“Nous ne marierons jamais, c’est entendu.... mais ceci est un bonheur qui ne fera mal à personne.” (Ch. XIII: “Au-dessus des trappes”)
In the end, after five minutes of hesitation outside the entrance loge — five minutes during which he imagined his presence remarked upon by every passing vehicle, yet could not face the knowing grin of the concierge — Raoul found himself using the side-door key.
And the worst of it was the humiliating worldly rush that his brother had doubtless intended: the sense of intimacy, of secret admission, in slipping that key into the lock where no casual passer-by had the right to enter. “A man should always have a side-door key to his own house,” Philippe had murmured, with that heavy-lidded droop of the eyes that men passed between one another at the club when the topic touched upon lewdness. The door and the discreet passage beyond yielded to his — Raoul’s — halting possession in a rush of implication borne all too vividly in upon his mind.
He had not wanted this. Furious at himself and at Philippe for the suggestion, Raoul dropped the key into his own pocket and moved towards the light and sound of voices in the salon beyond.
The whole place had a disquieting air of familiarity. It was as if he’d furnished it himself without knowing it — everything chosen to please his taste, and yet speaking in every detail of Christine like the mingled ghost of some future that had never happened... The elegance and sophistication were Philippe’s doing. But that unmistakable feminine touch — that sense of her — was so strong that it was like a shared domesticity; an encroachment that was almost frightening in its promise.
His own house... with her. The idea was real in a way that it hadn’t been before. And it would be so easy. Just perform what was expected of him, and let things ride....
But Christine! He kept circling back to that in numbed disbelief. Christine, as pure and fresh as an Angel from the North, so shy as to shrink from her own ambitions — how could she lend herself to this? How could she allow herself to be seduced here by tawdry courtesan’s trappings? What hold had his brother found over her to force her into such a scheme?
He was angry with Philippe, but... that at least he understood. His brother was a pillar of Society, of admired talents and tolerated vices, and the virtue of the girl Raoul loved was to him nothing but a threat and an embarrassment.
But Christine.... She’d had a hand in this; everything around him proclaimed it. She’d chosen this house, these furnishings, this... home. She’d consented to what Philippe proposed, and begged his brother not to tell him — yes, and that, Raoul thought furiously, that he could well believe. It rang true. She’d kept him in the dark again and again, strung him along in pretended concern, and now she had some reason of her own for putting both of them through this charade at his brother’s behest.
This very public charade: for at that moment voices rose in giggling outcry in the far room and two girls came tripping out — arms twined around each other’s waists as they whispered shared scandal — and he found himself standing absurdly there with his face flaming, like an interloper.
“Why, Viscount—”
He didn’t know either of them, but by their accents they were from the Opera: acquaintances perhaps of Christine, or — worse — of Philippe. At any rate it was all too plain that they knew him.
“Raoul?” Christine’s voice from within, with an uncertain tremor in it. This, at least, she had not planned; and there was a bitter satisfaction in it that carried him into the salon to confront her in the face of the assembled company.
Somehow he’d thought she would look different: jewelled, gaudy... betrayed. But there was nothing coarse about Christine. There never had been.
She wore her one good gown, the sky-blue silk that she’d saved for out of her first earnings, and the locket she had from her mother: other girls at the Opera had jewels by the handful from admirers, but she had none.
In that room of bright gossip she was gentle and poised, the focus of every eye in a role that held her centre stage. She was playing the part of hostess with the same collected courage with which she would have faced down a hostile claque, and only Raoul could have seen the pale strain that lay beneath that control.
A moment ago he had been ready to rail against her. Now it was all he could do to keep from rushing to her side to defend her against the whole parcel of them: the casual malice of young de Castigné, the lounging elegance of Vardeaux, the black button-eyed twinkle of plump Madame Druet, who could nose out a rumour at twenty paces — parasites, all of them, sucking on the latest scandals to gain the entrée to the functions they craved. One slip on Christine’s part, and tomorrow Tout-Paris would be laughing at her.
