Chapter Summary: After all the torment the two couples have been through, resolutions are finally reached for Raoul and Christine, and Erik and Tallis.
Author's Notes: Well, folks, this is it. After 10 months we have finally reached the last chapter of this story. I had never planned for it to go on so long but this story took on a life of its own and I just went along for the ride. I would like to say a very sincere "Thank You" to all those have been reading and for all the comments, constructive criticism and the Evil Plot Bunnies your comments have hatched. I do not think any of you will ever know how much all of that means to me. I mean it when I say that I like to tell stories and it is that which matters most to me. Yes, I like the comments (Hey! I am only human, 'kay?) but to know that there are folks who actually read – wow! Just … wow! There is still an epilogue to come but that will have to wait while I pick out a new car and get new furniture delivered. I will say there are several Story Bunnies that this epic has created but they will have to wait, as well; I am going to be reading for a change and encouraging all who have been encouraging me! Finally Tissue Issue warning time! Seriously! And – once again – 'Thank you!' from the bottom of my heart!
CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE
As the winds of winter blew November into December, the days grew shorter and the nights grew longer and colder. Heavy snows blanketed the land as far and as wide as the eye could see. The great storms eventually blew away leaving behind light flurries that seemed to fall every other day. To those who watched from the gray slush and bright lights of the city and those who watched from the white drifts and still nights of the country, it seemed as if the old year was determined to bury the events of the past months. The old year attempted to hide those events beneath a cold blanket that would eventually melt away and help a new year to blossom forth. Those who hustled and bustled about the great cities welcoming forth a new social season paid little heed to the greater emotions that swirled about them. Their attention was focused on the latest fashions, the newest opera, and the juiciest scandal. Those in the country looked at the animals in their barns, the grains in the silos and began to plan for the upcoming planting season, knowing that careful planning would lead to contentment and safety for all those facing the next long winter.
As December progressed toward January, the holiday season saw the gathering of families, the buying and exchanging of gifts and the warmth of a love that tried to be lived all year long. It was a bright time of year with the gentle glow of candles replacing the harsh light from gas lamps. Careless kisses and meaningless flirtations drifted through the crowded drawing rooms of the social set, men and women caring little for the consequences that would accompany their headaches the next morning. Yet there were those who kept family and friends close, having learned just how fragile life truly could be. They did not need to hear the breaking of crystal or watch the melting of ice and snow to know that nothing in life was guaranteed or permanent and that the only eternal thing was the love of the season that so many others took for granted.
Finally the old year faded away and a new year began. It slipped in while some people partied and others slept. It began as another snowstorm swept over the land, a last gasp from a year that some would never remember and others would never forget. But as clocks began to strike midnight, the snow faded away as the first minutes of the new year greeted the world with a moonless night, the twinkling of the stars glistening off the snow below. Those who looked out their windows could have sworn that exquisite diamonds that had fallen from Heaven to blanket the world below. It seemed to those who watched that the promise of the new year, the new lives and the new possibilities that lay ahead were beginning with as bright and as glittering a promise as God would allow. But even the joy and wonder of the holiday season, the heady romance and expectations of the changing of the years must give way to the more mundane routine of the life that must be lived during the other days of the year.
Raoul sat in the library at Chagny, the latest paper from Paris in his hand, yet his eyes could not see the print before him, his mind could not form the words into coherent sentences. He finally sighed, folding the paper and placing it on the table before him. Raoul raised his eyes to the ceiling, trying to see past the inlaid wooden medallions and into the rooms above. He sat very still as he listened to the stillness of the great house - the only sound reaching his ears, the ticking of the grandfather clock that held a position of prominence at the bottom of the grand staircase. "I cannot take this," Raoul sighed as he rose to his feet.
"Where are you going?" Philippe asked as he raised his head from the Paris and Lyon papers that were scattered on the desk before him. Philippe did not even know why he asked for he knew perfectly well where his brother was going.
Raoul glanced briefly at the mantle clock. "It has been nearly three hours," he said. "I am going to go upstairs and look in on Christine. She sleeps so much these days."
"She has been through much over these last weeks," Philippe reminded his brother. "Did Monsieur Corhei not tell you to expect this? Did he not say that Christine would need her rest?"
"But it has been a month, Philippe!" Raoul reminded his brother. "It is the middle of February; I thought things would ease by now. I thought…" He shook his head. "I am going upstairs to look in on my wife."
"I cannot stop you," Philippe replied as he turned back to the papers, a smile crossing his face. "But you know what happens when you wake her."
