Lionheart slid to her knees beside Beauty, and took her hands away from Jeweltongue, and held them tight. “I’m sorry—sorrier. I’m sorry I shouted. You would have sent word if you could—even if it had been only seven days. It’s just … it’s been so long, and we knew nothing.”
“It’s been so long,” agreed Jeweltongue in a low voice. “And we can’t let Father know how it troubles us.…”
“Hardest for you,” said Lionheart to Jeweltongue, though she still held Beauty’s hands. “We’ve had to pretend that we know you’re all right—we’re sisters, our hearts beat in each other’s breasts, we know—and also, it’s Father who has the aversion to magic. If it comes up at all, then he berates himself, and he’s still not strong, you know; he’s never really been strong since we left the city. So it’s all been up to us. And Jeweltongue is here, day after day, every day.”
“I’ve dreamt of you,” said Beauty. “I dreamt of Mr Whitehand—”
“Yes,” said Jeweltongue. “We became engaged late in the spring.”
“And of Aubrey Trueword—”
Lionheart said suddenly: “That day Molly was behaving like a lunatic, as if she could see someone who wasn’t there, was that you? When Aubrey first told me he knew I—”
“Yes,” said Beauty. “And tonight—was it tonight?—I—”
“I saw you,” said Jeweltongue. “I saw you, sitting in Mrs Oldhouse’s parlour.”
“But what about Jack’s story? He means us harm, if—Lionheart, I dreamt of a day when you told Jeweltongue and Father about Aubrey, but that you didn’t dare, because of the curse, because of the stories people were telling about my going away … because of Jack—”
It was Lionheart’s turn to blush. She stood up abruptly and went to refill the kettle. “I—I’m brave enough about some things. Not about others. When we had to leave the city, I thought I’d die. Not for grief, or even anger, but more from a kind of … amazement that the world could be so unlike what I had thought. And then … fear. Fear for all those things I didn’t know. I would get up in the morning and look at my petticoats, and my stockings, and my shoes, and my dress, and I didn’t know which one to put on first, or whether my shoes went on my feet or my head. I would decide they went on my feet from the shape. How could I live when I knew nothing?”
“Darling heart, we all felt like that,” said Jeweltongue.
“And people like Jack … terrify me,” continued Lionheart, as if she had not heard. “It’s why I hated your salons so much, Jeweltongue. I’d rather face a rogue horse any day. Horses are honest. You know where you are with horses.”
“You know where you are with people like Jack Trueword,” said Jeweltongue. “You are in the presence of form without substance, sound without meaning, clatter without articulation.”
“Stop it,” said Lionheart. “If you mean dog droppings and green slime, say it.”
“Wait,” said Beauty. “Jeweltongue, you were frightened tonight. I saw it.”
“Was I? Yes, I suppose I was,” said Jeweltongue. “You see, since you went away … anything to do with magic, I cannot help wondering if it has anything to do with you. I keep wanting to know more about spells and enchantments, but I don’t want to know, for fear what I learn will be worse than not knowing. But there is no magic in Longchance; there is no way to ask tactfully, there is no way to ask for comfort … and what made it worse, although not the way you mean, is that it’s true Longchance has been whispering little tales about your going away, dear, but they’re hopeful—and embarrassed—little tales. You see, Longchance has never quite given up the idea you’re a greenwitch, because the roses bloomed for you, and while the last greenwitch disappeared mysteriously too, the roses stopped blooming when she went, and we’ve made no secret of it that we’ve had a garden full of roses this year too.
“And then, as Lionheart says, we’ve been so determinedly bright and sunny about your absence, everyone positively has to squint from the glare when they look at us, although I know my poor Whitehand had guessed there was something about something I wasn’t telling him.… And meanwhile I have kept looking at your roses, and they look so—so happy, if one can say that about flowers, I’ve wanted so to believe they were telling me—”
“Us,” said Lionheart.
