Hi all,
Sorry for not posting this sooner. Last week got away from me. Here you are!
Chapter 19. July, 1887. Saturday morning (continued).
"Christine!" Raoul was running toward her, his whole youthful face lit up. She shot to her feet, but it was too late, he was already almost to her.
He pulled up sharply in front of her and seized her hands. "Christine! Christine, thank God! I have been frantic with worry!"
She was stammering, unable to say anything sensible.
"I received your note, but why would you write such a thing, Christine?" Raoul was saying insistently. "Why didn't you want us to be together anymore? What could have come over you? Christine, I risked my life to save you!"
Mortification made her tremble, and she wanted to be anywhere but here. She jerked her hands away and bent to pick up her parasol, saying, "Raoul, please, leave me alone. I meant what I said in that letter. I can't see you, not now."
He reached out and grabbed her elbow. "But Christine, why? Why would you change so quickly? Just the night before you had been weeping and begging me to save you from that... that... is it him again, Christine? Is Erik working on your poor susceptible mind again, my darling? I'll kill him if it's true, the monster!"
Now Christine was suddenly furious, on her husband's behalf. She tried to pull her elbow out of the Vicomte's grasp but could not, and instead she simply pulled her glove off and brandished her left hand before Raoul's astonished eyes.
"Raoul, I'm married. Look! And I really can't see you! I want you to leave me alone. Now let go of me!"
He did not let go. Instead, he looked first incredulous, as he said, "Married? But... why?" Then he looked at her with a dawning suspicion that made a telltale blush spread over her cheeks. She felt small and contemptible. Raoul's clean simple normality had always made Erik, and her association with him, seem something dreadful, shameful, something she needed to hide deep in the recesses of her mind, not at all something to proudly display before an old friend like that.
"No..." said Raoul slowly. "Christine... Christine, tell me it's not true. Please?" She ducked her chin, blinking, hating herself for being so obvious, and for feeling so suddenly ashamed of her marriage.
"My God. The fiend! What did he do that made you feel you had to marry him?" He stepped closer to her and seized her other arm, forcing her to turn to face him, and she dropped her glove. "He didn't have me anymore to blackmail you with. So what did he use?"
"I... I..."
"Christine, please, you can tell me. I promise not to think badly of you, none of this is your fault. It is all Erik's, the brute! Christine... did he... did he violate you?"
"No!" Revolted, she almost shrieked the word. "No, he didn't, Raoul! He thought you had, when he saw that my hands were bruised!" It would have helped if Raoul had had the grace to look abashed at that, but he did not; well, of course he wouldn't, he had believed he was absolutely right not to let her go back, even when she fought. Now she struggled against him again, but could not break free this time either. "Let me go!" The blood was beating hotly through her veins, and as she always had, she rushed to defend Erik to Raoul. "I went back to him of my own free will, just like I did before! I realised he meant to end his life, and I was horrified! I knew then that I wanted to... that I did not..." The answer to what exactly she had felt in that terrible moment was incredibly complicated, too much so for her to be able to explain it when she was angry and embarrassed like this, and especially when she still did not fully understand it herself.
Being tongue-tied, unfortunately, did not achieve anything but to make Raoul think she could not find legitimate reasons for her headlong descent back into Erik's hell. "Christine, it's all right, I do not blame you for any of this, not at all, I swear it!"
Idiot! What did he think she needed his forgiveness for? They were making a scene in public, and she was mortified. At any moment someone might happen upon them.
"Christine, that fiend had poisoned your mind, broken it to bits. I believe he only let us go to trick us once more. And now he could make you think you were doing it of your own accord!"
"No, no, Raoul – "
"Oh, the monster! I'll kill him! Where is he now? Where are you living – Christine..." An obvious realisation came over the Vicomte, and he looked as though he felt horribly ill. "Christine... you said you were married to him..."
She cringed, knowing what he must be thinking. Why, why did it make her feel so vile, to see Raoul's disgust written so clearly across his boyish features?
"Oh God, Christine," Raoul moaned. "He... he's making you live with him as his wife, isn't he? Oh, my God... The beast, to do such a thing to a woman!"
Tears were running down her hot cheeks now. She fought to master herself, knowing that everything she was doing was only reinforcing Raoul's assumptions.
"Let... let me go, Raoul... please... you mustn't... I must go back to him. I am his wife," she whispered.
"No, you don't have to, Christine!" Raoul was now looking at her with an appalled pity that was unbearable. "Come away with me now, and I'll help you escape him! My poor Christine, how lucky that I saw you here today. I can save you now!"
