The Merry Spinster

by Mallory Ortberg

  “I am here on behalf of Mr. Beale,” the man said, although no one had addressed him.

  “He’s here for Beauty’s assignation,” Sylvia said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Where shall I put him, Mother?” But his mother did not answer.

  “I’d send you to the boathouse to meet her,” Sylvia said solemnly to the man at the door, “only we don’t have a boathouse any longer.”

  After Sylvia had been made to apologize—“You don’t really look like you speak German,” he said, “and you may come inside to kidnap my sister, and that’s as much politeness as you’re going to get out of me”—the man was fixed up with a cup of coffee, which he did not drink, at the kitchen table with the family gathered around him. The man explained what was going to happen to Beauty. He had a contract in his briefcase.

  “Is your man Mr. Beale going to do something shocking to her?” Sylvia asked hopefully.

  “No,” the man said. Sylvia kicked the legs of the table.

  “I don’t know that I want to belong to anyone,” Beauty said. “I agreed to go, but this is something else entirely.”

  “Look at it this way,” Catherine said. “Everyone belongs to someone. You’re not allowed to belong to yourself. We haven’t the money anymore and you never had the sense, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. You can’t wait out your turn. You’ll have to play, and the longer you put it off, the worse your position gets.”

  Beauty didn’t answer.

  “Here’s another way to look at it, then,” Catherine said. “Right now you belong to everyone in the family, and you can see what a mess that’s turned out to be. At least this way you’ll only belong to one person. That’s something, you know. It’s not much, but it is something.”

  “All right,” Beauty said. “I’ll go. But I won’t have a good time.”

  “No one’s asking you to,” Catherine said. “You’re the one who insisted on going in the first place, so you’re free to be as miserable as you wish to be once you get there.”

  “Can I bring my books with me?” Beauty asked, and no one objected, which was as good as a yes.

  “Call when you can,” her mother said, bursting into tears again, even though it had already been agreed that she would be allowed to accompany Beauty to the house and see that she was safely installed there.

  “I’ve packed all your socks, and the shirts that don’t make you look washed-out,” Catherine said. “The rest I’m going to burn. You have terrible taste in shirts, Beauty.” Catherine kissed first Beauty, then their mother, and shoved the suitcase hastily into the car with them.

  “Come back anytime you like, Mr. Beale’s man,” Sylvia shouted as they drove away. “You’re welcome to outrage my virtue next, but I can’t promise I’ll have any left, if you dawdle about it.”

  The house was very quiet after that.

  * * *

  They took the main road to Mr. Beale’s house, and toward evening they saw it lit up like a furnace against the horizon. The house threw off such heat from the enormous fires stoked in each room that it melted all the snow in a great ring around it.

  Mr. Beale’s man parked the car in the garage, and Beauty and her mother went back into the great hall, where the table was once again set lavishly, as if for an enormous celebration. Her mother had at first no heart to eat, but Beauty set about serving her as if they were at home, and she ended up doing modest justice to a chop and some clear soup. There was the heavy fall of footsteps just outside and the breath of something in the doorway, and then a Beast was with them. Beauty did not turn. Her mother dropped her soupspoon.

  “Has she come willingly to me?” the Beast, who was Mr. Beale, asked. “Have you come of your own accord, girl?”

  “I think so,” she said, which was good enough for everyone involved.

  Mr. Beale said, “Good.” He turned to her mother. “Woman, go home, and never think of coming here again while I am living. You might have dessert first, before you go.”

  Then Mr. Beale turned, and then there was the heavy breath of something in the doorway, and then there was the heavy fall of footsteps on the stairs, and then there was nothing.

  “I think,” Beauty’s mother said, shaking a little, “that you had better go home after all, and let me stay here, even if he does want to shoot me.”

  Beauty said nothing, and her mother hated herself a little for not meaning a word of what she had offered. “I am sorry,” she said. She meant that sincerely, at least.

  “I’ll be fine,” Beauty said.

  Her mother could not help but cry again as she left, but who can cry or even feel sorry forever? Who will not eventually clear themselves of guilt, if they live long enough? She was not so sorry that she could not find pleasure in being free of that house, and she still had two other children. So she went home.

  After her mother left, Beauty picked up one of her books and pointed her face at it and turned the pages—almost as if she were reading it. She felt sick and hot from the nearness of the fire, but decided it did not matter, as the Beast (for he was more than simply not-quite-a-man, he was quite a Beast) was likely to shoot her, or devour her whole, before much longer. Although not all Beasts eat you up in a single night.

  However, she thought she might as well walk around the house until she was eaten, or shot, as she could not help admiring it. It was—unusually for such an obviously expensive home—designed with comfort in mind. She was perhaps less surprised than she ought to have been to see a door with the words “Beauty’s Library” written over it. She opened the door and found a room of grand proportions, with hundreds of shelves built right into the walls and wrapping all the way around, each one filled with books. There was a pianoforte too, with dozens of music books, but what caught Beauty’s attention was that the books she had brought herself were already shelved with the others, although she had not put them there.

