August 7th 1892: Christine
I had fallen asleep with the bird´s song in my head and I woke up with it. Looking out of the window at the pale blue sky I wondered whether all the things I could remember from last night hadn´t simply been a dream. Surely I´d never dare visit Erik in his home, taking both my son and a pistol with me. Any why should I have agreed to the plan of him becoming Philippe´s teacher? In retrospect all this sounded very peculiar.
But where did this song come from then? I could still hear every note, and it filled me with sadness and a strange longing… Gasping in shock I sat up. "Oh God!", I breathed, every last bit of sleepiness vanishing. I had kissed Erik! I had kissed a man who was not my husband. And this man had been… well, Erik. I couldn´t decide which of these facts was worse.
Admittedly other men had kissed me before. Yet those kisses had been polite ones, with lips barely brushing the back of my hand before moving on to the next lady. With Erik it had been completely different. First of all, we had kissed each other – I had been quite as active as he. If I recalled it correctly, I had even been the one to start it.
And the kiss itself… even the memory made me blush. My lips had actually touched his. It hadn´t been just a few moments either; it had felt like hours. I was glad that Philippe had been too enthralled by the bird´s song to see us. The bird… Had all this been some kind of magic, used by Erik to make me forget everything else?
Of course it had been. I ended my pondering abruptly and got up. It was no good to lie here in bed, thinking about how good the kiss had felt… Good? My cheeks grew even redder. Seizing my dressing gown I tried to convince myself that it hadn´t felt good at all. In fact, I hadn´t felt anything, except the wish that it would be over soon. Yet as I walked over to my bathroom I still couldn´t answer one question: If the kiss had been that terrible, why did I want it to happen again?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………...
When I emerged from the bathroom and went downstairs to breakfast half an hour later I had decided that it would be best not to think about the incident again. I was dressed in a cream-coloured blouse and a dark blue skirt. Raoul loved those colours. Although I knew he wouldn´t be back until the day after tomorrow, I enjoyed choosing clothes he liked as well. A faint scent of different flowers enveloped me. The perfume had been a present to our wedding day, and I inhaled deeply, smiling dreamily.
Entering the dining room I was surprised to see only Jacqueline and Antoinette sitting there at the table, already halfway through their breakfast. Usually Philippe was the first one to wake up. Sometimes his voice could be heard echoing through the entire house at six in the morning because he didn´t understand why he couldn´t get up yet. Noticing my questioning glance at the empty chair next to hers the maid said: "Good morning, Madame! Philippe is still fast asleep. As you returned so late yesterday I thought it best to leave him in peace. He can have his breakfast later.".
"But I´m already here!", Antoinette interjected, waving merrily. "I´m not such a sleepyhead." She seized my hand and pulled me down to sit next to her. I could hardly reach for the teapot before my daughter began to shoot questions at me. "Where have Philippe and you been last night? I woke up because I had had a nightmare, and Jacqueline told me you had gone out. Where did you go? And why didn´t you take me with you?"
The ridiculously good mood in the morning, a character trait both children had inherited from their father, wasn´t easy to endure on a normal day. After a night like this it was pure torture. "Antoinette, please…", I muttered, lifting my hand in an appeasing gesture. "Give me a moment! Then I´ll answer everything…" She glanced at me a little sulkily, but allowed me to fill my cup. After the first sips of steaming hot tea I felt revived enough to reply: "We just visited a friend. It wasn´t… very… interesting…". My voice trailed off. I had always taught my children to be honest, and lying to my daughter wasn´t something I did without a guilty conscience.
If I had assumed she would be satisfied with such a short answer, I had been wrong. At once more questions poured from her mouth while her croissant lay forgotten on her plate. "Which friend do you mean? It is someone I know? A man or a woman?" "It´s a… man.", I said uneasily. "You don´t know him. He lives… at the Opéra Populaire." A strange sound made both of us jump. Jacqueline, who had listened in silence so far, had let her knife slip from her hand, and it had landed on her plate, right on top of her slice of bread. The maid herself had turned pale and she was stammering: "The opera… no… why… what did he…?". Leaning over the table I whispered: "That´s what I wanted to talk to you about anyway. But we´ll do it later.".
