Rose Daughter (16 page)

Dinner was laid in a hail so tall and wide that both walls
and ceiling were lost in darkness, though there were several many-armed
torcheres clustered round the end of the table nearest them as they came
through the door. The Beast held the chair at the head of the table for Beauty;
she settled herself in it reluctantly, and it was not till he had sat down some
little distance from her that she realised there was a place setting only for
her. “Do you not eat with me?” she said in simple surprise.

He lifted his shoulders and spread his hands—paws. “I am a
Beast; I cannot eat like a man. I would not disgust you—in any way I can
prevent.”

Beauty bowed her head. When she looked up, her plate had
been served, though she was quite sure the Beast had not moved. She ate a
little, conscious of the Beast’s silent presence. (What is he looking at? said
the little voice in the back of her mind. Even sitting down, he is—so very
large. Look! One of his hands—half curled, there, as it lies—one of his hands
is as large as—as large as that bowl of fruit. And see! The nails are as long
as your fingers, shining and curved like crescent moons, the tips sharp as poignards....)
She finished quickly, saying, “1 fear I am not very hungry; it has been a—a
long and tiring day. I must ask you to forgive me—again.”

The Beast was on his feet at once, his gown eddying round
him, briefly blocking the brightness of the gold and silver bowls and dishes on
the dark table. “Again I say to you that there is nothing to forgive. If I were
to have my will in this, I would ask that there be no talk of ‘forgiveness’
between us. I have not forgotten—I will not forget—on what terms you are here
at all.”

Beauty, for alt her desire to trust him, to not fear him, to
remember her pity for him, could think of no response to this. “I—I will be
clearer-headed in the morning,” she said faintly. She stood up and turned
towards the door.

“Beauty, will you marry me?” said the Beast.

For a moment the panic of the corridor, and of the dream,
swelled up in Beauty’s mind and heart again, but as she put her hands on her
breast, as it” to press her heart back into its place, the little wind her
hands made blew the smell of roses to her again. She sighed then, and more in
sadness than in fear she whispered, meaning the words only for herself, “Oh,
what shall I say?”

But the Beast had heard. “Say yes or no without fear,” he replied.

She raised her eyes; again he stood in shadow, and she could
not see his face. The candlelight made a silhouette of him; she knew he
fidgeted with the edge of his robe with one hand because she could see the
cloth judder and jerk. She could not see his face. ‘‘Oh, no, Beast,” she said.

The Beast nodded once and then turned and left her, disappearing
into the darkness towards some other way than that by which they had entered,
moving perfectly surely into the blackness; her last glimpse was of a shimmer
of long hair sliding over one shoulder.

She had no recollection of making her way back to her rooms,
undressing, or climbing the little stairs by her bed, but she woke hours later,
staring at the canopy, not sure if she was awake or dreaming still, for she had
been walking down a dark corridor full of the smell of roses, and she had been
hurrying, hurrying, to come to the end of it, to comfort the sadness that hid
itself there.

She fell asleep again and dreamt of her sisters.

At first it was a very ordinary sort of dream. She seemed to
watch Jeweltongue and their father at Rose Cottage, going about ordinary
activities; she was pleased to see that her father seemed fit and well again,
although his hair was whiter than it had been, and his face more lined with
grief. She thought: Not for me! Oh, Father, not for me! She yearned to be there
with them, but she was not; she was an onlooker, and they were unaware of her
presence.

But then something changed, and Beauty, dreaming, did not
know what it was, only that it made her uneasy. Perhaps it was only that her
family looked so—so ordinary without her, and she wished some clear token that
they missed her as she missed them—no, that wasn’t it, for she could read the
careful look on Jeweltongue’s face, the look she had always used when she
wished to hide something, a look that had often worked on her father and her
elder sister, but never on her younger. Beauty knew Jeweltongue was hiding the
same grief that lined their father’s face, and it struck at her like the blade
of a knife. This was not right; she wanted them to
miss
her, to know
that she was—not even so very far away—in an enchanted palace, and that she
held a small embroidered heart in her hands and loved and missed them. Their apparent
grief made her feel more isolated than ever, as if the enchantment were an
unbridgeable chasm, as if she would never see them again, never hold them in
her arms and be held by theirs.... Now Lionheart was with them, whirling round
the kitchen, setting dough to rise, rolling out pastry, chopping herbs from
Beauty’s garden; and Beauty knew too what her blaze of activity meant, just as
she could read the look on Jeweltongue’s face, and again she felt the blow like
the blade of a knife, and her heart shook in her breast.

