Chapter 176 Another Look
Christine smiled as Erik led her into the parlor. Once more she beheld the work that he'd done. It amazed her still the talent this man she called her husband possessed. She'd yet to find one thing that he shan't be able to do, and do well. How could one soul know so many things, have been blessed with so many abilities…she did not know.
She looked over her shoulder as Erik released her hand allowing her to roam at will. It was her gallery, her life, his work, his love, displayed for all those that graced those halls to enjoy. She counted each painting, "one, two, three, four, five," there were fourteen in total. Each representing a place, event, or feeling that she could remember.
She wondered to herself as her eyes traveled from painting to painting how he had known of such things. For surely even he had to have slept. It seemed that for the very precise moments that she'd felt the loneliest, or the most distraught, he had been there watching, taking a mental picture of the moment and then carrying it with such precision to the canvas capturing it forevermore. Each one was like looking with a magnifying glass at a past that he'd nurtured her through, only to bring her to that very day, in that very place, to that very room. She smiled, she thought to herself, if she lived a hundred lifetimes, she'd never be able to comprehend the gravity of the love he had for her.
Erik watched as Christine went silently from painting to painting studying each one with curious eyes. He waited not far inside the door as she strode from one to the next. There was an indescribable pleasure that overwhelmed him. She had been the object of his affections, the very muse for the works she now looked upon. To watch her expressions, her emotions, her admiration as she reached out to touch the frames, running her hand over the engraved wood….for an artist, there can be no finer moment! To see someone take pleasure in what you've done, is exhilarating. But to observe the very thing that had caused you to put thought on canvas with color and passion, was a feeling he could not put name to. The hours he had spent, each stroke of his brush, each blend of shade and hue until it was perfect…all culminating in this singular moment.
Some of the painting had been created through a strain of tears, colors and backdrops muted and blotted for his lack of being able to see through the fog and emotion of it. Some had been painted with brilliant color for the pride that swelled within him. It was indeed his love and adoration for the woman put on display. Each painting had a story, not only of the moment they captured, but of the emotions with which they had been created.
He waited in silence, just watching. Watching as the love of his life looked at the love story painted on the walls. Some he blushed as she studied them, knowing full well what she might be thinking. He wondered of the questions she would ask, which one she would select, for he had a story for each one, being able to recall in great detail the particulars of the event, and the time and place in which he had painted it.
"Erik, what caused you to choose to paint them…these very moments…" she began to walk the perimeter of the room, running her hand along the bottom of each frame. "Each moment…I am curious my love….I knew of your passion for music, and have only come in recent months, to see with what skill you painted."
She turned smiling at him, "our houses are galleries in their own right, lovely scenes of heavenly places painted on each ceiling." Her eyes meeting his with such gratitude. She turned back to the pictures, glancing up at them. "You've much talent my love." Christine's eyes roamed the room, it felt nearly like a shrine, and she suddenly felt out of place, she was not worthy of such adoration.
"Christine, mon cheri," Erik said as he walked toward her taking her hand into his. He came along side her, standing beneath the portrait of she and Meg, each holding a bear. They glanced up at it together. "This one my dear, I can tell you that I followed you and Meg with Madame Giry. I was dressed nearly as a beggar to avert any wondering eyes. The atmosphere had been such that I worried for your safety. You'd only just arrived not long before, certainly naïve to the ways of the world, and I knew how quickly young children could disappear at a carnival…."
Erik suddenly having flashes of his own capture at the hands of the gypsies simply for venturing out of doors to see what caused such revelry. It had undeniably altered his life as the gypsies made use of him as if he had been chattel, a sub-human life, to be battered, beaten, exploited…it had been that very thing that caused him such worry, that he'd risked the light of day to protect them.
"You and Meg were entirely incorrigible at that age!" Erik laughed, thinking often of how Madame Giry had often vented her frustrations with the two young ladies. "Madame Giry oft said that the two of you were like chattering squirrels, full of energy and vim and vigor! This day in particular, the two of you had joined together in your pleadings until the dear woman felt she'd no choice but to relent or be driven entirely mad!" Erik laughed, turning to look at Christine. She was smiling in amusement, she remembered their beseeching Madame Giry that they were most in need of the bears. That had been a lovely afternoon. Her eyes turned down for a brief moment. She not even sensed that flesh and blood had followed them that day, though she always felt as if the angel of music was with her wherever she'd gone.
"The bears were only the beginning of your capers with Meg. In truth the pair of you together could find all manner of mischief to dabble in! Madame Giry at times felt as though she were raising a pair of twins!"