And the rest of them were no better: tittering girls from the opera-ballet, encroaching and vulgar, preening moustachioed singers from minor roles and strutting coxcombs of understudies with the reek of paint and grease about them, all of them clambering and eager for advancement, ready to sell their souls to rub elbows with a title or an address in the Faubourg St-Germain. How dared they impose upon Christine in this manner—?
“Raoul, please.” A gentle touch at his elbow; Christine had risen and was looking up at him anxiously, her lips parted in distress. He became aware belatedly that he had halted halfway across the room, ruffled and glaring, and that all conversation had died. For an instant’s wild impulse he thought to catch her by the wrist and run, to flee together like children from those eyes, these lighted boards, this life, this place...
“Viscount, forgive me—” It was Vardeaux, making his bow to smooth down the situation with the shamefaced kindness that underlay his hopelessly loose tongue. “Miss Daaé’s art is truly a wonder to us all. Why, my godmother, Madame de Maleron...”
And somehow, between Vardeaux’s well-meant chatter and Christine’s silent plea, he found himself drawn down beside her into the heart of that lighted gathering as the game of platitudes and empty compliment began again with an almost audible relief. Heaven forbid, after all, that there should be an actual scene. Even for the old Druet creature, that would not do at all.
Raoul set his teeth and endured, as he had endured endless petting in Philippe’s train from dowagers to whom he would forever be fourteen; as he had endured tedium at his club with men whose skill at cards far exceeded their conversation, and bawdy speculation in the mess-room with cadets whose ideas outran their experience. He was acutely conscious of Christine at his side, though they barely exchanged a word. The ruffles at her shoulder stirred with breaths that were a little too shallow, and as she leant forward the folds of her gown brushed his knee. Once her fingers slipped briefly across his own in search of reassurance, a clinging ghost of touch that seemed to burn across his hand for all to see, and he could have flung the world away to leap to her defence.
But the hour wore on. Drinks were brought in by an unsmiling manservant, guests made their excuses and took their leave, and at length Vardeaux, who had lingered, proposed to call a cab and escort the remaining ladies home. The discussions thus involved drew the party into the hall, and Raoul, left alone, hesitated. But the next moment Christine had slipped back into the room with a little sob of breath, her hands held out to his; and the voices next door meant nothing to either of them as her head went down on his shoulder and she came into his arms for comfort.
“Christine...” His voice was ragged, and she raised her face to his, laying one finger across his lips as if for silence.
He had not meant to kiss her. But her mouth moved shyly against that first impulsive graze of his, and his arm slid to tighten around her waist with something like a sigh; and somehow he could not break away until the blood was pounding in his ears and the taste of her was unforgettable on his lips like a drug that drove men to crave more.
“We—” He did not know what he had meant to say. She had stiffened in his arms and silenced him with a touch, pulling free.
“The guests! I must say farewell—”
She was flushed, and her mouth was warm with kisses; Raoul felt the quick colour run up into his own face at the thought. “You can’t— like that— they’ll think —”
“Raoul, they know.” Her eyes fell; came up defiantly. “Vardeaux sought to give us a moment alone: what else would he expect?”
Fists tightening, Raoul had a mind to wring the man’s neck. Of all the presumptuous, boorish—
But it was the knowledge of his own weakness that had his cheeks flaming scarlet. He’d been as quick to take advantage as any scandal-monger could have wished; and the other man’s gesture at privacy, indiscreet fribble though he was, had been kindly meant.
It was all he could do to meet Vardeaux’s gaze as the last of the guests descended once more upon Christine in a swirl of bonnets and mantles to make their farewells and take leave of their gentle hostess. He managed to stumble through a few proprieties with a stiff bow; but he could have sworn, through gritted teeth, that Vardeaux had tipped him an admiring, languorous wink.
“Philippe. Dear brother Philippe.” The words were jerked out of him like a curse as the front door closed, and he dropped back down to sit with his head between his hands. “Oh God, Christine, what a mess — what a joke, on us both...”
Through the curtain of his tears he could glimpse her gown. She was close enough to touch. He would not look up. “And how could you— how could you let him believe that you were... that you would...”
