2IO
tried to tell—them, but it was for ray sake, not for the sake of the tale. I could not say if this was my fault or theirs, or the fault of the worlds we lived in. The only thing they had understood was that I would be leaving them again, to return to a fantastic destiny; and I began to see how horrible this must appear to them. And I also began to sense that there was little I could do to help them.
I smiled at Hope, as she looked pleadingly at me, and in answer to her look I said: “A lot of them are too fancy for me, and I won’t wear them. I wish I’d thought to bring you some of them; they’d look lovely on you two.” I thought of the silvery, gauzy dress I had refused to wear a few weeks ago.
My commonplace words cleared the air, “From the weight of your saddle-bags I thought you brought half the castle with you,” Ger said cheerfully.
“I—what?” I said. “Where are they?” Ger pointed to the table in a corner of the room, and I walked over to them. There was certainly more in them than I had put there. I threw back the flap of the first, and a dull gold brocade with tiny rubies sewed on it looked up at me. “Thank you, Beast,” I said under my breath; and I had a sudden, dizzy, involuntary glimpse of him leaning over the far-seeing glass in the dark room in the castle. It was night; the curtains behind him where he stood were open, and I could see a few stars. There was a fire burning in the fireplace, turning the chestnut-coloured velvet he wore to a ruddier hue. Then the vision faded. I had both hands laid flat on the table in front of me, and I shook my head to clear it. “Are you all right?” said Father, “Yes, of course,” I said. Apparently my new ways of seeing rested uneasily in my old world. Then I knew where I was again, and I was looking at golden brocade.
I pulled it out. It was a ball-dress, with satin ribbons woven into the bodice, and rubies alternating with pearls. “This must be yours,” I said, and tossed it at Grace. She reached a hand out for it only at the last minute, and yards and yards of skirt cascaded across her shoulders and lap. There were shoes that matched the dress, call ruby-studded combs for her hair, and ropes of rubies to wind around her throat.
Underneath all this was a jade-green dress, hemmed with emeralds, for Hope; then two long embroidered cloaks and hoods, and soft leather gloves lined with white fur. Underneath these were fine clothes for Father and Ger; and in a little soft satchel at the back where I almost overlooked it were dresses and caps for the babies, little pearl and sapphire pins, and tiny blankets of the finest wool.
The parlour glittered like a king’s treasure house. I had taken more out of that saddle-bag than could ever have fit into it in the first place; and there was the second saddle-bag, still full, that I had not yet touched. Hope, with a string of emeralds around her neck and a green shawl over one arm, the silken fringe trailing to her feet, picked up one of the little dresses I had laid on the table, and sighed. “I’ve wanted to be able to dress the twins in something really fine; but it’s impractical when they grow so fast—and these are far more beautiful than I was dreaming of. I don’t know, indeed, what we’re going to do with all this—but I love just looking at it. Thank you, Beauty dear,” and she kissed me.
“I want no presents from the Beast,” said Father. “Is he trying to buy us off? Let him take his rich gifts back, and leave us our girl.”
“Please, Father,” I said. “Think of them as presents from me. I’d like you to keep them, and think of me.” Father dropped his eyes, and reluctantly put out a hand and stroked the fur collar of his new jacket.
Ger sighed. “I still don’t understand—and I don’t like not understanding. It makes me feel like a child again, with my mother telling me bogey stones. But I will do as you say—and, since it pleases you—” He picked up his cap, and twirled it on one finger. “Your Beast must be very fond of you, to be so kind to your family.” Father snorted, but said nothing, “Thank you both,” Ger said, and he kissed me too. “I’ve always wondered what h would be like to dress like a lord; here’s my opportunity,” He put the hat on backwards, and pulled it low on his forehead so that the feather tickled his chin. “I feel different already,” he said, blowing at the feather, and Hope laughed. “You look different,”
“Yes, I will cause quite a stir wearing this hat and white satin breeches to shoe horses. It’s a pity I didn’t ask for a new pair of bellows to be thrown in with this deal. The price of the feather alone would probably buy them.” He put the hat on straight, and Hope picked up his cloak and put it around his shoulders, and arranged the golden chain and clasps. Ger stood still while she fussed over him, with a bit of a smile pulling at his mouth. We looked at him as Hope stepped back. He still looked like Ger as we all knew him, but he was different too; you could imagine this Ger commanding armies. With his heavy hair pushed back under the cap, you noticed the height and breadth of his forehead, and the straight proud lines of his eyebrows and mouth.
“I feel silly,” he said. “Don’t stare at me so”; and he took the cap off, and the cloak, and dwindled again to Hope’s husband and the finest blacksmith in a half dozen towns.
“You looked like a lord,” said Hope, smiling.
“Fond wife,” he replied, putting an arm around her waist.
Grace had left her chair, the gold dress heaped over the back of it and spilling across the seat, to light several candles and lamps to augment the firelight, “If we’re going to be grand, we should see what we’re doing,” she said, and as she passed me, she kissed me and whispered in my ear: “Thank you, dear heart. I don’t care that I can’t wear it; I shall look at it every night, and think of you, I’ll even try and think kindly of your dreadful Beast.” I smiled.
Father stood up and smiled at me too, but it was a sad smile. “Very well, my dear, you win the day—as you seem always to do. As Ger says, I don’t understand; but there’s magic at work, so—well, I’ll do what you say, and try to be glad of what we have—of what you tell us. We shan’t let you out of our sight for the week, you know.”
I nodded. “I hope not.”
We all went to bed shortly after this. I realized that I still hadn’t told Grace about Robbie. “Tomorrow,” I thought. “Tonight would have been too soon, too much.
But I mustn’t put it off anymore.” My attic looked just as I remembered it, only somewhat cleaner; Grace kept it much better than I ever had. The sheets on the bed were fresh and clean, not stiff and musty with six months’ neglect, and the bed was made up very neatly, which was not at all how I had left it. I sac on the trunk, under the window, and stared out across the meadow and into the forest.
My thoughts went back to the evening just past, of the scene around the parlour fire, when I had tried to plead for my Beast against my family’s animosity. I knew now what it was that had happened—I couldn’t tell them that here, at home with them again, I had learned what I had successfully ignored these last weeks at the castle; that I had come to love him. They were no less dear to me, but he was dearer yet. I thought of the enchantment that I didn’t understand, of the puzzle Lydia and Bessie expected me to fit together; but suddenly these things mattered very little. I did not need to push them out of my mind, as I had been doing; they simply dropped into insignificance.
And in the meantime I was with my family for a week.
The house fell silent; but the quiet here was simpler than the kind of quiet I had lived in for the last six months. I stared at shadows that moved only with the moon, and my ears strained after echoes that weren’t there. I crept downstairs again and went out to the stable, where I found Greatheart flirting delicately with the new mare, who wasn’t quite ignoring him, “I’m not sure a foal next summer is on the schedule,” I told him. He rubbed his head against me. “But you’re not listening,”