“—what we wanted—badly wanted—to know. But then Mrs Oldhouse’s story, out of nowhere, and with the storm pounding away at us like a monster yelling for our lives, and then Jack coming in, wet as a water spirit, and threatening us with that curse I’ve been worrying about for years—”
“Then you did know,” said Beauty.
“After all the talking-to you gave me the day I told you about Aubrey!” interrupted Lionheart in high dudgeon, and then began to laugh. “So much for no secrets between sisters!”
She had paused, tea-kettle in hand, beside the jam jar containing the dark red rose. Its first petal had already fallen; she picked it up, rubbing it gently between her fingers for the deliciously silken feel, as she hung the kettle over the fire again. “Oh, Beauty, won’t you please tell us what has been happening to you? I really must go off again—as it is, I’ll be back after dawn and will have to tell Mr Horsewise something—and I will explode of curiosity if you don’t. Start with Fourpaws. Why is she called Fourpaws?”
“The Beast named her. She is the only creature—was the only creature—who would live in the palace with him, and he said she must be a sorcerer in her own country, and he would not imbalance the delicate network of her powers by giving her a powerful name when she has done him the great kindness of breaking the loneliness of his house.” And there rose up in her the memory of the evenings they sat together in the great dark dining-hall, and she did not remember the pressing shadows, the imprisoning silence, but the companionship of the Beast, and Fourpaws, purring, on her lap.
There was a silence, as Jeweltongue and Lionheart tried to adjust to this other sort of Beast than the one they had heard about from their father. There was tremendous relief in this new idea of a thoughtful, wistful Beast, but there was tremendous bewilderment too. “Will you tell us about the Beast?” said Jeweltongue timidly. “Surely he is a sorcerer too?”
“Oh no,” Beauty heard herself saying immediately. “I—I don’t know why I said that. I had assumed that he was, as you did, but lately, as I have grown to know him better …”
She fell silent, and in the silence Lionheart watched the second petal fall from the dark red rose.
Jeweltongue said: “Surely there is some boundary to the magic—how long to pay the debt of one blooming rose in the middle of winter? Isn’t seven months enough?”
Again Beauty heard her own voice answer, speaking almost as quietly as a rose-petal falling: “He told me he cannot—that he never could—hold me against my will.” She knew the words were true as soon as they were out of her mouth, but where had they come from? And why could she not remember?
Why couldn’t she remember how she had left the Beast’s palace and come to Rose Cottage?
Jeweltongue laughed, a laugh like a child’s bubbling up from somewhere beneath her heart. “But then you can stay with us! I can finally give poor Whitehand a day! He has been very good, although—since I had not told him the truth—he has been puzzled at why my sister is quite so unspecific about when she might be able to return, only long enough to attend a wedding. I know it has occurred to him that I have not meant to marry him at all, but I do! Oh, I do! But I could not be married without your being here, Beauty, or, at the very, very, very least, knowing that you were well. There now, Lionheart, you can put Aubrey out of his misery too.”
“We were planning on a double wedding, just like—not at all like—we were going to do in the city many years ago,” said Lionheart.
“Not at all like,” said Jeweltongue quickly, with a touch of her old acidity. “Once you finally overcame your peculiar terrors—rogue horses, indeed! It is as well I do not know the daily facts of your life, or I should not sleep for worrying!?
??and gave your hand to poor Aubrey.”
Beauty leant over to touch Lionheart’s knee. “Then you have told him yes? And that is all well? What of Mr Horsewise?”
Lionheart smiled reminiscently. “Mr Horsewise was appalled for about two and a half heartbeats, and then it occurred to him that he’s been fighting off a suspicion about me almost since I’d come to work for him, and he hadn’t wanted to know because if he knew the wrong thing, he might lose me, and … well …”
“Go on,” said Jeweltongue. Lionheart muttered something inaudible, and Jeweltongue laughed her merry, bubbling laugh again. “Mr Horsewise dotes on her! She is the finest ‘lad’ he’s ever had, you see, and now he not only won’t lose her but is positively obliged to promote her, because Aubrey is going to take the horse end of affairs at the Hall on and run it as a business, which is deeply offensive to Jack, of course, but Aubrey worked it out with his father so that Jack can’t touch it, although—”
“Although we’re going to have to work like slaves to make a success of it,” finished Lionheart.
