September 9th 1892: Christine
Although I had read the message several times already, I felt as if I hadn´t taken in a word of what it said. Maybe that was because the loud and obnoxious delivery boy had woken me up from a deep slumber. It was almost noon, and still I wasn´t well rested. Holding the sheet of paper in front of my eyes again I re-read the few lines.
Christine,
I´d like to have Philippe with me for the next days. With the new production there are a lot of things to be arranged and supervised. The lessons he´ll learn will be of immense value to him. Therefore it is imperative that my boy stays with me by day as well as by night. I will take good care of him.
ErikSlowly the pieces of information began to sink in. Erik wanted Philippe to be with him for a few days because he planned to extend their lessons. That much I understood. Yet what truly shocked me was how business-like the message sounded. I could almost feel the cold coming from the piece of paper permeate my skin, making me shiver. The choice of words reminded me of the notes he had sent to the managers. And why hadn´t he even written ´Dear Christine´?
But then, what did I expect? I had rejected him. He had offered me his heart on a silver plate, and I had trod on it. Perhaps this was better than having him hurl insults at me. If the coldness was his way of dealing with the situation, I´d have to accept it. After all, it was not as if I could show him a better one.
Quite suddenly I was seized by a wild urge to see him. I could read the sadness behind the formal tone, and it made me even more miserable than I already was. Erik shouldn´t feel like that. Maybe I could talk to him and explain things… "Don´t be ridiculous!" I muttered under my breath. "If you went to him, you´d raise his hopes, only to destroy them again! You´re surely the last person he wants to see at the moment."
But who else did he have? I hated the thought that he was sitting at his organ, playing a depressing melody while tears trickled down his face and onto the keys. Someone had to help him, and that someone could not be me. Perhaps I should talk Mme.Giry into going down to his lair and check whether he was all right – or as all right as he could be under the given circumstances. Or else…
My gaze wandered down to the note I still held in my hand, and suddenly everything fell into place. Of course! Erik himself had told me who he needed: Philippe. The new production was just an excuse, used to disguise the fact that he wanted my son to be with him for a while in order not to be lonely anymore. I simply had to grant him this wish. It was the least I could do for him.
Having arrived at that conclusion I already felt a little better. My guilty conscience, which had tormented me all night, had grown considerably lighter. I sat down at my dressing table and examined myself in the mirror. Given the facts that I had spent hours on a cold graveyard and hadn´t slept well afterwards I didn´t look too bad. True, I was a bit pale and my hair was dishevelled, yet those problems could be solved easily.
Fifteen minutes later I had washed my face with lavender soap and warm water from a bowl Jacqueline had brought me. The traces of tears had vanished, and my cheeks were rosy. I was just combing my hair, trying to decide whether to tie it together into a bun, when Raoul entered the room. Seeing his reflection in the mirror I turned around to face him.
"Since when do you come in without knocking?" I asked instead of a proper greeting. "For all you knew I could have still been sleeping." "Well, as I heard you call for Jacqueline, I figured you had to be awake. You rarely do that in your sleep," he pointed out sensibly, but with a slight grin. "Are you angry at me now?" "Of course I´m not," I replied in a soft voice. "It´s good to see you." He hadn´t been there when I had woken up, and I had been afraid he might be gone for the entire day. Somehow I didn´t like being alone at the moment.
Raoul gave me his most dazzling smile. "In this case we should start this conversation again," he decided. "Why don´t you begin with ´Where have you been all morning, love?´?" "Where have you been all morning, love?" I repeated like a good girl, although I couldn´t quite understand why he made me ask such a question. Surely he had been with one or several of his business partners. That was what he always did.
"I met M.Levarne… you know, the tall bald man with the bushy eyebrows," he answered, adding the usual brief description as a reminder of who he was referring to. With the dozens of men I only saw on social events and similar occasions every now and then it was difficult to have an overview. Yet M.Levarne was one of the few whose face I recalled quickly, for he had even been to dinner with us a couple of times. Raoul often called him his right-hand man. "And what did he want?" I asked, not sounding too enthusiastic. When people wanted my husband to invest money in their projects, they went to M.Levarne, who in turn had to present each and everything to Raoul. A meeting with him was usually followed by even more work.
I could hardly keep myself from glaring at my husband, judging him before he had as much as confirmed my suspicion. Not even twelve hours ago I had decided for him, and his way of thanking me was leaving me alone. Didn´t he see that I needed him? I wanted him to be there for me, to show me I had made the right choice. Had he only come back to tell me he was going away again?
Yet that didn´t seem to be true, for he replied: "He didn´t want anything. I was the one who had asked him for a meeting.". I looked at him sceptically. So he was positively searching for more work now? That didn´t sound good at all. But before I could say anything, he had already continued: "I told him he´ll have more responsibility in the future. He´s a good man and has worked for me long enough to know which kinds of projects are interesting for me. From now on he´ll make a pre-selection and only show me the most promising ones.".
I threw him a questioning glance. All that seemed to be very nice for M.Levarne, but I wasn´t sure why Raoul was so excited about it. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet and looked down at me expectantly. When I didn´t react right away he called: "Don´t you understand what this means for us, Christine? I won´t have to spend hours talking about boring projects, and I won´t have to be away from Paris for days because M.Levarne will do that work. It means I´ll have more time for the family… for us!".
Now comprehension dawned on me with the speed of lightning, and I smiled. His good mood spread on me quickly. The sombre thoughts of Erik left my head, at least for the moment. "Those are delightful news," I said. He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose briefly, in the same loving way he had often done it at the start of our relationship. "I´ve only done this for us," he whispered. "Last night I realised how much I don´t know about the children and you, but that´ll change. From now on everything will be better."
When he straightened up again the moment of seriousness seemed to be over. "Let´s go out and celebrate!" he suggested. "I´ll take you to lunch in the best restaurant in Paris. Or would you prefer a small café? We´ll go wherever you want." Laughing I turned around again. "Just give me a minute for combing my hair and getting dressed," I muttered, mentally already rummaging through my drawers, searching for the right dress.
"I´ll help you," Raoul offered, picking up the comb and waving it around in the air with enthusiasm. I reached for it, trying to save my curls from this attack, when the comb suddenly fell out of his hand and landed on the carpet. He had seized the item that had been under it on the dressing table: the note from Erik. "Christine," he said in a deadly calm voice. "What is this?"