"I do not care," Raoul muttered under his breath as he left the library, turning toward the front of the house to climb the staircase to the second floor. He paused momentarily at the top of the stairs, panting slightly. Raoul wondered when the time would come that mere everyday physical exertion would not be such a monumental undertaking. As he caught his breath, Raoul placed the thought in the back of his mind - his concern turning to his wife and the exhaustion she had been experiencing. He knew it was to be expected after everything that had happened but it still worried him. It frightened him to see the dark circles under her eyes, to hear her yawn, to feel her leave their bed every few hours during the night. Yes, she had been getting more sleep but it was still not enough. Raoul just knew it was not enough and he wanted to worry over Christine. She had done enough worrying over him, now it was his turn to repay her love and concern. Raoul paused at the doorway to their bedroom suite, gathering his nerves before turning the knob and entering the room, quietly closing the door behind him, a smile crossing his lips.
Christine lay crosswise on their huge bed, her feet dangling off one side and her head resting upon her hands at the opposite side. Her hair was caught in a ribbon at the base of her neck and spread out on the bed like spilled chocolate. A fire burned merrily in the hearth yet Christine had taken a spare blanket and thrown it over herself. Now her cheeks were flushed from the heat, her lips were slightly open, her breath was even and steady and Raoul thought how peaceful she looked at that moment. He smiled as Christine stretched before drawing her knees up toward her chest and adjusting her head upon her arms. It was at moments like this that Raoul knew his wife was truly at peace and it was these moments that he wished he could give her in abundance for she had more than earned her share of earthly peace.
A little noise coming from near the hearth caught Raoul's attention and he saw a tiny movement from the corner of his eye. Raoul shook his head, a small smile lighting his face as he walked over to the cradle that rested close enough to the hearth to keep a new infant comfortable. "What are you doing awake?" Raoul asked the infant who was staring back at him. He knew the child knew his voice for suddenly little arms and legs were flailing away. "You have all ready kicked your blanket off," he said as he reached in to lift the tiny infant into his arms. "And if you keep this up, your mother is going to awaken and you know she needs her sleep." Raoul cradled his child next to his heart and walked to a chair near the bed, sitting down, always careful of the precious bundle he held. Raoul placed a hand on the baby's chest and laughed softly as little fists began to knock against it. He stared at his child for a moment, the wispy curls of blonde hair, Christine's nose and soft lips, his eyes and long fingers and Raoul thought his heart would break. He leaned over and placed a kiss on the baby's forehead. "My sweet little Isabelle," he whispered and heard a contented sigh coming from the bed. "How long have you been awake?" Raoul asked, never taking his eyes from his daughter's face.
"Since before you walked through the door," Christine replied. "I awoke the minute Isabelle began to fuss." Christine rolled over and moved so that she could sit on the edge of the bed, watching her husband and her daughter. "I did not want to say anything for I do so love to watch you with her."
"I thought you were asleep and when I heard Isabelle, I thought I would pick her up and quiet her down so she would not disturb you," Raoul said.
Christine shook her head. "Raoul, you do not ever need an excuse to pick up and cuddle your own daughter!" She drew her legs up so that she could sit cross-legged and arranged the skirt of her gown about her. She smiled and fought back the tears at a sight she thought she would never see – her child cradled in her father's arms. Christine laughed as she finally took note of where Isabelle's jerky hands were hitting. "Do you know she is the only one who can do that?" Christine asked.
"Do what?" Raoul wondered as he dragged his eyes from his daughter to gaze at her mother.
Christine nodded at Raoul's hands. "Isabelle is the only one who can touch your healing fingernails without you even wincing in pain."
Raoul turned back to Isabelle and smiled softly at the baby who was making little noises. He remembered the first morning he and Christine had awakened to the strange sounds coming from the cradle near their bed. It had taken a moment before they realized what was happening and then they had both jumped from their bed to stare in wonderment at their child. Raoul shook his head; it seemed that every day brought forth a new miracle from his daughter. "It does not hurt," Raoul told Christine as he wrapped Isabelle's tiny hand in one of his own and leaned over to kiss it. "It feels like the touch of an angel's kiss – light and soft." Raoul sighed and shook his head.
"What is it?" Christine asked gently, hoping to draw her husband out. She knew that he kept things from her – the worst things – but Christine also knew that Raoul needed to talk. More importantly, Christine knew that she needed to listen.
