47Ch 11 – The Light of Day
"How long do you have?" I asked.
"One day more."
I went to him, and I shall draw a veil over that last day. I may speak of it someday, but suffice it to say that we were happy.
And at the end of it, I knew that I had indeed to let him go for awhile, for his sake, as he had once let me go for mine. Once again, our positions were reversed.
I was dreading the necessary confrontation with Raoul. I'd betrayed his trust, as I had betrayed Erik's in the past, and I had not wanted to cause pain to either one.
"We've - I've - been very wicked," I chastised myself.
"Very," he said, smiling.
"That is not a helpful remark!"
"Well, then," he put his arms around me. He was preparing to return me to the Girys. Neither of us was anxious to part.
"This was perfect."
"This was."
"I can't regret it, and that's probably the wickedest thing of all!"
He kissed my hair. "I'm very glad to hear it, my unrepentant sinner."
We spent a little more time together, Erik and I. His name sounded so strange to me, yet I felt it was a precious gift he'd given me.
When the time finally came to leave that place, I once again drew the ring off my finger and closed Erik's hands over it. As before, I wanted to leave him something to remember me by. Not that he was likely to forget.
"What will you tell him?" he asked me. He had never liked to say Raoul's name.
"The truth – some of it. Assuredly not all – though I fear he may guess."
"Undoubtedly."
We made a vow there, in that dark place beneath the ruined Opera House. When he returned, he was to send the ring to me, wrapped in white paper, as a token that he was safe. If I was willing and able to meet him, I'd send it back to him, again wrapped in white paper. If I was unable to meet him, I would wrap it in grey paper. In this way the ring was to pass between us as a signal.
He made a further condition, which I found rmorbid and inexplicable, but he insisted.
"If I do not return alive and well," he said, "I will make arrangements for the ring to be sent to you, wrapped in black paper. You must keep it, and when the time draws near for you to join me in the afterlife, you must place it on my grave as a sign that you will soon join me…if I am still in your thoughts."
"But who will see it?"
"I'll know. Somehow I'll know. And I will do the same for you, should - " he was unable to complete his thought.
"That's ridiculous, and you should not speak of such things. It's bad luck."
"You refuse?" a bit sadly.
"No, I agree – on the condition that you cease talking about it immediately."
"Done." He said, and kissed me. Erik always had his strange fancies.
We went up to the daylight, which seemed far too bright to me, through a dryer, shorter route. Taking our leave of each other was agony.
"I won't sleep for worrying about you," I said.
"Nor I." He put a hand to my face,
"Erik – I – " I looked at him. It was so hard to get the words out.
"I know," he said simply, and then it was all right.
As I write this, I sit at the Girys', waiting for Raoul to come and meet me. The Girys made a great fuss over me, and had thankfully managed to keep the story of my disappearance out of the papers. I was no longer in the public eye, so this was less difficult than it had been on a prior occasion. Mme Giry I think guessed a great deal of the story; Meg, perhaps rather less. Their main feelings were of relief and delight at my safe return, for which I was profoundly grateful.
"Did you see him again?" Meg whispered to me, once, when we were private.
I squeezed her hand and nodded. She merely embraced me, and asked nothing further.
Mme Giry told me that R. had been frantic about not hearing from me daily. I confessed that I felt I was unable to become his Vicomtesse.
"I suspected that that might be the case," she said. She made no judgement, but let me know that I was always welcome there; and should I ever need it, a position would be kept open for me as a teacher at her school. Although I feel I do not deserve such kindness, my gratitude knows no bounds.
I needed, however, to tell the story, if only to myself – hence these pages. When I am finished, I shall hide them behind one of the rafters in the Girys' attic, where I hope they shall remain forever undiscovered. I have no wish to cause a scandal regarding the broken engagement for R. and his family.
It seems strange, yet somehow just, that if I helped Erik to find the man behind the monster, he helped me to find the woman behind the thoughtless girl. For now our paths lie in separate direction, our fates divided. I hope not for long.
And I must wait to be confronted with R. This will not be easy or simple, but real life never is. I have not a tidy ending to my story.
I have done much that is wrong, that others would, perhaps rightly, judge me harshly for.
And yet, for the first time in my life, I feel as though I am on the verge of attaining my soul's freedom.
C.D., Paris, 1871