Dear faithfuls: Just a note to let you know that there will not be an update on Thursday of this week…but stay tuned for Friday!
Meg began gently running her hand along the exposed side of Raoul's face, curling the hair from his neck behind his ear, tucking it into place as if she were properly grooming him. His flesh was pink and warm, and as smooth as a stone gently tumbled in the waters of a meandering stream. To the world he was handsome, an extremely coveted suitor, perfect. To her he was all of those things, but something much more. He was her love…her savior…her friend. The pooling guilt of keeping so much from him tainted her happiness like a poison. Oh if she could but tell him…tell him of all the truths which she withheld from him. She sighed. The secrecy was necessary, she knew it, but she felt like a pot on the stove that had slowly boiled, and now the lid had begun to rattle from the pressure beneath it. Oh pray what travesty would lay ahead if she could not find relief from this guilt.
Raoul relished her touch, it was like a gift sent from heaven to relieve the aching of his soul. He wished so that he could respond to her, to let her know he was there for her…that he would be well again…to care for her again. It unnerved him to be this vulnerable, but he'd come to this place by noble means…in defense of the woman he loved. He knew well that all that was needed was time. Time to swim through this drug-induced mire to surface from within this whirlpool fog of morphine until he was once again himself. He would listen to her breathe, cry, whatever he could so that when he awoke he could reassure her that he had indeed been listening. And then it began, the long, one-sided conversation, that would forever change the way Raoul looked at his life.
Meg's hand came to rest over Raoul's. Her staggered breaths had slowed and now she was breathing slow and even. The only evidence that she'd been crying dolefully was her puffy eyes, and the dewiness that still clung to the inner-most rim of her lashes. The burden of all that she'd kept to herself was overwhelming her. There was something to be said for being in such a place, alone, with a man that could neither hear nor respond, it was as if it were perfect for confessions of all sorts, if for no other reason than to ease the strain on her soul. It started as a small conscious thought, and grew as she spoke…and oh how it grew.
"Raoul, Raoul…..my love. If only you'd known how I'd admired you when first you arrived at the Opera House. You were handsome and charming, and took the very air from my lungs such that I thought I might never have ability to breathe again." She paused, the first words seeming to startle even her having said them out loud, and yet, the process was oddly liberating.
She ran her hand along his face and shoulder. "Oh how I thought of the fortunate woman who would one day be suited by such a fine man…such a proper man. I'd heard you had yet to select a wife, that you were looking for something in particular was the rumor".
Meg looked down, ashamed though she knew she'd no need of it now. "I knew that this something, whatever it was, would most certainly not be the likes of a poor chorus girl such as me."
There was a long pause, Meg taking in the reality, nay, irony of the conversation. Her face twisted a bit, she reached up to brush away the dampness in her left eye. "When Christine looked over my shoulder and had first glimpse of you, I could see it in her eyes too. No doubt had I looked around, I'd have seen it in the eyes of every woman in the room that night!" Meg's eyes lit up, nearly as they had that night as she recalled that moment. Then a darkness fell over them again, as she turned back to look at him, running her hand along his arm again. He looked so comfortable, but she knew it was not the comfort of restful slumber that kept him so, but the drug which left him nearly lifeless.
She continued. "Then Christine said the words that sunk, dashed, any hopes that I might have had in my foolish mind…" her eyebrows rose, a resigned look of disappointment crossed her face, "you'd been childhood sweethearts….what more was there for me to know of it? I could see the glimmer in her eye as she looked at you, and no doubt yours would have been the same had you known it was her." Meg sighed. "In that moment I knew jealousy, coveting, and the disappointment of a dream quickly lost, for I knew I shan't ever be able to interfere with the affections of my sister!"
Meg half smiled, though her eyes grew sad. "I watched with envious eyes as Christine beheld you as you walked by us, and then, saw in her face the look of disappointment that I myself felt. Though she had known you all those years, she would now be nothing more than an opera rat, in your eyes, as surely all the other girls were viewed by society. Something in that thought comforted me, though I feel guilty for it now."
