September 16th 1892: Erik
Inwardly I rejoiced as Christine led me upstairs. So far, everything was just fine. I hadn't had problems with the children. Even Antoinette seemed to like me. The old butler didn't make me overly worried either. I had dealt with much more open hostility than the one he showed towards me. As long as I stayed friendly, we'd get along. Besides, she'd surely appreciate it if I treated him with respect.
Walking down the corridor I couldn't help being a little excited. This was a crucial moment. Would Christine take me to her bedroom right away, so that I could unpack my suitcase there and put my belongings next to hers? Or would she prefer to have a conversation about the sleeping arrangements first? I didn't doubt that her husband had told her what I wanted. I just didn't know what it was she wanted.
Yet apparently the decision was not hers to make anymore. Peering into the one room with an open door I spotted my suitcase.
"It seems that your Jacques has decided where I'll sleep," I remarked dryly.
Christine gave a soft chuckle.
"Well, from his point of view there wasn't much to decide," she explained. "We have three guestrooms: this one, the one in which our coachman Gabriel is living at the moment – he's ill you know – and another one that's right next to Raoul's and my bedroom. It's not difficult to understand why he chose this one."
I looked at her seriously. The way she was talking irritated me slightly. Maybe my assumption had been wrong, and he hadn't told her about it after all. In this case it would be quite a surprise for her now. It remained to be seen whether it would be a pleasant one, though.
"Christine… you do know where I want to sleep, don't you?" I asked her.
To my relief she nodded.
"In my bedroom," she replied in a small voice. "But I… I just don't know yet whether I can do that. How am I supposed to know how I will feel about it tonight?" I gave a little sigh. I could understand her. Yet that didn't mean I had to like her indecision. "Maybe there is another way," she went on quickly. "You could take the other guestroom, the one next to my bedroom. Then you'd be closer to me and…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "…you could come to me if I want to."
The prospect made my heartbeat speed up. So I still had a chance.
"That sounds like a good solution," I praised her.
Quickly I went inside, seized the suitcase and left the room again, before Christine could change her mind yet another time.
"I'm sorry, Jacques," I muttered under my breath. "But you're not the one making the decisions here."
I then followed her down the corridor once more, till we reached the right door.
"Here we are," she said, opening it.
I hadn't taken two steps into the room when I stepped onto the first piece of wood lying on the floor. Looking down I saw several others of different sizes. The smell of sawdust was heavy in the air, making me sneeze.
"If this is where your guests live, I don't want to see the rooms you have for visitors who are not welcome," I couldn't help remarking.
"Oh no!" Christine exclaimed. "Larisse should have cleaned the room hours ago. You know, that window is one of those that were smashed last night. We had a carpenter in the house this morning to replace them, but he had some sawing to do in order to make the windowpanes fit into the frame… Could you just ignore the mess, please?"
"I've lived in far worse places," I assured her truthfully. "So this won't bother me."
I placed the suitcase next to the bed, but decided against opening it. What I did open immediately was the window.
"I'll unpack later, when the air is a little better in here," I explained. "And in the meantime… Why don't you tell me about last night? I've already talked about it with the Vic- with your husband, but I'd like to hear your impressions."
"Impressions?" she muttered. "It was terrible. I was sleeping, and suddenly there was a loud noise which woke me up. The windows were broken. There was glass everywhere. Raoul said he had try and catch whoever had done it. So he left. I was so scared…" She shivered from the memory.
"He had to go and see who was there," I replied automatically. "It was better than staying in bed and waiting what would happen next." Since when was I defending the Vicomte? It was probably the knowledge that maybe I'd have to do the same which made me act like that.
At least it seemed to comfort Christine.
"You're probably right," she whispered. "Still… it wasn't easy for me. I felt so lonely…"
Ever since she had started speaking I had fought the urge to embrace her, but now it overwhelmed me. She needed me.
"I will protect you," I promised her. "You won't feel lonely again."
I walked over to her and stretched out my arms invitingly. Yet she didn't press her warm small body against me like I had imagined it. On the contrary: She turned around and left the room.
"The air in there is truly very bad," she called over her shoulder. "I'll show you the rest of the house now, and you can unpack later."
My arms sank down like stones hitting the bottom of a pond. She hadn't embraced me. Had we already drifted so far apart that she didn't even show me such tiny signs of affection? Or had I intimidated her in any way? But I had even defended her husband, for Heaven's sake!
"Aren't you coming, Erik?" Her voice interrupted my momentary pondering.
"I'll be right there," I replied. Once more I went to the window, using a piece of wood to keep it open. Then I walked out of the room as well, without giving it a backward glance. If Christine continued treating me like that, I'd see more than enough of it in the next days anyway.
She waited for me outside.
"You've already been on the ground floor a couple of times, so I guess we can start right here, on the first floor," she said. Her voice sounded hectic, and she spoke more quickly than usual. It was as if she didn't want as much as a second of silence to come up. "This is one of the guestrooms, but you already know that. Next to it is Raoul's and my bedroom, and on the other side there's Philippe's room. It has an additional chamber for a maid to sleep in, in case he has one of his nightmares. You know, the kind that makes him wake up in the middle of the night and…"
I followed her from door to door, listening politely. It was not as if the pieces of information she gave me were news to me. Most of them I already knew. Still I didn't interrupt her once. I didn't dare interrupt her. As long as she was talking about the house, she'd say nothing about us. Normally I'd have encouraged her to express her feelings, but today I was too worried she might say something… final.
After a few minutes we reached the end of the corridor. By now, my head was filled with more or less useful facts, for I had positively forced myself to listen all the time. It had kept me from thinking about anything else.
"So, now we're finished. Maybe that was a little too much to take in," Christine admitted with an apologetic smile, not meeting my eye. "But I'm sure you'll soon find your way in the house. It's not that big, after all. Besides, it's not tragic if you open a wrong door every now and then. We don't have any torture chambers here." She gave a slight laugh.
"I don't think I'll open a wrong door," I told her. "You see, even though I've never been here myself, I know where the rooms are. Jacqueline was very helpful in this respect. I even made her draw pictures."
"Then why didn't you stop me?" she asked blankly.
"The talking seemed to be good for you," I answered.
She considered my reply for a moment, then she said:
"Look, Erik, about what happened in your room… or rather, about what did not happen – ".
"I don't want to talk about it at the moment," I said flatly. The fact that she had used the words ´your room´, as if everything about that topic was already settled, made me even more irritated.
"But –"
This time it were the children who interrupted her as they came running towards us, followed by Jacqueline.
"Can we go now?" Antoinette asked. "We're ready." It was true: They were dressed for going out. The maid even had a parasol under her arm.
"Give your Maman one minute for fetching her hat and handbag. Then we can go," I replied quickly. Christine threw me a sideways glance, but chose not to argue.
A little while later we were sitting in the coach. It was a pretty, open vehicle with two benches for the passengers. My beloved had taken a seat between her children on the front bench, which left me to sit next to the maid on the other one. Neither of us seemed particularly happy about the arrangement. Except for the girl, who apparently could talk all the time, nobody was speaking. The silence between Christine and me had spread over to Jacqueline and Philippe, and the old butler didn't seem to be very talkative anyway.
We had just reached the gate when the coach stopped all of a sudden.
"What's going on?" I wanted to know, feeling horribly reminded of my journey here. Was there another person who wanted to talk to me?
"I can't go on, Monsieur," Jacques replied. "The gate is… blocked."
Christine inhaled sharply.
"Oh God!" she breathed. "Where do all those people come from?"