He felt her light weight settle beside him. Her fingers were cool where they caught at his own, urging: he resisted for a moment, then yielded with a groan to bury his hot face against her breast. Her arms were about his shoulders, her breath stirring in his hair, and broken endearments rocked to and fro between them as they clung.
“Raoul... dearest Raoul...” Her fingers traced behind his ear and trailed downward along his jaw; he raised his head to lean into that caress with a sigh. This was not decent, it was not proper, and he was too tired and hurt to care...
But she drew away, folding her hands in her lap. There were fresh tear-marks on her cheeks.
“Count Philippe is right — no, listen! I can never be a Viscount’s wife.”
She took a deep breath, as if to forestall the objections that tumbled to his lips. “It’s true. We both knew it from the start — we tried very hard not to love each other, you and I. It hasn’t changed: the Count made that very clear. Marrying me could cost you your friends, your family, your inheritance, your chance of promotion — your whole world and everything you’ve ever known, Raoul, everything else in your life. And if we were unhappy — if the cost was too much — then you would be trapped with me in resentment and shame, and I couldn’t bear it...”
Her voice had trembled a little, but she went on. “Men don’t marry girls from the Opera. They give them houses, they give them gifts, they pass time with them in public for a few months here or a few months there, take their pleasure and are gone. That’s what the Count sees in me: a little education for his little brother, an infatuation gratified and then burned out with no harm done. He wants you happy, truly, if this is what you want — but not at the price of your future. He’ll give us everything... short of marriage.”
She had always been strong and clear-eyed, holding to her course through a bitter world while he tossed helpless and inexperienced in her wake, veering from one extreme to another like a small craft on a trailing line. He’d never thought to see her bend to the wind of his brother’s cynical scorn. The pain of it was almost physical within his heart.
“If you think for one moment that I would leave—”
His hands had gone out to her almost without thinking: she caught them in her own and held them tight.
“I don’t, my dear love — you know I don’t. But he believes you would; he’s counting on it. He wants to see you give up thoughts of marriage, and if...” She looked away, the words almost inaudible. “If that means getting you to lie with me, then he wants to see it done.”
It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of it — hadn’t thought of her that way. He shifted in awkwardness at the sudden, unwanted leap of his pulse, and his breath seemed abruptly harsh in his ears. In the worst squalls of his jealousy he’d pictured her vividly beneath that unknown other, and suffered for it in burning torments of his own...
“I know exactly what Philippe thinks of me — and of you.” His voice sounded oddly distant, as if it belonged to someone else, and floods of hot and cold were breaking over him. He thrust down that worse self, trying to keep his hands from shaking, and caught at anger as a saving grace. “What I don’t understand is why you — why any decent girl would let him think you’d agreed.”
“Because it lets us be together.” Christine’s head came up almost fiercely to meet his gaze, despite the tremor that shook her. “Because the world won’t then turn a hair to see me walking on your arm, seated behind your horses, dining at your side: the world tolerates such things, Raoul, it expects nothing more of me and nothing less of you. And this way—”
She faltered. “This way — if we find, after all, that we don’t suit, then... nothing will have been lost.”
It was like a slap in the face. “Nothing — except your reputation!”
His hands had tightened on hers to an almost bruising grasp; she broke free and sprang to her feet, eyes blazing.
“Ask Count Philippe — ask Monsieur de Castigné, or your friend Vardeaux. I’m an opera-singer. I don’t have a reputation!”
“Carlotta—”
“La Carlotta sings in the salons of her lovers, and all Paris knows it.” She broke off with a gasp, one hand flying to cover her mouth as if to catch back the coarse words; but it was too late.
Raoul’s face flamed. “If that’s what you think of me, Miss Daaé—”
He too had risen half-instinctively as she stood; now he turned on his heel in the sudden icy silence between them. From behind him, he heard her little desolate laugh.
“It’s what they all think — your brother made sure of that. When they left us here together tonight....” The implication stretched out between them, measured in the ticking of the hallway clock. Another tear fell.
