The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘I must ask you something.’

  Marie stared up into his serious face, and her lips parted in an expression of surprise.

  ‘I have known you only since the spring,’ he said urgently, ‘and I know I cannot offer you anything like the life you used to lead. But I beg you will consider my poor offer kindly when I ask if you will accept my hand and my heart in marriage.’

  Marie said nothing, but her eyes filled with sudden tears and she lifted her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Do not answer me now,’ said Dufour, a little breathlessly. ‘Think on it for a day. Your father might well still turn his fortunes around – I know the Vicomte has employed his services. It might not be wise to settle yourself if there is a chance of something better.’

  ‘You want me?’ Marie whispered, sounding shocked.

  ‘With all my heart,’ said Dufour, his voice catching. He looked worried.

  ‘But—’ said Marie, disbelievingly. She took a shaking breath. ‘You love me?’

  Dufour nodded. ‘Think on it,’ he begged. ‘I know I cannot expect—’

  ‘René,’ interrupted Marie, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I don’t need a day. Or a moment. Yes! My answer is yes!’

  Dufour’s eyes lit up and he let out a great sigh of relief. He took up Marie’s hand and kissed it fervently. Then his face became serious again.

  ‘Marie,’ he said in a voice that trembled ever so slightly. ‘I insist you sleep on it. I will come again tomorrow and if your answer is still yes, I will speak to your father.’

  Marie drew his hand to her lips and kissed it just as ardently as Dufour had kissed her a moment before.

  ‘If you like,’ she said. ‘It will not change.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Dufour, trying to look serious, but unable to hide his delight. ‘I will come to the Crossed Keys to bring you home tomorrow.’

  He lifted her hand to kiss it again, but Marie tugged it aside, tilting up her face. Dufour’s face broke into a foolish smile and he took her face in his hands. Their lips met.

  Long moments passed.

  Eventually he let her go, grinning sheepishly. Marie’s face was radiant. Dufour clambered reluctantly up into the cart, still holding her hand.

  ‘À bientôt,’ she whispered.

  He bent and kissed her hand once more before urging his horse forward. Marie watched until he was out of the reach of her small lantern and went inside, covering her smile with her hand.

  For some reason she chose not to share her news with Claude or her father that night. But, after they had gone up the bare, wooden stairs to bed, she sat down in the kitchen with her pen and some paper.

  ‘Dear Isabeau,’ she wrote. ‘I have some news. It is so momentous and so delightful, perversely I must keep it to myself for just tonight. I don’t know why. For it will make Papa and Claude so very happy. But, just for tonight, it is my secret.

  ‘Which does not offer any rational explanation for why I am now about to tell you my news. Happiness has made me capricious. You see, darling Isabeau, tonight René asked me to marry him. Now, this next part is the most irrational of all. You see, I tried to say yes. Even now, every part of me is thrumming with the chant of “Yes and yes and yes again!” But, perverse man, he would not let me. He said I must think on it for a day and give him my answer tomorrow. His excuse was Papa might yet right his fortunes and then I could do better for myself! Obscene! Outrageous! Unthinkable! I stamp my foot!

  ‘If Papa won every cent of his fortune back tomorrow, I would gladly turn my back upon all of it for the chance to be a farmer’s wife. A particular farmer’s wife. Ah! My darling René!

  ‘Wish me happy, dear Isabeau! Perhaps you will receive my letter tomorrow morning, with your breakfast, and you can feel smug that you, of all my family, knew it first.’

  Marie sealed up the letter and went and put it in Isabeau’s box upon the mantelpiece. Then, before she went up to bed, she did a little dance about the empty parlour by the light of the glowing embers in the fireplace.

  I watched her go, a curious mix of conflicting emotions stirring in my breast. I was very happy for her. I was. It was most satisfying to see that courtship come to its desired conclusion. But, even so, I knew a pang of envy for Dufour, who had asked and been answered upon the instant, with such perfect frankness and affection, even while he sought to delay Marie giving him her answer!