From the very moment Isabelle had finally drawn her first shaky breath, Raoul accepted the fact that he had been desperately ignoring deeply buried emotions. He had needed to comfort and calm Christine during those first worrying seconds. Then he and Christine had basked in the love and warmth that was poured forth upon their new family. Then it was just being happily lost in a glowing haze as he watched his wife and daughter. Raoul had wanted to hold onto that love, stay in that haze and ignore the emotions that surfaced every night. He had not thought it possible for his darkest nightmares to grow any darker, to get any worse; yet with Isabelle's birth they had. Now Raoul was haunted by new images, images he dared not even name. "She is so perfect," he said softly, placing his hand back on Isabelle's chest, loving the feel of her tiny heart beating beneath it. "She is just so perfect and so innocent." Raoul turned to Christine. "I want to keep her like that." He turned back to the baby in his arms. "I want her to stay like this – safe in my arms. I do not want her to grow up. I do not want her to ever have a broken heart. I never want her to be hurt. I never want her to know just how cruel and how evil this world can be." Raoul's voice trembled with emotion. "I want her to stay innocent."
"Raoul," Christine said with a shake of her head, "you know that is not realistic."
"I know but… but…"
"But what?" Christine asked gently.
Raoul watched as Isabelle stared up him. He could tell that this little miracle loved him and trusted him to protect her. Raoul drew a deep breath and hugged his daughter closer to his chest, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes so that he would not have to look at Christine. Raoul knew he would have to tell Christine things he had hoped to keep from her for he had not wanted her to share in his nightmares. "When those men first took me and began to hurt me, I kept pleading with them to not send things to you and to Philippe. I kept begging God to take care of you, if I would not return. I just wanted you to be loved." He slowly shook his head. "When that bastard told me you were expecting our child, I began to lose my mind. I thought I saw you every day and spoke with you every day."
Christine closed her eyes in pain as her husband continued to speak softly. She opened them again to glance at Isabelle who was still safe in her father's arms, still staring up at Raoul's face, listening to his voice.
"They swore I would never see you again, that I would never see our child. They swore that Isabelle would spend the rest of her life calling someone else 'Papa'." Raoul opened his eyes but looked at Isabelle, unable to look at the expression on his wife's face. "The thought of someone else raising my child, sharing your bed – the thought that it might have been your Angel – would make me so angry. And that is when the pain would start all over again." A bitter laugh escaped Raoul's lips, upsetting Isabelle and he leaned over, kissing her forehead and Isabelle quieted down again. "Not that they needed any excuse to hurt me." He finally turned to look at Christine. "Yet the one thing that sustained me through days and nights of endless pain was the thought of you, the memory of all that we had shared, that fact that is was me you chose, me that you loved."
"Do you not think that is also what kept me going?" Christine wondered as she sighed inwardly, grateful that Raoul was finally opening up to her. "Once I stopped being haunted by the memories of what we shared, those memories began to be my greatest comfort." Now it was Christine's turn to shake her head, to share things that Raoul would not wish to hear. "Yes, Erik sought me out. Yes, I admitted him into my house by the sea. Yes, the argument we had nearly caused me to lose Isabelle." Christine watched as Raoul turned from her to run a single finger down their daughter's soft cheek. "But that argument, having to actually say what had been done to you, to actually have to face those images, was the moment that I think I finally truly began to grieve your loss. I would cry for hours on end and it did not matter whether it was day or night. All the tears I had been saving up began to let loose in a flood that I thought would never stop. Yet as Erik returned time and time again, I began to realize something."
Raoul turned back to look at his wife. "What was that?" he wondered.
"That I am…" Christine shook her head and turned it away. "That I was not a very nice person. As I spent hours talking with Erik, talking about you and what you had meant to me, talking about the woman he was growing to love and how much she was like you, I finally came to understand that I was a child. I was a spoiled manipulative little girl who had everything she had ever wanted and did not realize it until it was too late and God had taken away her life, changing her world forever. It was a lesson I wanted Erik to learn before it was too late for him and the woman who did what I could not." Christine turned her head back to look at Raoul. "She was a real woman who could turn a spoiled little boy into a man. She was not the child I was." Christine smiled slowly, her gaze turning inwards as her memory drifted back. "I did not even realize what was happening when I felt Isabelle move for the first time but when I finally did realize, it was the miracle for which I sought. It happened right before your birthday and I went to the cathedral on that day and lit a candle for you. It was on that day that I knew you had forgiven me for being a spoiled, selfish liar. I was the day that I knew you had forgiven me for what I had done that led to your death. It was the day that I knew you trusted me to raise your child to be all that she could be. It was the day that I finally finished growing up. Being forgiven allows a person to forgive. And I finally forgave Erik and he forgave me and we let each other go – he let me go to find my peace in your memories and with your child. I let him go to find his peace with that woman who loved him so." Christine sighed. "I am not the same person who you married, Raoul. That spoiled, little girl died the day that Philippe placed your crest ring into my hand and told me you were dead. That little girl was buried with the remains of a body in a coffin upon which she placed a lone Calla lily before placing a goodbye kiss upon warm wood because she could not kiss you."