“We can never be married, we both know that. But I thought... when your brother came to me with his offer, I thought we could take his bargain and make it our own. Take his expectation and defy it: steal happiness in the teeth of what the world allows. While he waits for you to tire of me... oh Raoul, we can make a marriage of our own, a promise between the two of us. Call it a pretence if you will, like our pretend engagement, but it can be very real, my dearest, so real — whatever they believe — if only we stay true.”
She came to him slowly, the brush of her gown the only sound as she set a hesitant hand on his arm. “And if it’s a sin, then I am willing to pay for us both — if you want me.”
If he wanted her.... He had to swallow twice past the thickness in his throat. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do what they expect.”
He could leave now. Leave Paris, go down to Brest, escape back to his ship and his duty. Throw Philippe’s poisoned chalice back in his face—
Throw Christine’s sacrifice aside like a used rag into the gutter and convince the whole world that he’d had her and discarded her, dipped into her waters and found them not to his taste. When he’d walked in here tonight in a stiff-necked possessive fury, he’d ruined her as surely as if he’d stripped her naked in the street.
Her touch on his sleeve asked for nothing and made no demands; but behind the brave eyes that sought out his own he understood at last how deeply she was afraid.
“Christine — sweet Christine—” She came into his arms with a shuddering rush, bright hair pressed tight against his shoulder, and he knew all at once that he couldn’t leave — couldn’t let her go — couldn’t lose this — ever.
“Raoul, we don’t have to — if you don’t want—” But her hands found and guided his, and beneath the stiff fastenings she was softer to the touch than anything he had ever imagined. He couldn’t catch his breath; couldn’t stop.
When she cried out his name again, it was a plea. Her mouth was upturned to his, and they were drowning together....
“It’s not a sin.” Pledges; promises in her chamber, the last in the trail of trust that bound them. “Not for me, not like this — not with you.”
And maybe he would pay a thousand years in purgatory for each word, each vow, but she was his truth and he was hers and he no longer knew right from wrong or day from night, or anything but the leap of faith in her eyes, and the urgency that moved them both.
Raoul rolled over, drained and slightly sick.
In the clarity that came with the death of lust, he saw himself all too plain. Remembered, in detail, what he— what they had just done, and his own heaving perfunctory part. And he’d used her — Christine! — for that; for that vile permissive act... He’d dressed it up in fine words like some back-alley seducer, and made a whore of her and a pander of himself.
In that moment, he could have cut his own throat. But it was too late now. It would have been better if he had done so ten minutes before: better for them both.
He groaned, from the heart. “Oh God—”
“Raoul?” Christine was leaning over him, eyes dark with concern; she was uncovered, and despite everything some shameful part of him wanted her again.
“I—” He tried to look away; remembered the flinch of her body under his. He had forced her.... “I should never.... I — I hurt you.”
“Dearest.” She took his face between her hands, turning it towards her with a gentle sweetness that he could not gainsay. There was laughter in her eyes, and an odd wisdom. “Dearest, you made a woman of me, that’s all.”
Warm skin brushed his, shadowed and bare; she settled against him tender and unafraid, and the sick emptiness that had swept over him began to ebb.
“Philippe... said you would make a man out of me.” His laugh was shaky but real, and she caught his hand and drew it closer to nestle at her throat.
“Then we’ll share.” The words were whispered, but her heart beat steadily under his touch, and he slipped his other arm about her and held her close. Whatever they’d done, it had been together. And he was still Raoul and she was still Christine, and he still loved her from the very depths of his soul. The world righted itself, leaving only the memory of a lurching gulf.
But if it was like that every time— The thought seduced and repelled him all at once, stirring unwanted response, and he buried a groan in her hair. “Christine, I don’t know if I—”
“It doesn’t matter... oh hush, love, hush...” A long moment of acceptance, her body stilled against his.
“They say”— she hesitated, offering doubtful rumour— “they say it gets better, later on.”
But she was small and infinitely precious in his clasp, and this was enough, Raoul thought. Surely this would always be enough...
It did get better later on.
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