Rose Daughter (36 page)

The door opened to the sound of Lionheart’s expostulations,
and Teacosy launched herself at Beauty and began frantically licking her face,
making little squeaking whimpers and wagging her short tail so hard her body
vibrated down its full length, and between the counter-impulsions of wagging
and licking, her ears seemed to spin out almost sideways, in a blur like
hummingbirds’ wings.

“Saints!” said Jeweltongue. trying to lift her away, but the
dog, usually immediately amenable to anything any of the sisters suggested,
struggled in her grip and began to burrow under Beauty’s arm and side.

“Teacosy,” murmured Beauty, trying to sit up. “I’d know that
frenzy anywhere .. . you’re much worse than Fourpaws, I’d forgotten ... don’t
eat me, please.”

And then there were several minutes while the sisters simply
wept in one another’s arms, and several more minutes when no one could say
anything in particular, and then Lionheart got up to make tea. and Jeweltongue,
Beauty, and Teacosy remained in front of the now enthusiastically burning fire,
and Jeweltongue’s arms were round her sister, and Beauty’s head was on her
shoulder, and Teacosy was stretched across both their laps.

“Are you ready to talk?” said Lionheart, returning with the
tray.

Beauty sighed and shook her head—gingerly, because it felt
so odd. She felt odd all over: Her skin was overtender and faintly prickly,
like the end, or the beginning, of fever, and her thoughts spun stupidly in
place and would not connect with one another. She had a strange savour in her
mouth, as if she had been eating rose-petals. Why could she not remember the
journey here? What had happened? She had a sense of something, of some doom
near at hand, but she could not remember what it was. She did not want to
remember. “Why is it so dark? Is it the middle of the night? Where is Father?”

“It is the middle of the night—when did you arrive, my
love?—and Father is in Longchance, at the—the remains of a literary party. He
read his own poem; he was very grand! And they called him Mr Poet after! But
there was, er, a tiny accident—he’s really perfectly all right—and I came on
alone.
¹
’

“In me middle of the night,” murmured Lionheart. “How did
you know to come?”

Jeweltongue felt herself blush, but the firelight was warm
on all their faces, and none of them wanted to disturb their own little family
magic by lighting a lamp. “Well... there was this cat—”

Lionheart sat bolt upright. “But that is precisely what
happened to me!”

Jeweltongue tightened her arm round Beauty, and Beauty
looped her arms round the front end of Teacosy and hugged her, and the dog
sighed hugely on a long low note of utter contentment and fell asleep,
muttering faintly in her dreams.

The sisters found in themselves a great reluctance to
discuss anything at all. They were home in Rose Cottage, all together again,
and it was the middle of the night. They had no responsibilities;
responsibilities returned with daylight. The fire crackled; Teacosy kicked as
she ran after a dream rabbit; the roses round the kitchen window tapped against
the glass; peace pooled around them like water.

Lionheart sighed, and put her teacup down. “I will have to
go back to the Hall soon. I’m sorry. Would that I had known to bring Daffodil!
Thai’s something you don’t know, Beauty; when we tried to send her back with
the traders, they had a note from the captain saying we were to keep her, that
she was a country pony, not a city pony. So we sent half a fail—purchase price
south and will send the other half in the spring. She’s a great favourite at
the Hall. It’s the first time anyone has ever seen Dora happy on horseback,
riding Daffodil, which is a great thing for poor Dora, in that family.

* ‘Beauty, please, can you bear it? Can you bear to tell us
what happened? Even a little of it? Mostly—really—only—are you home—home—home
for—” Her courage failed her, and she could not finish her sentence.

But Beauty, to her sisters’ alarm, turned in Jeweltongue’s
arms and began to weep against her sister’s breast. “I do not know what to do!
It is all too impossible! He is very kind—and—and—oh—but his roses are blooming
again. I am sure that is what he wanted of me—” Why had she a picture in her
mind of the Beast saying.
Beauty, will you marry me?
Why would someone
so great and grand, like the Beast, want to marry her? She was beautiful, but
that would fade, unlike Jeweltongue’s skill with her needle and Lionheart’s
horse sense. She had always been the least of the sisters, called Beauty
because she had no other, better characteristic to name her as herself. She
could make roses bloom—but that was the unicorns and the old woman. There was a
little gap in the magic, that was all, and she had mended it, merely by being
there, as if she were a bit of string.

