When We Said Goodbye
Note: The first time I tried to upload this I messed up, but I finally figured out how to get the first chapter up. This based on ALW's Phantom since in the book Christine and Raoul disappear in the end. I just want to say up front that I'm not going to have Christine's daughter turn out to be Erik's or anything like that, since they never had sex in the musical or book or movie, so Lynette is Christine and Raoul's daughter. She is eight years old when she begins this story, making Christine 25, Raoul in his early thirties and Erik in his late forties.
Chapter 1: At Le Château de Chagny
My mother was very beautiful. She was small and slender with pale skin, big brown eyes, and dark curly hair. People said I looked like a miniature of her and I was glad to think that when I grew up I would be as lovely as she was. One day I told her this and she grew very grave.
"Beauty is not in the face, my dear," she said. "A pretty face can hide a tortured soul, just as an ugly one can hide an angel."
"Angels aren't ugly. They have fluffy wings and golden crowns," I said.
She sighed, "I didn't mean real angels. I meant angels here on earth. The people in our lives who change us and make us want to be better, those people are angels."
"You're an angel, Maman," I said.
"I might have been one a long time ago, but I was not brave enough," she said sadly. "You must always be brave, Lynette."
"I was brave last week when I had to have my tooth pulled," I reminded her.
She smiled. "Yes, you were very brave. You are very much your father's child."
My father was the Vicomte de Chagny and I loved him better than anyone else in the world, except Maman, of course. He was as handsome as my mother was beautiful and I decided I wanted to marry someone just like him when I grew up.
The other person who lived with us in our château, besides the servants, was my grandmother, my father's mother. I tried very hard to love Grandmère the way I loved Maman and Papa, but I could not. She was a tall, thin woman, with silver hair and a pinched mouth. She always fussed about dirt and bugs and she called me "the girl," as in: "The girl has made a mess in my study" or, "Can no one get the girl to brush her hair?" or, "Christine, I wish you wouldn't let the girl slide down the banister."
When I was eight, my cousins, the sons of my father's sister, came to visit for a month and Grandmère made me promise to be good to them.
"You must learn what it means to be a hostess worthy of the Chagny," she said.
There were two of them, Henri and Claude, twin boys about my own age. One of them was tall and fair and the other short and dark, which did not fit my ideas about twins at all.
After we had been left alone in the nursery, Henri, the taller of the two, said, "I heard that your mother was an opera singer."
"Yes, she was," I said. "She was a soprano at the Opera Populaire."
"Our father said it was a disgrace for your father to marry her," said Claude.
"Then your father is very rude," I retorted.
"It was a great scandal," said Claude. "Our father says your mother was not fit to marry a Chagny."
"She is very pretty, though," added Henri. I decided I liked him.
"But she's common," said Claude.
"I would rather have a pretty, common wife than an ugly noble one," said Henri.
"Not me," said Claude. "It would be shameful.'
"Don't say that!" I shouted.
"You can't make me!" he shouted back. "Your mother's a commoner and a disgrace, so there!"
He stuck out his tongue and I slammed my fist into his face. My knuckles hit bone and Claude went flying. When he stood up, a torrent of blood gushed from his nose onto his frilly white collar.
"You…you hit me!" he said, his voice more surprised than pained.
Henri clapped me on the shoulders and congratulated me, "You have a fine right hook for a girl."
Claude had noticed the blood streaming down his face and he started to squeal. "I'm dying! I'm dying!" he shrieked.
"Stop sniveling," ordered Henri sternly.
"What's all this?" said Grandmère coming into the nursery. "How am I to write my letters with such goings on?" Then she noticed Claude's nose and cried, "Good heavens! What happened to you, child?"
"Lynette hit me," he sobbed.
"Is this true?" Grandmère asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"I'm ashamed of you. You must apologize to your cousin at once."
"But I'm not sorry," I said recklessly. "He deserved worse for what he said."
"It was an affair of honor, Grandmère," said Henri.
"I don't care," said Grandmère dismissively. "Whatever the provocation, the girl knows better and her misbehavior must be dealt with."
"Undoubtedly," said a deep voice at the door. "If you don't mind, Mother, I would like to handle this."
It was Papa. He took my hand and led me into the library. He pulled out a chair for me, went to the other side of his desk, and sat down, his face serious. The silence made me nervous.
At last he spoke, "Lynette, you know it is very wrong to use violence, especially against a guest."
"But Claude said it was a disgrace for you to marry Maman!" I burst out.
"Did he?" asked my father.
"Yes and he called her common!"
"Indeed?"
"Yes, so I knocked him down. I didn't know he'd be such a baby about it."
I hung my head and waited for the reprimand to continue, but instead my father said, "In that case, I'm proud of you, Lynette."
"What?" I said.
"I'm proud of you for standing up for your mother."
"You are?"
He chuckled, "The little snob deserved a good thrashing and you certainly gave him one."
"But you told me it was wrong to use violence," I said.
"In general it is, but there are some things in this world worth fighting for and your mother is one of them."
I thought about this for a moment and then asked, "Papa, was it really a scandal when you married Maman?"
He stopped laughing and said thoughtfully, "Yes, I suppose it was. The Chagnys are a very great family, you see, and so we are expected to marry into other great families."