Jacqueline nodded miserably and resumed eating while Antoinette was glancing at me sternly. "You´ve been to the opera… without me?", she exclaimed. It sounded as if I had kept her from visiting an enchanted castle inhabited by fairies and unicorns. But then, to her the opera was indeed something like that. Realising that it had been just the same for me a long time ago I could hardly suppress a sigh. Occasionally I envied my daughter for her carelessness.
Looking at her I noticed that she was also making her bottom lip tremble now, which was a dangerous sign. "I´m sorry." , I told her, meaning it. "Will you let me accompany you the next time you go there?", she wanted to know, changing the expression on her face from devastated to hopeful within the blink of an eye. "No.", I said quickly. As much as I hated to disappoint her, I was not willing to hand over my daughter as well.
"But maybe we could watch a performance some day.", I suggested to improve her mood at least a little. "I´ll talk to Meg about which opera would be the right for you." It wouldn´t be easy to go to the opera and sit in the audience, yet it occurred to me that if I wouldn´t be able to do it myself, I could also sent the maid with her. "Oh, thank you, Maman!", Antoinette cried. She jumped up from her seat, nearly knocking over the chair, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Smiling brightly about her sudden display of affection I asked: "Would you mind leaving us alone for a while? You can take the croissant to your room and eat it there.". The girl grabbed her plate and left, the joy making her steps bouncy.
When she was gone Jacqueline stood up as well. I frowned. "Where do you think you´re going?" "To my room.", she replied shortly. "I have to pack my things." Throwing me a bitter glance she went on: "We don´t have to discuss anything. You´ve talked to your… your friend, so you know what I´ve done behind your back all those years. And now you´re dismissing me.". She tried to sound as if she didn´t care about it, yet I could see that she had to pull herself together. Surely she felt more like crying.
I shook my head. "Please sit down again.", I said gently, and she complied, looking at me as if she thought me to be insane. "I made the mistake of not listening properly when talking to Marielle.", I explained. "If I had heard her entire story, I´d have never believed she was the guilty person. So I´ll give you the chance she didn´t have: Tell me why you´re working for Erik!".
Now she was frowning. "Erik? Is that his name?", she asked. "He never told me." "You work for a man whose name you don´t know? How peculiar!", I muttered, quite forgetting for a moment how long it had taken till I had found out his real name. "How did you address him then?" The maid replied: "I didn´t address him at all. I´ve never even met him.". Somehow her statements didn´t make sense to me. So I said: "I´m growing more confused with every word. Could you start at the beginning, please?".
After Jacqueline had taken a sip of tea she began to speak in a distant voice. "The first time he… well, approached me was years ago. I had just started working for you and was quite euphoric about the things I could do with the money I´d earn. Yet soon I had to find out that it wasn´t nearly enough to afford the thing I wanted more than anything else: private ballet lessons for my sister Clarille. She was only a little girl at that time, but she loved dancing and was very musical." She smiled reminiscently, suddenly looking quite young herself.
For some moments she seemed to be lost in thought, yet when I cleared my throat she continued hastily. "One evening I found a letter on my pillow in the room I had before moving in here. A man who called himself ´O.G.´ offered to pay for everything Clarille would need in exchange for a little service. Of course I assumed this O.G. worked in one of the ballet schools I had visited and he´d expect my service to be of the… well, physical kind. I´d have never sunk that low, not even for my sister, but in a second letter he assured me that he only wanted information about your household, especially Antoinette and any children you might have later. I found it rather peculiar. Still… You have no idea what it´s like to be poor.", she suddenly addressed me. "All I want is the best education possible for my sister. The rest matters little to me."
Her honesty was truly touching. When I had first heard that one of my maids had turned into a spy I had been furious, but now I could understand her. Erik had been right: I ´d have probably done the same. Yet there was still a question unanswered. "In which form did you pass on the information if you never saw him?", I asked. "I sent letters to the opera.", she explained with a tentative smile. "That´s why I know he lives there. And when he came to visit your son I left with Antoinette, so that she wouldn´t meet him. He didn´t want to take the risk of her telling you everything."
I nodded. "Maybe Philippe has woken up by now.", I then said. "Could you have a look into his room, please?" "Do you mean… I can stay here?", she whispered. "Of course you can.", I answered. "As long as you promise to keep Erik informed, that is…" The expression on Jacqueline´s face grew positively bewildered. "But… but why?", she stammered. "I know he could find someone else in a matter of days.", I told her simply with a small smile. "And I think it´s better if his spy is on my side."