The next morning I felt much better. I had slept in Christine's old bedroom, which had been quite comfortable. The scent of her perfume still lingered on the comforter, which made me smile in sadness. She belonged to Erik and I think I had finally come to accept that. Rather than wasting my time reminiscing, I decided to get up and see if anyone else was awake.
I walked into the sitting room and found no one. I assumed that Erik and Christine were not awake yet, but I soon found out that I was wrong. A door opened and closed, and I heard footsteps coming towards me. Erik stepped into the room and looked in my direction. He was carrying a brown bag that I figured was full of food.
"Oh good, you are awake. Do you feel any better this morning?"
"Yes, I feel much better. I think I shall be able to go home today," I answered.
"Perhaps…" He looked around the room and asked, "Has Christine been out yet?"
"No, I have not seen her all morning."
"Hmmm…It is unlike her to sleep this late," he said, handing me the bag. "Please take this into the kitchen. I am going to make sure Christine is feeling all right." He walked down the hallway, into the bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
I went the opposite direction into the kitchen. I took all of the items out of the bag and I considered putting everything away, but thought the better of it. I didn't want Erik to think I was snooping through his home.
I returned to the sitting room to find Erik escorting Christine down the hall. She was fully dressed, and I assumed that she must have been waiting for Erik to come home.
"Good morning, Raoul. I trust you slept well?" she inquired with a hostile tone.
"Yes, thank you for asking," I replied politely. I hated the enmity. I wanted to make peace with Christine. Erik, my former arch enemy, was at least being civil, for heaven's sake!
"Erik, may I have a moment alone with Christine?" I asked.
Erik glanced briefly at Christine. He gave her a kiss on the forehead and replied, "Of course."
If looks could kill, I believe both Erik and I would be dead and buried. Christine quite obviously did not want to have anything to do with me, and had hoped Erik would throw me out as soon as possible. Erik went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, and left Christine and I alone to talk.
Christine sat down on the couch. She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at me.
"Christine, I want to apologize for following you. I don't know what came over me. It had been so long since I had seen you and…well, I don't know what I was thinking. I don't think there are any words I could possibly say that could express how truly sorry I am. I have realized that you love Erik with all of your heart and soul and there is no place for me in your life. I would like you to somehow find it in yourself to accept my apology."
Christine appeared to be contemplating her response. I sat nervously on the edge of the couch, as far away from her as possible.
"Raoul, I never thought that you would stoop so low as to follow me to my home. The last time we spoke I thought I made it clear to you that I am Erik's wife. Had you been more mature and tried to talk to me I may have listened. However, you followed me instead. I know Erik well enough to recognize when I am being lied to."
She folded her arms across her chest and continued, "I know what you saw. Erik told me that you must have passed out upon your arrival, but I could tell he was only trying to protect me. I feel extremely violated and I do not think I will ever be able to trust you again. Not only did you follow me like some sort of stalker, you also spied on my husband and me. That is not acceptable." She looked me straight in the eye and waited for my response.
"I don't know what came over me. Please Christine, you have to understand that I did not get some sick pleasure from watching you. If anything, it made me realize that your heart completely belongs to Erik. Had I not passed out I would have left immediately and never returned. Believe me, I have punished myself mentally for my own behavior and although your hostility is appropriate, I would like to overcome this and you have to forgive me."
"You expect me to forgive you just like that?" Christine exclaimed, standing angrily. "Raoul, I am not a child anymore and I'm not going to forgive you just because you look at me with those big brown eyes of yours and say you're sorry. I don't have to forgive you and at this moment I chose not to."
She stormed furiously down the hall and into her bedroom. I cringed as she slammed the door, which caused a painting to fall off the hall wall. Erik must have heard the commotion, for he appeared in the room and approached me violently.
"What did you say to her?" he demanded, balling his right hand into a fist.
"I tried to apologize," I said, standing up. I was eye to eye with the masked man and I had never been more afraid in my life. "I told her how sorry I was for invading her privacy and I asked her to forgive me. She said she wasn't a child and she didn't feel the need to accept my apology. Please…" I begged, "I didn't say anything to hurt her."
Erik relaxed a bit and backed off.
"You will never learn will you?" he said, shaking his head. "You are still treating Christine like a child. You never should have asked for her forgiveness."
He glanced down the hall at the closed door before sitting down on the couch.
