Who Needs Christine? --A Vicomte and Phantom Story .:Ch.18:.

"Dear, you mustn't leave your nice, new gown on the floor." Madame Durand gently lifted Katherine's black silk gown off of the floor and draped it over a chair. "You'll ruin it."
"I don't care." Katherine said tonelessly. "Let it ruin. I don't want it."
"It was so expensive!" Madame Durand exclaimed.
"What do I care? I have all of the money in the world... but just look at what it cost me."
Madame Durand frowned and patted Katherine's shoulder. "Best get dressed, dear. The services will be starting soon." With that, Madame Durand quietly withdrew from the room.
Katherine dressed slowly and listlessly. The only thing she could think about was the next few hours. She didn't hear Belle come in.
"Mama's worried about you."
Katherine didn't start, though she probably would have had her senses been as sharp as they usually were.
"Everyone seems to be lately." she said.
"Can you blame them?"
Katherine glanced at the small mirror that hung on the wall. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles. She looked haggard and ill.
"No."
Stealthily, Erik moved through the graveyard like a ghost. The dark, overcast sky provided him with more shadows in which to hide than a sunny day would have. He drew as near to the group of funeral goers as he dared, standing in the shadow of a granite statue. He picked Katherine out of the small crowd. Even from a distance, he could see that how careworn and withdrawn she looked. A line of worry creased his forehead. Her state had obviously deteriorated since he last saw her.
Katherine looked around the grave site. There weren't many people at the service, though it was as grand as Katherine could afford it to be. Most of her father's friends lived scattered around Europe and the Middle-East. The smallness of the group didn't bother Katherine much. Indeed, she was mostly unaware of those around her. The priest was reading from the massive Bible he held in front of him. Katherine couldn't concentrate on the words he was reading. Tears were running freely down her cheeks, down everyone's cheeks, except for the two women that stood across from Katherine. She hadn't noticed them there before. She blinked hard, clearing her vision. She could hardly believe her eyes. Her mother and her grandmother stood silently, observing the scene as if it were a mildly interesting play. Sudden rage, the likes of which Katherine had never felt before, welled up in her, fierce and hot. She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palm painfully. The pain was sobering and, if only temporarily, Katherine's wits returned to her.
Erik noticed Katherine's sudden shift of attention. Just as steadfastly as she had been focusing on the priest, she was now focusing on two women who stood not too far across from her. Erik couldn't help but wonder who the women were. He wasn't close enough to see her expression, but her stance said enough. She was furious.
As the priest muttered the last word, he gently closed his Bible and bowed his head. The small group in front of him did the same. As he began muttering his prayer, Katherine watched her mother and grandmother through her eyelashes. It took a considerable amount of will power to stop herself from exploding. There was a time and a place for it and this wasn't it. As the priest's words died away, Katherine watched as two grave diggers began to pile dirt into the deep hole on top of her father's coffin. A sharp burst of sadness ripped through her. Tears once again gathered in her eyes and ran in rivulets down her face. She had almost forgotten her rage, until she felt herself pulled into a tight embrace. At first she thought that it may have been Belle or Madame. Durand, but the distinct smell of rose water and lilacs told her differently.
"Oh, my darling," her mother said. "Whatever shall we do without him?"
Katherine pushed her mother away roughly. "I expect that you will do the same things that you've been doing for the past year," she hissed. "As you were without him then, too, and it didn't seem to have bothered you much."
"I've missed you both terribly." Her mother sobbed.
"Not terribly enough to come back." Katherine pointed out. "You have a lot of nerve showing your face here. You've no business here. None at all."
"My darling," Katherine's mother patted her hand. "I know you don't mean what you're saying. You're distraught."
"Don't touch me." Katherine pulled her hand away and wiped it against the skirt of her gown. "And you know good and well that I mean what I'm saying. You said your goodbyes to my father and to me the second that you stepped over the threshold. You're as dead to me as he is now. You might as well be lying beside him, it would make no great difference to me except perhaps the risk of contaminating consecrated ground with your rotting corpse would concern me, in which case I would start a petition to have you moved to somewhere more fitting like the banks of the river Seine." Katherine didn't notice the timbre of her voice had been steadily increasing until the last words crossed her lips in a yell."You can't talk to your mother like that!" Elise's mother hissed
"I wouldn't talk to my mother like that." Katherine growled, focusing her attention first on Elise's mother and then back on Elise herself."Now hear this. I want you gone. This funeral is not a public affair, and as far as I'm concerned you're public. I don't even know how you found out about it, but you've no more right to be here than a stranger off of the street. I can't imagine any reason that you and that cantankerous old mule you call mother would come here except to lay claim to some of the so recently acquired fortune left in my possession, in which case I think it's necessary to tell you that father wrote you out of his will months ago, and if you somehow got the idea into your head that I'm going to share with the likes of you then you have another thing coming."Elise, Madame Durand, Belle and the rest of the funeral goers all stood gaping. One or two of Julien's close friends applauded a little. The priest was aghast.
"Madame, mademoiselle, please. Is this any way to behave over a grave?" he pleaded.
"Now see here, young lady!" Elise's mother croaked. "In my day, a woman---"
"In your day, women were under the example of Catherine de Medici." Katherine said dryly. "Which makes whatever you were about to say irrelevant to the current times." Belle snorted. Madame Durand nudged her to be quiet.