Raoul looked at the infant in his arms, seeing Isabelle's tiny mouth open into a yawn, as her eyes began to close and she fell asleep, safe and content in her father's arms. Raoul turned his attention back to Christine. "Do you think you are the only one who died? That boy you married – the one who always saw the good in everything, who only saw the possibilities – is gone, as well. He died the day he stopped believing in those possibilities. He began to die the day he woke up bound and gagged in a coffin." Raoul paused and let out a long breath, careful not to disturb the baby sleeping next to his beating heart. "He died the day when he surrendered the last of his will to that madman, begging that monster to let him die, to just kill him and end the insanity. He died in a crypt in which his family all ready thought he rested." Raoul wanted to cry but would not let Christine see any more of his tears. "He is gone, Christine; the boy you married is gone and I do not think I can ever find him again." Raoul turned his attention back to Isabelle.
Christine watched silently for long moments as Raoul ran a gentle hand down Isabelle's tiny arms and legs, caressing his child and holding her as if she were his only lifeline to a world he could no longer understand. Christine closed her eyes as she willed back her own tears. "I have a proposition for you," she said as she opened them, watching Raoul turn his head back toward her.
"What is that?" Raoul wondered, unable to read the expression on his wife's face.
"I know how very much you love Isabelle," Christine began. "One only needs to watch you with her, to see how content she is when she is in your arms, to know that there is a bond between you both that will never be broken."
"There is one between you and her, as well!" Raoul exclaimed.
"Please let me finish, Raoul," Christine said as she uncrossed her legs. "I know that we are not the same people we once were and, after all that has happened, that is as it should be. I also know you have seen the letters I wrote to Philippe. What you do not know is before I sent that second letter, I was planning on taking the money you had placed in my name and going to America to start life over after Isabelle was born. I thought I was protecting her. I thought I was going to raise her in a world of love." Christine rose to her feet, Raoul having to lift his head to look at her. "I know – now – that that world of love is here – with you. Isabelle will always be loved and protected when she is with you." Christine drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I want you to give me a divorce and let me go."
Raoul opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to say a single word to what Christine had just asked him.
"After everything you have been through you deserve a nice person to be your wife and Isabelle deserves a nice person to be her mother." Christine shook her head. "Xavier was correct, you know; I am just a girl who danced on an opera stage. I am no fit wife for a gentleman. You need to let me go and find someone of your own class to marry. You need to find a proper wife." Christine turned her eyes to her child, tears slipping down her cheeks. "All I ask is that you make sure she loves Isabelle. Please make sure she loves Isabelle!" Christine turned her eyes back to Raoul's stunned face. "I will take the money you left – if you agree – and go to America and disappear forever. I want you to tell Isabelle that I died shortly after she was born but that I loved her with all my heart." Christine could not stop the sob that escaped her lips. "That I loved her father with all my heart." She turned back to the bed and away from Raoul, covering her face with hands and sobbing into them.
"Christine," came the softly spoken request for attention.
She did not respond.
"Christine," Raoul tried again, "please look at me."
Christine shook her head but kept her hands over her face, unwilling to look at the world she was giving over to a happiness she felt she could not bring. She felt a strong hand touch the ones covering her face, pulling them slightly away and she let them drop but would not open her eyes. Christine felt a single finger beneath her chin, lifting her head up and still she kept her eyes closed.
"Open your eyes, Christine," Raoul asked. "Please!" he pleaded watching as Christine's eyes slowly opened. "I do not want you to go!" he exclaimed.
"But…" Christine began and was silenced by the finger placed on her lips.
"Take your daughter," Raoul said as he nodded at the child he still held. He smiled as Christine slowly lifted a sleeping Isabelle in her arms, rocking the baby slightly as Isabelle fussed. Raoul's smile softened as Isabelle grew silent, stretching as she settled into her mother's care. "This is what I want," he said gently as Christine raised her eyes to him. "I want my wife and I want my daughter. I want what I never thought I would have." Raoul placed his hands upon Christine's arms. "Neither one of us is the person we were nearly a year ago. I would like to think that we are both better people." He smiled. "I would like to find out about the woman to whom I am married." His voice softened. "I would like to spend the rest of my life finding out about her."
