Beauty (19 page)

I took the peacock-tin that held birdseed to the window. I leaned outside and whistled, scattering some seed on the sill as I did so. Butterflies and birds were forbidden; I was stronger than I knew, although I didn’t know why. I sighed. I certainly didn’t know why.

Little dark shadows crossed my face, and then I felt tiny feet on my head, and a sparrow perched on my outstretched hand, “Here, come down from there,” I said, gently dislodging the chaffinch sitting on my

head. We discussed the weather and the possibility of rain in chirps and blinks, and I tried to lure a robin to take seed from my hand, but he only cocked his head and looked at me. No birds were allowed.

Maybe these weren’t real birds at all, but figments invented by the castle, or by the Beast, because I’d wanted birds. They looked real; the prick of their tiny claws was real. There were never very many of them—whatever that meant. And it was true, too, that recently I had heard birdsongs sometimes when I was out riding Greatheart. Maybe the spell was weakening? Maybe I wouldn’t have to do anything heroic after all.

I had been sitting with the birds perhaps ten minutes when I began to feel uneasy. Uneasy was perhaps too strong a word. It was like trying to catch the echo of a sound so faint I wasn’t sure it existed.

Something existed that was niggling at the edge of my consciousness. I turne d my head this way and that,

seeking some plainer hint. No; it wasn’t so much like a sound as like a teasing whiff of something, something that reminded me of forests, of pine sap and springwater, but with a wilder tang beneath it.

The birds were still pecking unconcernedly around my fingers, along the sill.

“Beast,” I called. “You’re here—somewhere. I can feel it. Or something.” I shook my head. There was a brief vision, behind my eyes, of him gathering himself together to materialize out of my sight, around

a corner of the castle, before he walked around it in normal fash—

ion and came to stand beneath my window. The birds flew away as soon as he had appeared—before he walked around the corner, and I could see him. “Good morning, Beauty,” he said.

“Something’s happened to me,” I said like a child seeking reassurance. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve felt peculiar all morning. How did I know you were near?”

He was silent.

“You know something of it,” I said, still listening to my new sixth sense.

“I can see that your new clarity of perception will create difficulties for me,” he said lightly.

My room was on the second storey, over a very tall first storey, so I was looking down more than twenty feet to the cop of his head. He had not looked up at me since he had wished me good morning.

The grey in his hair seemed to reproach me for not being cleverer in understanding the spell that was laid

on him, in not being of any use to him. Today he was wearing dark-red velvet, the colour of sunset and roses, and cream-coloured lace.

“Beast,” I said gently. “I—want to apologize for my behaviour last night. It was very rude of me. I know you were only trying to help.”

He looked up then, but I was too far away, even leaning down over the sill with my elbows on the edge and my hands dangling, to read any expression on that dark face. He looked down again, and there was a pause. “Thank you,” he said at last. “It’s not necessary, but—well—thank you.”

I sat farther out on the window ledge, spraying him with birdseed as he stood below. “Oh—er, sorry,” I said. His face split into a white smile, and he said, “Aren’t you coming for your walk in the garden? The sun is getting high,” and he brushed cracked corn and sunflower seeds from his shoulders.

“Of course,” I said, and slid back into my room, and was downstairs and outside in the courtyard, running towards the stable, in a moment. I let Greatheart out, and he roamed on ahead of us like an oversized dog, while the Beast and I walked behind. When the horse had found a meadow to his taste and was settled down to some serious grazing, I sat down on a low porphyry wall and looked at the Beast, who avoided my gaze.

“You know something about what’s happened to me,” I said, “and I want to know what it is.”

“I don’t know exactly,” said the Beast, looking at Greatheart. “I have some idea of it.”

I curled my feet up beside me on the wall. The Beast was still standing, hands in pockets, half turned away from me. “Well?” I said. “What’s your idea?”

“I’m afraid you won’t like it, you see,” said the Beast apologetically. He sat down at last, but kept his eyes on the horse.

“Well?” I said again.