  All this and, once more, I was beset by doubts at having never shown Isabeau the glass in my study. Indeed, she had not been inside this room since the first night she spent in my house. I knew what happiness it would mean to her to know Marie was going to be married. I felt a sudden, sharp guilt for having witnessed that private moment between Marie and Dufour, when even today I had seen Isabeau staring out over the forest in apparent homesickness.

  But I still did not want to think about relinquishing the glass to Isabeau. I did not know if it would cure or quicken her homesickness. I did not know what she would think of me for using it for so long without her knowledge. So I took the only course of action open to me and stumped, growling, off to bed.

  Chapter XXXI

  I had expected Isabeau to show some elation at her sister’s news. However, when I met her in the music room the following day she was subdued and the music she chose reflected a somewhat sombre turn of mind. It suited my own mood, which had not improved overmuch since the previous evening, but I was puzzled at hers.

  When she finished, she sat staring into space for a moment, then threw me a quick, darting look.

  ‘Do you walk out this morning?’ I asked. The weather was significantly improved upon the day before.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, somewhat unenthusiastically. Then she surprised me. ‘Beast, would you mind very much coming with me?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, laying aside my book instantly. ‘I would be happy to.’

  She gave me a little wry smile.

  ‘You are very good to me,’ she said lightly, but there was something of a catch in her voice that made me wonder. ‘Solitude when I want it, company when I choose.’

  I stood and offered her my arm.

  ‘Who else have I to please?’ I asked her. ‘I have been here for so long, I am done with pleasing just myself.’

  Again, that little shadow I had started to notice lately crossed her face. But then she smiled and rose from her seat, taking my arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  In the hall we paused to don the cloaks laid out for us, side by side, before going into the gardens. The air was crisp, but after the previous day’s showers, the clouds had vanished and the sunlight shining down upon us was clear and warm. The dissatisfaction I had mysteriously experienced on Marie’s betrothal also vanished – or at least it became obscured by my happiness at Isabeau leaning close upon me as we walked.

  We walked in silence for some time, Isabeau choosing our path until, suddenly, she burst out, ‘I cannot account for it!’

  Startled, I stopped.

  ‘Account for what?’ I asked.

  She looked up at me, then away, until eventually she said, ‘I want to tell you.’

  ‘Shall I pretend to be someone else again?’ I asked. That drew a quick laugh from her.

  ‘No,’ she smiled. ‘Dear Beast. No, it is just …’ she paused again, then drew a breath and continued. ‘It means I must tell you something I perhaps should have told you some time ago. I can’t think now why I haven’t.’

  ‘I see,’ I said carefully, a suspicion of where this was leading forming in my mind. She gave me another of those quick, searching looks.

  ‘It may be you know already!’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Will you tell me?’ I pleaded.

  She cast me a look that started in exasperation and ended in a smile.

  ‘For some time now,’ she said slowly, looking down and toying with the lace of my cuff where she held my arm, ‘I have been receiving letters from my eldest sister, Marie. She gives me all
the news of my family I could wish for.’

  I held my breath. After a moment she looked up again, her eyes searching my face for my reaction.

  ‘I knew she wrote to you,’ I said. ‘I hoped you received the letters.’

  Isabeau let out a sigh as though she, too, had been holding her breath.

  ‘This morning I received a letter from her saying she has accepted a proposal of marriage,’ said Isabeau. ‘From a good man – a farmer. I know him a little. They have been friends for some time. And he has been very kind and helpful to my family.’

  ‘You don’t seem very happy,’ I observed.

  ‘That’s just it!’ cried Isabeau, stopping abruptly. ‘Why am I not overjoyed? She loves him! She has said so! And even if she hadn’t, I can tell from the way she writes about him. He will be able to provide for her very well. And if it’s nothing like what we were used to before Papa’s fortunes were ruined, it’s nothing like the good fortune any of us ever expected to meet with again! And she is so happy! So why can I not be happy for her?’