"No, I can't escape from him – " Why, oh why had she phrased it that way? She was making it sound like she was Erik's prisoner again, and not a wife who wanted to be by her husband's side. "I mean, run from him. It – it would kill him – I mustn't – I can't – " She sobbed in frustration, as every word that came out of her mouth was surely making everything worse.
"Christine, Christine, it's all right, you don't have to explain!" cried Raoul frantically. "I know that he's controlling your mind! I know, my dear. I know you can't think properly, and that he's broken your will, you told me on the rooftop, remember? You said that if you tried to tell me that you didn't want to leave Erik, that it was only that fiendish control of his talking, and I was to take no notice of what you said, and help you to flee him regardless."
Yes, yes she had said that, cowering in fear and confusion, shrinking away from the feelings Erik created in her and desperate for the promise of an ordinary, uncomplicated existence that Raoul offered. And now... now... oh, what had she done?
"Please, Raoul, please – " Should she tell him about the baby? Would that make him let her go? She imagined him stepping away from her in revulsion, and could not help but sob again. Just then, she wanted to pretend Erik had never so much as laid a finger on her, and she couldn't stand to say something that would so blatantly prove otherwise. Raoul's horror was making her feel filthy, sinful.
"Christine, you don't have to weep anymore, listen to me, your ordeal is over – "
"Let go of me!"
"Ah!"
Desperate and unable to think of anything else to do, she had stamped on his foot. Raoul, startled, did let go, but as Christine was whirling away from him, she heard a voice.
"Here, what's all this?" Both their heads shot up, and turned to see a policeman making his way purposefully toward them, looking most displeased.
"What is this disturbance? This is a public park."
Christine seized her chance, picking up her skirts and darting away. Raoul bellowed her name and lunged for her, but the policeman grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Cease this behaviour at once, Monsieur!"
"Christine!" Raoul shouted after her fleeing figure. "Christine, I know you want me to get you away from him! I'll find you both, and I'll rescue you if I have to let myself be killed to do it!"
Distantly she heard the policeman say, "Now see here, young man, if the lady has chosen another fellow then you must leave it. She asked you to release her; be a gentleman about it!"
"No, no, you don't understand! Christine!"
"Monsieur, if you persist in this I shall have to..."
Christine did not hear what the policeman threatened Raoul with, for she was running as fast as she could and was already a good distance away. When she felt sure that Raoul would neither be able to catch her up nor find her, she ducked into a small clump of trees and panted, clutching the stitch in her side. She was out of breath, and shaking, as well as sweaty; it was a warm day. And she had left her parasol behind…and her glove too. Now her hand would be uncovered, all the way back home.
When her heart stopped racing, she pounded her fist against a tree trunk and began to cry helplessly again, hiccuping and trying to stop lest some other person see her. Why, oh why did Raoul have to happen upon her just now! This was the very last thing she had needed, to be forced to see his revulsion at the thought of her as Erik's wife! Raoul, just then, seemed to her to be representative of society in general, of everything good and solid and virtuous. She had wanted, once, to be a part of that, to be accepted among decent people.
And she had married a criminal. Not enough to be an actress, which assured her exclusion from the parlours of most already, but she had to go and pick Erik for a husband. They would never fit into the great mass of people who lived in respectable neighbourhoods and furnished their houses all alike, and worried over whether to set out three or four forks for each of their dinner guests. Erik would never be a conventional husband, going to the office every morning wearing his bowler hat and taking the family to the seaside on holidays. He could not fit into the bourgeois mould, despite his previously stated desire to do so. And as his wife, neither would she. In one fell swoop, she had cut herself off forever from any chance at doing so herself.
She took out her handkerchief and wiped her face, thinking wearily that she had never fitted that mould anyway. Not her with her nomadic childhood and her Scandinavian origins, with her love of old tales, or of the stage. For a brief time, and when she was terrified and bewildered, a "normal life" had held a certain amount of allure for her, and marriage to Raoul had seemed the way to achieve it. But she would have had to give up singing onstage to do so. No normal husband could hold up his head if his wife exposed herself in such a fashion; everyone would think he was surely a cuckold, since an actress could never be anything but a whore. And Erik, no matter how many times he insisted he wanted to be that normal husband, saw no reason at all why his hard work on her voice should go to waste. There was no chance that he would sanction her retiring from the stage before her time, even if she had wanted to do so. Which she didn't.
