Fantôme – Chapter 5, Part 3

When Raoul got to the room he found – who else? – Christine. She ushered him into the room and, when he began to open his mouth to ask her every question, she waved her hands and said,

“Raoul, it has been a long journey. Sit, eat, we can discuss why you’re without making it our meal.”

He saw that she had, indeed, provided for him as a wife would for a weary husband, as best she could: thick woollen socks were warming on the grate, there was fresh water for washing and the soap was lavender-scented, and there was a table set for two. Christine, having shut the door behind them, lifted the lid off the earthenware pot and the room was filled with a delicious, rustic smell of savoury herbs.

“Christine, are you play-acting?”

“I am deadly serious,” she said, bringing a butter-dish in from the window-sill, and then with a cry of “Oh, how thoughtless of me!” she rushed to Raoul and began unbuttoning his jacket. “Here I am, fussing over supper, and you are there in your heavy travelling clothes. Darling, give me your coat and your waistcoat – I’ll hang them, you just sit by the fire.”

And Raoul, without having said a word, found himself in his shirt-sleeves and britches, warming himself by the fire, whilst a pretty girl smiled at him and poured their wine and ladled out the delicious beef in daube sauce.

“Christine…”

“Raoul, are you calm now? I will tell you whilst you eat, but you simply must stay calm, for I will stop as soon as I see you growing agitated. Come, the innkeeper’s wife obliged me by making us up a little table so that, even after a long day of travelling

“Christine, I…” but here, again, she cut him off.

“I haven’t seen you since you joined the army, I believe? What’s that, six years? Very well, then, I shall begin there.”

She handed him a hearty dish, and a thick chunk of bread, and lay down by his feet, leaning on the arm of his chair as he ate.

“My father died in 18xx. You know this, of course – yours were quite the most handsome flowers at his funeral, and the black crepe bow was so immense that I feared it would sag and wilt like the flowers. You know, as well, I was just sixteen – he had felt that I was too young for emancipation, and he worried about me immensely, so I became the ward of Madame Valerius. It was a favour that was agreed between my late father and her late husband. Madame Valerius is very kind to me, she always has been even when Papa and her husband were locked up in the study together and I was perched on the edge of her drawing-room chairs with no diversion, but I am aware that she is rich and independent and wants me to be like her – she wants me to make a good match, marry, and perhaps we would see one another at the soirees thrown by the fashionable wives of Paris. She does not believe in virtue as she believes in good matches, and is doing her utmost for me as she feels is right. It was Madame Valerius who got me my position at the Opera – she bustled in and spoke to the managers and the teachers and the government body based there, anybody who would listen, really, about how much faith her late husband had in me and my singing, and about he was a genius whose views ought to be honoured. She gave a speech, over and over again, to all the important men about the Opera, about how, although I was without polish, my voice showed both training and talent from the years on the road with my father. She is a great benefactress of the Opera, and I am not sure whether it was her money or her famous good taste that swayed them, but admitted to the senior class I was, and with one-to-one lessons in addition to the regular course, to get my diction and my breathing up to a professional standard. I had the skill of sight-reading, and of course a breadth of musical knowledge, but they put me through the drills of a professional and moulded me into the singer I am now. I lived in the Opera during the week, and on the weekends I went back to Madame Valerius and tried to sneak around, quiet as a little ghost, whilst she entertained or went out to dine.

“Oh Raoul! How miserable I was! I have always known that I am lucky not to be destitute, how lucky that Papa was so sincerely liked that his friends looked after me, and in such luxury as I had never known; and yet, I missed being loved by somebody I loved as much in return. You could hear it in my singing, and my teachers worried that I should never become good enough for the Opera. Yes, even as I was getting technically stronger, my singing was getting weaker – for my soul was broken. I did not cry, I was pliant and sweet, and yet – I was quite a different girl, drawn and thin and meek. Had I not been the ward of Madame Valerius, I have no doubt I would have been tossed aside by the school; as it was, they did their best to motivate and improve me, but nothing worked. I did not sleep well in those days, and, so as not to disturb the other girls at school with my tossing and turning, I would sneak from the dormitory into the library and read yellow books until my eyes could stay open no more. It was on one of these nights that I first heard him.”

Raoul looked up from his dinner at this, the reverence she put on him driving ice into his heart. Christine, however, did not acknowledge this, simply taking his bowl and spoon from him and topping up their wineglasses. Raoul remembered his promise to remain calm, and said nothing.

“He came to me in the night and sang. It was weeks before I had the courage to speak to him, but I knew from the very beginning – this was the Angel of Music that my father told me about. Truly, he had sent him to me.”

Raoul took a deep draught of his wine – so deep, in fact, that Christine rose again, and topped up their glasses again. This time she left the bottle on the card table by his side, and sat in the other armchair, opposite his at the fireside, pulling up her legs and swishing the wine inside her glass as she continued her story.

