Chapter Text
Prologue:
Romy de Chagny
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Like most people I have made decisions in my life that were unwise, I have ignored advice and acted on emotions rather than logic, and I have caused people I love pain.
I have always tried to take ownership of my actions, learning to live with my mistakes and to make ammends. But after twenty years I still lose sleep over the final words I spoke to my father.
It would be untruthful to pretend that my words weren't meant to hurt. They were purposefully inflamitory, cruel and distasteful. I spoke out of spite and in anger, allowing the arrogance created by my privileged upbringing fuel a behaviour and attitude I knew to be wrong.
The last time I spoke to my father I was fifteen. We had been spending the summer at his ancestral home in the company of my grandmother and uncle's family. One afternoon I had returned from a brief canter through the nearby wood to find one of my cousins, Claude, taunting my brother and pulling his hair. In response to the dreadful sight I had slapped my cousin hard across the face and threatened him with my riding whip. To this day I believe my actions were justified, after all Claude was thirteen and Gustav was only eight, but unfortunately my father disagreed. Apparently such behaviour was not becoming of a young lady, and I could not be a debutante if acted in such a primal way. Having no desire to be paradaded in front of French hight society I had acted dismissively, which ultimately sealed my fate.
I had protested vehemently when my father and uncle announced I would be attending finishing school in Lille. I had pleaded with father to change his mind; I promised to apologise to Claude and correct my behaviour, I swore I would listen to grandmother's instructions and would seek redemption from God, but nothing was enough.
The morning of my departure was only a few days later, and I had sat with my mother and cried my eyes dry. I knew that she was powerless when it came to father's family, especially when we were in their home, but I had hoped she would have had some sway. She had told me father didn't want me to go, but he had to discipline me otherwise he would look inferior and incompetent in the eyes of his brother. Rather than quelling my anger (as she intended) my anger towards father grew.
I remember the exact moment I made my decision to speak those vile words to the one man who loved me unconditionally. It had been when I had seen my cousin Claude's grin as I waited for the carriage. I had began to walk in his direction, determined to leave the chateux in the blazing glory of a last hurrah, but father caught my arm. At that moment anger rose from deep within me; father was not defending me, he did not care for my feelings, he was not protecting me. Instead he was stiffling my individuality by forcing me to attend finishing school. That was when I turned and spoke the words that hurt both my mother and father.
"I wish the rumours about mother were true and I was not your daughter".
As the words left my mouth the room filled with an oppressive silence; all eyes were now on me and father. I heard a sound from behind me, whom I assumed was mother, but was unable to turn due to my father's tightening grip around my wrist.
"I have had enough of this!", he hissed at me, before dragging me to the carriage. Initially I tried to resist by pulling back, twisting my arm and dragging my feet, but it didn't work. I heard the sounds of mother's protests as father pushed me trough the carriage door.
"You shan't come home until you are a lady" father bellowed as he slammed the door, clearly having become more frustrated by my behaviour as I had fought him.
If I had known what I do now then the last words I said to my father would've been of love and affection, instead I had leaned out of the window and shouted "I dispise you". I cared not for his feelings.
Two weeks later father was dead. An aneurysm following a stroke.
That is the problem with hindsight, you can evaluate your mistakes knowing what you did wrong, but you can easily be drawn into an ever increasing sense of melancholy as you are unable to change them.
The day I returned from my finishing school was a blur. I was mentally and physically exhausted. Travel made me tired and I had a headache from crying and begging for both father's and Gods' forgiveness. I had slept from the moment the carriage doors closed - relieved I would be going home - but when I awoke and realised that we were not returning to Paris, my already damaged heart filled with dread. I assumed mother, Gustav and I were staying at the chateux under the guise of family support, but I knew it was so that we could be controlled. I knew that Uncle Phillipe would control mother's finacial wellbeing, and I half expected to be married-off to one of his widowed friends as soon as my year of mourning was complete.
I had been greeted by both mother and my brother. I could see both had been crying, and could imagine the conversations my grandmother and uncle would have been having about my eight year old brother's behaviour. He was now the Vicomte de Chagny, and as such I doubted he was allowed to cry. I embraced them both and whispered reassurances into Gustav's ear, before retiring to my room. I barely saw or spoke to anyone that day. I refused food and sent the servants away. Mother tried to coax me from my room, but in my despair and anger I'd refused to see her.
I only unlocked my door at night once I was certain the chateux was still and ventured onto the landing. I had always hated that house. When I was around five or six my eldest cousin Alexandre had told me it was haunted by slain revolutionaries and I spent nights fighting my need to sleep out of fear I would be executed while I dreamed. As I grew older and ceased believing in ghost stories and fairy tales I grew to dislike the decor and opulence, along with everything it stood for.
