We arrived home laden with chocolate. Immediately, Sofie fell on us in tears.
"And what have we here? A lovely Flemish dolly all the way from Liege for my Pickle." With a flourish of my handkerchief, the dolly appeared. Sofie kissed my neck and gathered her doll up.
"Thank you, Papa. I missed you terribly," she advised solemnly.
"And I missed you terribly, Pickle."
"Come see my garden, Gustave," she ordered, taking her beloved big brother by the hand. As we watched them run off together, Christine sighed.
"I supposed I'll have to wait for Sophie's bedtime to see him."
"I've brought him back to you in good repair, I assure you." I gathered her up. "God, I missed you. I want my own bathtub, my own bed, my own pillow, my own little playmate."
"You write lovely, romantic letters," she smiled, "And I hope I never receive another as long as I live." She led me around the house to the garden path.
"I understand perfectly; I was miserable," I commiserated. "How is everyone?"
"Miri-ange is a bit adrift; she wants to paint," she shook her head.
"Well, why can't she?"
"Oh, she can, of course; but there's no outlet, you know…" she looked at me pointedly, "Since The Thing."
"Ah. There must be something to be done," I hoped. "And my son?"
"Your son has been an absolute lamb. He's been keeping company with his sister," she wondered aloud.
"Oh? This is magnificent news; is Soraya behind us, then?"
"I don't know about that. He is rather at home a lot," she noted. "Carmen is the same as ever; mortified because Jeanette has apprenticed herself to Silke."
"No; a Rouen woman, learning her way around a kitchen? How can this be?" I clutched my chest in horror.
"You may sleep in the stable for that." Christine turned on her heels, feigning irritation. I caught her wrist before she made her escape.
"Not tonight I won't," I growled, reeling her in.
"I can't wait," she whispered.
-0-0-0-0-
Half of the conservatory had been converted to a studio for Miri-ange in my absence. I was so proud of Christine; it's just what I'd've done.
"Angeline." She approached wiping her brush on a color-splattered rag; my little girl, proper artist.
"Welcome home," she smiled as I embraced her. "Oh no; I'm all covered in paint."
"It's quite alright, Angeline."
"No; I know how you are about your tailoring," she teased. "If I mess you with oil paints, you'll never forgive me!" We moved arm and arm toward her canvas.
"May I see? I know sometimes artists don't like works in progress to be viewed…"
"Of course you may see." Miri-ange had roughed in a riot of color; she was painting the view just outside her studio, the kitchen garden and the cutting flowers just beyond.
"I wish I'd had this in my hotel in Liege; it would've done much to keep my homesickness at bay."
"Thank you." She poured us some minted lemonade and I joined her on the wicker settee. "Mama was pitiful without you, too."
"I'm sorry to hear that; I'd hoped she'd be too busy keeping a close eye on you lot to miss me."
"You know better than that, Papa," she scolded.
"Enough of this, Angeline. Let's discuss you and your plans." My heart ached to see how her eyes darkened.
"I have no plans, Papa. No one will accept my work. No one will marry me." Her brave façade crumbled as she fished for her handkerchief, lip quivering.
"No, hush now. You mustn't think such things," I urged.
"Can you bear to have your disgraced spinster daughter with you forever?"
"Mirielle, nothing would please me more than to keep every one of you here with me. But it won't come to that; there is a man out there who'll be an adoring husband to you, I'm sure of it."
"Oh, Papa. Of course you'd believe that; and if you didn't you'd never admit it to me." She fell against me sobbing, wet paint and all.
-0-0-0-0-
Our reunion was not the transcendent experience I'd envisioned. Christine took it well, but then, it wasn't her fault it was an abysmal failure. She would take exception to my characterizing it as an abysmal failure, too; but from my humiliated perspective, it was. She made all the requisite wifely avowals to assuage my hemorrhaging self-image, but there was nothing for it. I was officially, irrevocably, unquestionably an old geezer.
"Just shoot me." I plopped the pillow over my head in disgrace.
"Oh, now you're being silly," she soothed. She kissed a tiny sliver of neck I'd somehow left exposed. I hitched the covers up testily.
"Don't; shoot me. They shoot horses when they're old and no damn good anymore," I mumbled. She popped her head under the pillow.
"I'm not going to carry on a conversation with a pillow and a disembodied voice. I had enough of that early on in our courtship, if you recall." I groaned and gave her my back. She scooted up behind me and threw an arm and a leg over. I tried to shrug her off. "Will you stop? Erik, it's been a long journey, it's no crime to be tired."
"HAH! Go next door and see what kind of crime Raoul's committing tonight!"
"Angel, he's thirty years younger—"
"Exactly; I told you, I'm a candidate for the glue factory!"
"You won't be reasoned with tonight, will you?" She kissed my ear and rubbed my shoulders. "How would I live without my Phantom?"
"Christine," I whined.
"Hush; sleep."