"What can I say about Christine…she's been treated like a child all of her life. She was forced to accept her father's death, forced into the corps de ballet at the opera, and you tried to force your love upon her. I think for once she would like to be given a choice. Had you simply apologized and left it at that, her kind heart probably would have forgiven you. Instead, you tried to tell her what to do. I have shown Christine to be confident in herself. She is an independent woman and does not need you, or anyone else for that matter, telling her what to do. I think perhaps it would be best if you ate some breakfast and went home."
"You're probably right," I agreed. I had made a big enough mess of things. Maybe Erik would be able to talk calm Christine down.
Erik and I ate a quick breakfast, and he prepared to take me across the lake. Just as we were about to leave, Christine emerged from the bedroom. She walked up to me and began to speak.
"Raoul, you have hurt me more than I can say and I am unsure if I will ever be able to trust you again. That being said, I would like to come to an understanding with you. Perhaps someday we can be friends again, but for now you need to live your own life and forget about me."
She gave me a small hug, and quickly left.
"She would have never forgiven herself had you left before she got the chance to speak her mind," Erik said, smiling slightly.
"She most certainly has changed," I sighed. "Maybe I needed this to happen to me so I could grow up, too."
Erik said nothing, but in his eyes, I knew he agreed. I did need to grow up.
I followed Erik in obedient silence as he led me through the corridors up to ground level. He must have taken a longer, more complicated path than Christine had, because it took nearly twice as long as Christine's route. He surely did this in an attempt to confuse me in case I should ever decide to pop in on them again.
"Be sure to get plenty of rest," Erik instructed me as we reached the alley behind the gates of the Rue Scribe. "You could have died, and I do not want you to think that you are as you were before you came down here. You are still not in perfect health, so get some rest."
I expected to hear threats and warnings about what might happen to me should I venture down beneath the opera again, but I did not. Erik simply put me in a carriage and sent me home. Somehow I knew it would not be our last meeting.
Ordinarily after even one night away from home, I found nothing more comforting than the warmth of my own bed. Tonight, however, my bedroom felt cold and empty. I tossed and turned as I tried to get to sleep. After an hour of trying to get comfortable, my comforter was half-off the bed and my sheets were a tangled mess. I remade the bed and headed downstairs to seek the warm familiarity of a large glass of brandy.
I was somewhat surprised to see the outline of a woman sitting in front of the fireplace in the living room.
"Oh, good evening Monsieur de Chagny," a semi-familiar voice said. "I did not expect you to be awake at this hour. I will leave you in peace."
I recognize the woman to be Elise. Although she had been employed in my home for quite some time, I still did not know her well at all. She was not in her usual maid attire; she was wearing a long pale pink bathrobe and slippers, and her long hair cascaded around her shoulders. By the light of the fire she looked pretty in a classic sort of way.
She started to get up, but I insisted that she stay.
"Please, I have not really gotten much of an opportunity to get to know you. Would you like anything to drink?" I offered, gesturing to the bar.
"No thank you, monsieur," she answered politely.
"How many times must I tell you, call me Raoul, and I have a bottle of Port here I think you might enjoy," I said, pulling the cork from an extremely expensive bottle of wine. My late brother would have had a heart attack if he saw me sharing a costly bottle of Port with the help. I decided wine would be a much more appropriate thing to offer a woman than a glass of brandy.
I filled two small Port glasses and brought one over to Elise. She smiled shyly as she took her glass from me. I sat a safe distance away, and offered a toast.
"To finding yourself," I said, as I raised my glass.
"To finding yourself," she whispered as she clinked her glass against mine.
After a moment of awkward silence, I commented on the fine quality of the Port.
"Yes, it is wonderful," Elise replied. "Although I'm afraid I haven't had much exposure to fine wines, and I've never had Port before."
"Oh? Surely a lovely lady such as yourself is constantly being wined and dined on your nights off."
"No," she answered, looking back at the fire.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, noticing her troubled expression.
"I don't think you want to hear about it."
"It would be nice to get my mind off of my own troubles for once. Tell me what is on your mind, Elise."
She composed her thoughts for a moment and then sat more upright to face me.