  By now our path had taken us up to the gate of my magical rose garden. It was the only part of the garden still in full bloom, although I noticed, even here, there was the odd yellowing leaf, or scarlet hip, among the summer abundance. I led Isabeau inside and we found a seat in a patch of sun, the air around us filled with perfume.

  ‘Are you really not happy for her?’ I asked her carefully.

  Isabeau looked down and scuffed one toe along the ground.

  ‘Of course I am,’ she said after a moment. ‘I am very happy for her. But then,’ she exploded again, ‘why do I feel so cross?’

  She made an inarticulate noise of frustration and buried her face in her hands. A moment later a shudder ran through her and I realised she was trying not to cry.

  I was at an utter loss as to what to do. What I wanted was to put my arms around her and hold her. Instead I patted her ineffectually once or twice on the hand. I was completely stunned when she turned and buried her face in my shoulder.

  After a minute or two her shoulders stopped shaking and she sat up straight again, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands.

  ‘So silly,’ she chastised herself fiercely. I sat by in silence.

  ‘Perhaps it’s pure jealousy,’ she said after a while.

  ‘Jealousy?’ I asked.

  ‘After we moved to the cottage,’ Isabeau sniffed, ‘they relied on me for everything. At home, I was always the extra sister, the one in the background. But at the cottage they were both so miserable, they couldn’t do anything for themselves. Now Claude has found happiness in keeping the house neat and pretty, and Marie has a garden and hens. And she’s getting married. They don’t need me any more!’ She sniffed again and new tears welled up.

  ‘Isabeau,’ I said, a little hoarse from the intense emotion closing my throat. ‘Anyone who loves you will always need you.’

  She threw me a little doubtful glance, then her shoulders sagged.

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged. ‘You are right, as usual.’ She paused, frowning.

  ‘It is so nice to feel you have some purpose, some sort of contribution to make,’ she said eventually. ‘From what Marie says, Claude has made that cottage far more homely than I ever could. They have curtains and posies of flowers and carved wooden animals ornamenting the mantelpiece!’

  I had to suppress a smile, remembering Claude’s nutcracker.

  ‘And Marie! They all think she’s a most brilliant cook and now she’s going to be married.’ Isabeau let out another frustrated huff of air and looked up at the sky, blinking away more angry tears. ‘I am such a horrible sister,’ she whispered.

  ‘Isabeau,’ I said, trying to coax her into better humour. In response to my tone she gave me a sad little grimace of a smile and I reached out to touch her shoulder again. But, as I lifted my arm, she moved towards me and I found myself with my arm about her as she leaned into my side. I could barely hear anything for the blood thundering in my ears. I was too afraid to move, in case she would suddenly fly away.

  We sat there together for several minutes until, just as my heart finally began to slow, she sat up straight, looking around, a puzzled expression on her face.

  ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ I asked her.

  ‘I heard something,’ she said, frowning. I shook my head. I had heard nothing but the pounding in my ears. After a moment, she looked back at me and smiled, a little more happily this time.

  ‘Thank you, Beast,’ she said. ‘I always feel so much better for talking to you.’

  ‘It is always my pleasure,’ I said, trying to master my voice. But the moment was broken and a short while later we walked back to the house and went our separate ways.

  Typically, after spending an hour floating in a pleasurable dream, chiefly made up of my remembrance of the warm weight of Isabeau resting against my side, I was beset by a fit of despondence.

  Perhaps her frustration and distress was the result of seeing her two sisters a fair way to being in love and married, while she remained here, with me for a suitor. She’d told me she’d had no sweetheart when she first came here. But reading her sister’s letters, filled with tales of Dufour and Villemont and the sisters’ growing affections for their beaux … Why would she not be out of sorts over yearning for something she did not have herself?

  Of course, I only succeeded in making myself perfectly miserable and jealous following this train of thought. I could not sit still. My enthusiasm for watching over the daily lives of the de la Noues had evaporated for the time being. To make matters worse, the thought of the mirror remaining a secret from Isabeau was tormenting me. She had now confessed to me her own secret – Marie’s letters. I knew the right thing to do would be to show her the mirror. Yet, still, I hesitated.