Looking back upon my behaviour at that time I can say with certainty I was a hypocrite: I would denounce the aristocracy and the systems of old, only to use them to my advantage when it suited. Being older and wiser I have grown to understand that my upbringing for those first fifteen years brought a sense of entitlement and detachment that is not easily dismissed, and although I saw the injustice when I was younger I could not remove myself from it's grip.
I hadn't been on the landing long when I heard the sound of sobs from my brother's room. My heart was broken by father's parting, but I knew it would be harder for Gustav. When I entered the room I found him sitting on his bed, gas lamp turned down, crying into his blanket in an attempt to muffle the sound - likely in fear.of the chastisement my uncle and Grandmother would provide. That night I climbed into his bed and held him while he cried himself to sleep.
For the next three nights Gustav came to my room to sleep beside me in my much larger bed. Unbeknowst to everyone, we both cried ourselves to sleep, neither talking about father or out uncle's interference, but knowing our lives were forever changed. I would offer reassuring words and meaningless promises of secuirty and safety, knowing that I was in no position to make such declarations.
Mother was engulfed in her own grief, I heard her sobs at night, and in the morning her eyes red and puffy from tears. I heard the arguments between mother and uncle Phillipe; Phillipe wanted me to return to school and her to Paris, leaving Gustav in his care. Although mother had become accustomed to surrendering to Phillipe's will (as he was head of the de Chagny family), she had refused to return to Paris without us. I have sinced asked her if she regrets her defiance, as if she had complied then she would've avioded the subsequent trauma, but she has always responded that were are orchestrators of our own destinies.
It was the early hours of the morn when we absconded, mother having paid several servants with her jewellery to aid us. Our flight from the chatuex had not been easy. We had left on foot and the journey through the grounds to the bordering woodland had taken an hour. Due to the time Gustav was exhausted and mother and I shared the load of carrying him - something that was not easy for two slight women in the dark of night.
The rest of the journey was unconsequential except mother insisted we only speak Swiss. I had never travelled in anything other than first class and can still remember the feeling of unease in the third class train carriage and boat deck. I was used to the opulence my family's wealth and status secured, primarily the presence of servants and the silence and secuirty of our own compartments and rooms. I felt uneasy in the crowded carriage, certain they would know I didn't belong. I recall watching them nervously, fearful they would take my bag and search for my poorly hidden jewellery, or make inappropriate gestures and propositions towards me. Again my thoughts and behaviour betrayed an education and relatity detached from the majority, while having an expensive education that lacked an understanding of the world.
My first impression of London was it was simular to Paris: it was busy, noisy, and smelly. Parisian archecture was certainly more appealing and less uniform, but London was far more diverse than my home city. I never fully understood why we hadn't visited London with father, especially as he had insisted we learn to speak and read English from a very young age. English fashion was of a different style to ours and mother quickly found us a milliner. I recall liking the English style of dress as it was less flamboyent than the French, and finding it amusing that Gustav looked like a mini gentleman rather than an eight year old child.
We travelled by cab to Highbury and stopped in front of a row of terrace houses. Mother was quick to usher us to the door and pay the driver, clearly nervous and exhausted from our journey. Mother rarely acted quickly, normally her actions were well-thought out, so her behaviour told me she was nervous.
I do not recall my first encounter with Meg. My husband, who is an alienist, believes I don't recall our first meeting because of the events that occurred later that night; he claims it is my mind's way of protecting my sanity, but I disagree. I have no academic basis for my assertions, just my own belief that my sanity would be better preserved if I could recall my first meeting with Meg rather than the sound of my mother's screamed protestations in French, Swedish and English.
In hindsight my actions in response to mother's screams were poorly thought out. I instructed my brother to hide under the bed while I investigated. I leaned over the bannister just in time to see mother being bundled out of the door by three men. She was wearing what I now know to be called a straight-jacket, and was being carried away. I almost called out to her, but my voice caught in my throat when I saw my Uncle Phillipe standing guard like a Roman centurion. I knew he had seen me, and I knew we needed to hide.
I had always disliked uncle Phillipe. He may have looked like father, but that was where the simularities ended. Father was kind and compassionate, Phillipe was cold and abrasive. He showed us no compassion when he found our hiding place, instead stating that our mother was mad and would be spending her remaining days in an asylum. Of course I didn't believe mother was insane, but he cultivated a tale of how she had created an elaborate fantasy world full of ghosts and ghouls, and that she had fled to protect us from her imagined demons. Looking back upon what happened next I realise I was a fool. I knew Uncle Phillipe had no interest in me, and I failed to notice the silence that decended over the house after he left me alone to change form my nightgown into travelling attire. I purposefully took longer than needed to dress myself, and I expected my uncle to be waiting at the foot of the stairs, angry with my impertinence. But instead I found the house deserted.
My uncle had taken my brother, had my mother incarcerated in an asylum, and left me alone.