Meg seemed to be staring off in the distance as though she could walk through a portal into the past, recapturing it. "Then, as the fates twisted with Carlotta walking off the stage, and Christine taking her place….I knew…somehow, I knew that you would rediscover her. Her voice is as beautiful as any song bird, and yet as haunting as a mourning dove…how could one not love her once he'd heard her sing?"
A tear ran down Meg's cheek as she recalled watching Christine perform that first night. "The large white gown, beautiful and angelic. Her hair dressed with violet scented creams and gossamer curls! The diamond clips had only added to her radiant glow….she was perfect. How could you not notice her? One would have to have been both deaf and blind not to behold the beauty of Christine. She was like a crown jewel newly uncovered, radiant and glowing."
Meg sighed. "I'd never felt so much in her shadow as I had that night Raoul. She was everything that I was not, and though I were proud of her, so very happy for her, I mourned for my own loss, as pathetic as that may seem. What loss? How could one lose what one never had?"
Meg laughed, a sad laugh just once at her own folly. She inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly. "The next months were rather a blur Raoul. My best friend, nay, my sister, was suddenly consumed by the attention of every other, having little time for our casual conversations at night, our stealing away in the garden in the afternoons during tea to gossip, all the mundane things I'd come to love about our time spent together…now suddenly gone. In truth, I wrestled with my loathing of it all. I wanted my sister back, I longed for life to return to normal, she and I dreaming together in the dark, our beds shoved together concocting in our minds what our suitors would look like, and from whence they would come!"
Meg smiled, running her hand along Raoul's arm. She pulled the covers up under his chin, his flesh seemed chilled to her touch. "Christine had grown so beyond me, and save for the fact that she refused to move to the quarters reserved for the prized soprano, we'd have been separated from one another entirely. And so it went, my life continued on, as hers seemed to flourish. Oh certainly, she'd insisted on certain things, my accompanying her to the masquerade ball, dress shopping, and all of those things, but it was not the same…not the same simple life we had enjoyed before. And I missed it…missed it jealously."
There was a long silence, and Raoul wondered if she were finished. He'd never imagined Meg to have been anything but thrilled for Christine, she'd seemed so supportive of her. In truth her words could not be denied, he'd noticed no one but Christine, and he'd have consumed her every moment if it had been possible. His heart fluttered, if just for a moment, an old flame long extinguished. He had truly loved Christine.
"Raoul, if Christine had ever known, she'd have felt terrible…and I all the more terrible for it. Then when Erik came forward at the Masquerade, snatching the engagement ring from Christine's neck…growling that she belonged to him….oh how ashamed am I for thinking it….but I'd thought he'd come to claim her at last!"
Raoul's mind ached…what had she said? Erik? That beast had a name? And…and…Meg knew him as more than a monster?
Meg sighed. "I'd nearly thought he'd swoop in and snatch her in the night when all were sleeping. After all, he'd be there when darkness covered the earth and the moon was high in the night sky, watching her sleep, as he always had."
Raoul could feel his blood begin to boil. That beast had watched Christine…Meg…while they slept…like a monster laying in wait?
"But when he did not come that night, my heart began to worry for what revenge he would seek. He'd loved her…every day since he'd first laid eyes on her…surely he'd not give up so easily." Meg paused, she listened, rising from her chair she went to the door, peering outside, and then returned, it had been her imagination, or paranoia.
"I knew with near certainty that it would not be over, that he'd simply not disappear, though it seemed he might once mother had rescued you from his dangling lasso. Oh Raoul, would it have been such that she'd not found her way to you…" Meg gasped, running her hand along his back, "I shudder to think of it".
Meg began mindlessly caressing Raoul's back. "Christine was so frightened…so worried as much for you as for anything. She knew of Erik's passion, of his feelings for her, and to what lengths he might go to possess her, yet she could not leave him. That is why she'd pleaded with you to keep your engagement secret…out of fear for your survival."
Meg smiled. "Part of her had loved him all of the days she'd known him. She'd always had a glint her eye as if she'd a secret lover, though I knew it shan't be so, as she was always in our dormitories at night. Whenever I could not find her, I'd walk to the cellars, and down in the chapel, I could hear her singing. I never interfered, I thought she was somehow reaching out to her father, as she prayed there for him often. She would go there dutifully every day in the afternoon when the rest of us would be on recess from our rehearsals. No one disturbed her there."
