(Author’s note: Raoul’s December birthday has been part of my head-canon since The Sons of Éléonore — it helps the chronology to fit. But I’d never actually thought about the other implications...
For the title of this story, I am indebted to EMK81’s chapter “Weihnachten, wie es nicht sein sollte”)
It was a cold, grey afternoon outside, and the neatly-clipped trees in their huge pots — each almost as tall as the boy who stood gazing out at them through the long windows — stretched away from the chateau towards an empty fountain that held only a thin layer of ice. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece behind him, with its hurrying uneven tick, showed a little less than half-past three, but shadows were already gathering in the corners, and soon it would be too dark for the picture-book that lay abandoned on the hearthrug where he had left it, in front of an empty grate.
The window rattled a little on its hinges, and Raoul de Chagny pressed the tip of an upturned nose against the cold, smooth pane, feeling the draught stir the ends of his hair with icy fingers. He was a small, fair-haired child, and dressed from head to toe in black he seemed today smaller and frailer than ever.
It was his seventh birthday, and a week before Christmas. And every year, for as long as he could remember, on this day the house and its occupants had been shuttered in mourning. It was the anniversary of his mother’s death.
She had died because of him. No-one ever said it like that, not where he could hear them, but all the same Raoul knew it was true. His mother had been too old for any more babies — why, his big brother Philippe was a grown-up man — but all the same Raoul had come. And his mother the Comtesse had died of it.
Sometimes he wished he didn’t have a birthday. Then they could look forward to Christmas like other people, instead of creeping round the great empty house every year trying not to remember. Raoul himself couldn’t remember, of course. But he looked like his mother. Everyone said so.
And so he had learnt to hide himself away where his father could not see him as the old Comte paced up and down, up and down, with faded eyes that looked only into the past, and his sisters crept round corners like small grey mice. If his birthday could not be forgotten, at least he could do his best to make sure people forgot about him... and so after nursery luncheon, eaten at the little table upstairs while the grown-ups dined in state on a cold collation shrouded with gloom, he had slipped in here to the library on his own to wait for the lamps to be lighted and the endless day to come to an end.
He wished Philippe would come. His tall, splendid brother would sweep through the cobwebs like a breeze from the hills, trailing the faint, exciting scent of pomade and leather and cigars, and shedding, as always, casual kindness on the adoring small shadow that trotted in his wake. If Philippe lived with them, things would be different. But it was no secret at the chateau that the Comte and his heir didn’t see eye to eye. Philippe had rooms of his own up in town. And if he paid a visit just now, at Christmas time, it would only be a few days before the shouting and the slammed doors would start... and in the end Philippe would storm out again, as he had last year, vowing never to return.
He always did, of course. But last time he hadn’t come back for months.
“Sacré mausoleum of a house,” Raoul repeated wistfully under his breath, tugging absently at the hated black of his sleeve. It was an expression overheard from Philippe that had particularly appealed to him, and which he had been strictly forbidden by his sisters from attempting to use.
He breathed on the cold glass and watched it mist up to hide the long gravel sweep and the dark shadow of the woods beyond, with their leafless treetops against a fading sky. Perhaps it would be better, after all, if Philippe didn’t come until New Year. Raoul knew his big brother had loved their mother too; he just had a different way of showing it.
And maybe he’d be able to take Raoul out riding on the old pony with the leading-rein, and Raoul could show off his new blue hacking-jacket, and they could go down to the dell where Philippe’s dogs had once flushed a fox... One small finger on the misted glass traced out the figure of a stick-man with a tall hat, and he sighed.
Then jumped, as another sigh echoed his own. His sister Clémence stood behind him, hands on her hips.
“Oh, Raoul... whatever are you doing in here? I’ve been hunting all over for you — just look at the state of your collar. And your hair... oh, come here, child, let me tidy you up.”
She laid hold of him firmly by the back of his jacket and began to set his clothes in order with a rough kindness to which Raoul submitted almost without protest. He had understood when he was still very small that if Clémence was cross, it was because she worried so much about the house and about their father. And in any case, he liked her better than his other sister, Albertine, whose idea of playing with him when she was younger had consisted of dressing him up like a great doll and trying to put flowers in his hair.
He wriggled a little and yelped as his sister began to drag the comb from her apron pocket through fair, tangled curls. But Clémence simply tightened her grip, and Raoul made a face and screwed his eyes shut. Soon they would have to go down to the chapel to pray for Mama. And the curtains would be drawn back from her portrait in the salon as they always were at this time of year, and they would all sit there in silence with the Comte looking backwards and forwards between the painted face of his wife and their small son, and in the end he would either start to drink or to weep. Last year, with Philippe, he had done both. Raoul did not know which was worse.
It was still a whole week until Christmas. If only it could be over, and spring could come.
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