Christine didn't even have to put anyone out of a job. The leading ingénue had very recently become Mme. Boklund and was newly pregnant besides, so she was more than happy to hand over the keys to her dressing room and go with her husband to Uppsala. The dressing room was smaller than that in Paris, but she had come to realize that this was for practical reasons—smaller rooms were easier to heat during the long winters. She had been in Stockholm less than a month, and already it was nearly as cold as Paris ever got. Her birthday had passed without her even noticing. It was strange to think of herself as nineteen years old.
The company was in rehearsals for Donizetti's Poliuto, which had no role for her. M. Eckman arranged several recitals for her in the homes of rich patrons. Christine continued to feel as if she was under a peculiar charm—the second recital was at the home of M. Lindstrom, who was easily eighty years old and had actually been Papa's patron. M. Eckman's questions had brought him to the Operan, and she had to tell her story all over again, even as she hated to see his stricken, rheumy eyes. M. Lindstrom apparently wanted to make up for her years of loneliness, for he vied with the widows for her free time and kept buying her presents—he seemed to think that she would be bothered by the cold. She was, but she would not have told him for anything.
She made friends. She sang for her living—not a grand living, but an adequate one, with a small room of her own in the opera house, where she had laid her piece of silk over her dressing table so that it glowed red in any light. She had a strange kind of detachment about it all: her good fortune, her new friends, the ovations every time she sang. It was all too new to trust, no matter how astounding it all was. Mme. Jennsen was already planning to come down from Göteborg with her sister for Christmas. Christine looked forward to the time when it was not all so completely new.
In the meantime, the best days were when letters arrived. This had not immediately been the case. Her first one had been from Erik—short and formal, but she could tell from the tone that he was pleased by her good fortune. A barely legible note from Meg followed about their new jobs at the Comédie Française, but before she could respond, another arrived saying that Raoul had found them in Paris and Erik had been forced to leave. Thankfully, these three days had been between recitals. There was no way to get news other than letters, and even though Mme. Giry had added a few sentences at the bottom to say that he was safe, Christine spent those days pacing her room, wearing herself out with worry. Erik's next letter mentioned nothing of Raoul—it said only that he was in Calais, the Girys having gone to the Comédie, and that he already loved the sea.
It was not lost on her that she cried with relief over this letter. Within a week, she had them all laid out on her bed—Meg's letter, Erik's shorter note, and two blotchy and tear-stained pages, one each from Aunt Adelaide and Mme. Henri. On top of these was Mme. Giry's letter, which was the only one that made any kind of sense. She had cried when she learned of Erik's safety, but even though her heart ached for him, she did not weep for Raoul.
Poor Raoul. She had had plenty of time to get used to the idea that his parents would not let them marry—he would be reeling from the shock. When she thought of what might have happened between him and Erik, she could only shiver; they had each come so close to killing one another once before. She would not have been able to bear it had either done so. She was so glad to have already been gone. If Raoul had found her in the same house as Erik, he would only have assumed the worst. Would he have accepted anything she said? Probably not—he never had before, and he was too mindful of duty and society. She sighed. Mme. Henri had been so frightened by him that she begged Christine not to write anymore, for fear of losing her place. It was all very troublesome. The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she was that Raoul would terrorize servants and little old ladies. She was half-tempted to write and tell him so, but that would surely bring him to Stockholm.
This was a new thought—Christine amazed herself that she had so thoroughly laid him aside. She did not want him to come to Stockholm. That was two things she knew: she wanted to sing and for Raoul not to find her. Poor thing. He would recover, she felt sure, and find some nice girl who spoke German and English, who could sew very pretty linens and knew how to run a fine house. She shook her head. Such a life would have been miserable to her. During the months of their courtship, of course she had never thought of such things. She had been too busy with romance, with kisses and waltzes. With dreams of quiet and safety, away from the Opéra. And now, having gotten her wish, it was not Raoul she missed but Erik. She shook her head at herself. Three things she knew: she wanted to sing, she didn't want Raoul, and she was an extremely silly girl.
Still, there were days when she felt as if she had made a great escape. She had loved living with Aunt—even the German lessons and the embroidery—but it had given her a true glimpse of all her disadvantages. For all of Aunt's kindness, her horror had been evident over such things as instructing how to use a fish knife. The Comtesse had been kind in her own way, but Christine had been aware every instant of those appraising eyes. And it would have been such her entire life. If any of society deigned to acknowledge her, she would have been scrutinized at all times, in every detail, and there would have been no leniency. Raoul had made it quite clear that she would have to give up her career—he seemed sure she would want to—so she might never have sung again, except for dinner parties or Christmas carols around the fire. She would have been expected to run the household and to bear sons. It would've been intolerable.
Aunt's letter was tear-stained, but the writing was perfectly clear, and she had asked only that Christine wait before writing again. She was touched by this obstinacy and good sense. Surely the situation was clear to her by now, and Christine was grateful that Aunt was not so horrified as to drop her. This was not only for her own sake—she didn't want Raoul to find her, but she did want to know about him. She wanted him to be well. She wanted his mother to coddle him and his father to keep him busy so that he would not have time to brood. He would make a very fine knight for some other girl: one of a better class and not so stubborn and broken.
She was glad to have become stubborn. It was better than being pulled back and forth among all the ideas other people had about oneself. It was, she decided, a bit like having a metronome on the inside, to keep her own time. She could adjust her own tempo as she wished, but it was hers. Everyone else's ideas were like the roles she would play—she would agree to them or no, she would throw herself into them or let them be a thin veneer. Through it all, she would remain herself.
So perhaps she knew some things after all. Beyond the three, she loved the softness of her seal-fur coat, and how it was so black that it soaked up the light. She did not care for aquavit, but she did like sherry. She liked her friends the widows, and Messieurs Lindstrom, Eckman, and Peña. She felt quite sure that she would become fast friends with Axana Frölander, the curvy blonde mezzo. She thought limpa bread was heavenly, but she missed croissants. She preferred Verdi to Offenbach and strings to woodwinds. And she knew that she must never again hurt Erik, no matter what else she decided. This was a frequent undercurrent to her thoughts. She wished he was near—singing again made her miss his tutelage and encouragement. She tried to tell herself that this was all she missed, but it didn't work. She missed his advice in all things. She missed his presence. She missed his voice, both speaking and in song, and two short letters were simply not enough. She couldn't even write back to him until he wrote that he was settled, and how long would that be? That he might forget her was the most awful thing.
There was a knock at the door, and one of the young maids poked her head in.
"If you please, Mlle. Daae: M. Lindstrom is in the foyer, wanting to know if you've had lunch."
It seemed a much better proposition than sitting on her bed making herself miserable over a man she had already refused.