Christine nodded in reply, the tears still flowing down her cheeks. "I want to learn about this new man who stands before me. I, too, want what I never thought I would have; I want to spend days and nights watching you hold your daughter, watching the two of you delight in each other." She managed a tremulous smile. "I just want my family."
"We almost lost this," Raoul said. "We almost lost all that we ever wanted. We almost lost Isabelle. We almost lost each other." He drew Christine closer, holding his little family in his arms. "This is so precious, Christine," Raoul said. "Not many people get a second chance at love, at life, please do not let this slip through our grasp." Raoul leaned his head against Christine's, placing a kiss on her forehead, a hand going to rest on a sleeping Isabelle. "Please," Raoul pleaded so softly it was almost a whisper. "Please do not go. Not now. Not now."
Christine looked deeply into the eyes that were so close to her own. "I shall not go," she breathed. "I am staying."
"I love you," Raoul said as he began to plant kisses all over his wife's face. "I love you. I love you," he kept repeating.
As Isabelle slept peacefully, sheltered by the warmth of her parents' bodies, Christine could do nothing but cry.
Even as Christine cried out tears of release, tears of acceptance, another woman stood on a windswept cliff that overlooked a pounding Atlantic Ocean. Tallis, too, had tears in her eyes and they were not from the bitter winds that swept in from the ocean, blowing the hood of her cloak from her head and stinging her eyes. She stood at the edge of the cliff, her eyes glancing down to the jagged rocks below and thought back upon the last years. Tallis could hear the sound of the sea calling to her as it surged against the rocks, cold, white, salty spray flying upwards, reaching for her as it tried to draw her into the sea's eternal embrace.
"No!" Tallis screamed as she quickly wiped away her tears and clapped her hands over her ears. "I am not going to listen!"
On days when the sea was peaceful and the waves pounded lightly against the rocks, Tallis found peace as she listened to their music. Even if the sea was colored gray from the clouds overhead or black from the dark of night, there was still a peace in the gentle beating of fluid water against immovable object. But when the sea became angry, the sirens screaming with each angry thud that tried to change the landscape upon which it beat, Tallis could feel the darkness call to her and found it difficult to resist the enticing music. She wanted to answer it, to find the peace it offered in the anger.
"The beauty in your darkness," Tallis breathed as she remembered a long ago conversation held with the man who had spent a lifetime in darkness, listening to the call of the sirens who hid in the shadows. "Oh, Erik," Tallis said as she turned to look at the cottage behind her, taking several steps from the edge of the cliff and the dangerous beauty that beckoned far blow that edge. "I know now," she said to the cottage, her eyes drifting upward to the trail of smoke escaping from the chimney that Tallis knew was attached to the huge hearth in the kitchen. "I finally understand your darkness. I finally know that there is darkness in each of us." She continued to talk to the cottage as she tried to block out the call of the sea. "We need that darkness for without it, we should never know the light, the goodness that each of us possesses."
Tallis stood silently for a moment as she listened to the world around her, nodding slightly at the siren call of the sea that had been beckoning men and women to their deaths since time immemorial. "I know you," she whispered as she turned her head to look over her shoulder at the Atlantic. "I know you and you can no longer frighten me." She turned her head back, eyes closing as the sound of the siren screamed its bitter anger at defeat and faded away.
As she continued to stand still, listening to the winter world around her, a smile grew on Tallis' face. It was there, soft and melancholy, being carried along on the soft winds that swirled in from the moors beyond the cottage. The winds laughed in Tallis ear at the silence she could hear from the sea, the light in the dark. Yet on those winds Tallis could hear more than laughter; it was that tune, that soft tune that was slowly changing from a resolved sadness to a wistful happiness. Tallis began to hum with the tune that reached through her ears and directly into her heart and soul. She had heard the tune once before and knew she would never forget it. Gloved hands came out from beneath her cape to brush at the tears that had begun to steal from the corners of her eyes.
"Damn man," she whispered to herself and began to hum again, the tune implanted in her brain. "Oh, Erik," she said softly as she began to walk back to her cottage. Tallis had been repeating those words – 'Oh, Erik.' - over and over again. Now they had become her litany against the darkness, her penance for sins, her prayer for the future. The music that played in her head and in her heart grew louder with each step that Tallis took toward her new home.
Tallis stopped at the door to her cottage, leaning her head against the cold wood. "Oh, Erik," she repeated as her hand slowly opened the door, the music in her head finally growing still as a blast of warm air rushed to greet her. Tallis lifted her face up, smiling at the warmth and smiling at the sight that greeted her eyes. She crossed the room to the piano, to the man sitting there. She sat down beside him and melted into the open arms that waited for her.
"Oh, Tallis," Erik whispered.