What was it he’d told Ravenna? The closer you an’ I get, the more likely something will happen t’one of us.
Well, something had happened. Without being able to explain it, Paul knew the fellah wasn’t coming back. He sensed it in that moment when James walked away, for how else could Christian’s timing be interpreted? It’s too perfect, Paul thought. Here I’ve finally gotten it together with Ravenna, and now this guy’s gone missing?
Of course Paul was responsible, he saw that much.
The funny thing about it was Paul didn’t suffer. When a service was held for Christian two weeks later, when Mr. Orchard read from the Twenty-third Psalm and asked for a song to be played below decks, Paul felt OK with it. He really did. He began “Claire De Lune,” but he was thinking how Ravenna’s history books had claimed she’d been destined to marry, be abused and then widowed by Lord Launceston. Now how could she marry a fellah who’d died? Indeed, she couldn’t—and that was just the point. Christian had done much more than merely add himself to Paul’s list of funerals. Somehow he’d managed to mess things up.
History’s been subverted, Paul thought, and with an overwhelming sense of relief, like a torrent the notes rushed out of him as he threw himself into Debussy’s music. He played recklessly, joyfully, and by the time he’d finished and a speech had been made about Christian’s peerage, Paul was thinking just one thing: If Christian’s gotten it wrong and died, then maybe I can get it right and live.