Erik stood looking up at the picture. Madame Giry had taken on this great task of rearing this young woman as if she were her own. Yet she allowed her to develop as an individual, fully aware that she'd had a father who loved her, and a mother that certainly would have, had fate been kind. In truth she'd been grateful for the company for Meg, for she'd never truly fit in with some of the other girls. She had a much quieter spirit, and did not join in their revelry. Madame Giry had been relieved to have found a more suitable companion for Meg in Christine, and she'd come to love the girl as if she were her own.
There had been only one small girl, Prue, that Meg had ever become fond of, and it hadn't been long before their friendship had seemingly waned. Prue's temperament had changed, becoming far darker than Madame Giry preferred. It had been that young woman that had prompted the conversation with Erik of her wish to have the girls' dormitory moved far away from the scoundrels that lived in the bowels. She was certain that some unfortunate thing had happened to the girl at the hands of one of the more disreputable men that lived there. To see such a striking change in a ballerina was truly disheartening. She'd gone off several years before to work at one of the other houses in Paris, one far more garish and certainly of much less repute. They'd heard she'd changed her name in order to protect the reputation of the Opera Populaire, something which they'd at least respected the young woman for.
Erik shook his head, he'd gotten lost in thought. He could feel Christine staring at him. "My dear, the two of you were…let us say politely, were a bit of a challenge. As I recall, that night, both you and Meg sat up well past the time you should have been sleeping, having had far too many sweets to rest properly!"
Christine laughed, indeed it was as he said. "Erik, you are…" she paused, turning to look up at him. "The cookies! Madame Giry…"
Erik nodded, "yes, you'd commented on how very nice it was that Madame Giry had given an old beggar a handful of cookies…in fact you'd spoken of it much later to me, do you remember?"
Christine smiled as she looked back at the painting, that very afternoon coming alive in her mind. "I'd told my angel that Madame Giry had given example of how to be kind to the less fortunate…" she blushed, little had she known. She squeezed Erik's hand.
Erik kissed her temple, leading her to the next painting. "This one my dear, oh how you'd wished to have such a fine costume, to be dressed as a Prima….and I had fashioned it in my mind, just as you'd described it. You would have been a beautiful Prima my love, had your voice not have beheld such glory." Erik's conscious jerked at his heart. She'd left behind her wish to be a ballerina for his encouragement of her voice, and she'd left behind her career as a leading soprano to be his wife…she had sacrificed much.
Christine reached out running her hand along the frame, it was truly exquisite. "Oh how I'd wanted that dress…to be as graceful as she…" she sighed, turning her head leaning it into Erik's chest, running her hand behind her up along his neck. "Though I'd not wanted it nearly so much as I'd wanted angel to be flesh that I could touch as I do now." She'd sensed his regret.
Erik kissed her temple yet again. Oh how he loved this woman. She'd never allow him to forget that she loved him. "I'd thought of this one long before I'd painted it. It had been difficult, not in technique, but in imagining you to fall to the career of Prima, whose career lasts but a few years, when such a voice as yours could last for decades. I suppose in some way I was struggling with your future, though I'd in truth had little influence over it."
Christine turned about and looked Erik in the eye. "Little influence? I should think I would like very much for you to retract those words! Influence is precisely what you had my love, for without you, without your encouragement, I'd have no will of my own to dream of such possibilities, for I was nothing more than an orphan whose only hope for a life of any sort was for some suitor to have pity on me, a mere chorus girl, and take me from the Opera House as his wife. You allowed my eyes to be open…full of possibility…"
Erik never liked when she spoke ill of herself…she had never been nor ever would be just merely something. She had been his voice for a world that could not hear him. A heart beating in a world he did not belong to. His link to the gentleness of spirit, and the purest love he'd ever known. He sighed, he had to remind himself that she was speaking of her feelings then, not how she now perceived herself, for certainly her view of nearly everything in her life had been altered in recent months.
"Christine, a light as brilliant as your could not be hidden, it would have shown in spite of your doubts. Here, look at this young woman…does she look as merely a girl to you?" Erik said as he led Christine over to the picture of her graduation from finishing school.
Christine remembered the day. She was proud of her accomplishment true, but she'd not thought of boasting of it. The day had been filled with all sorts of flattery and compliment, but none had meant as much as the one sentence that her angel had uttered...she could hear it still in her mind. "Brava Christine…brava." His approval had meant far more to her than the hundreds of shallow compliments that were showered on the young women.
"That day was special indeed Erik." She'd subconsciously taken Erik's hand into hers, tracing hearts in the palm of his hand as she spoke. She'd remembered a conversation that she and Madame Giry had as they strolled through the garden after the party was over. She wanted to be assured there was still room for her under the Opera House roof, that she was not destined to be quickly paired off for marriage at a tender age, for she doubted she could have endured leaving her angel. "Erik, had you followed Madame Giry out into the garden that afternoon?" She turned to look up into his eyes.