Meg sighed again, "Christine later confessed to me, it was in that room that she'd fallen in love with him…in love with her angel…and oh how she'd wished that he had flesh…she ached for him to have arms that he could hold her!" Meg's eyebrows rose again, "In the end it seems, her wishes came true".
Raoul felt a sob rising in his chest, though it was merely his imagination. What of these words? Christine had wished for a beast to take flesh…that she could be his? Why had she never spoke of it to him…he sighed…why would she have confessed such a thing to him…her own finance?
"The night of 'Don Juan', I thought I would collapse in fear as the stage was set. I knew she was torn, it was so very hard for her. She'd no want to betray you, nor could she bring her heart to betray him. Christine knew she could not live in both worlds…she knew it, but neither could she bear to think of hurting you, of abandoning a future she'd dreamt of when she was a very young girl, entirely enamored with your charms in the attic at the house by the sea. She'd spoken of it with such fond affection, and how she wanted me to be with her as oft as I could until I'd found a suitor that was worthy of me, and one that was friends with you so that we might all live happily ever after!" Meg laughed out loud. The longer the one-sided conversation went on, the bolder she began to feel, and the more liberal her confessions.
"How very far from those wishes reality would become. It will be as we dreamed as children, she in one kingdom, I in another, both married to kings that swept us away to places far apart." Meg fell silent, as if in deep reflection.
Raoul began to wonder if he was dreaming…imagining…nay….hallucinating all of this. It could not be true…was Meg imagining Christine living like a queen in some distant land, in love, and happily sacrificing, submitting, to a life with that beast? No, surely it was the drug, playing pitiless tricks on his mind!
"If only it had not been so, if all of this had never come to pass, how very happy the lot of us could be. Sara would yet be alive, Christine and I would still be dreaming like children in the dormitories, Erik still creating his music for the plays, guarding and guiding his muse, and you…my dear sweet love, you'd be happily off having married and fathered half a brood by now!" She sighed, "but alas it is not so."
She rubbed his back gently. "Oh Raoul, if it were not so that we all had need to be separated. If only what Nadir and I suspected would be true…oh what then? What happiness could our futures hold? Would there be a way…any way at all that we might happily unite as one family?"
Raoul's mind was spinning out of control. He could neither understand nor put together the pieces of the puzzle that Meg was tossing about. Who would live as a happy family? What did they suspect? Sara was killed by Crawlings when she'd gone to the Winter house of Meg's aunt and uncle…what were these ramblings?
"Oh that it could be that we shan't be separated by distance and circumstance…." Meg looked down at Raoul, wondering. "But what then my love…if you knew Christine to still be alive, would then your heart…your feelings for me diminish? Would all that has passed between us vanish forever, as if it never had existed at all?" Meg's hand instinctively flew to her chest, it was as if she bled from some imaginary self-inflicted wound.
"I'd wish that I could believe that it would not be so, but I fear in my heart that the truth would change your very heart for me. If you thought her to be alive, or if you know her to still be alive, having found her cloak, what of your feelings then? Will a fiancé now resurrected from the certain dead, take the place of the living breathing one whom you've all but become betrothed to now?" Meg could feel the emotion rising in her chest. Why was she rambling on over this?
She rose and walked over to the cloak she'd brought in from the other room, holding it close to her. It was Christine's, and she loved her sister dearly, as dearly as she loved the man that lay sleeping not two meters from her. She slipped the cloak around her shoulders and returned to his side, leaning down to place a delicate kiss on his cheek.
"Raoul, the last time I saw Christine she was wearing this." She smoothed her hand over the cloak. "My mother had given her this on the day of her sixteenth birthday. It was much finer than any she'd owned since she was a little girl, and she was so very happy to have it as winter set in that year." She paused, inhaling, "it still contains her scent."
