The Wilful Eye

by Isobelle Carmody

  She took a deep breath and advanced on tiptoe towards the stairs.

  Twenty paces along, she stopped at a sound behind one of the doors. It was like nothing she’d ever heard, a deep reverberation somewhere between a purr and a snore. The beast! Fast asleep!

  According to her father, he only appeared after nightfall. Now at least she knew where he was. She didn’t have to worry about coming across him unexpectedly around some corner.

  Down the stairs and into the hall. Enticing smells of hot food drifted from the dining room. She entered, and discovered a fresh array of covered dishes spread out on the table. The fire still burned in the hearth.

  She ate bacon, sausage and boiled egg with crusty bread. Then more bread with orange marmalade. She sat facing the hall so she could keep an eye on the door, just in case.

  Where did all the food come from, she wondered. Where was the kitchen, the pantry and the servants’ quarters? There had to be servants somewhere, yet she had set eyes on no one but the beast himself.

  For the first time, she noticed a second door in the dining room: not the grand exit out into the hall, but a much less imposing affair, painted to match the colour of the walls. She finished her breakfast and decided to do some exploring.

  As it turned out, the second door was fastened on the other side. Belle shook it and heard a metal catch rattle. A catch was no problem. She took a knife from the table, worked it into the crack between door and post, and forced the hook of the catch up out of its socket. The door swung open with a gentle creak.

  She stepped forward into a dimly lit passage. This was more like servants’ quarters, with plain whitewashed walls and a floor of stone flags.

  ‘Anyone around?’ she called in a low voice. Echoes were her only answer.

  She explored further. The passage zigged to the left and zagged to the right. She passed one open door and looked in. The room was a kind of study with shelf after shelf of leather-bound books piled high to the ceiling. Hmm. Perhaps not servants’ quarters after all.

  She moved on to another open door. Here was a room with charts of symbols covering every wall, and a bench bearing vials, flasks and mixing bowls. Judging by the dust on the glassware, the room hadn’t been used in a very long time. Belle didn’t know what to make of it.

  She rounded another corner, and the dim light became even dimmer. The passage turned into a series of stone steps leading down to a wide vaulted space.

  Step by step, she descended and approached – what? The bottom of the vaulted space was like a pit filled with a litter of something pale and grey. She was halfway down before she realised she was looking at a midden of bones.

  Her muscles froze. She tried to tell herself they were animal bones, but they didn’t look like animal bones. She stared at domed skulls, ribcages and long leg bones that had been cracked open.

  Vivid pictures flashed before her mind: of travellers lost in the forest, travellers discovering a banquet laid out on the dining-room table, travellers growing drowsy with good food and wine and the warmth of the fire . . . Was that what it was all about? A lure to draw the victims in and keep them there until nightfall?

  Another thought jumped into her mind: was that to have been her father’s fate? Had he talked his way out of it with his salesman’s patter? Had he given such a glowing description of his daughter that the beast had been deflected from his meal?

  She turned and fled. Back along the zigzag passage, through the door and into the dining room. Then out into the hall, headlong towards the great front door of the chateau. She had to get away from this horrible place!

  She opened the door – and was almost knocked off her feet. The door swung back on its hinges and a blast of snow and icy wind hit her full in the face. She collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath. A mass of white whirling snowflakes surged through the hall.

  Where had the storm come from? Twenty minutes ago, the sun had been shining. Now the world outside the chateau had vanished into blank nothingness.

  She reached up and heaved the door shut, using her shoulder and all her weight to move it. The snowflakes in the hall settled to the floor as soon as the wind was blocked.

  She stepped back, shivering uncontrollably from the cold. It was certain death if she tried to get away now. In any case, her immediate panic had passed.

  She still wasn’t sure why the beast had bought her, but he must have paid a great deal. So already she was different from his ordinary victims. And wanting to eat her bit by bit – that wasn’t hunger, it was cruelty and domination. Thinking back over last night, she suspected that what he wanted was to see her in fear of his power. He wanted to reduce her to utter subjection.

  But she had refused to be a victim. She had held him off and stood up to his male rage and bluster. So long as her courage didn’t fail, she would continue to baffle him.

  She reasoned it out to herself. True, he owned a chateau and spoke words of human language, but deep down he was still a beast. If she kept her wits about her, she could run rings around his big simple brain.

  I can handle you, Mr Beast, she thought as she headed back towards the fire in the dining room. She began to plan what she would do when he turned up at dinner.

  That night, Belle sat at the dining table looking her very best. She had pinned up her hair, leaving just two curls that hung down to her neck. Perfume too: she had experimented with the bottles in her bedroom until she found a sharp rose scent that was exactly right.

  The food aromas from under the covered dishes made her mouth water. Still she held back until the beast emerged.

  At last she heard his slow heavy footfalls pad-padding along the hall. When he appeared in the doorway, his face was every bit as hideous as she remembered. But she con- trolled her reaction, and smiled.

  ‘I waited dinner for you,’ she said.

  She looked away from his face as he advanced towards the table. There was a majesty about his animal body, a fluent, natural grace. Muscles rippled under his velvet fur.

