"But Mother," Beast said—speaking quietly now, since shouting hadn't helped—"but Mother, I love you."
She continued to shoo him out the back door so the neighbors wouldn't see him. "That's nice," she said. "And you will remain a beast until you get a good and beautiful woman to agree to many you. I love you, too," she added, and closed the door.
Now this wasn't as heartless as it sounds, for Beast's mother wasn't sending him out to beg for his food or to sleep on the hard, cold ground. The family had not one but two castles, the second one being deep in the woods without neighbors. It was also a magical place that would provide whatever Beast asked for, except human companionship.
Although the magic castle would have happily picked up Beast's dirty laundry and washed his dirty dishes and fixed the holes he kicked or punched into walls whenever he was angry at something, Beast very quickly mended his ways, hoping that this would please his mother and that she would allow him to return home. Besides, living out in the woods, with no friends to visit and nothing much to do beyond tending the garden, Beast had plenty of time on his hands to try to make everything perfect. Every time his parents would drop in—birthdays and holidays and the occasional unannounced surprise visit just to keep him on his toes—he would invite them to come into the house to see how clean it was. But his mother would always say, "No, no. Sitting with you in the garden is fine with me."
Then he would say, "At least let's have dinner out here so that you can see how good my table manners have become."
But she would always answer, "No, no. We ate just before we came; I couldn't possibly eat a bite more." Then she would turn to her husband and ask, "You, dear?"
And he always patted his stomach and echoed, "Not a bite more."
Then Beast would say, "Do you at least notice how neat my clothes are and how calmly I'm talking?"
"Yes, dear."
"So may I please come home?"
"Not quite yet, dear."
At which point he'd growl or kick over a lawn chair or, just to spite his mother, tear off a sleeve of his shirt.
The visit always ended with Beast pleading with his father to talk his mother into lifting the spell, and his father saying, "I'll try, but you know how your mother is."
This had gone on long enough that when, one day, Beast heard someone in his castle's courtyard, he assumed it was his parents, even though it was a freezing, rainy day. But when he went outside, he saw that it was a stranger in a dead faint on the stones. The man had obviously traveled long and hard, for he had just barely made it through Beast's gate before collapsing.
Beast carried the poor man inside, but as he was ashamed of his appearance—which he knew was somewhat alarming—he set the man down on the bed in one of the guest bedrooms, and he told the room, "Take care of the man. Provide a fire to warm him and candles so that he can see where he is when he wakes. Cover him with warm, diy blankets while he sleeps and lay out rich clothes for him to wear when he gets up."
Then Beast walked down the hallway to the dining room, calling up lights all the way. "Dining room," Beast said, "fresh tablecloth, best dishes, flowers for the center."
In the kitchen he said, "Warm and savory food on the dining-room table thirty seconds before the man gets there."
Later that evening Beast heard the man coming down the hall, calling, "Hello? Is anybody here?"
Desperate for company but afraid to be seen, Beast hid behind a half-closed door on the upper landing as the man came into the dining room.
"I say," the man said, "this is very nice." He raised his voice. "Hello. Where is everybody?"
Beast didn't answer, and of course the castle didn't answer. One of the chairs pulled away from the table invitingly, so after a while the man realized that the feast was set out for him.
Hesitantly the man sat down on the chair, which immediately pulled itself closer to the table. A fork jumped into his hand.
"Well," the man said, "thank you, whoever you are. Wherever you are."
After dinner the castle—following Beast's instructions—led the man to the library, where the man had shelves and shelves of books to choose from; and a harpsichord, should he be musically inclined; and a chess set, which played the black pieces when the man moved one of the white pawns. Beast hid behind a tapestry and watched. After two games of chess (the castle let the man win both times), several books, and a midnight snack (apparently the man was not musically inclined), the man yawned and stretched.
The candles in the hall lit the way back to his room, where the bed was freshly made and a silk nightshirt lay under the pillow.