Raoul wanted to weep for the torture Meg was putting herself through…he had smelled it too! He feared his mind had been lost in this surreal fabrication…oh how he loathed it for what reality it seemed to be spun with. It was certain to be his most elaborate hallucination!
"Raoul, oh how I wished that I could tell you that she is alright, that she is happy, that she is where she belongs, in the arms of her angel, that this is what she truly wanted in her heart of hearts though society, and my mother's urgings nudged her towards you."
Meg rose, removing the cloak, laying it down in her lap. "There will be happiness for both of us, though we will be parted forever, I know in my heart, though I shall miss her as desperately as I am certain she will miss me. We've both such different futures now…both with the mrn we've come to love."
Meg placed another kiss on Raoul's cheek. "I hope only Raoul that would you know any of this that you would forgive me, love me in spite of my shortcomings." Surely you can understand them, for you'd confessed as many to the man who deposited you here. I've so much to tell you when you wake Raoul. That man, oh Raoul, he has want to confirm that what the two of you saw…that there was indeed footprints in the mud leading out of the caverns. Oh Raoul, why do you search for that which is no longer yours? The man has sworn a solemn vow to tell no one else…why had you told him he could share this with me? Does it not make it all the more painful for us both?"
Raoul's insides hurt dreadfully. Was Meg saying that she knew Christine to be alive…knew her to be with that beast….it so very much sounded as if she was confessing as much…but if it were true…why had she not told him….had it been her jealousy? His mind went blank. Had Meg and that monster somehow conspired to keep them apart, each having gotten what they wanted in the end? Could she have been that conniving…that heartless and cruel…to both of them?
Meg's tears were flowing down her cheek, rounding the fullness of her jaw, and venturing down her neck. She inhaled heavily, exhaling as though she'd finally expelled a poison from her lungs that had been threatening her very life. It had been very cathartic, and she'd wish to confess all of it. Of knowing their whereabouts, that Christine was with child, that she thought Erik and he to be brothers, all of it…every last stitch of it. For though she knew he'd not heard a word, she would somehow feel the better for having stated it plainly, even through a hushed whisper, at least she'd said it if for no other benefit but her own.
She resettled herself in the chair, the next would be longer, perhaps more difficult, involving far more than she and Christine, and some of the thoughts she'd not even fully processed yet in her own mind.
She was about to begin when she heard footsteps in the hall. Rising quickly she went to the door to see who it would be, and it was the doctor, satchel in hand. Meg wiped her face and returned to the chair, taking Raoul's hand into hers. She smiled discretely as the doctor entered the room closing the door behind him.
"Meg, has he yet stirred?" He inquired, sitting his bag down on the table opening it to retrieve his instruments.
"No, he's not stirred. I'm quite certain he could sleep for days." Meg looked back and forth from Raoul to the doctor.
"Not for days my dear, and certainly he shan't sleep completely though he is quite drugged." The doctor pushed his spectacles back up his nose as he looked closely at the stitches on the back of Raoul's head. He reached down pressing on them lightly to make certain there was no oozing.
The first few presses, Raoul managed without whimper or complaint. But when the doctor pressed down on the middle, the part where the stitches no doubt had come undone and were yet again re-stitched, he moaned deeply, the pain was indescribable.
"Yes, son, I know, it hurts, but it will get better with time. You are a fortunate young man Raoul, you could have bled to death. We shall speak more of it when you are feeling better." The doctor withdrew a syringe from his kit filling it with a liquid from a brown bottle in his bag. He took it to Raoul's arm and began administering the medicine.
Meg looked away, the site of needles as of late, had taken on an entirely unpleasant meaning for her. She waited until he'd finished before she spoke. "Why do you talk to him as though he can hear you, for most certainly he is asleep as he has been all the while I've sat with him." Meg's heart had begun beating a bit faster since hearing Raoul moan. She was fishing for reassurances from the doctor.
The doctor smiled at Meg. "Surely Meg, you yourself know the affects of the drugs I've given you. Raoul rests, and rests well, but I can assure you, he can hear what I was saying, I could tell by the movement of his eyes beneath his closed lids, and his moaning. Yes he is resting, but sleeping surely not. Perhaps you'd like to read to him, I'm certain he'd enjoy it, and you'd have a way to pass the hours until he rouses. This medicine will do nothing more than see to his staying in one place to let his body heal. Having you here with him, will bring him great comfort."
