Chapter 11
The knock came before I could open the missive.
I had expected Monsieur André and Monsieur Firmin, and was taken aback when, instead, a handsome young man entered without waiting for my reply.
He looked resplendent—tall, with dark-blond hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a sleekly tailored tuxedo and carried a bouquet of roses so similar to what the wardrobe mistress had just described, I wondered if they’d been seized from the managers.
“Christine Daaé,” he began, striding into my room with all the confidence of a king. “Where’s your red scarf?”
I studied his reflection in the mirror before me, noting all the ways he reminded me of the boy I’d once known, and appreciating all the aspects in which he did not.
“Oh, Raoul, it is you!”
I turned on my stool, unsure if I should rise to greet him or if I was meant to let him come to me. Becoming a principal singer was more than just putting on winning performances. There was also a new offstage persona to consider and build.
But this was Raoul, my friend.
He didn’t seem to notice my hesitation, continuing with his bit. He poked about the room, pushing aside costumes on the clothing rack, peeking behind the door. “You can’t have lost it. Not after all the trouble I took to rescue it.”
“You were soaked to the skin,” I agreed as I accepted the bouquet of pale, silvery roses and remembered how that beautiful boy had shivered, even in the summer heat.
“I can’t believe you’re really here now.
We heard the vicomte had become the new patron, but I wasn’t sure if he’d bring you with him tonight. ”
“Not my father,” he corrected, his smile freezing. “Just me. I am vicomte now.”
“Oh!” I said brightly before realizing what that meant. “Oh…Raoul, I’m so terribly sorry.”
He waved aside my belated condolence. “It was a few years ago. I was, of course, deeply saddened to learn of your father’s passing as well.”
We stared into each other’s eyes in silent commiseration and understanding. Words were not needed to express how we felt.
Then he smiled. “It’s so good to see you again, Little Lotte,” he said, using the nickname he’d christened me with during the fortnight we’d been together.
“It’s funny. I feel like it was only yesterday I last saw you, and yet”—he gestured around the dressing room—“so much has changed. Did you see me cheering for you? I could hardly believe it when you came onstage. You enchanted everyone in the audience, myself included.”
I could feel my cheeks glow. “That’s wonderfully kind.”
His expression turned warm, and I was delighted to see that his smile was still as lopsided as it had been all those years before. “Your transformation reminded me of those stories your father used to tell. Do you remember the one about the Angel of Music?”
I nodded, both touched and surprised that he did too. “He always promised that one day the Angel would come and bless me with the gift of music.”
“Anyone who heard you tonight couldn’t dispute that he has.”
It felt so good to know he understood. “Yes! I have been visited by him, Raoul.”
He reached out and cupped my cheek, alarming me with this sudden, unasked-for intimacy. Though his fingers were warm, they sent an icy shock through me.
“There’s no doubt of that,” he agreed. “And now, let us celebrate!”
The change of conversation happened so swiftly I struggled to understand. “Celebrate?”
He nodded, all but beaming. “Your triumph! At the party, I want to be the arm you hold as the whole room turns to applaud you.”
“Oh, I can’t possibly,” I said, even as I began to imagine the moment, picturing the way the crowd would smile and cheer. All because of my voice. All because of the gift the Angel had given me.
His face fell immediately. “Of course…I should have guessed there was already another beau.”
A treacherous heat grew in my chest. Did Raoul de Chagny hope to become my beau? The idea was both flattering and absurd.
We’d met in Deauville, a pretty seaside town along the Normandy coast. Father had been playing with a group of musicians at a café off the beach, and I’d spent my days wandering the boardwalk, watching the waves and the endless trains of promenading tourists dressed in pastel finery I could never hope to afford.
One particularly hot day, I’d decided to venture to the water to escape the fiery sunrays baking the wooden planks.
Almost immediately, I regretted my decision.
The sand was all but impossible to navigate in my boots, and the wind blew harder there as it raced toward the water’s edge.
I had to keep a protective hand on the top of my straw skimmer, and even still, the breeze undid my scarf, tugging at its gauzy length with coy playfulness before yanking it away and casting it over the sea.
“No!” I’d exclaimed, watching it dance in the air before a white-capped wave swelled up and pulled it into the watery depths.
It had been well past noon, and high tide had begun to wash in. The waves were much too powerful to venture into with my long skirts, and I didn’t know how to swim.
Despite my best efforts, I began to cry.
The scarf had been my mother’s. I didn’t have any memories of her, but Father kept a photo taken just after they’d wed, and I loved to study it.
In it, she wore this scarf, and had tipped her head back, laughing, with a warm, wide smile.
I’d always felt close to her when I wrapped it round my neck, but its red chiffon was now spread out on a wave too far from shore to retrieve.
Until…
A figure raced by me, diving into the bracing sea, sleek and athletic as the gray seals which played in the Baie de l’Orne. He plunged into an oncoming wave and disappeared beneath the surface. Seconds later, he emerged, my scarf held triumphantly in his hands.
He swam back to shore and presented it to me with all the ceremony of a knight returning with the spoils of war, even as he shivered in his ruined linen suit.
When I’d wondered how I might repay such a magnanimous feat of bravery, he’d smiled and asked if I’d join him for a flavored ice at a little spot he knew down the beach.
It was the café where Father played, and we all soon became fast friends.
Raoul was with his family on holiday, and the two weeks we’d spent together had been full of delicious frivolity: Picnics on the beach.
An afternoon spent at the Hippodrome de la Touques, where we watched several races and placed bets on whichever horse’s name made us laugh.
And even a ferry ride to Trouville, where we wandered through shops and Raoul bought me a set of tortoiseshell hair combs I still occasioned to wear.
Raoul had been my first kiss. And my second. And third.
Caught in the whirlwind of his attention, I’d spent the fortnight in fevered fantasies of romantic assignations and painfully exquisite longings, certain that he’d fallen as deeply in love with me as I’d decided I was with him.
I dared to dream of moonlight proposals, of sitting in his family’s box at the track, splendidly dressed in the highest fashions with a dazzling ring on my finger proclaiming to all that I was loved, that I was cherished, that I was taken.
But I never met any of the other de Chagnys, and I arrived at their hotel one day to find Raoul simply gone.
Until now.
“No beau. It’s nothing like that,” I assured him, noticing traces of that boy still hidden in the curve of his smile. “But I…I don’t go out. The Angel of Music is very strict, you see, and—”
Raoul’s eyes lit up once more, his hope as bright as candle glow. “Then I shan’t keep you out late.” He raised the bottle of champagne. “We’ll pop this in the carriage.”
“No, Raoul.”
“Oh? Should we now?”
“No, I mean—”
“You must change,” he said, too caught up in his own visions to hear what I was desperately trying to say. “I must get my hat. Two minutes, Little Lotte,” he said, taking my hand and pressing my fingers to his lips with a rakish smile.
He hurried from the room, casting back one last grin before ducking out.
“Raoul!” I called, following after him to futilely shout down the hall. He was already too far gone to hear.
With a strange, twisting sense of guilt plaguing my stomach, I shut the door and flicked the lock with a decisive click. “Things have changed, Raoul.”