Fantôme – Chapter 5, Part 2

Raoul leaned out of the window, holding onto his hat, and tipped the porter a handsome 20 francs. The dust became unsettled in the carriage as he fell back into his seat, causing him to pat and fuss at his clothes. As the train rolled out of the Gare de Lyon it kicked up more noxious fumes and Raoul used his hat to fan himself, somewhat ineffectually. His tall frame was cramped by the closeness of the bench in front of him and he was grateful for the lack of popularity of the run to Provence outside the season. After the train porter came by for his ticket and to wish him well, Raoul put his hat on the seat next to him and leaned back to think.

He thought of himself as a little boy, and a little girl with him, running along the beach or among fields of lavender as his nurse watched over them. Of the little girl who he had first seen sitting in a closed-eyed reverie as her father played his violin for the drawing-room crowd of Parisian holidaymakers one night. Little Raoul had known immediately that he must befriend this quiet, intense girl who seemed about his age, though she was in fact two years older, just small and shy, and she fast became all the best things about his time in Provence. The boy begged to return every year, and his nurse encouraged his family to let him have his time there. They thought it was the sunshine that improved him, turned him from a reserved boy into a quietly confident young man, not releasing it was the impact of local peasants and one other little holidaymaker, quite below his station, that was turning him into a man.

Raoul and Christine played together every summer. If the sun shined they were out all day, running and climbing and bothering the donkey-men on the beach, or playing with Raoul’s infinite supply of toys: tennis sets, trundling hoops, boules his father brought from England. Whenever they saw any musician she would stop and listen, rapt, whether it was a street-corner hurdy-gurdy man or a tavern band’s rollicking leeching out into the street. If she knew the song she would close her eyes and sing, and then all the people who passed would stop to hear her and tell her how bright her future was, then turn their twinkling eyes to Raoul. He didn’t understand this until the final year they holidayed together, when he blushed at their knowing glances.

Raoul’s favourite days, however, were when it rained, and Provence’s inherent smell of sea-salt and lavender would rise up and make the country-fresh air fragrant and sweet. He and Christine would run between each of the shops and the houses, knocking on doors and asking for stories – only stories, they wanted for nothing else. They would pay in childhood niceties – a sweet pair sitting straight-backed in starched collars, sharing their hand-picked picnic fruits, plums and tart apples. The housewives and proprietors would smile at the odd little couple and tell folk-tales from this area and the areas they were from originally, all across France and even one or two from Germany. Back home Raoul had books of fairy-tales and legends from France, England, Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia, but it was always different hearing them from the mouths of the peasants: they told the stories slightly differently, or the characters were named something else, or the moral wasn’t as important as his books made out. One summer, he packed all of his story-books with legends or folk-tales, and the whole holiday he and Christine climbed trees and read them out to each other, wide-eyed or giggling at the adventures and the illustrations and telling one another how different they were to how they had imagined them.

Her favourite story was one from her father, and the pair begged him to tell it when on the rare days he was not researching in his study. Elias Daaé was a gentle and quiet man whose fingers were ink-stained from his writing and calloused from his playing. He was a prodigious violinist who had made his living touring the cities of Europe, playing outside for thrown pennies, until Professor Valerius discovered him. Now he toured the cities of Europe still, but he played inside, in the drawing-rooms of the rich; and he supplemented his income with a newspaper column in which he shared Scandinavian and European folk-songs, documenting the music and the stories behind them for parlour musicians across the continent. Raoul remembered him sitting in the armchair of the Valerius’ small holiday-cottage, staring into the fire with pensive eyes, or leaning forward, looking straight at the children and gently speaking in his soft, accented voice whilst his nurse knitted or snoozed across the room. Christine would beg to hear of the Angel of Music, and Raoul would join in because he knew how happy this story made his companion. Her father would smile and bundle both children into his lap to tell them how every great musician had been visited, sometime, by the Angel of Music; that the Angel smiled when young musicians practiced their scales, that he frowned when people rustled their papers or talked at the Opera.

“Have you ever seen him, papa?”

“Seen him? No, my little rose, but I have heard him. I heard him when I heard the master Liszt play in Weimar, and I could only close my eyes as he showed how the Angel of Music blessed him.” Here, Papa Daaé would always name a different musician, and he would always close his eyes and hum a little of what he had heard them play, or his favourite composition of theirs. Christine would watch him as long as she could, seeing the reverie her beloved father fell into when he remembered the great performances he had seen, but eventually she would always pull at his sleeve, eager to know more of the Angel.

