Chapter Summary: As Gustave's health continues to improve, Jean-Paul and Richard return from the search for their sister bearing disturbing news.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"Just hold onto me," Raoul told his son as he helped Gustave to cross the parlor towards a chaise. "A few more steps and then you can rest."
"If I did not hold onto you, I believe I would be on the floor holding onto the carpet," Gustave replied as he gripped his father's arm. He was smiling but his voice quivered. "I never realized that just coming down the stairs could be so difficult."
Raoul walked his son the last few steps and helped him to sit on the end of the chaise. He took note of the pale skin, the sweat beading on Gustave's forehead. "I think that is enough for the moment."
Gustave managed to nod as he started to move further onto the long chaise. He let out a small cry as he tried to push off with his right arm. He felt his father reach underneath his arms, moving him gently up towards the top of the chaise, settling a light throw about his legs. "Thank you," Gustave told him, heaving a sigh of relief as he settled back against the cushioned velvet. "You are a damn fine nurse."
"You are welcome and I pray you do not repeat those words outside this room," Raoul said as he took a seat next to the chaise. "At least it makes me feel as if I am being of some use."
"You, too, sir?"
Raoul nodded. "It is very hard to just stay here and wait when I would prefer to be doing something." He grew stern. "I am not a man who is used to leaving Fate in the hands of others."
"Sir ..."
"Do not fret yourself for I am not about to do anything foolish," Raoul assured his son. "You mother needs me here and I have promised her that I will not leave." He sighed. "Yet staying here means staying still. When you are still, there is time to think and thinking brings with it waking nightmares. It is the nightmares I fear most of all."
"I should have done more," Gustave said.
"You did more than enough. Your part was played and played well. Now we must trust your sister's life to the hands of others."
"That is the hardest part," Gustave replied. "I trust my brothers and I trust Andrew but what do we know of the gendarmes? Five days is too long of a time without some kind of word! What are they doing? They know who has her! They know where to ask questions! Why can they not find her?" He grimaced as a sharp pain raced through his chest.
Raoul laid a hand on his son's arm. "You will do no one any good if you agitate yourself back to your sick bed." He waited. "Yes?" He managed a brief smile at his son's nod. "Good. Now, I want you to know - truly know - that everything that can be done is being done to find your sister." Raoul wondered who it was that he was reassuring, his son or himself. "Inspector Berube is a good man who has a large area in which he must search. I am sure he is using every resource at his disposal."
"Including my brothers," Gustave replied, a dejected look crossing his face.
"Do not begrudge your brothers their ability to aid in the search; Annalise is their sister, as well."
"I am not. It is just ... just ... I am not used to feeling so damn useless!" Gustave looked to his father. "Is this how it was for you? That night you watched as that man took Maman?"
Original nightmares. Original regrets. Original guilt. Original sin. How easy it was to reopen wounds that had never fully closed; wounds that now festered and bled, destroying every happiness in their path. The words of that night rang loud and clear in Raoul's head like the beginning of a bizarre requiem: "make her pay for the sins which are yours." Raoul closed his eyes, shaking his head. "And worse," he replied. "I had the certainty of untested youth on my side before that night. I had the blissful ignorance of thinking that everything in life is written in black and white, true and false, good and evil. Maturity and hindsight have since shown me what a fool I was during those moments, making your injury and the disappearance of your sister and your friend all that much harder for me to bear." He thought of his daughter's sketchbook. "Not everything in this world can be categorized into such simple truths. There are many shades of gray in-between universal opposites. Be thankful you have not yet learned that lesson - it makes the fears and nightmares all that much more terrifying to suffer."
What Gustave might or might not have replied was interrupted by the sound of a knock on the parlor door. Both men looked up as Therese stuck her head in the door.
"Are you ready?" she wondered.
A moment of happiness crossed Raoul's face as he nodded.
"One moment then," Therese said as she disappeared back behind the closed door.
"What is going on?" Gustave wondered.
He did not need to wonder too long as the door reopened.
"I am really not in the mood for games," his mother was saying, her eyes gently covered by the hands of Leonie.
"Then see the surprise for yourself," Leonie said as she removed her hands.
"Oh my," Christine breathed as she noticed her son sitting across the room from her. She crossed quickly and took Gustave gently in her arms, careful of his wound, kissing him lightly.
"I am fine, Maman."
"I know, I know," Christine whispered, almost to herself. "I had just not thought to see you from your sickbed so quickly."
"I could not stay there forever."
"But how did you manage to get down the stairs?" She turned to look at her husband, knowledge dawning on her face. "Thank you," Christine mouthed.
Raoul found he could only nod; his heart close to breaking as he saw a look in his wife's eyes that he thought was gone forever. Broken their relationship may have been but perhaps it was not as irretrievably broken as he had thought. It was a happy thought and a thought to which Raoul clung.
