'Someday you'll realise all the pain you're causing me…'
Was that true? Was he really hurting her so badly with his attitude? Perhaps his greed for vengence was clouding too much his common sense and did not allow him to see what was really happening. Perhaps it was time to try and forget, ignore his past and what had transpired before that moment… That'd prove a better solution than hurting someone else in the attempt of revenge.
Forgetting. Leaving all behind, including the memory of those bitter moments and the pain caused by her words. The suffering and humiliation of having him think for a moment that she had finally chose him of her own accord when she had only come back to return that ring. Did she really not want to keep anything that would remind her of him? Did she really hate him so much in the end? Did he mean so very little to her after all his efforts? He had too many doubts and confounded feelings and the fact of having to remember all that always brought the rage and pain.
He stood up from the armchair and came to stand next to the window he had been leaning on as he was waiting for her. His eyes lifted to the sky, turning an intense shade of blue. On one hand, that feeling of vengence bubbled inside of him still, but… did someone so innocent like Angie, not involved in his story, deserve everything that had happened? Perhaps his plan was absurd, after all. Maybe all he had achieved was breaking the feelings another woman had obviously got to cherish for him. She was truly in love, for he had felt it not long before in that kiss, in the feverish passion that pushed her to seek his lips… but what could he do? He couldn't help being in love with another woman who was not her and how would he explain that to her? How to confess the truth? He just couldn't.
However he did understand that the poor girl deserved, at least, a better treatment that the one she had received from him.
Sincere feelings, she had demanded. He had not known much of feelings through his life and the greatest part of them were not positive: hate, resentment, pity, humiliation… That was until Christine came into his life. The will to protect a young wandering orphan girl, gradually became a deeper feeling as he watched her transformation from child to woman. The feeling reached overpowering levels as he got to know her better with every passing day, as he was captivated by her innocence and beauty, the artistic nature and fascination for music they had shared from the beginning, the amazement when he realized how talented she truly was and how that talent grew greater and greater under his tutelage…They were both souls in the search for a light that would guide them through their darkest moments and perhaps that was what made his affection turned into that kind of obsessive passion that would last until his death, even though he wouldn't admit it. All his rage and all his lust for vengeance were caused by no other thing than that. That passion might have been a sincere feeling for him but was it really sincere? Could that be considered devoted and unconditional love?
He sighed, turning his eyes away from the views and going back to his desk.
A young boy knocked at the residence's door, quite agitated. After a few minutes, Marie opened the door.
'Thomas! We did not expect you'd bring us news today…'.
He nodded. 'I know, but…', he showed what he carried in his hand shyly. 'I believed this would interest you…'.
She watched curiously the envelope the boy handed her. It was a letter from Christine… It seemed that she had tried to contact some of her acquaintances that still remained alive.
'Thank you very much', she gave him a full smile. 'Well done'.
She took some money from her purse and gave it to the satisfied boy in reward for a well-done work.
Xxx
Christine was coming back to the house. She had walked the greatest part of the route and she felt safer since she had posted Meg's letter. Her hopes were lifting but she was still eaten up by the doubts about Édmond's real identity. However, she was so tired…she only wanted sleep to come and claim her at last, even if it was for only a night. But a whole night of dreamless sleep seemed now too far from reality…
She had started to feel dizzy and her skin, which had always have an enviable and delicate pallor had now an unhealthy tinge. Cold sweat pearled her brow and she was feeling like fainting. She looked to her right and leant slightly against a nearby wall.
An old memory suddenly came to her. She remembered a time when she was a girl and her poor father was already in his deathbed, surrounded by a doctor and a couple of nurses. Pain made it impossible for him to get to sleep, eat or even speak to his dear daughter… Those were things that a seven-year-old child would never really forget.
One day she came into his bedroom, to enquire about his health. She couldn't stand seeing him like that, so sick, with no strength, when he had always been a man so full of vitality. It seemed incomprehensible. He looked so weak without his violin, without his storyteller's voice… But there was something that attracted her attention even more than her father's appearance. It was a small green bottle that was always lying on his bedside table. Curious as always she asked one of the nurses that had come with the doctor that day about the mysterious flask, its contents and whether that medicine would help her father heal.
'My dear child…', she said with an indescribably sad expression on her eyes. 'It only helps him to rest and reduce…the pain'. The nurse offered a bitter smile while, crouching to the girl's level, she leant a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. 'You are still so innocent and yet you are growing up so very quickly…'.
It was then when tears came to her for the first time. She did not remember how much time she kept her small head on that woman's shoulder, crying her young heart out.
Perhaps that was the solution to her problem. She managed to stand up with certain difficulty and rushed to the pharmacy on her right. Perhaps…