  She had divided up the cutlery that had been laid for her alone, and had transferred the contents of one serving dish to create a plate for him. Now two settings faced each other across the table. She gestured for him to take his place.

  The beast looked from setting to setting. Disconcerted already! Her plan was working.

  She lifted the lids from the dishes. ‘What will you have? Some roast beef?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but picked up a serving fork and began loading roast beef onto his plate. Her every move was deft and delicate. Instinct told her to be as different from him as possible.

  His gaze followed her as if she were some strange exotic bird fluttering before his eyes. Was he watching her hands? Recalling last night, she suppressed a shudder.

  He growled an inward sort of growl, baffled and bemused.

  ‘What about vegetables?’ she asked.

  The growl turned into a human word. ‘No.’

  ‘Just meat then.’ She served him some extra slices. ‘There you are, Mr Beast.’

  She helped herself to meat, potatoes and vegetables, then poured herself half a goblet of red wine. Still his massive, ugly head hung over his plate, unmoving.

  She put her hands together and closed her eyes.

  ‘For what we are about to receive

  May the Lord make us truly grateful, amen.’

  She hardly expected him to join in with an amen, and he didn’t. When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her – a deep amber stare that surrounded her like a sea. You could drown in a stare like that . . .

  Beware, she reminded herself. He was not only an animal but also a predator, who could turn on her in an instant. And now was the critical moment. When she started eating, what would he eat? A slice of roast beef or a morsel of human flesh?

  Outwardly calm, inwardly trembling, she picked up her knife and fork. She cut off a sliver of beef on her plate and conveyed it to her mouth. Then a portion of potato. It was like walking on t
hinnest ice.

  A rumble emerged from his throat, so low that it thrummed through the table and floorboards. ‘Female.’

  He meant her, of course. She shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m a woman. A girl if you like. Female is a word for animals.’

  A string of drool dropped from his jaws. Had she gone too far?

  Suddenly he lowered his head to his plate. A huge red tongue unfurled and lapped up slices of beef like a cat lapping milk. Belle ignored the loud slurping noises and continued with her own meal.

  She didn’t speak until his plate was empty. ‘You should call me by my proper name,’ she said. ‘My name is Belle.’

  ‘Be-lle.’ He struggled over the ‘l’ sound, which was more like a husky rasp in his mouth.

  ‘Yes, very good,’ she approved. ‘Belle. Would you like some more meat?’

  She dished the rest of the beef onto his plate, then all of the other meats she could see: ham, turkey and braised chicken. He grunted, lowered his head and devoured the lot.

  Then his eyes lifted and settled on her. The steadiness of his gaze was unnerving.

  ‘Be-lle,’ he said, and licked his lips

  She didn’t like that licking of lips. It reminded her too much of the pit of bones. She had to keep his attention directed towards cooked meat, away from raw.

  ‘Do you want some of mine?’ she asked. ‘I’ve taken more than I need.’

  She took up the serving fork, speared three slices from her own plate and transferred them to his. Since it still didn’t look enough, she added a couple of potatoes and mashed them into his gravy.

  She returned to what remained of her own meal. This time, though, he wasn’t eating. She became aware of a deep rolling growl from his side of the table. What had she done wrong? Was it the potato?

  His paw thumped down beside his plate.

  Then she realised. She had left the serving fork in the slices of beef. With his great clumsy paws, he couldn’t separate the meat from the fork or the fork from the meat.

  She smiled with relief, leaned forward and used her knife to hold down the meat while she drew out the fork. His hot breath wafted over the bare skin of her shoulders. The tickling warmth was oddly pleasant, though the smell was still revolting. When she leaned back, she felt quite flushed and giddy.

  Perhaps even the smell might improve if she could keep him eating cooked meat?

  She sipped at her wine while he slurped up his last three slices. When he looked at her again, his amber eyes seemed troubled and sad. She could almost see the thoughts labouring through his big, simple mind. Strange, how a creature so powerful could be so helpless. She felt almost sorry for him, that he was so easy to bamboozle and manipulate.

  His paw still rested on the table, and, without thinking, she reached out and put her hand over it. For one moment, she felt the luxurious, springy softness of it; in the next moment, she wanted to snatch back her hand in horror. But that might madden him.

  ‘Be-lle,’ he said, and his voice was almost a purr.

  ‘Yes, Belle,’ she agreed. ‘That’s me.’

  They were both staring at her hand, so small and pale and tender against the velvety mass of his paw. She waited a few moments more before she dared withdraw it. He was as if hypnotised, like a great engine throbbing, idling.

  She finished her main course and went on to her dessert. She was aware of the steady rhythm of his breathing as his eyes tracked her tiniest movement. She imagined herself reflected on the other side of his gaze, like her image in a mirror, with her hair pinned up and two curls hanging down.

  Neither spoke another word until the end of the meal. Then Belle laid her spoon in her dish and dabbed at her lips with a napkin.

  ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Mr Beast. We’ll have dinner like this every night, shall we?’

  The beast stirred and spoke. But the human words were lost in the animal growl.

  ‘What’s that, Mr Beast?’

  He tried again, failed again. There was a kind of yearning urgency in the sound. Perhaps better not to find out, she decided.