“As soon as the sun is up, I’ll measure you for your wedding-dress,” said Jeweltongue, “that is, the dress you will wear to our wedding.” Her happiness faltered for a moment, for she would have liked it to be a triple wedding, but now that Beauty was home again, surely … “You won’t be nearly as hard to please as Lionheart, I’m sure. Oh, I’m so glad! What colour, do you think? Gold? Green? Blue? Darling, what is it?”
“Oh—my Beast. He is my friend, you see—”
“Your friend?” bellowed Lionheart. “Your gaoler, your kidnapper, and you have told us that he has admitted he could not keep you in the first place, so he is a liar and a trickster as well—”
“Oh no, no,” said Beauty in great distress. “You do not understand at all. I will go back to visit him. I take care of his roses!”
“You have roses enough to care for here!” said Lionheart.
Jeweltongue laid her hand on Beauty’s. “If the Beast is your friend, then we must—we must learn that. But it is hard for us, just now, at the beginning, especially when we haven’t—haven’t quite known if we had lost you entirely.”
“He never—” began Beauty. “He always—”
Jeweltongue smiled. “I believe you. Go on. We’re listening.” She flicked a quelling look at the more volatile Lionheart, but Lionheart was dreamily watching something behind her and Beauty’s heads. She turned to see; another petal wavered and fell from the dark red rose, and then, after the merest breath of a pause, a whole gust of petals.
“He is—he is—oh, I don’t know how to describe him!” said Beauty. “He is very tall, and very wide, and very hairy; he is a Beast, just as he is named. He eats apples in two bites, including the cores. But he is—that is not what he is like.”
“What is he like then?” Jeweltongue prompted.
“He is gentle and kind. He loves roses. He loves roses best of all, but his were dying; the only one still blooming was the one from Father’s breakfast table. Of course, when I knew—when I found—I had to rescue him—help them—rescue them—him. He walks on the roof every night, looking at the stars. On the roof he has drawn the most beautiful map of the sky.… ” Beauty was weeping as she talked.
“My dear,” said Jeweltongue, gently turning her sister’s face towards her. “Why do you weep?”
“Every night, after supper, he asks me to marry him,” said Beauty, and she knew she spoke the truth, that it was no mirage of memory, and then she was weeping so passionately she could speak no more.
Jeweltongue put her arms round her and rocked her back and forth as if she were a little child. “Well—and do you wish to marry him?”
Beauty wept a little longer, and slowly her tears stopped, and she looked up. Jeweltongue looked gravely back at her. “He is—he is very great, and grand, and … he is a Beast.”
“Yes, very large, very hairy, you said. Great and grand—foo. Are you afraid of him?”
“Afraid of him? Oh, no!”
“Well then, if he were an ordinary man, instead of a Beast, and my darling younger sister burst into tears immediately after telling me he had asked her to marry him, I would advise her that it is perfectly obvious that she should say yes.”
“But—”
“He is very large and very hairy, and your introduction to each other was … awkward, and first impressions are so important. Very well. What is it you dislike? That he eats apples in two bites, including the cores?”
Beauty laughed through the last of her tears. “No, no! Although in an ordinary garden, I should want the cores for my compost heap.”
Lionheart groaned. “You only ever think of one thing! Your roses!”
Beauty flashed back: “You only ever think of one thing! Your horses!”
Jeweltongue said, “Do you remember Pansy’s story—many years ago, when we were still quite little, before Mamma died—of the princess who married the Phoenix?”
“Yes,” murmured Beauty. “I remember.”
“It is very odd,” said Lionheart. “Jeweltongue, d’you remember the way the rose Father brought lasted what seemed like nearly forever? It wasn’t just that it was the middle of winter, was it? Look, the last petal is already falling from the rose Beauty brought with her.”