“Yes – I heard the Angel of Music. He was a glorious singer, truly divine, and the night I first heard him he sang me a lullaby unlike any I had ever heard. That night I slept easy, for the first night in months, and I awoke not in the library but atop my own bed. I wondered if it had been a dream, and yet it was so vivid that I knew that even if it were, it could have only come from heaven. I had no choice! Like Hamlet, I had to see this Ghost – and I went back to the library that night. Again, I fell into a deep slumber, and again I was carried back to my own bed. The other girls did not even notice I was gone. I returned to Madame Valerius that week-end and she commented on my good health – although my rosiness was not quite returned to me, my strength was on its way to being back.

“The next week, to show how grateful I was to this heavenly spirit, I sang with him. I did not know the words, for they were in a language completely alien to me, but the notes I recognised by now. I sang with the spirit, but it was late and I had both travelled and worked that day, so once again I fell asleep, and this was how it was for some time. All the worried that had plagued me since my father had died, all the cares that had sapped my energy, they began to fall away, and once more I was in love with music – with how it made me feel, with the way melody hangs in the air and the simple complexity harmonising creates. Once more my teachers began to praise me, and the other girls began to welcome me into their friendships – but this was too much for me, and I withdrew. I spent all of my spare time in the library, but he would only visit in the dead of night, when all were asleep but me. One night, I couldn’t bear it any more, and in the middle of the song I addressed him. ‘Angel’ I said, ‘Angel, why do you only sing for me?’. He didn’t answer – but I did not scare him away, for I woke up in my bed that night as always.

The next night, instead of my lullaby, he sang my name. ‘Christine’, I heard, ‘Christine’. Angel! It was he!”

Raoul sat stark upright. “Your Angel is a man?”

“He has a man’s voice.”

She said nothing more until Raoul leaned back into his seat, but she did continue.

“He has a beautiful voice. It filled the library with a strong, rich sound – and he knew me! I could say nothing, but wheeled around, wide-eyed, trying to see where the sound was coming from. At this, he laughed – and his laugh, I must say, was not such a sweet sound – and he told me to sit down. ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘I am going to teach you a folk-song’. Well, at this I knew he was the Angel, for if it were not for my father’s word, how would he have known my love for folk-songs?

I was amazed that he could sing in such a range, both high and low, as he demonstrated both parts of the song to me. It was a simple duet, though I do not know where it was from. I suspect it was not European. Together, we sang, and for the first time since I had said goodbye to Papa my soul was happiness, and I felt I had a soul which I could put into the song. Oh, I know not how long we sang, a few rounds of this same song, and each time it grew better and sweeter and my happiness shewed in the song, but we had just begun again when we were interrupted.

The door rattled – it had locked behind me, though it was not my hand that locked it. As soon as it became evident somebody was outside, my Angel’s voice stopped – it cut off, so starkly, in the middle of a note. After a moment or two the door unlocked. The pair behind it were not expecting this either, and they barrelled in, falling over one another. I fell, dreamily, onto the chaise longue behind me, and saw Violet – another girl from my classes – peering around the door jamb. On the floor were Monsieur Mercier and Monsieur Gabriel – do you know them? They are the head teachers of acting and singing at the Opera. Violet had woken to find me missing from my bed, and woken the men. They followed the sound of singing – and they let it be known, even to me, that they were amazed at the quality of my voice, in the speed of my learning the harmonies, in the evidently hidden depths of passion I contained. I could say nothing – I only gazed forward with my mouth agape at this evidence the Angel was not a figment of my dreams.

“From that day, everything changed. In the morning I was escorted from the group lesson into an empty room, and I heard his voice, honey-smooth and dripping, bouncing from the walls of the practice-room. He told me that, from now on, he would be my only teacher, that he had spoken to the Managers to install me in a dressing-room that would be mine forevermore, and that nobody must hear me sing before my first performance because, with his tutelage I would render all of Paris speechless. Well, you know how it went – all of Paris was rendered speechless by my singing, and now the Managers are unsure what to do with me; for I was brought on board to be the young boy parts, not the lead. It has been years, now, that he has been my only teacher, and I was a guarded secret until that night.”

The girl sighed, and looked into the fire.

“I do not feel great, though the Angel tells me regularly that I am the best in the world, and if I only listen to him I will climb to heights unknown. I worry, though – is that why the Angel of Music comes to Earth? Not simply to touch us with glorious tones and give us a taste of heaven’s ambrosia, but to create fame? Already there are rivalries at the Opera because of my presence, my singing. He tells me not to worry, for he protects me from the politicking, as is proper for somebody devoted to her craft – but am I more devoted now that he teaches me than when I sang for nothing? I have not had a thought for four years that I have not shared with him. I know he listens to my chats with La Sorelli and Monsieur Gabriel; perhaps he listens to Debienne and Poligny and turns their thoughts to his favourite airs to affect the programme. Even coming here, it is really because of him. I told him, in my lessons, how much I missed my father, and what an inspiration he has always been to me. I have begged him, ceaselessly, to let Papa down from heaven to play for me, or to hear how much I have grown and how much I love him still. The Angel sent me here – tomorrow night, I will hear him play for my father. He has Papa’s own violin, and I will sing – tomorrow, in the church yard where he is buried.”

