More story ideas

[igenlode]

I had some more ideas about the Raoul-leaves-Christine-in-Sweden story, which I thought was becoming quite promising after I came up with a couple of dramatic twists which took me by surprise as I was telling it. However, it now seems to be rather stalled, and depressingly so (all stories need an end, and I have no real idea what the end of this one is).

So far:

1. Raoul leaves Christine (and Mama Valerius) in Sweden, kissing her hands and bidding her goodbye as she warns him that they can't be together yet, but maybe some time in the future. (Query: why, given that she has now escaped the threat of Erik?)


2. Raoul arrives back in Paris in time to join the d'Artois relief expedition, to the considerable and tactless relief of his brother, who assumed that he had deserted and eloped with Christine. Philippe attempts to commiserate with him by disclosing the story of his own youthful attachment to the daughter of an Italian Count, who was taken back to Italy by her father to be married to a powerful local noble and turned out to have died in childbirth when Philippe tried to seek her out a year later.


3. Raoul receives a bedroom visit from the Phantom, who is not in the least relieved to see him return without Christine. But Raoul resolves to die rather than betray her current whereabouts. Over the following days until the expedition departs, his fear of further questioning at least provides a distraction from his heartbreak over leaving Christine. Then, once they have sailed, the Phantom reveals that he too is onboard with Raoul, hoping to frighten the secret out of him.


4. The ship travels north. A plague of bad luck seems to surround Raoul, with incidents of sabotage, commands seemingly given in his voice, etc; the Phantom's reign of terror has been transferred from the Opera. Raoul takes comfort in the stubborn thought that while the Phantom is persecuting him, at least he can be certain that Christine is free and happy elsewhere... just so long as he does not crack and reveal her location. (Note: probably steamship with masts for Arctic voyage, although contemporary French navy had ironclads.)
   When they call in for provisions/water on the coast of Norway, Raoul is terrified that Christine might attempt to contact him and give herself away (Note: Sweden and Norway are a single kingdom in 1880s) -- but he finds himself confined for some further 'blunder' and is not allowed to leave the ship. As they steam out of port again, he resolves to track down the Phantom in his lair somewhere deep within the recesses of the ship for one final confrontation that will settle matters between them for good and all. Only a friend brings him a letter which had arrived on board... from Christine. The bottom of the envelope turns out to be slit, and the contents have gone. And as Raoul looks back towards the shore, he sees the outline of one of the ship's boats, with a figure rowing back to land; the Phantom now knows Christine's address and is going after her, and Raoul is being carried off helplessly, unable to do anything about it.


5. Christine seen posting her letter? (Would have to be flashback if we're keeping chronological order.) Je t'embrasse, cher ami; she kisses letter/presses it against her heart, remembering their kiss on the rooftop. She is happy and learning to relax here (where? She was born near Uppsala in east, but they have probably gone back to Mme Valerius's home or even elsewhere to be harder to find). They have a little maid to help look after the old lady, a mongol girl (Greta?)
   Arrival of Phantom: he is very, very angry. She betrayed him by fleeing with Raoul (no longer a 'good girl'? Try to keep this K if poss. for once. When does this AU start? Did they agree to leave at once, or did she successfully escape after the performance as planned?)
   If she calls for help he will kill the old lady and Greta -- and by now Raoul's ship will have sunk, as he rigged it with a delayed device before he left. Raoul is dead, and all the others with him, and all d'Artois' men who were relying on the expedition. Christine is appalled at all those deaths on her account caused by her innocent letter (Phantom reads out bits of it?)
   He carries her off.


6. They arrive at some remote peasant cottage. Before she realises what is happening Christine finds herself hobbled and chained up by the waist in the cow-byre beside the hut; the Phantom is determined she will not escape until she agrees to marry him. She pleads for him at least to take the waist chain off but he tells her that once it has been hammered home only a blacksmith can do that. He brings her water to wash herself after the journey; she suspects him of watching through the cracks.
   He threatens her by telling her that caged birds sing, not as French science supposes, out of joy, but because bird-catchers blind them so that they cannot see if a rival is near. You wouldn't dare-- wouldn't I?
   

   So Christine lives with the cow (?and calf -- unless Erik is milking it daily). Hears music (?singing/violin) from next door, but she can no longer sing. Both she and Erik start to go a little mad. She dreams of poor deserted Mme Valerius and of Raoul, seeing them both dead because of her; once dreams that Raoul is alive and warm and kissing her clumsily, and wakes to find the calf nuzzling her face. Erik brings her food and cleans out byre (?lets out cow to pasture by day?) Sometimes he goes on unknown expeditions to get more supplies. She no longer cares about her appearance, curls up with the cow to keep warm at night and regards her as her only friend.
   (Swedish cow names: Svana, Kulla, Krusgås, Docka, Vega, Fagerkinna, Stjärnros, Rosenkinna, Stållsa, Gonos and Frökenstjärna. Norwegian cows get called Dagros.)
   One visitor: a Sami nomad arrives at their hut (presumably attached to herd of reindeer) and finds her chained in cowshed. She appeals to him to help her but Erik convinces him by gesture that she is crazy. (He doesn't speak Swedish; too old or too young to have learned? Probably old.)



7. Raoul (or should this come after kidnap? Chronology or delayed reveal?)
   Adrift in ship's boat, rafted up with another boatload of survivors - he is only officer left to command. 'de Chagny curse' is held responsible for sinking of ship, but it seems to have run its course; he does his best to keep the men alive amid ice in Arctic waters and to find land. They steer towards trace of smoke, find themslves greeted by huts full of bearded scarecrows; it is the remains of the marooned d'Artois expedition. But the 'rescue' party is now just more hungry mouths to feed, and the promised help is now known not to be coming -- they are an unwelcome arrival.