"I did have a beau once; his name was Matthew. He was a wonderful man! He took me to fine restaurants and gave me lovely presents. I fell in love with him quite quickly, which was my mistake. I should have known better. After just three short months he stopped seeing me. He didn't even bother to tell me, he just kept making excuses saying he couldn't see me because he had to work late or because he had to go on a business trip. Finally one of his friends told me that Matthew did not want to see me again and that he already had a new lady. I was heartbroken. It took me quite a while to get over him. Then just last week I ran into him and he told me how much he missed me and said he'd like to come calling on me again. He will not leave me alone and I do not want to see him. I don't know what to do."
"Have you told him you don't want to see him?"
"Yes," she said angrily, "but that just makes him try harder." She stood up less gracefully than I had expected her to, and helped herself to another glass of the highly concentrated wine. "I told him I was not interested, and the next day he sent me a dozen roses."
"Did you send them back?" I asked.
"No, they were too lovely!" she exclaimed sheepishly. "I thought about tearing off all the petals and sending them back to him, but I couldn't do it. The flowers hadn't done anything wrong."
"I suppose you're right. Perhaps if one of the other staff members told him to leave he would listen," I offered.
"No, that won't work. Matthew is far too stubborn. It's like he thinks he is heaven sent and that he can have any woman he pleases. Well he already had his chance and he blew it!"
It was refreshing to listen to someone else's problems and I was amused at how freely she spoke. I could tell she did not drink much alcohol, for after a glass and a half of Port she was talking to me as if we were old friends.
"What would you do, Raoul?" she asked, squinting her eyes at me. She rested her head on her hand and waited for my answer.
"I'm afraid I used to have the opposite problem," I sighed. "I used to love a woman I had no chance with."
"Christine Daaè?" she asked in the smallest tone.
"How did you know?" I asked dumbfounded.
"Well, your staff used to talk intensely about your obsession with Mademoiselle Daaè. Please, do not be angry with me for saying this. I did not take part in these conversations, for I did not know you or Mademoiselle Daaè. I just could not help overhearing their unkindly words."
"Unkindly words?" I asked irritably.
"Yes, they say very cruel things about her."
"Such as?"
"They would say things like 'Christine Daaè! Raoul is far too good for that pathetic little whore' and things similar to that."
"I am afraid they are wrong about Christine," I sighed, staring into the fire. "She is a very kind, sweet woman. I still love her dearly as friend, but I know she will never love me in return. She is happily married and no one can take her happiness away now."
"Married? Christine Daaè is married?" she asked, sounding very surprised.
"Yes," I sighed, "She is married…Please; I would not like to discuss Christine any longer."
"I understand," she said sympathetically.
"We still have your problem to solve," I reminded her, after topping off her glass and filling up my empty glass. "Could you possibly tell this Matthew fellow that you're seeing someone else? Perhaps then he'd leave you alone."
"No, I don't think that would work. He would probably want to see with his own eyes that I have a lover…I mean beau, yes, that's the proper term," she said, giggling.
"That does present a problem…" I mused, as I paced across the room.
"You could be my lover!" she exclaimed, standing up. She threw her body against me and caused my wine to slosh out of the glass and on to her pink robe.
"Oh," she laughed, looking at the red stain. "Now look what I did. This is why Matthew never took me out for wine; I end up loosing my coordination!"
She struggled out of the wine-soaked robe and stumbled backward on to the couch and began to laugh. She was only wearing a flimsy chemise and was obviously intoxicated; many men would have seen her as prey. He bright eyes sparkled in the firelight, and her laughter made her face light up. I easily could have taken advantage of her right there and fired her the next day, but I immediately dismissed the idea. I genuinely liked Elise, not as a lover, but as a friend. She had so freely shared her troubles with me, and I appreciated her for that. I filled my glass again and gulped it down before I sat down beside her.
"Could you imagine?" she asked, laughing even harder. "You as my lover? He would never believe it anyway!"
"Why is that?"
"Because you're…you're…you know…wealthy and I work for you."
"Yes, but we could tell him that we're secret lovers and that we're going to run away together," I said, feeling the Port starting to affect my brain.
"Oh yes! We can say we're already secretly married…and…oh dear…I don't feel so well…"
Elise's complexion turned pale and she passed out in my lap. I knew Pauline, Elise's roommate, would not be happy to find Elise passed out in their bedroom from intoxication. Pauline was more than likely to turn her in to the head maid for misconduct, and I did not want to see Elise fired on my account. I put the soiled pink robe over my shoulder, picked up Elise, and hauled her upstairs to my bedroom. I tucked her carefully in to my bed, and prepared for an uncomfortable night's sleep on the floor.