September 17th 1892: Erik
We dressed in silence, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. There was no hint of regret in the air, not from me, of course, and also not from her. We simply didn't talk because we both were lost in our own thoughts and didn't feel like sharing them. At least it was like that for me. I kept re-living the most wonderful moments of the last minutes, of our conversation as well as of what had happened before. All this, as well as the thought that it would happen again in just a few hours' time, put me into such a euphoric state that it was a small miracle that I managed to bring every piece of clothing to the corresponding part of my body.
Another obstacle in my struggle to get dressed was the fact that I just had to looked over to Christine every now and then. She had the advantage that most of her clothes had bright colours, so they were easier to find than mine. Yet since she couldn't see in the dark, she was still slower than me. This gave me the chance to have a lovely view of various parts of her body, and most of the time she wasn't even aware that I was watching her.
With all those things holding me back, it was no wonder that Christine and I were finished at almost the same moment. Silently I seized her hand and led her out of my room and back into the bedroom. The lamp hadn't gone out, so that we could see right away that Philippe was still sleeping. The bird was sitting on its perch, and it looked as though it were watching him.
"I can carry him back to the coach," I offered. He's not very heavy. So we don't have to wake him up." He was slumbering so peacefully, and I couldn't bring myself to shaking him or calling his name. It would have been cruel. When he was sleeping, Philippe looked just like his mother. I wouldn't have been able to wake her up in such a situation either.
Yet Christine shook her head.
"That's very friendly of you," she told me. "But we can't do it like that. If Philippe doesn't wake up soon, he won't be able to go to sleep all night. I don't want to make him confused. It's very important for children to have a constant rhythm with such things. As a matter of fact, it's also important for adults…" She threw me a sideways glance.
"I do sleep at night," I protested. "Well, sometimes… How do we wake him up then?"
She leaned down, till her face was on the same level as his.
"Philippe?" she called softly. "Philippe…"
Slowly the boy opened his eyes.
"Maman?" he whispered, giving a huge yawn. "Is it already morning?"
"No, it's still evening," she replied. "You have to get up now. You fell asleep in Uncle Erik's house, and we want to go home."
With a little support of Christine's hands, Philippe came into a sitting position. Yet he still didn't seem to be fully awake. He kept blinking sleepily and looked around as if he had never seen the room before.
"What time is it?" she asked me. "Can we drink another cup of tea before we leave? It would surely help him wake up properly."
I threw a glance at the clock in the corner, behind Orpheus' perch, and my eyes widened in disbelief.
"Half past six?" I muttered faintly. Where had the time gone? I'd have never thought we had been here for such a long time.
Christine inhaled sharply.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "We should have been home for dinner at six. Larisse will be sick with worry. And Meg! You were supposed to take her home. I hope she waited for us."
"This gets even better," I said. "I told your butler to pick us up at half past five. Do you think he'll still be there?"
"I suppose so," she answered uncertainly. "Where else should he have gone? But we really have to hurry now."
"Do you still have objections to me carrying the boy?" I asked.
"No," she replied. "He's too sleepy to walk all the way back." We both looked at him. His eye lids had drooped again.
About twenty minutes later we had left the house and the lake behind and were hurrying up a corridor. All the positive thoughts that had filled my head before had given way to a terrible suspicion. What if the butler had started searching for us in the opera? It was evening, which meant that at least the younger chorus girls were returning to their dormitories. It was true that no one had paid attention to us when we had entered the building, yet who knew whether it would stay that way? Chorus girls, still fresh after an afternoon of doing nothing, and any potential gossip material were a dangerous combination.
Yet it seemed that there was no reason for me to worry. When we reached the street, panting, the butler was sitting in the coach. He looked just as stiff as usual, maybe a little more.
"I'm very sorry, Jacques," Christine said as she climbed into the coach. "We were so busy that we just forgot the time…" Her eyes met mine, and she winked at me. I smiled. That had been a nice way of putting it.
Naturally the butler hadn't noticed the glances we were throwing each other behind his back. He only made a slightly impatient motion with his head, indicating that I should get in quickly. His amount of self-restraint was amazing. If someone had made me wait outside a building with nothing else to do for more than an hour, that person would have needed more than a simple ´I'm sorry´ to make up for it.
I placed Philippe next to his mother. He wasn't sleeping, but he didn't look very awake either. His head fell against her shoulder immediately, and he closed his eyes. I made to sit down on the bench behind them, yet Christine pointed at the few inches free space on her other side. Obediently I took a seat there. I liked it better that way, of course.
At last the butler could give the horse the signal to start walking. It was very comfortable to sit in the coach, next to Christine, watching the streets. It was slowly getting dark outside, and still the streets were full of people. There were many theatres and restaurants in this part of the city; it rarely grew quiet before midnight.
Yet the closer we came to the de Chagny's neighbourhood, the fewer people there were outside. The families living here were eating dinner at this time of day, and when they went out afterwards, they did so in coaches. We fitted right in, which was a feeling completely unfamiliar to me.
As we stopped at the gate, Philippe's eyes snapped open.
"Are we home?" he asked in a sleepy whisper.
"Yes," his mother replied. "Do you think you can walk to the house?"
He nodded firmly. We left the coach, and Christine and I took the boy by the hands. I'd have preferred carrying him again, but I sensed that he wouldn't have liked it. I could only guess that he didn't want his sister to see him being carried around like a little child.
We walked very slowly, so that it took us a while to reach the house. By the time we were halfway up the stairs, the door was opened slightly, and Jacqueline peered outside.
"I saw you from the window," she explained hastily, interpreting my scolding glance correctly. I had told them not to open the door to anyone. "It's good that you're here at last," she went on, ushering us into the house. "When you didn't show up for dinner, Larisse grew very worried. She didn't want to hear anything about you simply being late. She insisted on her theory that something terrible had happened to you. Gabriel and I could hardly keep her from alerting the police."
The surreal image of a hundred policemen coming down to my lair, only to find Christine and me without clothes in my coffin, made me feel very warm. Yet no one seemed to notice my suddenly rosy cheek.
"Gabriel?" Christine repeated. "Is he feeling better?"
"Yes, he stood up at around three in the afternoon, and hasn't been to bed ever since," Jacqueline answered. "He also looks much healthier. And he's been eating enough to feed half a dozen men. I think he's recovering very nicely… He's in the dining room, by the way. Why don't you go there and look for yourself? I'll visit Larisse in the kitchen and tell her that she can stop being worried."
"That's a good idea,"Christine said. "You can take Philippe with you. Surely Larisse was mostly worried about him." The maid seized the boy's hand, and they walked away, while my beloved and I made our way to the dining room.
The coachman was indeed sitting at the table, a bowl of soup and a cup of tea in front of him. I hadn't seen him when he had been lying in bed, but he looked rather healthy now. Only the pale colour of his face and the large scarf around his neck showed me that he had been ill.
He looked up from his soup when we entered the room.
"Good evening," he greeted us. "I hope you don't mind me sitting here. Larisse said the kitchen was much too cold for me, and since you weren't here yet anyway…"
"We don't mind," I told him. "It's good to see that you're recovering, for I have a task for you. I need someone who's able to protect the family while Jacques and I take Mme.Tavoire home."
"I'll do everything I can," he assured me, yet Christine tapped me on my shoulder, shaking her head.
"I hate to interrupt you, but it won't work like that," she said. "Your plan has one flaw."