The Beast sighed. “How shall I explain? You look at this world—my world, here, as you looked at your old world, your family’s world. This is to be expected; it was the only world, and the only way of seeing, that you knew. Weil; it’s different here. Some things go by different rules. Some of them are easy—for example, there is always fruit on the trees in the garden, the flowers never fade, you are waited

on by invisible servants.” With a little tremor of laughter in his voice he added: “And many of the books in

the library don’t exist. But there are many things here that your old habits and skills have left you unprepared for.” He paused, “I wondered, before you came, how you’d react—if you came. Well, I can’t blame you; you were tricked into coming here. You have no reason to trust me.”

I started to say something, in spite of not wanting to interrupt him for fear that he would not continue; but he shook his head at me and said, “Wait. No, I know, you’ve gotten used to the way I look, as much as anyone can, and my company amuses you, and you’re grateful that your imprisonment here isn’t as direful as you were anticipating—being served for dinner with an apple in your mouth, or a windowless dungeon far underground, or whatever.” I blushed and looked down at my hands. “I’ve never liked
Faerie Queen,”
he added irrelevantly. “It gives so many things a bad name.

“But I don’t blame you,” he continued. “As I said, you have no reason to trust me, and excellent reason not to. And in not trusting me, you trust nothing here that you cannot perceive on your old terms.

You refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything that is too unusual. You don’t see it, you don’t hear it—for you it doesn’t exist.” He frowned thoughtfully. “From what you’ve told me, a little strangeness leaked through to you, your first night here, when you looked out your window. It frightened you—I quite understand this; it used to frighten me too—and you’ve avoided seeing anything else since.”

“I—I haven’t meant to,” I said, distressed at this picture of myself.

“Not consciously, perhaps; but you have resisted me with all your strength—as any sane person would, when confronted with a creature like me.” He paused again. “You know, the first drop of hope I tasted was that day I first showed you the library—when you were confronted with the works of Browning, and of Kipling, and you saw them. You might not have; you might have seen only Aeschylus and Caesar and Spenser, and authors you could have known in your old world.” He went on as if talking to himself: “Later I realized that this was only a reflection of your love and trust for books; it had nothing to do with me, or with my castle and its other wonders. And the birds came to you; that seemed a hopeful sign. But they came because of the strength of your longing for your old home. But perhaps it was a beginning nonetheless.

He was silent for so long that I thought he would say no more, and I began to consider what sort of question to put to him next. But there was a strange quality to my sight that distracted me—a new depth

or roundness, which seemed to vary depending on what I was looking at. Greatheart looked as he always had, large and dapple-grey and patient and lovable. But the grass he waded through caught the sunlight strangely, and seemed to move softly in response to something other than wind. When I looked up, the forest’s black edge shivered and ran like ink on wet paper. It reminded me of the spidery quaking shadows I had seen from my window on my first night in the castle; but there was no dread to what I was, or wasn’t, seeing now. This is silly, I thought; I don’t suppose you really
see
the sort of thing he’s talking about. What’s wrong with my eyes? I found myself blinking and frowning if I looked steadily at the Beast, too; it wasn’t that he looked any less huge or less dark or less hairy, but there was some difference. And how do I know whether I should see the sort of thing he’s talking about or not? There was something wrong, that first night. There’s something wrong now.

“Last night,” he began again at last, “when you fainted, you were helpless, for good or ill, I carried you to a couch in the next room; I was going to call your servants, and leave you alone. But when J tried to set you down, you murmured in your sleep, and held on to my coat with both hands.” He stood up, took a few paces away from me, a few paces back. “For a few minutes you were content—even happy—that I held you in my arms. Then you remembered, and ran away in panic. But it’s those few minutes of sympathy, I think, that caused whatever change you’re noticing now.”

“Am I always going to know when you’re nearby now?” I said, a little wistfully.

“I don’t know. I should think it likely. I always know where you are, near or far. Is that all it is—dial you were aware of me when you couldn’t see me?”

I shook my head, “No. My vision is funny. My colour sense is confused somehow. And you look funny.”

“Mmm,” he said. “I shouldn’t worry about It if I were you. As I told you at our first meeting, you have nothing to fear. Would you like to go back now?”