Gustave saw the look that passed between his parents and wondered what had been happening while he had been behind closed doors. He did not think he could have borne any further loss in his life so he retreated behind the illusion that all was as it had always been with his parents. He found he was not yet ready for the shades of gray that lay between the perfect shades of black and white. "I think I shall be here for the rest of the day for I do not think I can quite manage the stairs again," he told his mother.
Christine sat down gently by her son's legs, keeping hold of one of his hands. "Then we shall all stay here to cheer you." She sighed. "It has done my heart a world of good to see you up and away from your room."
Leonie and Therese had entwined arms and were smiling at each other. Both young women were very fond of the family in to which they had married and the events of the last several days had shaken the foundations of the lives they had been building for themselves. Their apprehension had heightened as their husbands left to join the search for their missing sister; comfort found only in the nursery from the softness and sweet smells of the innocence of their own small children.
"Do you hear that?" Leonie whispered to Therese.
"Just a servant opening a door," Therese whispered back.
"I do not think so," Leonie replied, letting go of her sister-n-law's arm and moving quietly to look out the parlor door. "Therese!" she whispered urgently, pulling on the other woman's arm.
Leonie gave a quick look at Raoul and Christine engaged in quiet conversation with their son before taking Therese out of the room, closing the door behind them.
"Oh my God," Therese exclaimed as she flung herself into her husband's arms, feeling them close about her.
"Richard," Leonie said as she mirrored the actions.
There was a moment of silence as each couple savored the familiar comfort of loving arms.
"I love you," Jean-Paul whispered in a strange voice causing Therese to pull back.
"What is it?" she wondered, studying his face. "What has happened?"
"Richard?" Leonie asked her husband, noting that he would not meet her eyes, feeling her heart sink. "What is wrong?"
"Where are Maman and Father?" Jean-Paul wanted to know.
"In the parlor with Gustave," Therese said. "What has happened?"
"Gustave is downstairs," Richard said to himself. "That is good for I do not think I could repeat this more than once. What of Katherine?"
"She will not be back till supper. You know she goes back to her cousins each day." Leonie looked at her husband with frightened eyes. "What is it?"
Richard gave his wife a quick kiss. "Once only," he told her as he turned to look at his brother. "Ready?"
"No," Jean-Paul said as he opened the parlor doors. He saw his parents look up at the sound of the door, his stomach turning at the look of hope on their faces, knowing the news he and his brother carried with them. He reached out for Therese's hand, trying to find the strength and courage for what he needed to say.
Raoul took note of the somber look on the faces of his oldest sons and his hand reached out for his wife's, finding it reaching for his own. "I can see it on your faces," he said, his world narrowing down to a small dark hole.
"What has happened to your sister?" Christine asked in a monotone.
"I think you both should have a seat," Richard said.
"Just tell us," Raoul insisted.
"Please, sir, it would be better if you were seated," Jean-Paul said, turning his face, unable to meet his parent's gazes.
Christine moved around the chaise to her husband's side. She sat down on the loveseat; Raoul joining her, their hands tightly entwined.
"Just say it!" Gustave managed to get out between clenched teeth, as he struggled to a sitting position.
"Henri Laurent's body was found at the edge of a wooded area on the road to Clamency. What Inspector Berube was able to glean from Laurent's associates led him to order the search begin in that place. We started working in a widening circle from the road," Jean-Paul began.
Christine wanted to get up and shake her son but fought down the urge, instead digging her fingernails into the palms of her husband's hands.
"A coach was found at the bottom of a hill off a small path that runs through the woods," Richard continued, glad for the feel of his wife holding to his arm. "It was in ruins, a horse dead of a broken neck. We found another horse grazing in the woods."
Raoul knew his wife's nails were digging half-moon cuts into his hands but found he could not feel the pain.
"I do not know how ..." Richard's voice broke and he looked to his older brother.
"There is no easy way to say this," Jean-Paul continued. "So I shall just say it." He drew a deep breath. "Clothing was found scattered around the area where the coach rested and the clothing had been torn at by animals. There was a blue linen skirt, a light blue silk blouse with embroidery on the sleeves and collar." He felt his wife bury her face in his shoulder, his arm reaching out to touch her in a vain hope of comfort. "The gendarmes also found a woman's underclothing." He found he could not continue.
Richard exhaled, telling the last of what had been found. "There was also a belt with a very distinct buckle," he reached into his pocket, pulling out a buckle encased in the detritus of a forest floor but which sparkled with the blue gleam of sapphires. "It is the one that was a gift to Annalise two Christmas's past."
The silence in the room was deafening.
"No," Christine said forcefully. "No."
"Christine," Raoul began, trying to find the strength to say the word he dreaded.
"No. She is not dead," Christine insisted, saying the word before her husband could. "I would know. She is my child." Her voice broke. "I would know. Raoul, I would know!" Christine collapsed into her husband's arms, the sobs shaking her thin frame.
Gustave had sat quietly, the numbness growing as his brothers told of what had been found in the woods. "It is not true," he said as he found himself getting to his feet, the color beginning to drain from his face.