8. Erik falls ill and fails to bring food for several days; Christine can hear him coughing and raving in fever(?) next door. She is terrified that if he dies, she will starve to death. Lives on milk from cow. New steely resolve: she has lost everything she cared about and been reduced to state of animal survival. She will do anything she has to and endure anything in order to get out of this -- she no longer has anything left to lose.
   When he recovers, she tells him she will marry him. "You don't love me": no, but he needs looking after for both their sakes, and people can learn to love each other, can't they? (Note: grasshopper & scorpion scene has never taken place in this AU)
   She hopes to appeal to blacksmith and/or priest, but Erik rushes off again and comes back not with the supposedly indispensable blacksmith but with shears/clippers (and she realises that he is highly unlikely to produce a priet for a proper marriage either). He smells of horse -- that implies that he has begged a ride from some nearby neighbour (this must be how he has been getting provisions). Everyone in the vicinity has probably heard story of poor mad girl kept chained up in shed and will believe his version :-(
   Christine notices that the hut (which she is now seeing for the first time) is full of sheet music -- he has been writing a new piece on a different theme from his "Don Juan" (Persephone and Hades?) . She allows him to strip and bathe her this time once the chains are off; she no longer really cares, and the hot water is bliss. He is oddly detached about handling her. Terribly distressed by her sick and weak condition -- gives her hot milk and food from supplies he has just brought back."When you wake up it will be your wedding day -- Erik has so much to prepare" -- now she does start to panic as she realises he has drugged her to keep her from escape now she is unchained. But sleep overtakes her.
   When she wakes she finds herself dressed in a brightly embroidered peasant dress and laid out face-up on bed (creepy) The stove has burnt out and the room is cold. Erik is asleep/collapsed, looking ill and exhausted, and Christine realises this is her one chance at escape. She is tempted to kill him with poker, but can't bring herself to try (and it would be hideously dangerous if he were not quite asleep). Likewise it would be nice if she could drug him, but she doesn't know where he keeps the stuff and cannot very well administer it by force. Instead she tries to make him as comfortable as possible with blankets/covers (can she relight stove without making too much noise?) so that cold does not wake him.
   After being chained for so long she can hardly walk, and she is weak from malnutrition. Somehow she *must* flee as far as possible before he wakes - takes some provisions, and coaxes cow to let her ride her out into the night away from hut. They know each other very well by now, and animal trusts her to put arms around her neck -- somehow tolerates attempts to ride. She rode old plough-horse as a child on her father's farm, but this is very uncomfortable.
   They disappear into night (and calf presumably) with Christine clinging on, terrified by visions of Erik waking and pursuing her, frustrated by slow amble of cow but afraid of falling off. At least he cannot track her footprints...
   They come to watercourse. He father always told her to go downstream if lost, as it will lead to people. With a sob, Christine slides off and urges her reluctant steed upstream, into the woods away from everyone who might betray her.


9. D'Artois commandeers newly-arrived ship's boats and fittest men for an attempt to sail out and get rescue; he has precise bearings of their camp, he just needs to get the message out. Raoul is selected for his crew.
   

   Their boats are surrounded by whales and the men are terrified they mean to attack and overturn them. But instead they are found and rescued by a Norwegian whale catcher.

This is the point at which things become a bit hazy.
I've now learnt enough about the 'history of the modern whaling industry' to know that my original concept was all wrong: late 19th-century whalers in Norway were small, fast steamships with harpoon guns that towed their catch back to a 'shore station' to be processed immediately, not big sailing ships with try-works on board that made voyages of several years to fill up their barrels. But the captain still isn't going to want to rescue d'Artois' men if it means venturing up into the ice -- and not if he's currently towing a whale and heading for home before it deteriorates, either.
So they're apt to get taken back to the whaling station in the Varanger Fjord -- probably Vadsø. The telegraph had reached Vadsø in 1870, so d'Artois would be able to summon help; regular coastal steamers were the main means of communication between towns (the railway came later and never reached the far north)
Meanwhile Raoul is desperate to find out what has happened to Christine. She has wandered right up into the mountains (?rescued by Sami? but wouldn't she expect them to think her mad too after the earlier encounter?) and managed arrive somewhere on the Norway coast, so they can eventually meet up. But how? He would naturally want to start by getting back to Mme Valerius's house to find out what happened, which is nowhere near. Meanwhile d'Artois would expect him to form part of a putative second rescue expedition. I have a vague feeling that a sailor's pay (and presumably hence his duty) ended when his ship was wrecked, but officers may have been in a different position. However, Raoul isn't actually part of d'Artois' command...
He can't very well plead a family emergency, because he has no (sane) reason to expect one -- he doesn't even have Christine's missing letter. If he wires to Mme Valerius, he is highly unlikely to get any satisfactory answer. Does he have to desert/mutiny? I'd rather not... alternatively, can d'Artois persuade his whaler captain to land them somewhere further down the coast? (But why would he? He's in the far north... he might as well go back to base, and push the problem of the Frenchmen off on someone else.)
I thought maybe if Raoul was travelling along the coast on a steamer (?fishing boat? Presumably he has no money... can he wire for some?) he might at some point find himself looking for a French-speaker to help him, and might learn that an unknown woman was raving in French and be asked to help translate, and discover that it's Christine.
And then what? Even if by some contrivance they're reunited, what happens?

Comments

[igenlode]

Idea: d'Artois doesn't want Raoul on the relief expedition because he has become ill or [heroically?] injured during their open-boat trip. Instead he finds himself sent home by coastal steamer and with money for the trip -- in company with another, garrulous, sailor who manages to communicate cheerfully with people in pidgin Swedish and/or gestures, thus involving Raoul in the business of the mysterious French woman at an eating-house one night.

This makes my story (and Raoul's future!) a lot simpler :-)