He glanced at Christine. He remembered the nod that Madame Giry had given him as she led Christine off into the gardens…that conversation, though he'd wanted not to miss a thing during the reception for the girls, he'd not been permitted to partake of. He remembered Antoinette's words, "some things are meant only for the tender ears of women Erik, and these moments as a young woman contemplates her future, are such moments." It had been the first time he'd actually taken conscious thought of Christine wanting some day to leave the Opera Populaire…oh how he'd grieved it. "No Christine…I'd not followed you, that moment was meant for you and Madame Giry alone."
Inside she was eternally relieved. She'd spoken much as to the longings of her heart to Madame Giry. She'd spoken of several young men in the City whom she shan't mind being suited by, and of the life she would live should she be fortunate enough to marry well. Those words would certainly have broken Erik's heart for she remembered with great clarity how she'd told Madame Giry that she'd hoped not to marry someone much more than a few years older than she. She'd rather thought it repulsive to be subjected to the marriage of an older man. She blinked. If she'd not move on to the next painting, her eyes would betray her.
Christine slipped her hands into Erik's as she led him to the picture in a grand frame that graced the corner. It was as if he'd purposely given it a more grand frame than all the rest so as to not diminish its importance because of its placement. The frame was of finely engraved oak, polished to a warm, glossy sheen. The frame was done in relief, so that the violins and ribbons were elevated above the remaing wood, giving them the prominence that he'd wished them to.
Erik stood behind Christine, running his strong arms around her shoulders, pulling her back into his chest. They stared up at it together. It was the night of her first performance at the Opera Populaire, it had been the second to the last one he would ever paint for the woman. They gazed at the picture as he began to explain.
"You were so very beautiful that night my love. You shown as brightly as a crown jewel in that dress." He ran he hand along her cheek. "It had undone my heart that the first place you'd gone as soon as you'd left the stage was down to the chapel to light a candel for your father. It was as if all the praise that the other performers so hungrily saught was not even a fleeting consideration in your heart. You wanted only to know that your father would be pleased." Erik smiled as he rested his chin next to her temple.
Christine turned around in his arms looking up into his eyes. She slid her arms around his waist, putting her head on his chest, pulling him as close to her as she could. "Erik…my dear Erik…in all those times that I'd come to the chapel…to light a candel for my father…did you not know it was because that is how I thought I summoned you?"
Erik began to blink. He had thought that he had been intruding in on private moments of prayer and meditation….he'd not considered that she had been seeking him! "Christine?"
"Oh Erik, you did not know…I'd come yes, to pay homage to my father, to light a candel in prayer for him. I did miss him… But truly I came…so many times…to hear your voice, to feel your presence…it was you that I sought my love!"
Erik inhaled, a feeling over overwhelming euphoria washing over him. He'd thought, all those years that he'd simply slowly painted himself into Christine's life, and through that familiarity she'd grown attached to him…he'd never considered that she too had been seeking him! "Christine…those times…at night…when you left the candle lit beside your bed…were you not afraid of the dark?"
Christine smiled, nestling her cheek on his chest. "No my love…I had come to find that you only spoke to me, sang to me, those nights when the candle was lit…so I.."
Erik scooped Christine up into his arms, kissing her warmly, affectionately embracing her. Her love was more overwhelming the more of it he discovered. She had been summoning him, and he…he had thought he was intruding…perhaps it was he that had been naïve!
"Christine, Christine, Christine…." He said as he slowly lowered her from his arms to rest lightly on her feet. He slid his hands up to cup each side of her face as he looked deeply into her eyes. "Christine…you'd never known I'd been wrapped about the very tip of your pinky…" He kissed her, leaning away to look once more into her eyes. "I'd thought myself to be intruding…and here all of that time…you'd been looking for me?"
Christine nodded. "I did not think to be so forward as to run looking for you, nor to call out your name…it seemed far too presumptuous of me…so I took note of when you would come, and tried to do the same, or find myself in the same place, hoping you would come to me."
Erik began to smile, the smile turning to a grin, and soon he was laughing. He was recalling the many odd places he'd found her…now he would know why. "The roof of the Opera House?"
"No, in truth I was deathly afraid of the height!" Christine smiled at him.
"The back gardens, behind the potting shed?" Erik cocked his head.
"I'd found myself there by chance while playing hide and seek, and you came to me."
Erik laughed heartily. "I thought you to be too close to the street, perhaps close enough to be snatched by some letch."
"The dark room filled with dusty books beyond the library proper?" Erik said, looking at Christine with question.
Christine blushed profusely. "I was thirteen Erik." She looked up at him with embarrassed eyes, and crimson brow. "I'd hoped beyond hope…that if I tarried in the dark long enough…far enough from every prying eye….that you would come to me…not as specter….but as flesh and blood. My attraction to your soul was growing by leaps and bounds, and by then I'd found myself day-dreaming of what you might look like if you'd have flesh."