“Papa, tell me more! What does the Angel do? How will I know if I ever meet him?” This always made Papa Daaé smile, and Raoul caught a little sadness in this smile.

“My sweet girl,” he would say, “the Angel is heavenly music personified. He is the spirit of all musical skill, all musical vision, all musical passion. When you hear him, he improves your music and shows you a vision of what music can be, why it matters. And, my lovely girl, I guarantee you will hear him – for one day I shall be in Heaven, and then I will send him to you. You will have no need to be sad as we both were when your mother died, for you will sing, and you will hear the Angel of Music and know that I love you, that I will watch over you, and that the Lord will reunite us one day.”

Every year from when he was seven-years-old to when he was fourteen, Raoul had gone to Provence. He had known that final year was to be his last, as his mother had worked on his father’s old friends to get him a good commission in the Army. Raoul was beginning to fill out into his tall frame, though he was still lanky, and he had invited sweet Christine to Paris to his going-away party because he knew he cut a dash in his brass buttons and gold braid. It was her face, looking up through the mess of blonde curls, that he saw when he looked in the mirror at the tailor’s office and blushed at how mannish he seemed.

She wore one of her mother’s dresses. It was old-fashioned, but her mother had been a beauty, and so was Christine. Raoul felt she looked like a delicate blossoming begonia, a true and natural flower, sweet and yellow, amongst the pink and red fashionable hothouse roses that were the daughters of his mother’s friends. She did not dance that night, even though Raoul knew that she loved to dance, and instead she stood on the edge of a group of chattering girls, softly smiling at their practiced jokes, letting her fan drape down by her side as they fluttered their eyes behind theirs. Raoul watched her all night, but she did not catch his eye, and he dutifully danced just once with all of his female guests. At Christine’s turn, Raoul’s breath caught in his chest even as, for the first time all night, he conversed with a familiar intimacy.

“You are beautiful, Christine.”

“This dress does not fit me right. I am slimmer than she ever was, for I grew up worried and she did not. She would have smiled at my un-modeish attire and told me it allowed me to glow rather than glowing for me, but I feel so rude next to these other girls.”

“Christine, I have never known you be so harsh – is everything alright?” She turned away, and that told him everything. “Christine, take a turn on the balcony with me? I am sorry for inviting you to this if it does not please you.”

“That would please me, Sir. It pleases me to see you and talk to you.” He bowed low and formal, since she had called him sir, and gently led her to the garden space.

There, in the most private place the party could offer, she told him that her father was sick. Her beloved father, who had raised her alone from the age of six, who had loved her more than any other father loved his little daughter and who had given her the greatest gift he could bestow, the gift of music, was surely dying. The sickness that had plagued him mildly for many years had attacked once again, and his body was not strong enough to fight it. At this very moment, he was across town in the bed that would most likely become his deathbed. She told him that she had hoped the gaiety of the party could raise her spirits, but it was not so, and Raoul had told her to hush. “Christine, I need nothing from you bar your presence. You and your father have been true friends to me, and I have been too proud tonight, too gay to see your pain until now.” He said nothing of his hope that when she saw him in his uniform she might love him, as he thought he loved her. “Christine, when my own father died it was sudden, and there was nothing to be done. I will pray for your father, every night, with the earnestness that he deserves, and in addition every fervent prayer I might have made for my father I shall also make for him. You have my assurance of that – I pray for his bodily health and immortal soul, and I take what burden of the love you bear that I might away from you.” He had intended to take this turn on the balcony to tell her that he loved her, but he could not bring himself to force his affections on a distraught woman. Instead, she took his undying friendship away from that night, and he left for the Army sure that he would never see her again.

***

Raoul thought of his past with Christine the whole journey. From Aix, he took a trap to Sault, bouncing along the uneven roads, worried his trunk would spill. There was just one hotel in the small town, and the driver took him directly there. She was a kindly old lady, a widow perhaps – Raoul regretted being so lost in his memories and barely engaging with her – and he paid her double, for the journey back as well, and her trouble. She passed him his baggage from the roof of her trap and he carried it into the inn himself. It was late – dark already, and he was tired after a long day of travelling. He wanted nothing more than to place himself in the comfortable sofa by the fire and wait for food. The barkeep was eager, though, waving at first, and coming over directly he had served his customer.

“Good Sir! You have come from Paris? We were expecting you. Your room is all ready, and your wife is upstairs waiting. She ordered that we not bring dinner until you arrived, so go straight up, Monsieur – you will find it warm and comfortable, and she has organised everything. Go, Sir.” The man pressed a key into Raoul’s hand, and the young man – flabbergasted – had no time to respond.