Christine blew her nose, imagining how hard it would have been to attend the opera anymore once she could no longer be a part of it. To never again feel the nervous excitement as the orchestra heralded her entrance; to never again be suffused with pride as her voice filled the auditorium; to never again know the thrill of an audience giving her a standing ovation. How dreadful.
She had better keep moving, and leave the park. What if Raoul had managed to escape the policeman, and was now looking for her again? She looked carefully about, and when she did not see him, she left the grove and headed toward the street, holding onto the damp handkerchief to partially disguise her bare hand. She was angry with herself now, even more than with Raoul or with Erik himself. Why had she stammered and sobbed like that? All such reactions had done were to make Raoul think that his supposition about Erik's treatment of her were true.
Were they?
No, no, they weren't! She shook her head as she walked, and things that she could have said to Raoul intruded irritatingly into her thoughts, useless now. Why had she not defended her husband? It was her duty as his wife. She could have said how changed he was, explained Erik's sudden willingness to let his captives go once he was shown the least little bit of kindness. She could have described her husband's taking her out in daylight if she wanted his company on her walks, and giving up extorting money from the managers when she asked him to. She could have talked of Erik's forcing himself to eat with her without his mask, or of his pitiful grovelling before her after she had begged him to tell her more of his past, and he had refused to do so. She had withdrawn her request, thinking that she could wait until he gained enough courage to unburden himself to her. She could have reminded Raoul that God rejoiced in a repentant sinner, and that it was not their place to judge someone, especially someone who was trying to be a better man.
He certainly hadn't been trying very hard last night.
Why did she have to think of that now? It was not helpful at all. She was Erik's wife, not Raoul's or any other, normal man, and she must make herself see the good in him, must encourage him to find it himself. That was the task she had taken on when she agreed to marry him; to be a good and faithful wife to him, whatever his failings, and she had promised before God to do so. It was the wife's responsibility to safeguard the family's morals; surely it must be all the more so with this lost soul, who had no one else to help him make his way back into the light. God would expect it of her, even if by some miracle Erik no longer did, even if she annoyed him sometimes. He would have to live with her presence, just as she would with him. The only other option was to live separated, wasn't it?
She reached the street, and strode out onto it, passing by shops and people and carriages without seeing them. Separated... never to hear his voice again, never to know the joy that came when he coaxed her voice to heights she had never imagined. Never to see the hesitant softness in his eyes when he looked at her as though she were the only woman in the world, and by far the most beautiful. Never to listen to him explaining things out of his books to her, or telling her lovely stories of the East. Never to... never to feel the pleasure of his magician's hands on her. And of course, there was the child to think of now.
No, she must find a way to live as his wife. She knew she did not really want to be apart from him. That was why, against all reason, she had fled from Raoul and back to Erik. Being without him was inconceivable.
But Christine did not think she could bear being treated again as she had last night. True, some allowances must be made for Erik's lack of skill in dealing with other people, and his sometimes precarious grip on reality. But still, he had to cease such cruelty. She must, for the sake of her own sanity, find a way to make her husband see that he could never do that to her again. She had already tried tears, and appearing to take his words at face value. What else could she do?
Say similar things to him?
Momentarily, the thought was tempting, and she knew just what would work; nothing would cut him so deeply as if she said that she never wanted to see his hideousness again. But... no. She could not truthfully say that she would ever be able to bring herself to do such a thing. Not after the last few months of seeing him slowly, fearfully groping his way toward trusting her not to. No, she must think of something else, some chastisement that would not hurt her to enact more than it hurt him to receive it.
Her stomach growled, and she realised that she was very hungry. She halted and checked her watch. It was almost one o'clock. She did not want to go back home and deal with her husband just yet, though; she needed some more time to think. But she needed to eat, for the baby as well as for herself, and the sun was uncomfortably hot without a parasol to shade her. Coming from the cold North, she had never liked hot weather.
Why, Mama Valerius! Yes, that was a good idea. It had been nearly a week since she had visited her foster mother. She would go there and sit with her for a bit, and they could have lunch together. Yes. And hopefully, by the time she had to go home she would have thought of something to do to manage her husband.
O-O-O O-O-O
Author's Note: Folks, please do try not to be too angry at Raoul. The poor boy is only twenty, and he doesn't understand anything about what's going on; and Christine did, flat out, tell him to ignore what she said! What's he supposed to think?
And poor Christine is now stuck, once again, with not one but two men who think they know what's best for her! And then there's poor Erik, letting his temper imperil the best thing that's ever happened to him...
And we do still have one or two other canonical characters who haven't appeared yet. Much more story to come! Thank you for reading!