But the scene changed again, but only a very little, as if a
veil had been thrown over it, or a veil taken away; it was almost as if the
colour changed or as if the sun went behind a cloud, and Beauty remembered
Jeweltongue laying swatches of lace and netting over an underskirt and saying,
“This one, do you think? Or this one?”

Jeweltongue’s face and manner were now stiff and brittle; Lionheart’s
gestures seemed informed by an old anger.

“You shouldn’t have gone,” said Lionheart, and Beauty with a
shock seemed to hear her voice as if she were in the room with them.

“I know I shouldn’t have gone! But I did go. It’s done. I
went.”

“It was very silly of you. I don’t understand how you could
have been so silly.”

“Don’t be so dull! Don’t you ever feel... lonesome?”

Lionheart set the bowl she was carrying down carefully and
stood still for a moment. Her brows snapped together. “No,” she said
forcefully. Her face relaxed again. “But... I’m too busy. I make sure that I am
too busy. And there are always other people around—always—even when none is a
friend.”

Jeweltongue nodded, and her voice lost a little of its edge.
“Father is out all day, and Beauty is ... we don’t know when we’ll see Beauty
again, and ifl am working on something, I may see no one at all but Father in
the evenings all week. Sometimes T go along to market-day just for the company.
] have even thought of asking Mrs Bestcloth if she might let me have the little
room over her shop, to work in;
it
is only a kind of storeroom, and I
don’t take up much space. I’m almost sure she would let me; it is not only that
she knows I am good for business, she has been a friend to me. But that is why
I cannot ask her. We still cannot afford to pay rent money, even for part use
of a room the size of a small wardrobe.

“I don’t miss the city, but I do wish we could live nearer
town. If it weren’t for Beauty’s garden . . . Bui I would still wish to live in
town, where you can hear footsteps outside and voices that aren’t always your
own, even if you’re working, even if you don’t want to talk yourself.”

Lionheart shook her head. “No towns for me. But... I don’t
like wild land, like this. Oh, I know it isn’t really wild—Longchance is too
close—but it’s wild enough. Longchance is not a big town, is it? And [hen
there’s nothing much till Appleborough, and then there’s nothing at all till
Washington, which is too far away to do anyone in Longchance any good.
Goldfield is the only one who farms this end of Longchance, you know? There’s
Goldfield, us, and ... more nothing. 1 want fields, with horses in them, or
growing hay for the horses—like up at the Hall—or wheat for my bread. If it
weren’t for Beauty’s garden, I wouldn’t want to come back here cither.” With
her most ferocious scowl: “I keep thinking I see things among the trees.”

Jeweltongue tried to laugh. “Maybe they’re friendly.”

“You see them loo, do you? The ones I see are never
friendly.”

“Since Beauty ... I never used to ... I almost fancy them as
a kind of guardian, or I like to think so.... Something to do with Beauty, that
they watch over her too, or even that the Beast sends them, that Beauty has
told him . .. that he isn’t... that he is ... I would think I was imagining all
of it, except that Lydia sees them too. Silver shadows, among the trees, where
the shadows should be lying dark, like shadows do.”

Lionheart took a breath to speak, but Jeweltongue cut in
quickly: “You’re worrying about nothing, you know. His father will prevent
anything. Everything. I’m sure poor Miss Trueword has been raked up one side
and down the other for inviting me,” Jeweltongue was trying to speak lightly
and failing. “I only hope my misjudgement doesn’t prove disastrous for
business.”

“But what if the brat does decide to court you?
I
can
tell you the other stable lads think he’s smitten. They all want to tell me
about it—my friends to warn me, my enemies to gloat about the trouble it will
cause.”

