Beauty (20 page)

the floor and burst into tears. “All right, I don’t seem to be able to stop you,” I said between sobs, “but I will
not
leave the room.” I wept myself to silence and then sat, still on the floor, with my abundant skirts anyway around and under me, staring into the fire. I took the pendant off, not in any hope that it would stay off, but just to see what it was: It was a golden griffin, wings spread and big ruby eyes shining, about

twice the size of the ring I wore every day and kept beside my bed at night. For some reason it made my tears flow again. My face must have been a mess, but the tears left no stain where they dropped onto the

princess’s dress. I meekly refastened the griffin around my neck, and it settled comfortably into the hollow of my throat.

I knew he was there, standing uncertainly before my door, several minutes before he said, tentatively:

“Beauty? Is something wrong?” I was usually changed and downstairs again in less than half the time I had spent sitting on the floor tonight.

“They’re forcing me EO wear a dress I don’t like,” I said sulkily, from the floor. “I mean, it won’t come off.”

“Forcing
you? Why?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea!” I shouted, and pulled off a few bracelets and hurled them at the fireplace. They half-turned and threw themselves back at me, and over my wrists.

“That’s very odd,” he said through the door. After a pause, he added, “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t like it,” I said sullenly.

“Er—may I see?”

“Of course not!” I shouted again. “If I didn’t mind your seeing it, why am I staying in my room? Who else
is
there to see me?”

“You care how I see you?” he said; his voice was muffled by the door, and I could be sure of only the astonishment.

“Well, I won’t wear it,” I said, avoiding the question.

There was a pause and then a roar that made me cower down where I sat and clap my hands over my ears; but I realized in a moment that it wasn’t the sort of roar I could protect myself from that way. I couldn’t catch the words. Whatever it was, I found myself hauled to my feet and tumbled in several directions at once; and when I emerged again, breathless, the fairy dress was gone. So, my sixth sense told me, were Lydia and Bessie. I was wearing a dress of an indeterminate colour somewhere between beige and grey; the only decoration was a white yoke, and plain white cuffs on the long straight sleeves. The high round collar reached nearly to my chin. I laughed, and went over to open the door. As I moved, I felt something around my neck; I put my hand up. It was the griffin.

I opened the door, and the Beast looked at me gravely. “I fear that they are angry with you,” he said.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” I said cheerfully. “What did you say to them? Whatever it was, it nearly deafened me. If deafened is the word.”

“Did you hear that? I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “It produced the desired result,”

“Shall we go down then?” he said. He turned, and waved me towards the staircase.

I looked at him a moment. “Aren’t you going to offer me your arm?” I said.

There was a silence, while we stared at one another, as if every candle, every tile in the mosaic floor and coloured thread in the tapestries, had caught its breath and was holding it as it watched. The Beast walked the few paces back to me, turned, and offered me his arm. I laid my hand on it, and we walked downstairs.

4

Summer turned gradually, peacefully, to autumn. I had been in the Beast’s castle for over six months.

I was no nearer the answer to the riddle of the magic that Lydia and Bessie hinted was laid on the Beast and his estate; nor did my sixth sense develop any further. Or at least—I didn’t think so. I found I could read more of the books in the library with comprehension; if I stopped and tried deliberately to envision, say, a motorcar, I managed only a headache, and my reading was spoiled. But if once I slipped into an author’s world, nothing in it disturbed me, and I could slip out of it again when I closed the book. But perhaps there was nothing really mysterious in that. I had accepted Cassandra and Medea, and Paris’s choice among three goddesses as the reason for the Trojan War, and other improbables long before I read about steam-engines and telephones; I had accepted my life in this castle, for example. The principle

was probably the same.