The doctor put his hand on Meg's shoulder as he stood to leave the room. He glanced over at the tray, looking back down at her. "My dear Meg, you must eat something, you'll wither and wear yourself and be of little company to Raoul when he wakes if you find yourself quite ill."
He took a few steps away, lifting the tray to take it with him. "I'll have a fresh tray sent to you, perhaps a bit different assortment would be preferable, and I'm certain we can find something you'd like." He smiled and closed the door behind him.
Meg slumped back in the chair. Her hand flying to cover her mouth, she thought she would ill. Had Raoul heard all of what she'd said? Would he remember anything she'd said? Why had she been so foolish as to think those things out loud? She though she would faint, grabbing onto the side of Raoul's bed as she felt herself start to race. She grasped it hard, pinching herself, she'd not do it, she'd not give in, she must stay alert, she had to think, there had to be some way….but she knew not.
Raoul had already began to drift further into the fog, until at last there was nothing.
XXX
"What is it Erik?" Christine said as she crawled beneath the blanket nestling him into her arms, guiding his head back until it rested on her collarbone. "It is obvious that something troubles you my love."
Erik wished for more time, more time to decide what to do, what to tell her, but he could not avoid it, there was no way around, only a way through. He turned his head glancing up into the eyes of the woman he loved more than his own flesh, and decided, if he could not share this with her, and she found it another way, she would learn not to trust him…and that was far too great a price to pay. He'd afford her the most protection by telling her the truth.
He turned himself fully so that he could look at her. "Christine, I've something to tell you that may frighten you, but perhaps not, for most you already know." Christine's eyes did not waiver, she nodded in acceptance of the warning. "When Erphan ventured out, to retrieve lunch for us, he happened upon something." He now wished he'd have asked Erphan for the parchment, so that he might show it to her. "Christine, you might have assumed that when we left Paris…left the Opera House…that it would not only have been Raoul that searched for you."
Christine blinked, she'd not heard Erik ever say Raoul's name more than a few times, and the times she had, were in anger. Today, his voice was even-tempered and steady. "Yes, I rather imagined it would have been a wider search." She cocked her head. "Why would we be discussing this, now so much after the fact?"
Erik continued. "It seems that at some juncture, posters were fashioned and posted throughout the City."
Christine still did not understand the significance nor the relevance to their current situation.
Erik took her hands into his, "Christine, the posters had a sketch of you on it…the very likeness of you," Erik swallowed, "that is what Erphan found."
Christine's eyes grew wide…she suddenly felt a bit light headed as though the thin protective walls to their being in Paris were beginning to crumble. "And he…." She could not bear to say it.
Erik slid up slightly until he could look Christine in the eye. "I've told him nothing, though I am most certain he was clever enough to have figured it out on his own." Erik could feel Christine begin to squirm about beneath him.
"Do not worry Christine, though I've told him nothing, he has assured me that his loyalties lay with you and I, though I do think he may be more curious as time goes on. If it is possible my dear, we must act as though such news has not affected us in the slightest. You will continue to answer to no other than Elizabeth, and I none other than Stephan. If it should happen that he addresses you by Christine, and your guard is down and you respond, try not to look anxious or unnerved. Simply say something along the lines, Christine is my middle name, and used frequently by my grandmother as my pet name." Erik focused in her eyes, "can you manage that Christine, if the need should arise?"
She nodded her head. "Oh Erik, how we thought ourselves to be so safe here!"
"Christine, I can assure you we are no less safe than we were before he happened upon the poster. The only danger would be in his believing it to be truth, and doing something with that knowledge."
Erik coughed, feeling a bit worn again, what precious little energy he'd managed to muster for the events that unfolded, now waning. "Erphan gave me his assurances, and we must trust that he is a man of his word."
Christine nodded her head again. "You've no intentions then…intentions of telling him the truth?"