  ‘I’ll teach you table manners, if you like,’ she said lightly. ‘And eating with a knife and fork. You’re such a fast learner, you’ll master it in no time.’

  She rose from the table and dropped a curtsey. ‘And now I think I’ll retire to my room. Thank you again for your company.’

  She headed for the door, and he rose and followed her. Tonight, however, he didn’t halt in the doorway but continued on down the hall behind her.

  Don’t panic, she told herself. She looked back at him with a smile and a question.

  ‘You’re escorting me back as far as my room, are you?’

  The answer was a gruff rumble. Belle had no choice but to take it as the Yes of a gentleman.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  His paws were soft on the tiled floor of the hall, but made a scratching sound going up the stairs. Had she miscalculated? When she reached her bedroom door, she curtseyed again.

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Beast,’ she said.

  ‘Goodnight, Be-lle,’ he replied, and padded away along the corridor.

  By the following morning, the snowstorm had passed and the sun was shining, but snowdrifts surrounded the chateau as high as the sills of the dining-room windows. Belle couldn’t get away that day, or the next, or the day after. Gradually, the desire to escape became less pressing.

  She didn’t see the beast by day, although she could hear the sounds of his sleeping behind the door along the corridor. He appeared only for dinner, facing her across the table. By the third dinner, Belle no longer needed to divide her cutlery because two places were already set out. She still hadn’t seen the servants who did the cooking and laid the table.

  The beast never did learn to use a knife and fork; his claws weren’t fitted for the task. He did learn to lap up his meat one slice at a time, however, and to make less noise as he ate. His powers of language also improved, while Belle grew better at interpreting the deep bass notes of his pronunciation.

  She still held up most of the conversation, chatting away as he gazed at her. He stared at her in the most blatant way, which would have made her blush had he been a human male. Since he was an animal, she accepted and grew used to it.

  She mystified him, she realised. If she came down to dinner wearing a pair of earrings or a pendant from the jewellery on the dresser, he gaped at them with open jaws and hanging tongue. Or, if she did her hair in a different style, the intensity of his gaze was enough to burn her up. He was struggling to understand her – but she was in no hurry to be understood. She sensed that her tenuous control over him depended upon her mystery.

  She understood him much better than he understood her, yet she was always aware of the yawning gulf between them. Once she talked about becoming friends, the two of them, but even as she spoke, she knew it was impossible. He was too dangerous and incalculable for her to ever feel simply comfortable in his presence.

  On the other hand, she grew to half-enjoy the danger. She had developed a confidence in her own power to hold this beast in check and steer him where she wanted. And in the last resort, she knew an infallible way to gentle him, by resting her hand on his paw. The effect was magical.

  At home, it had seemed the natural state of affairs that she obeyed her father and her sisters bossed her around. Delphie was ten years older, Elise eight, and they had both been accustomed to giving orders to servants in the grand old days of wealth and influence. They had shared that period of life with their father, her father, and it was somehow the only period of life that mattered to them. As for Father, he liked to boast about his youngest daughter’s beauty, as though her beauty was the only quality worth noticing. Belle hardly existed for him as a person.

  Now she had discovered resources that her family had never suspected in her, that she had never suspected herself. Delphie and Elise would have been terrified of the beast, would have screamed and fainted at the very sight of him. She wa
s amazed at herself, to have changed so much in so short a time.

  The beast had no family so far as she could tell. He never talked about his past, and Belle wasn’t particularly eager to talk about her own. One time he asked, ‘Does your family love you?’

  The automatic response rose to her lips, then died away. She would have like to say ‘Of course’, but the beast had met her father and seen how his merchant’s mind worked. Trading away one’s own daughter wasn’t exactly a proof of love – even a beast knew better than that.

  ‘They’re family,’ she shrugged, and changed the topic.

  As the days turned into weeks, their dinnertime conversations extended further and further after the actual meal. Although spring was coming and the snowdrifts would soon start to melt away, Belle had ceased to think of escaping from the chateau. The change of seasons gave her thoughts of a different kind.

  ‘There’ll be snowdrops in the forest before long,’ she said, and pointed to the rose stalk standing in its vase. ‘We could do with some new table decorations.’

  ‘No,’ he growled.

  ‘Why not? You can’t want to look at that poor, bare thing every night. We’ll begin with snowdrops, then primroses, then daffodils. Different flowers for every month of the year.’

  For no reason at all, the beast had started to lash his tail, thwack-thwack-thwack against the floor. What had she said wrong? Did he hate the idea of her roaming around freely outside the chateau?

  ‘You’ll have to trust me,’ she told him. ‘You can’t keep me here by force once the snow has gone. I won’t be your prisoner.’

  The thwack-thwack-thwack came faster and faster. His eyes were fixed on the stalk in the vase. She had learned to read expressions on his face beyond the obvious fearsome, brutal look, but she couldn’t read this one. He seemed baffled and confused, distressed and raging at the same time.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. Something else?’

  He began to champ, and drool dribbled from his jaws. He was reverting to animal behaviour. He couldn’t explain, couldn’t find human words, couldn’t even think out the problem in human terms.