Beast returned to the kitchen, where he had his own dinner, happier than he'd been in a long time. Even though he hadn't dared show himself or speak to the man, it had been good to see somebody—anybody—he wasn't related to.
The following morning Beast arranged for breakfast to be on a tray on the man's nightstand thirty seconds before he awoke.
Beast was hoping that the man would be having such a good time at the castle that he would stay. Beast was planning that, after a day or two, he would show himself to the man and the two of them would be best friends for the rest of their lives, despite Beast's unfortunate appearance.
But, after breakfast, dressed in Beast's best suit, the man called out, "Thanks for everything," and he headed outdoors.
Beast locked the gate, planning to force his visitor to stay. Still, Beast was mightily annoyed as he watched the man walk out the front door and down the front steps. But then, rather than going to the gate, the man went into the garden. And not just into the garden but into the garden. He stepped right on the bed of petunias. He squeezed between a rhododendron bush and some azaleas, knocking blossoms off both. He left footprints in the alyssum. And then, then before Beast could believe his eyes, the man reached out for and snapped off the one—the first—the only rose in Beast's garden.
Furious, Beast let out a great roar, no longer caring if the man saw him, no longer caring if the man was disgusted by him, no longer caring if the man was afraid of him. In fact, what Beast roared was, "Prepare to die," which pretty much guaranteed that the man would be afraid of him.
The man dropped the rose. "What?" he cried, looking all around. "What'd I do?" And then he saw Beast. He grew pale and sweaty, and his knees got wobbly. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to eat your food and wear your clothes, but the castle just seemed to keep offering things to me. I thought you knew. I thought it was all right."
"I took you in," Beast cried. "I carried you in with my own hands. I gave you whatever you could possibly need or want. Did I ask for payment? Did I ask for thanks? No, I did not. All I wanted was to be your friend. But this—this is too much. How dare you go tromping through my garden to steal my rose?"
The man looked down at the rose by his feet, as though unable to comprehend that the food and shelter and clothing were free, but the flower was not. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know. It's just that I was away on a long journey. I have seven daughters and each of them asked for me to bring back gold and jewels and fine trinkets. Each of them except my youngest, my Beauty. She said: 'Just come back home, Father. That's all I could ever want.' When I insisted that I wanted to bring her something, Beauty finally said, A rose, Father. A rose would be nice.' But my journey was not a success. My ships sank, my fortune was lost. I knew I couldn't bring back any of the things my other daughters had asked for, but I thought: 'At least I can bring back something for Beauty. Surely the mysterious host who has tended me in my illness and given me all that I could desire inside his castle, surely he wouldn't begrudge me one flower for my Beauty.'"
Beast was looking at the man skeptically. "Your daughter's name is Beauty?" he asked. "What kind of name is that? What did you do, call her 'Hey, you,' until she grew up, and then, when she turned out to be good-looking, you finally settled on a name for her? Or did you call her Beauty from the start, simply hoping for the best, trusting to chance that she wouldn't turn out to be a dog
?"
The man was obviously taken aback. "We called her Beauty all along," he told Beast. "We hoped she'd be beautiful, and she is. Beauty is a fine virtue."
"I suppose she's lucky you didn't call her Honesty," Beast said. "That's a fine virtue, too. Or Sweet Breath. Or Mathematical Ability." But Beast was thinking. His mother had said he would stay a beast until a good and beautiful woman agreed to marry him. This man's daughter sounded like both. "I'll tell you what," Beast said. "I won't kill you—"
"Oh, thank you, thank you," the man said.
"—if you bring me back your daughter, Beauty." Actually, Beast didn't have very high hopes. What kind of man would give up his daughter to a beast just to save himself?
And, in fact, the man was saying, "Oh, no, I couldn't."
But Beast moved in closer, and after a few moments of looking up those hairy nostrils and along the length of those tusklike teeth, the man said, "Well, I could ask her."