  If Sylvia had been there, he might have said: “If Mr. Beale were going to kill me, he would never have gone to such trouble building me a library first, unless he enjoyed inciting confusion as much as he enjoyed killing, in which case he would have.” But Sylvia was not there, and Beauty did not think either of those things. She took a book at random from one of the shelves and read these words:

  The library is yours.

  The books are mine.

  Your eyes are your own.

  What you read is up to me.

  Beauty put the book back onto the shelf and left the room. She found her bedroom (the words “Beauty’s Bedroom” were over the door) and sat on her bed. She did not leave her room again until late the next day. In the great hall she found dinner ready, and while she was eating, heard an excellent concert of music, but could not see the players who produced it. She had the strange certainty that she was to be often left alone but never left in private. Her hands shook so that she could not quite bring the fork to her lips without spilling anything, so she set it down. Then she laughed without meaning to.

  Later, when she was seated there again for supper, she heard the sound of Mr. Beale on the stairs, and then he was in the chair beside her. “Beauty,” he said, “will you let me watch you eat?”

  “It is your house,” she answered.

  “Not precisely,” he said, “not precisely. My house it may be, but you are the mistress here—I have made it so, so it’s legitimate—and you need only to tell me to leave, if you find me troublesome, and I will leave you.”

  “If I am mistress here”—she did not look at him—“why do I have a library full of books I cannot read?”

  “Why, Beauty,” Mr. Beale said in amazement, tilting her chin so that she had to look at him, “that is simply a matter of the division of labor. You are the mistress of the house”—he arranged his mouth in a little smile—“and I am the master of everything that is in it.” He dropped her chin and let his hand rest in her lap. “How ugly do you think I am?”

  Beauty said nothing.

  “Come, you are mistress of yo
ur own voice; speak,” said Mr. Beale.

  Beauty opened her mouth.

  “But first remember I am the master of all the words spoken in this house,” he said, pressing her hands lightly. “Remember that.”

  “I think nothing of the kind,” she said.

  “You may go to bed,” he told her, smiling. “I will finish your dinner for you.”

  Beauty rose to leave. “Please endeavor to amuse yourself in your house,” Mr. Beale said after her, “for it belongs to you, and always will, and I should be very uneasy if you were not happy.”

  Beauty had nothing to say to that. She went to her bed and lay herself down in it.

  * * *

  Beauty sat among the books all the next afternoon, but she did not open the books. She did not open the curtains. She let the hours pass over her. That night at dinner, Mr. Beale was especially kind. He inspected every oyster before he would allow one on her plate, and she ate them all. Afterward, he asked her: “Beauty, will you be my wife?”

  She was some time before she answered, for she did not yet know which words were not allowed in her house. At last, however, she said, “No, thank you.”

  Immediately he got up and smothered the fire that had been burning in the hearth. “Good night, Beauty,” he said, as cheerful as ever. “Sleep well.”

  That night, long after Beauty went to bed, she heard the careful press of feet just outside her door. When she woke in the morning, every fireplace in the house was dark, and the carpets and the drapes were full of smoke. When she went to the library, she saw the title on every one of her books had been burned away to ash.

  The next night at dinner, Mr. Beale did not enter the room but stood in the doorway. “Beauty,” he said gently, “these chairs are for my wife. Are you my wife?”

  “No, Mr. Beale,” she said.

  “Then what right have you to sit on my wife’s chair?”

  “None, Mr. Beale,” she said.

  “Where do you think you should sit, Beauty? Remember I want only for you to feel as if you are at home here.”

  Beauty took her plate and sat on the floor.

  * * *

  Beauty spent three months in Mr. Beale’s house. Every evening Mr. Beale paid her a visit and watched her eat and talked to her. Every night before she went to bed he would ask her to be his wife. One night she said to him, “Perhaps you should stop asking me this.”

  “You think I should?”

  “I think it might make you—happier—to not have to hear the same answer, at least for a while. I will stay here with you, and I do like you, and I am grateful to you for all you have given me, but I cannot marry you. I cannot marry anyone.”

  “I must grieve, then,” said Mr. Beale. “What a great misfortune is mine, to love you as I do without hope.”

  “To be fair,” she said, “you did not make our being married a part of the original terms.”

  “I did not,” Mr. Beale said lightly. “More fool I.”

  “Perhaps you would not like being married to me,” Beauty said. “I do not know how to talk to people, and I have terrible taste in shirts.”

  “If you will not marry me,” Mr. Beale said, “perhaps I will die of grief.”

  Beauty’s expression did not change. “I’m so unused to compliments. I’m afraid that I take them quite seriously.”

  “If you do not marry me,” Mr. Beale went on, “it might kill me quite dead, and then this house would have no master at all, and you would belong to no one, and no one would belong to you. For, Beauty, I belong to you quite already. Does this mean nothing to you?”

  When Beauty did not answer, he rose and pressed a thumb against her forehead. “Good night, Beauty.”

  That night, Beauty dragged the blankets off her bed and slept on the floor underneath it. Mr. Beale paced the halls all night, and he called after her, but he could not find her.

  “Your poor Beast shall die of grief,” he said. “I would not like to make a murderer out of you, dear Beauty.”

  Beauty did not come out from under the bed.