“I am sure that is what he wanted of me, and I cannot
possibly live without you and Father, but I have begun to wonder if I cannot
live without—” And here her tears overcame her, and she sobbed without
speaking. Teacosy woke up and began to lick her wrist.

Jeweltongue stroked her hair, and eventually Beauty sat up
again, drawing her hand away from the dog. “You will wear a hole in the skin
soon, little one,” she said, and took the dog’s head between both her hands,
and smoothed the fur back over her skull and down her neck and ears. “Your hair
is so thick and curly, after Fourpaws! I wonder if Four-paws—” She almost said,
“misses me,” but stopped before the dangerous words were out. Dangerous, why?
she thought; but she had no answer, only the sick, torn, unhappy feeling she’d
had since—since . .. She could not remember. How had she come here? Why could
she not remember the Beast’s last words to her? Why then was she so sure that
those last words had been important?

“Who is Fourpaws?” said Jeweltongue.

“Fourpaws is a cat I—who lives where I have been staying.
She has just had kittens. She is very pretty—rather small, grey with amber
flecks and huge green-gold eyes.”

“But that must be the cat that I—”

“But that is the cat—’’ Jeweltongue and Lionheart spoke simultaneously.

“I didn’t finish telling you,” said Lionheart. “I’ve been
horribly restless all evening, but 1 thought—I told myself—it was just the
storm. Molly came in and wouldn’t go out again—usually she sleeps in the barn,
and indeed, Mr Horsewise doesn’t like her in the house; he says she has to earn
her keep—but she wouldn’t settle down cither and kept winding through my legs
and making this fretful, irritating, hoarse little mewing till I thought—with
the wind and the rain and her going
grrup grrttp
in
anything resembling a lull—I would go mad with it.

“The storm cleared off from the east, you know: you would
have had it longer in Longchance, I think. As soon as the wind dropped, I
opened the door and pretty well threw her out, but when I tried to close the
door again, she was standing on the threshold. If 1 hadn’t seen her in time, I think
I’d’ve closed it on her, because she really wasn’t moving.

“But I was in a state myself by then. I had this
craving
to
go back to Rose Cottage. I don’t know how else to describe it. I was convinced
I’d find Beauty there, you know? Only I knew that was ridiculous. But I thought
a walk might calm me down a little, so I came out. Everyone else was asleep. We
get up early, you know, we fall asleep early. We all have our own tiny cubbies,
upstairs from the common room, so even if it’s not allowed, and it isn’t, if
you want to slip out, it’s not hard.

“Molly was thrilled, and gamboled and played like a kitten,
always coming back to me and then dashing off somewhere, and I was so
preoccupied with fighting my longing to come home 1 just followed her for
something to do ... and then discovered I was out in the middle of the woods
and had no idea where 1 was. I would have said I know every foot of woodland
around here, not just the bridle paths but the deer trails—the rabbit trails,
for pity’s sake!—but I was completely lost. And then I followed Molly because I
didn’t know what else to do.

“And then about the time I spilled out on a track I did
know—the one that runs along the length of Goldfield’s farm—and I saw Molly in
fairly bright starlight after all the shadows under the trees, I saw it wasn’t Molly.
All cats are grey in the dark, but Molly is brindle-black and
white,
and
the white shows. You see her white front twinkle in the dark of the barn when
you’re up before dawn.”

“And she came up to you to say good-bye, and when you petted
her, you noticed she was nursing kittens,” said Jeweltongue.

“Yes,” said Lionheart. “And we’d covered far more distance
than we should have been able to. One of the reasons I was so cross about being
lost is that we hadn’t been walking long—not long enough to get really lost in.
When 1 came out on the farm road, I was only about half an hour from here, and
on foot in the dark, from the Hall, it’s at least three hours. Which is why I
need to leave soon. I don’t suppose your Fourpaws will be hanging round waiting
to take me back.”

“Half an hour,” said Jeweltongue. “I guess she, Four-paws,
had to dash off to relieve Becky, who was bringing me.”

They both turned to Beauty, who was staring out the window
at her roses. “1 can’t remember.” she said softly. “I remember this morning ..
. and Fourpaws’ kittens ... and the night before ... the unicorns—oh, I
remember the unicorns!—and so I didn’t want to go into the glasshouse this
morning. There is something I cannot remember. I went to find the Beast....
Oh!” She sat up again, and leant forward to grasp Jeweltongue’s hands. “I
remember Jack True-word—the story he told—I was afraid—have 1 ruined it for all
of us?—Do we have to leave Longchance? I had to come back to see if you were
all right—”

“If we were all right!” exploded Lionheart. “You’ve been
gone seven months with never a word, and now suddenly you reappear because of
something that conceited little fop said, and you want to know if
we’re
all
right? You wretched, thoughtless brute, why didn’t you ever send
us
word
about
you?”