I nodded assent and we turned and walked slowly back towards die castle. Greatheart tore up a few last hasty mouthfuls and followed. I had a great deal to ponder, and did not speak; nor did the Beast say anything.

The rest of the day passed as my days usually did. I did not again mention my new strange sense of things, and by the end of the afternoon the new crystalline quality to die air, the way the flower petals shaded off into some colour I couldn’t quite put a name to, and the way I was hearing things that weren’t

strictly sounds had, by and large, ceased to disturb me. That evening’s sunset was the most magnificent that I had ever seen; I was stunned and enthralled by its heedless beauty and remained staring at the sky

till the last shreds of dim pink had blown away, and the first stars were lit and hung in their appointed places. I turned away at last. “I’m sorry,” I said to the Beast, who stood a little behind me. “I’ve never seen such a sunset. It—it took my breath away.”

“I understand,” he replied.

I went upstairs to dress for dinner, still bemused by what I had just observed, and found an airy, gauzy bit of lace and silver ribbons draped across the bed and gleaming in its own pale light. A corner of the skirt lifted briefly as I entered, as though a hand had begun to raise it and then changed its mind.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” I said in disgust, recalled from my visionary musings with a bump. “We’ve been through all this dozens of times before. I won’t wear anything like this. Take it away.” The dress was lifted by the shoulders till it hung like a small star in my chamber, and for all my certainty that I would

not wear it, I did look at it a little longingly. It was very beautiful; more so, it seemed to me, than any of the other wonderful clothes my high-fashion-minded breeze had tried to put on me.

“Well?” I said sharply. “What are you waiting for?”

“This is going to be difficult,” said Lydia’s voice. If I

hadn’t been accustomed, until that day, to not hearing them, their present silence would have seemed ominous to me. Even the satin petticoats were subdued. I was suddenly uneasy, wondering what they had planned for me. The dress was wafted over to lie negligently across an open wardrobe door, and I was assisted out of my riding clothes. I was still shaking my hair loose from its net when there was a moment of confusion, like being caught in a cloud or a cobweb, and I emerged from it pushing my wild hair off my face and found that they had disobediently wrapped me in the shimmering bit of nothing I had

ordered back into the closet.

“What are you
doing?”
I said, surprised and angry. “I won’t wear this. Take it off.” My hands searched for laces to untie, or buttons, but I could find nothing; it fitted me as if it had been sewn on—perhaps it had, “No, no,” I said. “What is this? I said
no.”
Shoes appeared on my feet; the golden heels were set with diamond chips, and bracelets of opals and pearls began to grow up my arms.
“Stop
it,” I said, really angry now. My hair twisted up, and I reached up and pulled a diamond pin out of it till it rumbled down around my shoulders and back; the pin I threw on the floor. My hair cascading down around me startled me as I realized that it was brushing bare skin. “Good heavens,” I said, shocked, looking down; there was hardly enough bodice to deserve die name. Sapphires and rubies appeared on my fingers. I pulled diem off and sent them to join the diamond hair-pin. “You shan’t get away with this,”

I said between my teeth, and kicked off the shoes. I hesitated to rip the dress off; I didn’t like to damage it, angry as I was, and again I tried to find a way out of it. “This is a dress for a princess,” I said to the listening air. “Why must you be so silly?”

“Well, you
are
a princess,” said Lydia, and she sounded as if she were panting a little. Bessie said: “I suppose we must start somewhere, but this is very discouraging.”

“Why is she so stubborn?” asked Lydia, plaintively. “It’s a beautiful dress.”

“I don’t know,” replied Bessie, and I felt a quick surge of their determination, and this angered me even more.

“It is a beautiful dress,” I said wildly, as my hair wound up again and the pin flew back to its place, and the shoes, and the rings to theirs; “And that’s why I won’t wear it; if you put a peacock’s tail on a sparrow, he’s still a brown little, wretched little, drab little
sparrow,”
and as a net of moonbeams settled around my shoulders and a glittering pendant curled lovingly around my neck, I sat down in the middle of