“The son of the squire court a dressmaker?” Jeweltongue’s
tone was sharp as needles. “‘But you have such beautiful manners, my dear,’”
she said in a cruel imitation of Miss Trueword’s fluting voice. “A dressmaker
who is so busy saving up to have the thatch replaced on the hut she lives in
that she had to keep her hand over the hasty dam on her only half-decent skirt
all the evening that the squire’s brainless sister had invited her to supper,
which she had been brainless enough to accept.”

She put her hands up suddenly and covered her face, and her
voice through her fingers was muffled. “Oh, Lionheart, what came over me? Miss
Trueword is kind and meant to be kind to me, and she genuinely likes my work. I
do not believe it is just her vanity; she jokes that she has a figure like a
lathe and does not expect me to deck her out in frills like a schoolroom miss.
What need has she to be so clever she could cut herself on it? That has always
been my great gift. I—I think she just invited me home to meet her family
because she likes me, and the young ladies like me, and to the extent that that
amiable animated bolster the squire mar—

ried can stir herself to likes and dislikes, Mrs Trueword
likes me, and there is not—there is not much society here, is there? The
Oldhouses, and the Cunningmans, and the Took-somes, and only the Oldhouses are
... nice to have around. It was not at all a grand supper. ... Perhaps the darn
in my skirt did not matter.

“Lionheart, do you know, it was because I knew I should not
be there that I was so bright, so witty, that I talked too much? I wished to
draw attention away from the holes in my skirt... the holes in my fingers ...
draw attention away from the fact that I am a dressmaker.”

There was a little silence as the two sisters looked at each
other. “A very fine dressmaker,” said Lionheart. “I hated your salons, have I
ever told you? Full of people being vicious to each other and using
six-syllable words to do it with. Your dresses are beautiful. Jeweltongue,
love, it’s not that he’s the squire’s son—which I admit is a little awkward—but
you’re wrong about old Squire Trueword. The real problem about Master Jack is
that he’s a coxcomb and a coward. If you want to charm someone, cast your eye
over the second son, Aubrey. I grant you he is neither so tall nor so
handsome—nor will he have any money—but he is a good man, and kind, and—and—”

Jeweltongue’s real laugh rang out, and as Beauty awoke, she
just heard her sister say, “What you mean is that you approve of his eye for a
horse—”

“It was only a dream,” Beauty whispered to herself, “only a
dream,” she insisted, even as she could not help looking eagerly around her
new, strange, overglamorous bedroom for a glimpse of her sisters. Jeweitongue’s
laugh still sounded in her ears; they must be here, with her. close to her.
they must... She squeezed the little heart between her palms till her finger
joints hurt.

“Oh, I wish I knew what was happening! But I’ve only been
gone a day. It was just a dream.’’

There was breakfast on a table in front of the balcony as
she sat up, shaking herself free of the final shreds of her dream; the smelt of
food awoke her thoroughly. She had been too distressed yesterday to be hungry;
today that dis—

tress on top of two days’ unsatisfied hunger made her feel a
little ill. She slid out of bed, forgetting the stairs and landing with a
bone-jarring thump on the floor. She put a hand to the bed-curtains to steady
herself. “That is one way of driving sleep off,” she murmured, “but I think I
prefer gentler means.’*

The tea on the breakfast tray was particularly fine; the
third cup was as excellent as the first—enchanted leaves don’t stew. She held
up the embroidered heart as she drank that third cup, turning it so that
Lionheart’s hair caught the light, listening to the silence.

She was grateful there was no rose in a silver vase on the
table.

She had been too tired the night before to notice that the
nightgown she put on was not her own. She looked at it now and admired its
fineness, and the roses embroidered round the bands of the collar and cuffs. It
was precisely as long as and no longer than she could walk in without treading
on the hem. There was a new bodice and skirt hanging over the back of the chair
drawn up near the washstand, which was once again full of warm water, when she
turned away from the breakfast table. She looked at them thoughtfully while she
washed.

“These are a bit loo good lor the sort of work I have in
mind today,” she said to the air, “although I thank you very much. And I know
that you are much too polite and—and kind to have thrown my shabby old things
out, because I would be so unhappy without them, so I assume I will find them
beautifully pressed and hanging up in the wardrobe—with all the other things,
including rny nightgown, that I see have disappeared, with my knapsack, from
under the bed.”