“Seven months?” Beauty said slowly. “Seven months? But it’s
only been seven days. The butterflies were the first morning, the day after 1
arrived, and then the bat, and the hedgehogs, and the spider, and the toads,
and this morning was Fourpaws’ kittens—seven days.”

“Dear,” said Jeweltongue, “it’s been seven months for us.”

There was a silence. “I’m so sorry,” said Beauty.

Lionheart slid to her knees beside Beauty, and took her
hands away from Jeweltongue, and held them tight. “I’m sorry—sorrier. I’m sorry
I shouted. You would have sent word if you could—even if it had been only seven
days. It’s just... it’s been so long, and we knew nothing.”

“It’s been so long,” agreed Jeweltongue in a low voice. “And
we can’t let Father know how it troubles us,...”

“Hardest for you,” said Lionheart to Jeweltongue, though she
still held Beauty’s hands, “We’ve had to pretend that we know you’re all
right—we’re sisters, our hearts beat in each other’s breasts, we
know
—and
also, it’s Father who has the aversion to magic. If it comes up at all, then he
berates himself, and he’s still not strong, you know; he’s never really been
strong since we left the city. So it’s all been up to us. And Jeweltongue is
here, day after day, every day.”

“I’ve dreamt of you,” said Beauty. “I dreamt of Mr Whitehand—”

“Yes,” said Jeweltongue. “We became engaged late in the
spring.”

“And of Aubrey True word—”

Lionheart said suddenly: “That day Molly was behaving like a
lunatic, as if she could see someone who wasn’t there, was that you? When
Aubrey first told me he knew I—’’

“Yes,” said Beauty. “And tonight—was it tonight?—I—”

“I saw you,” said Jeweltongue. “I
saw
you, sitting in
Mrs Oldhouse’s parlour.”

“But what about Jack’s story? He means us harm,
if—Lionheart, 1 dreamt of a day when you told Jeweltongue and Father about
Aubrey, but that you didn’t dare, because of the curse, because of the stories
people were telling about my going away .. . because of Jack—”

It was Lionheart’s turn to blush. She stood up abruptly and
went to refill the kettle. “I—I’m brave enough about some things. Not about
others. When we had to leave the city, I thought I’d die. Not for grief, or
even anger, but more from a kind of... amazement that the world could be so
unlike what I had thought. And then. . . fear. Fear for all those things I
didn’t know. I would get up in the morning and look at my petticoats, and my
stockings, and my shoes, and my dress, and I didn’t know which one to put on
first. or whether my shoes went on my feet or my head. I would decide they went
on my feet from the shape. How could I live when I knew nothing?”

“Darling heart, we al! felt like that.” said Jeweltongue.

“And people like Jack... terrify me,” continued Lion-heart,
as if she had not heard. “It’s why J hated your salons so much, Jeweltongue.
I’d rather face a rogue horse any day. Horses are honest. You know where you are
with horses,”

“You know where you are with people like Jack True-word,”
said Jeweltongue. “You are in the presence of form without substance, sound
without meaning, clatter without articulation.”

“Stop it,” said Lionheart. “If you mean dog droppings and
green slime, say it.”

“Wait,” said Beauty. “Jeweltongue, you were frightened tonight.
I saw it.”

“Was I? Yes, I suppose I was,” said Jeweltongue. “You see,
since you went away ... anything to do with magic, I cannot help wondering if
it has anything to do with you. I keep wanting to know more about spells and
enchantments, but I don’t want to know, for fear what I learn will be worse
than not knowing. But there is no magic in Longchance; there is no way to ask
tactfully, there is no way to ask for comfort, . . and what made it worse, although
not the way you mean, is that it’s true Longchance has been whispering little
tales about your going away, dear, but they’re hopeful—and embarrassed—little
tales. You see, Longchance has never quite given up the idea you’re a
greenwitch, because the roses bloomed for you, and while the last green-witch
disappeared mysteriously too, the roses stopped blooming when she went, and
we’ve made no secret of it that we’ve had a garden full of roses this year too.