Beauty (21 page)

“How do you know? Can you see them?” I said, still staring.

He looked away. “Yes; I can see them.”

“May I?”

He looked at me, and his eyes were unhappy. “I will show you, if you wish it.”

“Please,” I said. “Oh, please show me.”

I put Greatheart away, and the Beast took me back inside the castle, up stairs and down hallways and up more stairs to the room I had found him in on the very first night. He closed the curtains and the door, and I noticed that the small table that stood behind the Beast’s armchair glittered strangely. He went over to it and peered at it; then he picked up a glass that stood on the mantelpiece, and said a few words as he poured a little of its contents onto the tabletop. He replaced the glass r and said to me,

“Come here, stand by me.”

I could see that on the table a thick plate of what looked like pale nephrite lay. The glitter had died, and there was a cloudy grey swirling like harbour water just after the turn of the tide. It cleared slowly.

I saw my sisters in the parlour, Grace was sitting, head in hands, and Hope stood in front of her, hands on Grace’s shoulders. “What’s wrong, dearest?” she said. “What’s wrong?” Morning sunlight streamed in the window, and I heard Ger’s laugh, faintly, from the shop. “Is it something about Mr.

Lawrey? I just saw him leaving.”

Grace nodded slowly, and spoke into her hands. “He wants to marry me.”

Hope knelt down and pulled Grace’s hands away from her face, and they looked at one another.

“He has asked you?”

“Not quite. He’s much too proper—you know. But his hints—and he just told me that he wants to

‘speak’ to Father. What else could he mean?”

“Of course,” said Hope. “We’ve suspected all summer that this was coming. Father will be pleased—he thinks Mr. Lawrey is a very good sort of young man. It’ll be all right. You’ll make a lovely minister’s wife, you’re so good and patient.”

Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.” The tears spilled over and ran down her pale face. Hope reached out and touched her sister’s wet cheek with her hand. Her voice was a whisper too. “You’re not still thinking of Robbie, are you?”

Grace nodded. “I can’t help it,” she said through her tears. “We never
knew.
And I don’t love Pat Lawrey—

I still love Robbie. I can’t seem to think of anyone else. I can’t even try to. Have I been terribly unfair to Mr. Lawrey?”

“No,” said Hope, as if she weren’t quite sure. “No, don’t worry about that. But Father will encourage him, you know, and he’ll start courting you in earnest. Oh, my dear, you must try to put Robbie out of your mind. You can’t waste your life like this. It’s been six years.”

“I know,” said Grace. “Do you think I’ve forgotten a day of it? But it’s no use.”

“Try,” said Hope. “Please. Mr. Lawrey loves you and would be good to you. You needn’t love him as you did Robbie.” Hope’s voice was unsteady and she had begun to weep also. “Just be good to him—time and his love for you will do the rest. I’m sure of it. Please, Grace.”

Grace looked at her like a lost child. “Must I? Is this the only way left to me?”

“Yes,” said Hope. “Trust me. It’s for your own good—I know it. And it would please Father so much. You know how he worries about you.”

“Yes.” Grace bowed her head. “Very well; I will do as you say,” she whispered.

The mist gathered around the picture again, and then across it, and my sisters disappeared. “Oh, poor Grace,” I said, “poor Grace. I wonder what did happen to Robbie?”

As I spoke, the mist disappeared like a fog before a high wind, and a man stepped down from a ship’s side to the dock. There was a brisk wind blowing across a harbour I knew well: I had grown up on it and beside it, I could see one of the warehouses that used to belong to Father. It had had a new addition built onto it, and it was freshly painted. The ship the man left was two-masted, but the second mast had been snapped off a third of its length from the deck, and a spar lashed to the stump. The rest of the ship was sadly battered also; there were gaps in her railing, hasty patches on her sides and her deck; most of the forward cabin had been torn away, and canvas sheeting turned the remains into a sort of tent. The men who manned her were ragged and hollow-eyed, nor were

there many of them; but they stood to attention with a pride that showed in their faces and in their bearing. Several men from the shore came hurrying up to the one who had just stepped off the ship.

They

made a curious contrast: These men were stout and healthy, and well-dressed. The man they confronted

was much taller than they, but thin and pale as if he had been very ill recently and had not yet fully recovered. His black hair was streaked with white.