If you decide you do wish to see me again, pull another petal and set it again in your mouth, and you will at once be here. But if you wait till all the petals have dropped, it will be too late; once they have loosed themselves from the flower, they can no longer return you here, and besides, when the last of them falls, I will die.
“The last petal!” cried Beauty, her last conversation with the Beast suddenly and terribly recalled to her mind, and she threw herself to her feet, knocking painfully into Jeweltongue, spilling Tea-cosy, who gave a little yip of surprise, to the floor, spinning in the direction Lionheart was looking, reaching for the forgotten rose there in its humble jam jar, reaching for the last petal, her hand darting out faster than her mind could direct it, but that last petal fell from its flower head before her fingers touched it, dropping softly into her palm, and she stared at it in horror. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no.”
“Darling, what is it?” said Jeweltongue.
“What is it about the last petal?” said Lionheart. “What enchantment does it hold that frightens you so?”
But Beauty did not hear them. She looked up from the last petal in her hand, sightlessly staring at her sisters. When the last of them falls, I will die. “Do you remember,” she said, “when Father brought that first rose home, I cut two pieces from its stem and planted them, hoping they would strike. Did they? Did they? Oh, please tell me at least one of them did!”
Jeweltongue put a hand to her face. “I—I’m not sure. I don’t remember. I—I am not much of a gardener, dear, dear Beauty. Please try to forgive me.”
Beauty turned and fled into the rear garden. She was so distraught by terror and grief she could not remember where she had put the two stem cuttings; she cursed herself for not telling Jeweltongue to tend them particularly, for cuttings are very vulnerable as they struggle to produce their first roots, but she cursed herself more for not remembering—until it was too late—for not watching her rose, the Beast’s rose, that he had given her last of all. And she looked at the petal in the palm of her hand and saw the smear of blood there, from clasping the stem of that rose too tightly. How could she not have remembered?
She thought of the endless wall of the palace, the first time she had tried to follow it to the corner of the courtyard, to see what lay behind the glasshouse. She thought of the first evening she mounted the spiral staircase, the basket she had almost not found, and the storm that had come from nowhere, as soon as she touched the weather vane.
But she had turned the corner, arrived at the top of the staircase, found the basket, and descended from the ladder. The Beast had carried her up the stair and guarded her down the ladder. He would not be dead; she would not allow it. S
he had sent butterflies and bats and hedgehogs and toads into the palace gardens, she had welcomed kittens (and one spider) into the palace when the Beast himself had said no creature would live on his lands. The unicorn had come to her, and the roses bloomed. She would not let him die.
She would not let him die. Her resolution faltered. As soon as her sisters had told her she had been seven months away, she should have remembered, she should have thought at once to look at the rose. It did not matter what her father’s rose had done; she knew the enchantment that held her Beast and his roses had changed, for she had changed it. And now she was destroying everything when the Beast had trusted her. When the Beast had loved her.
Blindly she went down the centre path of the garden towards the great riotous tangle at its heart; the roses there had gone over from their full midsummer flush, but there were still a few heavy flower heads bowing their branches with their weight. She was vaguely aware, as her eyes began to focus on what lay round her, that the night’s darkness was greying towards morning. Her gaze settled on the statue within that centre bed, the statue of a beast she had never been able to name; and it was a beast like her Beast, and she remembered him on his knees in the glasshouse, drenched by rain, looking up at her, smiling. But the statue was no longer standing, as it had when she last stood in Rose Cottage’s garden. It was lying, curled up on its side, one forelimb over its head, looking lost, and hopeless, and as if it only waited to die. “You cannot die,” said Beauty.
She heard the first bird heralding the dawn; two notes, then silence. “Tell me,” she said to the poor lost Beast, held close by the thorny tangled weave of rose stems, where he could not have stirred even had he wanted to. “Tell me where your rose grows! It must have struck! I say it must have struck! I am coming back to you, do you hear me? Help me! As you made a mistake when you brought me to you, so I have made a mistake now! And as I released you from yours, release me now from mine!” Lord Goodman died for me today, I’ll die for him tomorrow.