"You do that," Beast said. "I'll give you three months. After that, one or the other of you better be here. If not, I'll come to get you."
The man finally agreed.
And three months later, he and his daughter appeared in Beast's courtyard, without Beast having to go to fetch them.
She IS beautiful, Beast thought. And the fact that she had come, putting her own life in danger to save her father's, proved that she was good, too. Or that her father hadn't told her about his agreement.
Beast decided not to take any chances and not to play any games. He went out into the courtyard right away, so that Beauty could see what she was getting into.
Ignoring the man, he said, to Beauty, "Welcome," and he took her hand to kiss it.
Beauty turned pale. She flinched as though expecting that he planned to start eating her then and there, starting with her hand and working his way up. But she did not pull her hand away. "Thank you for inviting me," she whispered.
Beautiful and brave.
Beast kissed her hand then. "Are my looks not to your liking?" he asked, seeing her shift her gaze away from his face.
"You look just as my father described you," Beauty said.
Ah, Beast thought, so he had told her. Beautiful and brave and good. "Good-bye," Beast told the man, leading Beauty by the hand into the castle, leaving the gate to show her father the way out.
It was wonderful to have Beauty for company. Although she was obviously afraid of him, she did her best not to show it. And after Beast showed her what was to be her room—furnished in fine wood and marble, decorated with silks and satins and intricately woven brocades, accented by gold and crystal fittings—after seeing all this, Beauty must have realized that he meant her no harm. When Beast bowed and said, "I will see you again this evening after dinner," she curtsied and said, much steadier than before, "Thank you."
Beast did not spy on Beauty, since that wouldn't have been polite, but he was aware of her wandering about the castle, acquainting herself with the various rooms, and the castle told him, in a delighted, shivery voice, that she seemed well pleased by what she saw.
Beast sighed with relief. He had spent days cleaning and polishing and rearranging, doing the work himself, trying to make everything perfect. At the last minute, the morning Beauty was due to arrive, he had been overcome by doubts, convinced that, because he was a beast, he had done it all wrong. He had told the castle, "You prepare for her," and the castle had told him that he'd done everything exactly the way it would have and that there was nothing left to do. Even that hadn't convinced Beast, but now the castle told him Beauty was well pleased.
Which made Beast well pleased.
After both their dinners (Beast ate by himself, standing up at the kitchen counter just in case his manners weren't as good as he had assured his mother, so that he wouldn't disgust Beauty), he vent into the library with Beauty. Unlike her father, Beauty was musically inclined. She played the harpsichord for him, then they discussed music, then books, and then all manner of things.
Beautiful and brave and good and I Love her, Beast thought to himself. We get along so well. She is surely the one to break this terrible spell for me. "Beauty," he said, interrupting her as she was reading him a poem from one of his books.
She looked up and smiled. "Beast?" she asked.
"Will you many me?"
"Oh," she said, the smile disappearing. "Oh, no. I couldn't." And once again, as in the courtyard, she looked away from him.
"Fine," Beast said. He stood up abruptly, accidentally knocking his teacup off the coffee table. He watched the brown stain spread across the table till it dripped off the edge, onto the floor; then he swept his cup and hers and the teapot and the sugar and creamer off the table. "Fine," he repeated, and stalked out of the room.
The following morning, Beast came up to Beauty as she sat at the dining-room table eating breakfast. His heart sank to see the flicker of fear in her eyes. "This is for you," he said, handing her a rose—there were many of them in his garden by now, but this was the most beautiful. "I'm sorry I frightened you. Always feel free to answer me honestly and from your heart. I would never harm you."
Beauty took the rose. "Thank you," she said.
But that evening, after a day of walking through the gardens and playing croquet and discussing places and things each of them hoped to see someday, when Beast asked Beauty, "Will you marry me?" she asked, "Must I?"
"It isn't a case of must," Beast answered. "WiLL you?"
"No," she said.