I continued to listen to Lydia and Bessie’s conversations without acknowledging that I could hear them, but I learned nothing that was useful. I had trouble, sometimes, when I inadverte ntly made comments I shouldn’t have been able to make. But Lydia was straightforward and trusting and never—I think—suspected. Bessie may have; she was the quieter of the two, and I didn’t know her as well; and she said nothing that would indicate one way or another. Perhaps the Beast had warned them. I didn’t see the princess’s dress again, nor the convent schoolgirl’s dress, and neither of them referred to that incident; although, once or twice, Lydia said with meaning during minor squabbles: “Now we
know
how stubborn she can be.” Whereupon I won.

I occasionally heard other things talking to one another, especially the plates and trays and glasses on the grand dinner table; but they spoke in a language that I had never learned. I understood a phrase, sometimes, by not listening: It was usually something like “Here you, move over,” or “I won’t have this, it’s
my
turn,” that would spill into my mind. But mostly I heard nothing more than echoes behind the clink

of silver and crystal. This, with Lydia and Bessie, served to make me feel far less lonely; and the castle never again seemed as immense and solitary as it once had after I’d heard, once or twice.

“Hsst—wake up, you,” and seen a startled candle burst into flame.

And I always knew where the Beast was. If he was at a good distance, I could ignore him. If he was nearby, it was like listening to the soughing of wind through tall trees—it was there, and while I could choose not to pay attention to it, I couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist. Usually this latte r situation prevailed.

“Beast,” I said, exasperated, about a week after the night I’d fainted, “do you always lurk like this?”

“I like to watch you,” he said. “Does it disturb you?”

“Oh—well,” I said, off balance. “I suppose not.” When I looked out over the forest from my bedroom window there was
a
rosy flush of autumn leaves among the evergreens, and I began to wear a cloak again on the afternoon rides. I thought of my family as little as possible, putting them out of my head, and resisting any attempts to return to them. Although I had almost contrived to forget what the Beast had said that night many weeks ago, just before I fainted, it was nonetheless the reason that I had since then chosen never to think about the future. When I did remember my family—and I dreamed of them very often, nor were they ever far from my conscious mind, even if I would not entertain them there—I thought of them as I had left them. I avoided thinking about how much the babies must have grown, and whether Ger and Father had had time to build the extra room on the house as they had planned. I never allowed myself to think about seeing them again. And much deeper than all of this in my

mind, where I probably couldn’t have reached it even if I had wanted to, was the thought that I couldn’t leave my Beast now even if the opportunity were offered. I still wanted to visit my family, and I missed them desperately; but not if leaving this world to return to theirs meant that I could not come back here.

But I was only dimly aware of the smallest part of this. Consciously I understood only that to save myself needless pain I must not think about my life before I had come to live in the castle.

And every night before I left him in the dining hall the Beast asked, “Beauty, will you marry me?” And every night I closed my eyes, my heart, and my mind, and replied, “No, Beast.”

This magic land was not entirely free of the lashing storms of autumn. In October there was a day heavy and grey with foreboding, and that night I had difficulty sleeping, as the clouds crept lower and lower, and hung themselves balefully around the castle’s high towers. It was past midnight when the rain

finally broke through; but even then it was nearly dawn when I fell uneasily asleep, and dreamed. I dreamed of my family, as I often did, but never before had I dreamed of them with such vividness.

They were eating breakfast—I could even smell the thick porridge as Grace spooned it into bowls.

Everyone sat around the kitchen table, and there were two conversations going on at once. Ger and Father were having a friendly argument over the cutting of floorboards; Hope was telling Grace that Melinda had managed to find some thread from her own large supply that would just match the green cotton she wanted to make into a dress. Grace set the full bowls around while Hope cut bread, and Father passed the plate of fried ham. The babies were wielding spoons, sort of; Richard was mashing his bit of bread into the bottom of his bowl with the back of his spoon, to the accompaniment of much interesting splashing. Mercy tried to help, till their mother prevented her, and also rearranged her son’s hold on his spoon. “It’s nice to have the cool weather back,” said Grace; “cooking over the fire in the middle of summer exhausts me.”

“Yes, I like fall,” said Hope, “after harvest, when everyone has the first bit of breathing space since spring sowing. That was quite a storm we had last night, though, wasn’t it? But this morni ng is fair; it must

have blown itself out.”