"See here!" Elise's mother said again. "You sniveling little brat, how dare you speak to me like that! You're nothing but a lowborn urchin with the manners of a stray dog! You have no right to speak to me in such a manner... I have half a mind to---"
"Mother," Elise interrupted. "Remember your manners. Katherine has just lost her father, and she's very upset." she said pointedly.
"Right. Of course. Forgive me, I forgot my manners." Elise's mother apologized dully.
"I want you two gone!" Katherine shouted as loud as she could. "I don't want to hear your pathetic apologies, your sad attempts at sympathy, nothing. You have no right to be here, so leave before I fetch the police."
"The police would do nothing, we're---" Elise's mother began, but Elise stopped her.
"Come on, mother. I think that the poor dear needs some time to herself."
Erik watched as the two women walked away. He'd heard the whole argument, of course. Erik was under the impression that several of the residents of the graveyard had heard the argument. He turned his attention back to Katherine, who had collapsed onto the ground into a pool of sobbing black silk. His mind vaguely registered the silk, and he might have wondered how she came about acquiring it had he not been so concerned. Two women, whom he recognized as Belle and Madame Durand, helped her to her feet and began to lead her away. Katherine, still shaking uncontrollably, threw one last look backwards at her father's grave. Her gaze traveled a bit farther. Their eyes met, and Erik could have sworn that she saw him.
"Go on, Katherine, take the bed. I insist." Belle said, throwing a blanket down. "I have no qualms about sleeping on the floor."
"No." Katherine said dully, taking her hair down and letting it tumble like a dark waterfall down her back. "I'll sleep on the floor. It's your house after all."
"But you're the guest." Belle argued.
"But it's your house."
Belle sighed, realizing the impossibility of gaining any ground. "What if we both sleep on the floor?"
"That's fine."
Katherine was so mentally exhausted by the days events that she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. Belle, having nothing better to do, quickly followed suit.
Erik restlessly paced the streets of Paris, slinking through the shadows like an alley cat. His worry for Katherine prevented him from staying still. In all of his travels, throughout his whole life he'd never seen anything quite so unsettling as what he'd seen that afternoon. He couldn't clear his mind. He wished there was something, anything he could do to make her feel better. He passed a flower bed filled with roses, big lush roses of every color. He was reminded, painfully, of the way Christine's eyes would light up every time she found one of the red roses that he would often leave for her. Erik bent and plucked three of the white blooms, deciding to deliver them to Katherine in an attempt to cheer her up.
He decided that he would try the Durand house first. In all likelihood, Katherine was staying with them. At any rate, the Durand's house was nearer to him than Katherine's house was, and he could at least check to see whether or not she was there.
The windows in the Durand house were completely dark. There was no way of knowing whether or not Katherine was within, but Erik was almost completely sure that she would be. Calculating the risks, he decided that it would be worth it to risk being wrong than to pass up the opportunity. He tried the door first. It was, of course, locked. He debated picking it, but he discarded the idea and tried a window instead. The window to the right of the door was locked, but the window on the left was open. A small beam of moonlight illuminated the inside of the room that the window lead to, but only just. Erik could only guess that the room was the kitchen. Silently, he slid the window open and crawled through, not making a sound.
From experience, Erik knew that the Durand house was small, and due to an extremely accurate photographic memory, he was able to navigate his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Belle's bedroom door, which was shut. Carefully, he turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly. He held his breath, hoping that the door wouldn't squeak. It didn't.
In the moonlight, he could see two shapes on the floor and the steady rise and fall of the blankets that covered the shapes let Erik know that they were indeed Katherine and Belle. He had some trouble distinguishing between the two girls, as they were both heavily covered with thick quilts and the dark cast shadows across their faces, but he knew Katherine as soon as he saw her. She looked strangely peaceful, her pale face flushed pink with sleep. The circles under her eyes, however, were as well defined as ever and she still looked haggard. Erik sighed softly and lay the three white blooms down near Katherine's head, though not so near that she ran the risk of turning over and injuring herself on the sharp thorns.
Katherine's hair ran over her pillow like a dark stream. Erik suddenly felt the urge to run his hands over it and feel the silky smoothness run through his fingers. He shook his head sharply, clearing the image. He turned to leave the room, throwing one last glance over his shoulder at Katherine's sleeping form. He was immensely worried about her. She seemed so fragile. As he neared the door, he heard a noise. He spun around quickly, scanning the room. Belle was propped up on her elbow, regarding him cooly.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered.
"Making a delivery." he answered, inclining his head twords the roses. "I was hoping that they would cheer her up."
"And they might just do that." Belle said. "How did you get in?"
"I have my ways." Erik said mysteriously.
"The window in the kitchen, then. The lock's been broken for ages."
"Yes, the window." he sighed and threw a glance tword Katherine again.
"You're worried about her too, aren't you?"
"Deeply concerned."
Belle looked at Katherine for a good long while. "She'll be fine." Belle said. "She went through the same thing when her mother left but she was back to her old self in a week or so."
"There is, I fear, a major difference that may change matters."
"What's that?"
"Her father will never come back."
"Neither will her mother."
Erik bowed his head. "Then for her sake I hope that you're right." With that he turned and withdrew from the room, and back through the window from whence he came.