  “Yet I would happily die,” he said, “rather than cause you a moment’s unease. Is it your wish that I should die, Beauty? Tell me if you wish it. Tell me if you would like me to die and I will do it, Beauty, Beauty, Beauty.

  “Or I can beg for my life,” he said. “I can beg, Beauty.” She pressed her hands against her ears and waited. Then his footsteps fell away and were swallowed up by the house’s great silence.

  After three days had passed, Beauty came out of her room. Somewhere in the house lay Mr. Beale, and he was either quite dead or keeping himself extremely still. She went first into the kitchen and drank directly from the tap for two and one-half minutes. Then she went looking for Mr. Beale. She found him lying facedown by the front door. She prodded him with her foot, but he did not move.

  Beauty went into the back parlor and telephoned her mother. “Something’s wrong with Mr. Beale, Mamma,” she said. Then, a bit louder: “I think something’s wrong with Mr. Beale. You had better come right away.” Then Beauty went into the library and sat down. She did not touch the books, for they still did not belong to her, no matter how dead Mr. Beale may have been; she had never been his wife. She began to write Sylvia a postcard.

  SEVEN

  The Wedding Party

  They had left the window open the night before, and the late morning sunlight insinuated itself vaguely throughout the room, encouraging the growth of the fine and robust hangover that had established itself underneath David’s eyelids sometime between three and four, when he and Alison had finally gone to bed.

  “Witching hour,” he had giggled into his pillow. “I’ll take my wife to bed in the witching hour; do you think that’s much of an omen for married life?”

  “Not your wife yet,” she had said, “and not the witching hour either. It’s the devil’s hour, this hour, and I’ve got thirty—make that thirty-one—hours before you get to turn me into a wife.”

  “Thought it was witches,” he said, trying to frown thoughtfully and failing, “for the witching hour. When they”—he waved his hand in a vague circle—“witch about. As they do. Render babies for broom grease, and break clocks, and dance in the nude for the purpose of blighting crops.” He propped himself up on an elbow. “And you are my wife, or as good as, anyhow, so don’t go trying to duck out now on a technicality. What am I supposed to do with all these place settings and linens if I haven’t got a wife that goes with them?”

  Alison said nothing but dropped a palm on his face and groped around until she found his nose with her fingers and gave it an affectionate tweak. He made to grab her hand, but his limbs had turned to water at some point between the evening’s several toasts, and they merely chased themselves around, loose and pliant, before falling back at his sides.

  “I expect it’s hard for witches,” he went on, “now that most people work in shops and factories, and haven’t any crops to ruin. They must be terribly sad, those witches, to have to go from blighting wheat fields to blighting houseplants.”

  “The devil’s hour,” Alison repeated, “has nothing to do with witches whatever. Witches don’t enter into the thing at all. Hour of the crucifixion darkness, on account of how Christ died in the afternoon. The inverse, I mean. Christ died at three in the day, so the devil’s hour comes at three in the night.”

  There was a brief silence, and the room wobbled dementedly until David squeezed his eyes shut and forced everything back into its proper corner. “Terribly sad,” David said solemnly. “Terribly sad, all those poor benighted witches dancing about in the nude without even the slightest crop to ruin.

  “If you should like to dance in the nude and blight crops after we are married,” he added, “I would be willing to sacrifice a Ficus or an orchid for your happiness.”

  “Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night,” Alison mumbled into the arm thrown across her face. “Nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darknes
s, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday; a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.” Then: “You’re going to have a terrible head in the morning.”

  “I thought Harold looked awfully unwell tonight,” he said. “Didn’t you think he looked bad? Everyone said he was looking worse than a month ago.” He rolled his head in Alison’s direction and saw her eyes were already shut tight.

  “The Ninety-First Psalm, verses five through—five through something,” she said. “Harold has always looked terrible.” Then she fell violently asleep.

  Alison’s prophecy had not gone amiss; David’s hangover that morning was the sort that pushed stout men of business out of windows. He might have considered it too, but the window was all the way on the other side of the room from the bed, and his legs appeared to have been coated with some sort of fast-setting metal alloy in the night. Did alloys set, he wondered, then decided it didn’t matter.

  “I’m going to lead a finer and nobler life,” David said. He paused, noting that his tongue seemed to have tripled in weight over the night; it now appeared to terminate somewhere down in the neighborhood of his knees. “Full of integrity, and sobriety, and lemon water.” His kidneys pulsed like two fat, poisoned hearts beating in his sides.

  “Are you?” Alison asked. She did not move. “Am I going to be dragged into this new nobility, or can I merely sit back and observe?”

  “I was not speaking to you, woman,” David said. “I was addressing my hangover, who is a vigorous young squire of twenty-seven, with a wife and several children besides. Currently he is playing a game of horseshoes with ship anchors just underneath my skin, and cannot be disturbed. Also, you are lying down, and your eyes are closed, which would make observing anything a challenge, even for you.”

  “Are we going to be introduced?” Alison asked.

  “I don’t think I would like you two to meet,” he said, organizing himself into a sitting position against the headboard.

  “But look,” she said, “I think he recognizes me. It would be rude of you not to acknowledge the acquaintance.”