As Christine had assured me, I was more myself after a proper night's rest in my own bed. At least she didn't have to shoot me yet.
-0-0-0-0-
Everyone turned in amazement as Masson entered the dining room. He'd not been awake for breakfast in recent memory, so it was quite an occasion. Then I spied Christine curled up in his arms. My napkin fell unnoticed as I rushed to his side.
"Oh no," Christine gasped.
"He didn't wake up. He looked like he was just sleeping, there on the blanket at my feet," Masson murmured in disbelief.
It was a quiet, tearful day. We wrapped old Christine in his Phantom cape dish towel, and laid him to rest next to Smudge the goat. Sofie picked a bunch of flowers and decorated his grave with stones from the creek. I promised her I'd find a proper angel monument for him next time I went into Paris.
After the graveside service, Masson retreated to his room. The strains of his violin wafted downstairs throughout the day.
-0-0-0-0-
Several months after Christine passed away, I was digging around in the music room for some posh old fabric scraps from my theater. I was certain I'd saved them, and they were just the thing for Sophie and Jeanette to make clothes for the new cat, Marie Antoinette. Fortunately, Marie Antoinette was, indeed, female.
Suddenly, Masson clomped down the stairs and threw himself onto the sofa, not bothering with any light.
"Bitch," he grumbled.
"Problem, Son?" I closed the box and gathered the velvets and satins, brocades and organzas I'd collected.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see—"
I waved his apology off. "I was just digging around. Is there a problem?"
"No," he replied with some finality. I nodded and moved toward the stairs. "Papa, wait."
I raised a silent eyebrow. He'd inherited my exasperated hair swish and his mother's irritated brow crinkle; he executed both and sighed.
"What do you do when a girl won't give you the time of day?"
"A girl won't give YOU the time of day?" I probably looked every bit as incredulous as I sounded. When I dared to venture back to his dressing room at the symphony—my heart didn't really bear it; I never knew what sort of outrage would be inflicted upon my poor eyes when I entered—I was forced to struggle through a bevy of swooning, breathless lovelies thick as flies. All shapes, sizes and flavors; if I didn't know better, I'd've sworn he was Raoul's after all. He must not've been a total rogue, either, because I noticed he did a brisk repeat business.
"No!" he growled, equal parts baffled and irritated. "I tell her I'm dying of love for her, and want to marry her, and if she refuses me I'll never survive it! I promise I'll never even look at another girl again, and she laughs right in my face! She says a kitten's more sincere, and I'm a shameless flirt, and she wouldn't believe me if I was the last boy on earth! Now, what do you think of that?" he demanded.
I thought I'd be for it if I failed to keep a straight face, actually. I made some appropriately commiserative sounds about how heartless the young lady in question must be. Sounded like Soraya was undoubtedly a cold old flame.
"But, honestly, Son, don't you think that any decent girl of a worthy family would look askance at your exploits? You've…amassed quite a collection of broken h—hearts…"
"But I've changed, Papa!" he insisted, swishing his hair again. Still perpetually in need of a haircut. Maybe the girl would take him seriously if he looked less like a lion; no, he was beautiful. He'd just run up against someone with a head on her shoulders for a change. "That's what I'm trying to tell her, but she insists on holding my past against me!"
"Well, ah, how long exactly have you been…on the straight and narrow?"
"Oh, God, days. Over a week now." He agonized. This boy was more into his drama and misery than I, if it was possible.
"Oh. My. Yes. That is…quite something," I deadpanned.
"I know!"
I settled beside the heartsick virtuoso. "It seems as if this young lady wants to assure herself that you're sincere, Masson; surely you can't fault her for that. Have you ever read Sir Walter Scott?"
"Hm? No."
"Well, you should. It's all about chivalry and the incredible sacrifices a man must make to win his true love. Some of these poor fellows go off on quests for decades."
"Oh, God, no," he paled.
"Well, surely you, ah, can manage somehow." Christine would kill me; I never did tell him he'd go blind and crazy.
"It's not the same, Papa!" he whined. Yes, Masson, I know that; thanks very much.
"I hate to be the one to say it, Son, but even if the young lady accepted your suit today, you realize, it would likely be months before you could be married, at the earliest."
"Oh, God." I feared he might faint.
"You'll just have to bear up until she comes around. Think of your abstinence as a gift to your beloved."
"Oh, God."
Perhaps getting his mind off his…problem…would help.
"Why don't you tell me about her, Masson? Where did you meet?" I smiled.
"It's Liselotte, Papa."
What was left of my face fell to the floor. "Liselotte. Our Liselotte."
"Yes," he regarded me strangely.
"Liselotte; Charlotte de Chagny. 'Ew, Papa. Liselotte and Mimi are like my sisters'—that Liselotte?"
"Yes, yes, Papa. What's wrong with you? Are you alright?"
"Oh, yes," I sighed. "I'm…lovely."