me. I deeply longed to see him again to hear his voice. I had only been gone no lest than a day, but I felt like I had been deprived of air. I was suffocating here and I wanted to leave.
"Are you all right?" I heard a voice behind me. I turned to see my brother beau waiting in the room, a calm expression still on his face.
"Don't look at me." I croaked wishing I could stop crying. Instead he threw his arms around me, holding my tight. Though we were the same age, my twin brother stood over a foot taller than me, so his arms dangled across my chest as his chin rested on top of my head.
"You know crying was one of your biggest weaknesses. In fact it was your only one. You've always been so strong, that's why I hate to see you fall apart now. I knew there is only one thing that could do that to you." He spun me in his arms, lifting my chin with his fingers. "Belle you're in love. You can hide that."
"It's true I love him!" I admitted. "But I can't leave papa while he is sick, and I can't return to Erik. It wouldn't be proper and…"
"I know, everything must seem so confusing right now. But you can't let that bring you down. You have to follow your heart." I saw my brother and realized he had become now a man, the real head of this family. "I will not judge you."
Erik had said the same thing to me. I missed him so, but I had a promise hear that I must keep. "I'll stay here until papa gets well again, but after that I want to go back to Erik, if he'll even have me back that is."
Beau planted a kiss on the top of my head. "Then you may leave with my blessing."
Erik
I lay curled up on the rose scented white sheets for hours. I didn't know when the last time I had moved. I felt foolish. About a week had past since the masked ball, since she had left me. I had walled myself in my own hidden grief and sorrow. I had not eaten much and only drank when I saw it fit to drown myself with wine until I passed out in a drunken stupor. And within this period, I would stumble in her bedroom and collapse upon the bed. SO when I awakened I would be surrounded by all my forgotten memories. I pulled the chiffon canopy curtain around me. Endless nights I would stay in that room, allowing myself to my head on the soft pillows. But the fabric was cold; in fact everything around me was cold. There was no warm female body within the sheets. No intoxicating scent of violets or the heat of a blushing cheek.
It had instead become a tomb, a dark wasteland only decorated falsely to look like a room. What had been her prison was now my grave. I unbuttoned my tuxedo shirt and let my bare flesh be caressed by the sheets, if not by the body that once occupied them. A great pain seized my body as I grasped my chest. I coughed hard and loud, my whole torso shaking with each creaking hack I produced from my mouth. I had been accustomed to this. The coughing fits had been on and off for about a month now, and I had to try and hide my illness from Belle. But the past week the attacks had increased in number and no honeyed elixir I could concoct that would ease the pain.
I finally relaxed and collapsed again on the sheets once more and glanced over at tone of the nightstand and saw the vase of pink roses. The water was brown and murky and the petals had withered to the point that they were black and fell off. Everything around me was dying, including me. Again I coughed into the sheets and reached for the other object on the nightstand, a book. As I turned to look at the cover, I saw it was the book of fairy tales. I flipped through the pages of the book were a bookmark had been placed and survived the title.
"La Belle et la Bete"
I slammed the book closed in disgust. Quite the ironic ending I thought. The beast turns into a prince and lives happily ever after, how charming. Almost like the idea of a phantom turning into a gentleman or a ghost fit to be a husband. "Happily ever after." I hissed between grimacing lips. A scream of rage erupted from my throat as I tore off my mask and flung it across the room. With a deft hand, I picked up the book and threw it at the round mirror above the vanity table, its hard bounded mass shattering the glass. Fleck of mirror flew in all directions including those that flew past my face, ripping fresh new scars into my flesh. I stared into the broken shards on the floor; they distorted my deformed features, twisting them into even more horrid images.
"Damn You! You must love me." I screamed into the air. Again my chest convulsed and I was knocked backwards coughing into my hands. I was losing my mind as I saw between my beaten breaths images of Belle standing over me. I finally stopped coughing and blacked out for a moment. I awoke to something wet and sticky dripping from the hand that covered my mouth.
Blood.
A/N: * pops out * Hello all my readers. First I'd like to thank everybody for all the reviews and comments. The story not done yet though! Sorry if I confused anyone into thinking Chapter Eleven was the end. Special thanks to Cyranothe2nd for the very helpful review, many respectable thanks to you. If anyone is interested, I have gone back and edited pervious chapters. I actually had time to read and finish a "Beauty and the Beast" like romance novel, "The Bride and The Beast" which helped me to get some idea. I recommend that book to any romance novel fans in case anyone is interested in. Oh well enough of my ramblings. Spring break is coming soon, so look for more chapters.