Christine awoke strangely comfortable—so much so that she lay quietly until she remembered where she was. Her dreams faded as the sun rose, and she had slept hard for much of the day. The excellent servants continued their kindness. She found plenty of water in the ewer and gave herself as much of a bath as she could. A plain dark dress had been laid on the chair at the end of the bed. The dress was a touch too small and the shoes much too big, but everything was clean and serviceable. She made her way back down to the kitchen.
The cook, Mme. Henri, was a motherly, gossipy sort of person. Christine had wandered in after luncheon and before preparations for supper were demanding, so it was the perfect time to receive some tea, plenty of fresh bread with marmalade, and all the gossip of the past night. The opera house was completely destroyed. Given that this meant that she was unemployed and homeless, Christine took the news well. In the warm kitchen, with kind green eyes staring at her, it was hard to worry. She thought that she must have some sort of screen between her mind and the world—she felt preternaturally calm. Raoul was in bed with a fever, but the doctor had said that he was not in any danger. Mme. Henri did not say whether he had been asking to see her, and Christine did not ask to see him. As kind as they were, that she had been housed among the servants told her all that she needed to know about his family. She sighed into her teacup and brushed away a tear. For four months, she had lived a dream. She and Raoul had play-acted that love was enough to get by in the world. She had been nearly a star, and he was her handsome suitor. Their friendship had started during childhood, so it made sense that they should have a courtship of playing pretend, secret and innocent, of feather-light kisses and bad sonnets.
Perhaps she would regret it later. In the meantime, she felt quite resigned. She drank her tea and sat quietly in the kitchen. The housekeeper came to ask after her midafternoon. She too was very civil, if busy, but she did find Christine a better-fitting pair of shoes.
"I hardly know what to do with you, child," she said.
Christine sympathized. She didn't know what to do with herself. She had a very little money that Raoul had persuaded her to put in a bank, unlike the other Opéra members, who had a variety of inventive hiding places for their earnings. It was said that the costume mistress sewed all of her money into her corset. Regardless, it was a small account. She knew nothing other than singing and ballet. Surely there must be a place where she could go and find work. The housekeeper patted her shoulder and left to continue her duties.
Christine had another night of difficult dreams. She was surrounded by velvet—it was achingly soft but cloying, and she could not breathe. She was in water again, swimming toward a shoreline that never got any closer. She was in her dressing room at the Opéra, searching desperately for … something. She woke with ears on her face, deep in the night. Mariette, one of the under-housemaids, snored gently in the other bed.
In the darkness, the veil that had protected her was drawn away, and the full dangers of her situation crowded around her. A star of the opera might have the faint hope of marrying a Vicomte—a penniless orphan had none. She did not imagine that she would be allowed to intrude on the Chagny hospitality for long. His parents were abroad, but surely word of Raoul's illness would bring them home quickly. If she could find M. Reyer, he might giver her a reference, and perhaps Mme. Giry. No one else would. It was not her fault, exactly, that the opera house was in ruins, but she was at the center of it, and she knew the gossip would not be kind. This meant that the major houses—London, Rome, Berlin, Lisbon—would be closed to her. "I must never think," she told herself, "of fame. I must think only of how to survive," She was nearly nineteen years old. Better to focus on singing than on dance. She knew that she did not have the temperament to be a ballet mistress, and her voice would last longer than her legs. She would have to think of where to go.
She felt herself skirting around darker issues, more dangerous questions. She thought about where to buy toe shoes and whether there was money to be made singing liturgical music. She wondered whether she would be allowed to keep the clothes she had been given and how much clothes would cost. She marveled at how little she knew, how sheltered she had been. She had always been under someone's care.
"How different," she thought, "from him." Then all the doors were opened, and it was more than she could think of in words. Her mind was filled with image and emotion, echoes of a strange music and the taste of a strange mouth. Christine cried herself back to sleep. It was a heavy sleep, without dreaming.