Erik shook his head. "I'll neither lie nor deny if he asks me directly Christine, for if ever he has enough courage to put those thoughts into a question, we will have reason to fear that he would do something that may cause us to have need to flee far from here. I tell you only this, that I believe he is a man of his word, and we shan't need to worry."
He sighed, running his hand along Christine's collarbone, trying both to sooth her and to assure her. "As we speak he and JP are out assessing the snow. It has become obvious that carriages are now starting to roam the streets again, and that means that it will not be long before sleighs are of little use. If we are to depart, and it is still possible to a path out of Paris with sufficient snow, then we shall leave tonight."
Christine began shaking her head, running her hand across Erik's chest. "You are not well enough to endure a long ride in such temperatures all of that way my love. You've still a fever, and that cough, it shall not better itself by such exposure."
Erik smiled, he'd anticipated her protests, and though he had need to override her opinion, it warmed him to think that she cared for him enough to challenge him. "My dear Christine, we've been gone far longer than we'd ever thought to be. Surely our household will be looking for us. Wondering at where we might be. If we do not take this opportunity my love, it may be a week or more before we can leave again, and then by borrowed carriage with hopes that the mud had hardened enough to support the wheels. If we've even one or two spring showers, we could be stuck in Paris indefinitely, and that my dear, is a risk I am unwilling to take. This woman's shop has been quiet for us, but only because of the storm. Most often, this time of the year especially, she is most busy. All the young ladies of society wanting to have fresh new dresses for Spring, swarm in and out of here like locusts. In a day's time, these quiet halls will be brimming with young women. If that were to happen my dear, we'd have no where to venture that was safe."
There was a long silence. Christine knew Erik was right. They could ill afford to be in Paris for another week, though she and Meg would have time to visit, and she and Madame Giry a chance to spend time in one another's company, if Raoul would permit them time away from him. "Very well Erik, though do expect you will need to cooperate fully along the way, permitting for a night's rest if your condition worsens."
Though he liked it very little, he agreed. Once they were in the sleigh, it would be difficult for Christine to make them stop if he ordered them onward. It wasn't as if the trip was that far, a mere five hours during the day, a bit longer in the dark. "Very well Christine. We shall set about making ready for our departure after Erphan returns. I've no doubt he will have found suitable paths from the City that would still remain open to us."
Christine was shaking her head. "You sir, you will rest. I will see to making our things ready. When Erphan returns, we shall talk. In the meanwhile, you shall try to sleep." She slipped out from beneath him.
He groaned as a small child would whose warm blanket was just tugged from him. Christine laughed. "My dear, how very attached you've become. What will you do when there are three others vying for my attention?"
Erik smiled at her, and yawned, covering his mouth, he'd no hope of arguing the point of his need for rest now. "My dear Christine, when that blessed time arrives, I've no doubt that we shall have a rather large bed."
Christine cocked her head off to the side. "A large bed?"
Erik smiled, yawning yet again, as Christine pulled the covers up under his chin, kissing the side of his cheek. "Yes Christine, for I do not think for one moment that I should be able to give up having all of you within my arms length. I can imagine us one large swarm of arms and legs wrestling about like a tangle of puppies," he smiled, "though I will share you jealously for I shall want you to myself all the more."
Christine laughed. "Do not worry dear Erik, I shall be even more your wife when I've delivered your sons and daughters into your arms. Then truly will we share flesh of our flesh, and a family we shall be. And I…I shall love you all the more." She ran her hand along his jaw, placing one last delicate kiss on his lips. "Rest Erik, for we've a long journey ahead of us." She walked to the doorway, glancing over her shoulder, smiling at him, and departed.
Erik's eyes fluttered shut, he was indeed tired. He could stretch out fully on the divan without worry he was hurting, or making her uncomfortable, for all the space was his. He smiled as he conjured up a mental image of he and Christine, with three small children climbing about them on the bed. She nestled into his arms, he reading a book to her, she nursing and cuddling the children, he with one, having just been fed, sleeping on his chest. Oh what a wonderful thought…a sweet thought…that just six months before would never have crossed his wildest imagination. He drifted off to sleep, not even noticing that his fever had broken.