“Please excuse me, masters,” he said; “we lost both our skiffs over the side during storms. I thought it would be best to tie up at the dock rather than trust to luck in hailing another ship in the harbour. You see,” he added with a grin, “I’m afraid we’ve lost our anchor also, and the old tub is leaking so fast that I thought it would be well that my men be near enough to leap ashore when the time comes. We’re not fit

for much swimming.”

I recognized the grin when I hadn’t recognized the man. It was Robbie.

“But who are you, sir?” said one of the men who approached him.

“My name is Robert Tucker, and my ship—what’s left of her—is the
White Raven. I
sail—or I used to—for Roderick Huston. I set out six years ago with three other ships: the
Stalwart,
the
Windfleet,
and the
Fortune’s Chance.
I’m afraid we ran into rather more trouble than we were expecting.” I couldn’t see the faces of the men he was talking to. One young lad, dressed like an office boy, detached himself from the group and ran off to spread the news. After a pause, Robbie went on: “Can you tell me what’s become of the other three? We lost track of them entirely, four years ago, during a storm—the first storm,” he said wryly. “And where might I find Mr. Huston? Things have changed, I see, since we’ve been gone,” and he nodded towards the warehouse I had noticed. “He must have written us off long since. We’ve not been anywhere that we could well send a message from. I tried, once or twice, but I don’t suppose they ever arrived.”

And then the mist obliterated the picture once again, and I found myself staring at the top of a table in a dark room in the Beast’s castle, “Robbie,” I said. “He’s come home—he’s alive! And Grace doesn’t know—oh dear—Beast,” I said, turning to him, “is what I’m seeing happening now? Has Robbie only just docked? And Grace only just had her conversation with Hope?”

The Beast nodded.

“Then it’s not too late,” I said. “Yet. Oh dear. If Robbie sets out for Blue Hill today it’ll take him nearly two months—and he wouldn’t, besides: He’ll stay and see to the ship, and his men. And he’s not well—you can see that just by looking at him. I wonder if he’ll even send a message. You can never tell with these desperately honour-bound people; he may think he has to put it off for some reason. Oh
dear,”
I said. I walked away from the table, and paced up and down the room several times. The Beast wiped a cloth carefully over the table and then sat down in the big chair near it, but I was preoccupied and paid him little attention. “Grace must be told. If she gets herself engaged to that young minister—if she even feels that she’s encouraged him to believe that she would accept his suit—she’ll go through with

it. She’ll feel she must, Robbie or no Robbie.

“Beast—could you send her a dream—telling her about Robbie?”

He shifted in his chair. “I could try, but I doubt that I would be successful. And even if I were, she would not believe it.”

“Why? Father believes.”

“Yes, but he wants to—and there are the roses that remind him that there is some magic at work.

Grace often dreams that Robbie is safely home. She knows that the dreams are wraiths of her own love, and so she has trained herself not to believe. She would not believe any dream I sent. And—well—both your sisters’ minds are strongly pragmatic; I’m not sure I could send them anything at al l. Your father is different—so is Ger, for that matter; so is Mercy. But neither your father nor Ger would mention dreaming of Robbie, you know, to save your sister pain; and Mercy is too young.”

I paused in my pacing. “You know a great deal about my family.”

“I have watched them many hours, since your father rode home alone. They have grown very dear to me, perhaps for your sake; and I have watched to see that they were well.”

“Then let me go home—just for a day—an hour—to tell Grace. She mustn’t marry Lawrey—she’ll be miserable for the rest of her life, after she finds out that her heart was right about Robbie. And then they’ll know too that I’m all right, that I’m happy here, that they needn’t worry about me anymore. And then I’ll come back. And I’ll never ask to leave again. Please, Beast. Please.” I knelt down in front of him and put my hands on his knees. The room was still dark, the curtains unopened, and his face was hidden in the darker shadows of the wing chair; all I could see was a glitter of eyes. There was a long silence, while I could hear nothing but the quick heave of my own breathing.