"Gustave, you ought not ...," Richard said as he let go of his wife's hand, moving towards his brother.
"You tell me it is not true!" Gustave demanded, taking a few unsteady steps forward, his knees beginning to give out.
"Gustave!" Richard exclaimed. He was at his brother's side in a heartbeat, catching him before he could fall, guiding him back to the chaise, helping him to sit, a hand on his shoulder.
"Tell me it is not true," Gustave pleaded with his brother as he grasped Richard's hand. "Dear God, please tell me it is not true!"
Richard looked at the desperate eyes that searched his face knowing they reflected his emotions. "I cannot," he replied in a broken voice. "I am sorry. I cannot." He moved his hand to the back of his brother's neck in a small measure of comfort as Gustave's head fell to his shoulder, the young man's shoulders beginning to shake.
Raoul looked up at his eldest child, "Did they ... did they find a ... your sister?" He could not say "body."
Jean-Paul placed a hand absent-mindedly on his wife's back as she hugged Leonie, both women quietly crying. "No, sir. We would not have come home but we did not want a stranger telling you this news. I wish ... I wish ..." he shook his sadly. "I wish we had brought different news."
"Did they find anything else? Did they find any sign of Andrew? Or of ..." Raoul found he could not say the name, "that man?"
Jean-Paul shook his head. "No. Just the carriage, the horses and Annalise's ... the clothes."
Christine withdrew herself from Raoul's embrace.
"Ma mie?" he wondered as he placed a hand on her cheek, wiping at her tears with a gentle finger.
"I would know," she whispered only to him, the desperate conviction evident in her eyes. "I would know if Annalise were dead. Trust me on this Raoul, please!"
"With all my heart," Raoul whispered back, gratefully sinking in to the depths of her eyes, willing to grasp at any scrap of faith that his little girl still lived. "I need the strength of your belief."
"And I need yours," Christine said as she touched his cheek. "Thank you."
Christine nodded and drew back, taking a deep breath, turning to look at the two youngest sons. She felt another piece of her heart break away as she saw Richard kneeling on the floor, a hand gently kneading his brother's neck, their heads resting against each other. "My little boys," she thought as she stood, touching Gustave's back lightly. "You must not over exert yourself," she told him and directed her attention to Richard. "Help me to get him back into a resting position."
"I can do it myself," Gustave said stubbornly.
"And I am still your mother," Christine reminded him. "Please do as I say. Richard?"
Gustave allowed his mother and brother to help him get back on the chaise. He leaned back, wincing, finally feeling the pain that rippled across his chest. He opened his eyes as he felt a cool hand on his cheek; his mother gave him a small smile.
"Do not lose your faith," she told him.
"I shall try," Gustave told his mother. He closed his eyes again, shaking his head. "I shall try." He felt a kiss placed on his head.
Christine turned her attention to Richard, holding out her hand. "Richard?"
Richard handed over the belt buckle he still held, feeling his mother clasp his hand for a brief moment. He watched as she gently brushed away the encrusted dirt.
"This needs to be cleaned before you sister returns home. She will be very upset if she finds it in this condition."
Richard looked at his mother confusion on his face. He turned to look at his father and received a warning shake of the head.
Christine stood and walked over to Jean-Paul, reaching up to kiss her tall son. "Thank you for being strong enough to bring this news yourself. You have grown into a remarkable young man and I am very proud of you."
"I wanted so much to bring her home to you," Jean-Paul told his mother.
"I know, my babe, I know," Christine told him before walking to the closed door of the parlor. She paused there, her back to her family, her hand on the knob. "I will not hear one word about Annalise unless it is to say that she is alive and coming home to us. I cannot and will not allow thoughts to the contrary. The angels must never know that we harbor anything other than goodness and light towards your sister." Christine opened the door, leaving the room without a backward glance. She did not see the pained look that crossed Raoul's face as she mentioned "angels".
Christine closed the door behind herself, walking up the grand staircase and stopping at the door to her daughter's room. She paused for a moment, willing her shaking legs to go just a little bit further. She opened the door and walked across the room, falling to her knees at the side of the bed. She looked at the buckle she held in her hands, its image blurring through the tears.
"She is not dead," Christine kept repeating as she buried her head into the bed linens, sobbing out her fears. She felt completely alone in her guilt, unwilling and unable to let anyone else in for fear of what would happen to them. She had already destroyed one life and was now paying for that sin by destroying the lives of everyone else she had ever loved. Christine lifted her head and looked at the sketchbook that still remained open on the bed. Her fingers reached out for the sketch of Erik but Christine paused, drawing them back, returning her head to the soft bed coverings.
"Please forgive me, my angel," Christine thought. "Please forgive me. Do not ask whatever dark gods you worship to make my daughter pay for my sins."
The afternoon sky was surrendering to the deepening twilight before Christine rose to her feet, leaving her daughter's quiet room but taking the emptiness with her.