Beast didn't knock anything over, but he left the room, growling deep in his throat at the frustration, and out in the hallway he ripped a candle from its holder and chewed it to keep from shouting, What's the matter with you?
And so it went, from day to day. Beauty seemed to enjoy Beast's company. They would talk together and laugh together and sing songs together. But every time he asked her to marry him, she would say, "No." Some days Beast took this news better than others.
Then, one day, Beauty didn't come downstairs for breakfast. Beast had finally risked taking his meals with her, and she turned out to be very patient about reminding him not to slurp and not to speak with his mouth full, so that at this point he probably could have supped with royalty and not embarrassed his mother.
Beast went up to her room and found that the door was closed. "Beauty," he called, knocking.
"Come in," she called, but he could tell right away, even before he opened the door, that she had been crying.
"What is it? What's the matter?" he asked, trying to remember exactly how he had reacted to her previous night's refusal to marry him, and hoping that he hadn't said anything to frighten her.
"It's my father," Beauty said. "He's dying of grief for not seeing me."
"How do you know this?" Beast asked, since there had been no messenger.
"The mirror told me," Beauty explained. "Please, Beast, please. May I go home? Just for a short while? Just to visit? Just to assure him that I'm all right?"
Beast resolved to put the mirror out in the shed. "I would die of grief without you," he told her.
"I'll come back," she said. "I promise. Three, four days, that's all I ask. If you let me go, when I come back, I promise to marry you."
Beast felt a brief tingle, but it wasn't enough to disperse his mother's spell. "No, I won't hold you to that promise. It must be freely given. Go, visit your father for five days. But then you must come back."
"I promise," she said. "And that's a promise freely given."
For four days Beast waited sadly but patiently for Beauty's return. Even the castle was depressed.
The fifth day Beast started to watch for her return as soon as he got up, thinking that maybe she would miss him as much as he missed her and so come back in the morning. She didn't come back in the morning, and she didn't come back in the afternoon, and she didn't come back in the evening. Beast fell asleep on the front step, still waiting for her.
The sixth day Beauty still did not return, and that night Beast howled at the
moon.
The seventh day Beast decided that Beauty wasn't coming back after all, and that he really didn't care one way or the other.
The eighth day Beast went into her room and ripped the wallpaper off the walls and broke all the furniture and threw the pieces out the window.
The ninth day Beast felt all his anger drain out of him. He lay down in the garden and wept and never went back inside, not even when night came, not even when it began to rain. Beast realized that he had spoken the truth when he had told Beauty he'd die of grief without her, and he prepared to die.
The tenth day, weak and feverish, Beast thought he heard Beauty's voice. "Beast, Beast," she cried.
He didn't answer, thinking he was having a pleasant dream and not wanting to wake himself up.
But it wasn't a dream.
Beauty found him sprawled on the garden path and knelt beside him, unmindful of her gown trailing in the mud, and put his head on her lap. "Oh, Beast," she said, "I'm sorry I left you. My father needed me, and once I got there, I was sick—I thought I was dying. But then I finally realized what it was: I missed you. Oh, Beast, please ask me again to marry you."
But Beast was too weak to ask her anything. All he had the strength for was to look at her, and even that strength was failing. His eyelids began to droop.
"Then I'll ask you," Beauty said. "Oh, Beast, will you marry me?" She hugged him closer, in case he was able to whisper a reply, and her tears slipped down her cheek and fell on him. She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. "I love you, Beast," she murmured into his hair.
Beast felt a tingle. This time it was enough. "I love you, too, Beauty," he said, recognizing that he had his old voice back, the one which came from a human-shaped mouth.
Beauty's eyes flew open. She scrambled back, letting his head fall againt the slate walk with a thud. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where's my Beast? What have you done with my Beast?"
"Beauty," the man who had been Beast said, sitting up, taking her hands in his.
She jerked them away from him.
"Beauty, it's me. I'm your Beast. I had a magic spell cast on me."