“I can deny you nothing,” he said at last, “if you truly want it. Even if it should cost me my life.” He took a deep breath; it seemed that he would suck in all the air in the room. “Go home, then. I can give you a week.” He leaned forwards. There was a bowl of roses on a what-not at his elbow; he lifted out a great red one, like the one Father had brought home nearly eight months ago. “Take this.” I took it, the stem still wet, cool against my fingers. “For a week it will remain fresh and blooming, as it is now; but at the end of the week it will droop and die. You will know then that your faithful Beast is dying too. For I cannot live without you, Beauty.”

I looked at him, appalled, and with a little gasp and gulp I said: “Can you not send me as you send dreams? It would be much swifter. And—and you would know when to bring me back, before—anything happened.”

“I could,” he said. “But you must take Greatheart with you, and I cannot send him thus, as I have already told you; it would drive him mad.”

“He could stay here, with you,” I said.

“No; he suffers me only for love of you. You must take him with you. If you leave at once, you will be home in time for supper.”

Those words, “home in time for supper,” filled my whole world and echoed in every part of my head, and I spared no further thought for any of my scruples at leaving the poor Beast. All the longing to see my

family mat I had suppressed so urgently over the last few months surged and poured into me till I could scarcely breathe. I stood up, looking through the thick walls of the castle to a little house on the far side of the enchanted forest.

“Wear your ring,” said the Beast, “and remember me.”

I laughed, and my voice was shrill with excitement. “I couldn’t forget you, dear Beast,” I said, and bent down, His hands lay, fingers curled a little upwards, on his knees; I kissed the right palm, and looked into the shadows for a moment, where his eyes watched me. The glitter of them was strangely bright, as if reflected by tears; but that must have been the blur in my own vision. As I turned away, I saw

his right hand close slowly.

I ran to my room, down a hallway and around the first corner, pulled out a silk scarf, and bundled a few things into it; then a loaf of bread from breakfast and a few oranges into another scarf, and knotted them hastily together. It did not occur to me, that day, to wonder why breakfast had not yet been cleared

away. I grabbed my cloak and bolted downstairs. Greatheart knew at once that something was up. I fastened the rose to his headstall as I had done with another rose, when we had first followed the path that we were about to retrace. I pushed my small bundles into the saddle -bags, and mounted; Greatheart

had thundered into a canter before I was settled in the saddle. I grabbed the reins.

The silver gate winked at us across the meadows; we were beside it, it seemed, before I had my feet in the stirrups. But when I looked back, the castle was far away, the gardens only a memory outlined in delicate green. I pulled Greatheart to a halt for a moment, a strange and unexpectedly queasy moment for

me; but I thought, Nonsense; I’ll be back in a week. We jogged through the gate, and it swung silently shut behind us.

I had no idea of direction, hadn’t thought to ask the Beast before I left, but Greatheart jogged steadily along the carriage-road as if he knew where he was going. I remembered that the road ran out within a few miles of the grey gates; but the dark afternoon shadows lengthened across the sand-coloured road, and it still showed no sign of ending. I had a queer, sixth-sense feeling that just beyond the first shadow up ahead that I couldn’t see through, the road ended, but had unrolled as far as the next shadow by the time we had reached the first. Great-heart trotted tirelessly; I knew that we still had a long way to go, and we should reserve our strength, but when I slackened the reins, the horse leaped forwards into a gallop. I let him run, the sun sparkling in his pale mane as it lifted and fell with the

motion, the pale road unfolding just beyond the edge of sight.

We stopped once, and I slacked the girths and fed Greatheart pieces of bread and orange, but we were both eager to go on. I tried to make him walk, but he fretted so that I told myself that he was wasting more energy than if I let him jog; so we jogged.

The sun sank beyond our sight, and twilight crept out from behind the trees and spread across our way; the road glimmered faintly. Then something else, a golden glimmer, showed among the trees for a moment and was gone. Then it showed again. It might be lamplight from a house. I leaned forwards and Greatheart broke into a gallop again, and galloped till the reins were slippery with sweat; and then we burst through the border of the trees, and we were in the meadow behind the house, lamplight gleaming

through the kitchen window, gold-edging the roses that hung near it, and laying down a little golden carpet on the grass verge between the back door and the kitchen garden. Greatheart plunged to a stop, then threw his head out and neighed like a war-horse. There was a moment of dreadful silence, then the back door flew open, and Hope said, “It
is
Greatheart!” and I slid out of the saddle and ran to the door.