  That afternoon we met in the library and again Isabeau chose to sit by me, rather than draw. I had no idea where the flowers now came from that stood in the vase on the desk, for almost the only flowers left in the gardens were the roses. But she showed no interest in the unseasonal splendour on her drawing desk, instead coming to sit by me on the couch under the window, she at one end and I at the other.

  I read to her for a short while, but I was not much in the mood for it and Isabeau, too, seemed to have her mind on other things. Every time I looked up she was staring out the window, her eyes once more on the far-off treetops of the forest over the hedge. My ill humour began to swell as I imagined her once more thinking of her home and how it was only a matter of weeks now, really, until she would be back there.

  I paused, thinking to perhaps finish early, and she spoke.

  ‘Autumn is such a sad, dreary season this year.’ Her expression matched her solemn tone. ‘I usually like autumn. I like the change of the season, when you first start to smell the chill in the air. And the scent of fallen leaves. And the colours, of course. But this year I find I just cannot like it.’ She leaned back in the chair and looked at me mournfully.

  ‘We are a pair, aren’t we?’ she asked.

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ A little, painful ache throbbed somewhere in my chest. She shrugged, giving me one of those smiles that never failed to make me catch my breath.

  ‘We two – we are both miserable today,’ she pointed out. ‘What ails you, Beast? You are not often so glum in the afternoons.’

  I looked out the window. I could hardly tell her the thoughts weighing on my heart today.

  ‘Perhaps I, too, miss the summer,’ I said evasively.

  Isabeau gave me a long look. ‘It was a lovely summer,’ she said at last. ‘I miss being able to go and lie out in the orchard together. There was never anything more charming. How many books do you think we read, in all?’

  I smiled a little, unable to resist the pleasure of those memories. ‘Perhaps fifty?’ I suggested.

  Isabeau laughed and reached out with her foot and poked me in the leg. ‘Fifty?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Ridi
culous, Beast.’

  ‘Perhaps not fifty,’ I conceded.

  Isabeau smiled at me happily. ‘There,’ she said, sounding self-satisfied. ‘I have lifted the cloud from your brow for a moment.’

  I was struck by inspiration and, setting aside the book in my hand, I stood up. Isabeau looked up at me in surprise.

  ‘You are not going to read any more?’ she asked, and I was gratified by the disappointment in her voice.

  ‘No,’ I said, glancing out the window again. ‘I have another idea. Will you come outside with me?’ She put her hand into my paw, and I led her out through the hall, where we collected warm clothing and gloves. There was a definite nip in the air outside, but any unpleasantness this may have created was entirely dispensed with when Isabeau responded to the chill by taking my arm and huddling against me.

  ‘What scheme have you concocted today?’ she asked, looking up at me with a gleam of excitement in her eyes.

  ‘Come,’ I said. I led her down the steps and through the gardens to the lawn where the marquee had sat. Instead of a marquee, however, there were now archery targets set up against the hedge.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Isabeau, puzzled.

  ‘Do you know how to shoot?’ I asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘Then today you will learn.’

  I was perhaps not the most adept of teachers. Archery was something I had been able to practise on my own, but as a solitary pastime it offered far less satisfaction than it did with companions. So, of course, I had not practised and my skill was sadly dulled. Still, even though I did not hit my targets with anything like the accuracy I would have liked, I could teach Isabeau how to draw a bow. And she was very willing to learn. If the sight of the bare branches in the forest was a reminder of the short time I had left with her, it was easy to banish the spectre of my impending misery from my mind when I had to stand so close to her, my hands on hers, assisting her to hold the bow steady and draw it back. She was apparently content with my company also, her earlier dissatisfaction entirely gone. She happily allowed me to correct and support her grip and leaned back into me as we watched her arrows fly across the verge. Even as the cold crabbed our fingers and reddened her cheeks, it was Isabeau who called for warm cider to dispel the chill rather than return indoors.