“It’s funny, the way the roses never seem to lose their petals, even with the wind,” murmured Grace, and she and Hope glanced towards a vase on the table that held a dozen gold and red and white roses.

“Or the way they never grow over the windows,” said Hope, “They’ve never been pruned, have they?”

Grace shook her head.

Ger glanced over at them. “Pruned?” he inquired.

“The roses. Beauty’s roses,” said Grace. “They never need pruning. And they don’t seem to care about storms that take the heads off all the other Bowers within miles of here.”

“And after they’re cut, they live a month to the day, looking as if they had just been brought inside, and then they die in a night,” said Hope.

Ger smiled and shrugged. “It’s a good omen, don’t you think? The flowers so beautiful and all? I wonder if they’ll bloom all through the winter? That’ll make the townspeople talk.”

“I think they’ll always bloom,” said Father. “Summer or winter.”

Ger looked at him. “Did you dream about her last night?”

“Yes.” He paused. “She was riding Greatheart towards the castle. She was wearing a long blue habit, and a cloak that billowed out behind her. She waved at someone I couldn’t see. She looked happy.” He shook his head. “I dream about her—often, as you know. And I’ve noticed—oh, just recently it’s occurred to me—she’s changed. Changing. First I thought, I’m forgetting her, and it made me very unhappy. But it’s not that. She’s
changing.
My dreams are as vivid as ever, but the Beauty I see is different.”

“How?” asked Grace.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I knew where the dreams come from—whether I dream truly.”

“I think you do,” said Hope. “I believe you do. It’s like the roses; they comfort us.”

Father smiled. “I like to think that too.”

Then Mercy said in a clear thin treble: “When is Beauty coming home?”

Her words were like a rock in a quiet pool that I, the dreamer, was looking into: I saw only the beginnings of wonder, surprise, and a little fear in the faces of the rest of the family before the image was

shattered, and my sleep with it. My first coherent thought, as I awoke, was: I was wearing the blue habit yesterday; I saw the Beast, and waved at him, as we cantered back towards the castle.

Dawn came clear and pale through my window. The storm was blown away and the sky was blue and cloud—

less. I was still tired; I nodded over my teacup, and walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden.

“Good morning, Beauty,” said the Beast.

“Good morning,” I returned, and yawned. “I’m sorry. The storm kept me awake most of the night.” I was tired, and didn’t mean to add: “And I had an upsetting dream just before I woke up,” and I yawned again, and then realized what I’d said.

“What was it?” he asked.

“It’s not important,” I mumbled. We had been walking towards the stable as we spoke, and I went inside to let Greatheart out. He ambled through the door, pricked his ears at the Beast, and wandered off

in search of grass. The meadows were still wet from last night’s rain; I was wearing boots, but the hem of

my dress was soon soaked through.

After several minutes’ silence, the Beast said: “Was it about your family?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, and changed my mind. I nodded, looking down and kicking at a daisy.

It shook itself free of raindrops that the sunlight turned into a halo, “Must you read my mind?” I said.

“I can’t,” said die Beast. “But in this case your face is transparent enough.”

“I dream about them a lot,” I said, “but it was different this time. It was like watching them—it was as if I were really in the room, except they couldn’t see me. I could see the knots in the wood of the table—not because I remembered them, but because I saw them. Ger had a bandage wrapped around one thumb. I recognized the shirt Father was wearing, but it had a new patch on one shoulder. I
saw
them.”

The Beast nodded. “Did you hear them too?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “They—they were talking about me. And the roses. My father said he had dreamed about me—I was riding towards the castle, I was wearing my blue habit, and I looked happy.

He said he wished he knew if he dreamed truly; and Hope said she was sure he did, that the dreams and the roses were to comfort them.”

“She’s right,” said the Beast.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“The roses are mine,” said the Beast. “And I send the dreams.”

I stared at him.

“He dreams about you nearly every night, and tells die rest of your family about it the next day. It does comfort them, I think. I am careful not to let him see me.”