"And Maman's family wasn't great?"
"Not in the ways that matter to people like Henri's father," he said darkly. "And it didn't help that we married so soon after…" He trailed off.
"After what?" I prompted him.
"Nothing," he said.
His tone told me that I would get no further, but I couldn't help trying, "After what, Father? After an earthquake? After a fire? A flood? A shipwreck?"
He stood up quickly in his chair and said, "Go and apologize to your grandmother for being pert. I'll see you at supper."
After that Henri and I were inseparable for the rest of their visit. I showed him all over the estate, from the gardens to the stables to the climbing tree to the swimming hole. At first Claude sulked in the house, until at last he grew so bored of staying indoors that he joined us in our ramblings. Henri made Claude apologize for insulting my mother and then we became a united trio that Grandmère said had been sent by the devil to torment her. Altogether, it was a splendid summer and I was sorry to see the twins go.
Not long after they left us, my mother visited the nursery and told me she had exciting news.
"What is it?" I asked eagerly, thinking she might take me to the seaside.
"You are going to get a new brother or sister."
I was very disappointed. I did not consider this exciting news at all.
She must have seen the dismay in my face because she knelt in front of me and said, "What is wrong, Lynette?"
"I don't want a little brother or sister," I declared.
"Why not?"
"Because then I will have to share you."
She hugged me very tightly, and said, "I will love you just as much when the baby comes." Then her eyes got the faraway look they so often had and she whispered, "It is possible to love two people at once."
"You mean the way you love Father and me?" I asked.
"Yes," she said brightly, but I knew it was a lie. She was thinking of someone else. She was always thinking of someone else these days and I thought it must be the baby. But why should thinking of the baby make her so sad?
I watched my little mother get fatter and fatter until one day she did not come down to breakfast. I asked Papa if she was having the baby.
"No," he said, his face troubled. "It is too soon. She's sick."
It was a frightening time. Doctors and nurses came and went at odd hours. Grandmère's fits of temper came more often than usual and poor Papa went around the house with a terrible, lost look, as if he did not know where he was.
One night the doctor used the word "crisis" and we all camped outside Maman's room. I fell asleep with my head on my father's shoulder and when I woke up he had laid me on a small divan in her boudoir. The light outside told me it was early morning.
Papa and Grandmère were huddled in the corner with the doctor, who said in a low voice, "She lost the baby."
I knew that lost meant dead. I felt very guilty because I had not wanted the baby and now it was dead. Poor, lost baby would never get to see its mother or father.
The doctor spoke again, "She will never have another child."
"What?" gasped Grandmère.
"But she will live?" asked my father, his hands shaking.
"Yes, if she rests and does not excite herself," said the doctor and then he excused himself, leaving Papa and Grandmère alone.
"Thank God," said my father, sinking into a chair.
"Thank God?" hissed Grandmère. "For what? That your silly chorus girl cannot even give you an heir? A daughter cannot inherit the title or the estate, Raoul; you must have a son."
"Lower your voice, Mother. You will wake Lynette."
"I told you no good would come of marrying an opera brat," said Grandmère in a quieter voice.
"I've just lost a child and I almost lost my wife! I am in no mood for this discussion," said my father angrily and he stormed out of the room.
I got up to follow him, but unfortunately ran into Grandmère on my way out.
"Go play outside, can't you see you're in the way?" she scolded me.
"But I haven't had any breakfast yet," I said.
"We'll eat late this morning. Just go outside, so we can get some peace," she said.
I put on my coat and hat and obediently went outside. It was November and I did not like to walk in the garden and see all the dead things. I wandered very far until I was beyond the formal garden. Here the plants were not in neat rows, but instead grew every which-way, like my unmanageable curls.
A burst of color flashed in the corner of my eye and when I went to inspect I found a single red rose way back in a bush. I did not know how there came to be such a flower so late in the year, but I took out the little knife Henri had given me as a going away present and cut the stem away. I knew exactly what I would do with it. I would give this rose to my mother and she would be happy and see that one little girl was enough, even if I could not inherit the title or the estate.
I gave my coat and hat to one of the maids and trudged up the stairs to my mother's bedroom. My father was dozing in a chair outside the door and I snuck past him to where my mother lay sleeping.
I decided to wait for her to wake up and I laid the rose on the table by her bed, so that she would see it when she opened her eyes. It seemed rather a plain gift now that I was in my mother's luxurious suite, but I did not know what I could do to improve on it. Suddenly I remembered the ribbon in my hair and I yanked it our, my curls spilling around my face. I tied the black velvet ribbon around the rose and set it back down on the table, pleased with the result.
I sat in the corner for what seemed like a very long time. It was hard to remain still, but I managed it by thinking about how happy Maman would be when she saw her rose.
At last she began to stir and then, finally, her eyes fluttered open. It was just as I'd imagined, she saw the rose right away! But then, instead of smiling in surprise, she opened her mouth and screamed out loud. She had been so quiet and so still for so many days that I had forgotten she could make such a noise. It was awful. Her face was even whiter than usual and her eyes were wide with shock.
"He's here, the Phantom of the Opera!" she cried and then fainted dead away.