She looked up running her hands along his cheek, kissing his chin. "I'd wanted so badly to be held by you." She ran her hands along his broad chest and down each of his arms until she reached the tips of his fingers, and intertwined hers with his. "I wanted to know you more than anything in the world…to be held by your arms…to kiss your lips…to.." Christine stopped, leaning her head once more into Erik's chest. "Oh how I loved you Erik…you will never know how my heart beat for you out of passion even then."
Erik could feel his emotions welling inside of him. She could never know how very much her words soothed his soul, released him of such guilt. He'd believed in a strange way, that he'd made her love him…led her to love him, by being there for all of those years. Sometimes someone loves only what they have known, only because it is all they have ever known. He had worried she had not made her choice freely. He could say nothing, do nothing but bask in the warmth of her reassuring words.
"Erik, this picture.." she said gazing up once more at the beauty of the chapel, she kneeling before the candle she'd lit for her father, the large painted angel that looked down on her as prayed and waited. "It captures something…I don't know how to describe it. That night, as I sat waiting for you to appear. I so prayed that this…this one thing…my performance would somehow make you real….as if it was the culmination of all of the hours, nay, years we had spent together come to fruition. In my childish heart I still yearned for what my mind had told me was impossible! Oh how I was pleading in my mind…right here…right at this moment…" she pointed up to the picture of herself, head bowed, candle lit, waiting, just waiting though it looked as if she were deep into the throws of prayer. "I was pleading with all of my heart that I could see you but once…touch you but once…to know you but once…I craved it more than anything, even air, even breath…" She looked up, deeply into his eyes. "You my dear were like the opium…like a drug that I craved so desperately that I was ready to exchange my life for it, if for but a few fleeting moments to be in your presence." She blinked, her confession was pure and true, and filled with such longing… "Erik…had Meg not found me and taken me away…I am not all that certain that I'd ever left that place alive."
Erik looked down at Christine, his heart nearly stopping. "Christine, what are these words that you speak?" His breathing slowly but steadily rising out of the gentle tempo he'd been lulling in.
Christine blinked, a true confession…there was simply no turning back. She looked down, she could not face him…not now. "Erik, do not hate me…please do not judge me…for it was a desperate time…I'd never felt more exposed in all of my life than when I'd been on that stage. The only way I'd managed not to collapse is staring into the bright lights, and imagining in my mind that I performed for you, and you alone." She put her head on his chest once more, now tears silently rolling down her cheeks. "After I was done, and the applause…the roses…I think Madame Giry knew I was overwhelmed, wisking me off to the dressing room as she did." Christine's hand rose brushing a tear from her cheek. "When she'd given me the rose…the one you'd left for me…I gone into deep thought. If you could not be in this world…" she felt her emotions rising in her throat…a gasp coming out as she blurted, "then I'd come to be with you." She buried her head in Erik's chest.
He embraced her, running his hands along her back, placing delicated kisses on the top of her head. "Christine…." He held her for long, quiet moments, until he'd felt her sobbing cease. She began to sniff and then she was silent. Oh how he loved her…but never, in his wildest imagination had he ever thought her to be….so in love with him.
Christine inhaled a deep, staggered breath, exhaling sharply. She looked up at Erik, her eyes red, her lashes glittering in the light from the afternoon sun. "Erik…do forgive me…I don't know what came over me…I felt torn, and I'd no want to live without someone I loved again. It had nearly killed me to lose my father….but the thought of losing you, of being away from you, looked upon, admired, it was all too much. I'd wanted no part of it…I only wanted you. I'd thought if I passed from this world, into yours, that you would somehow find me, and we would be together for eternity." She sighed, shaking her head, her own folly was a source of great shame in the presence of her husband. She ran her hand over her stomach. "That night…I'd decided…if you'd not come to me…I'd throw myself off the roof of the Opera House…" Christine looked into Erik's eyes, though they were tender, she could see the horror deep within them. "Do not think less of me my love…I could not bare to live without you any longer."
Erik began running his hands along her back once more, lovingly rubbing each tightened muscle. "How can I judge my love, when each night when I'd retire to my quarters…" a stiff sob rising in his chest… "I'd pray that I'd die in that coffin if I were never to possess you. As I woke each morning…I knew there was still hope…and that was what kept me going on…returning to you."
The pair stood there in the silence of the room, just staring into one another's eyes. Hand's intertwined. Wishes had been granted, secrets revealed, and somehow, a invisible but very tangible thread had begun stitching the holes that they'd had in their hearts those many years that they'd longed for each other…but never known.