And there, with her story finished, she looked at Raoul and smiled. For what felt like an age, the only sound was of the fire cracking whilst her honesty hung in the air. Raoul did not want to break the silence, and instead walked over to her, taking a seat on her footstool.

“Christine,” whispered Raoul, “Christine. Why did you invite me here to tell me? Why could I not pay you a call at the Opera, and acknowledge the esteem I hold you in? Could you not tell me about your lessons and your growth knowing that I’d be happy for you?”

The girl’s whole demeanour changed – she folded inwards, covering her body with her arms and bowing her head downwards. It took her a few moments before she could speak again – and, with her head down, she could not see the concern in Raoul’s eyes, or she might not have spoken at all.

“He is… more jealous than one would expect from an Angel. When I began receiving gifts and suitors, I would return to my dressing-room and find petals and scented tissue-paper strewn across the floor, torn from bouquets and boxes. Once he broke a string of black pearls from an Australian landowner and the next day I came to my dressing room and found a boxed pearl necklace, marked in his spidery hand to me. Yes, were he a man, I would consider his behaviour jealous – from an Angel, I feel it is that he wants me to remain dedicated to my craft. His knowledge is strange – he is omniscient about goings-on at the Opera, and I am privy to more information than I have ever asked for about salaries and politics, yet, whenever I leave the Opera, he knows nothing of what I have done. Why, he asked me which one Madame Valerius was on a night he knew she was visiting the Opera, even when he knew which box was hers!”

“Then, Christine, why have you asked me here?”

“I value your thoughts, and our past together, more than what he thinks of my chastity. I value my own self as a woman, not simply as a singer.”

“Is your chastity not a part of your art, the art you hold so valuable?”

“It is not chastity that makes me great, Raoul – it is love. Yes, the greatest moments of my singing are when I think of Papa – or, at the Gala, when I looked up and saw you. Yes, when I saw you I closed my eyes and let my soul soar to the boxes. No! Higher! To the rafters, I filled the whole Opera with my soul upon realising that I might be reunited with you – that was my song on the gala night. Heaven must understand, for they deal in souls alone.”

The man blushed. “Christine, it is late; I must abed. Let me make up the couch as a bed – bring me those blankets, please dear, and I shall keep myself separate from you as with a sword in a story of Arthur.”

Her pretty face drained of what little colour it had, and she turned away to the windowsill. Raoul heard her, softly over the crackle of the fire, crying. He went over, but she hid her face from him. When he finally got her to look at him, he gazed straight down into her eyes, and asked,

“Christine, dear, what ever is the matter?”

“It’s nothing, only… I fear I have misinterpreted your feelings, and you come here in friendship.”

“Christine, you have my undying friendship – of course I came in its name!”

She turned her face to his and looked plaintively in his eyes, “And nothing more?”

Several moments passed whilst they remained in silence, but then a spark of electricity took possession of Raoul and he swept Christine up, into his arms, and kissed her with more passion and feeling than he had kissed any woman with before. He kissed her with closed eyes, gently caressing her face and hair, and she kissed him back with a tender force. When they pulled away, she was breathless.

“Raoul…”

“Christine.” He smiled. “I should have done that many years ago. I love you, Christine.”

“All these nights at the Opera that I supposed – or rather, hoped – that you were trying to woo me…”

“I should have known you are not a woman to be impressed by posies and expense-accounts.”

“Tonight, Raoul… tonight, I want to be your wife. I know it isn’t possible when we are back in Paris, and tomorrow you shall discover another reason why, but I should like to love you, Raoul. Be with me tonight?”

“Christine, it isn’t… I mean to say, I couldn’t let it be like that with a woman I love.”

Her face, once again, turned to the window – Raoul saw that it was pale, and gently stroked her cheek, “What is it, my love?”

Her words now were not assertive – she stuttered before she could get them out. “I… it’s the nightmares. I would like, just once, to sleep without fear.” She took a moment, resting on his chest, and gathered herself. Now she looked at his face square-on, her eyes as intense as he had ever seen them, “In my profession, Raoul, it is unlikely that my virtue will be required, or even assumed, even by people who support me. I love you – let me be yours entirely. If something should happen, or should not be permitted to continue, I should know that I had been loved once, wholly, and by somebody I love in return.” She took his hand, and he was powerless to stop himself – she took him to the bed, and he kissed her once again.