“You’re very tired, you must rest now,” he said. “You’re safe home.”
I shook my head. Now that my most pressing fear had been disposed of, a few thoughts stole tentatively back inside my mind. “Not yet. I have to see to Greatheart—I’d still be in the forest without him—but I had to find you first—and then there’s something I must tell you.”
“Not now,” he said.
“Yes, now,” I replied. I paused a minute while the world stopped pitching and rolling. I could hear the Beast breathing; I didn’t think he had been when I first entered the room. “Look,” I said. “Dawn.” Tendrils of pink were climbing above the forest, and a little hesitating light came through the window, and we could see each other’s faces clearly. The Beast was wearing golden velvet, I noticed, instead of the dark brown I had last seen.
“I can’t sleep now,” I said. “It’s daylight. What I want is breakfast.” And I stood up, and walked to the window. As the light increased, a little of my strength returned. I leaned my elbows on the window sill and looked out across the gardens. They had never looked so beautiful to me before. The Beast joined me at the window. “It’s good to be back,” I said.
“Were your family pleased with the news you brought?” he said.
I nodded. “Yes. Grace won’t be good for anything now, till they have had proper news of him. But that’s all right too. They hope he’ll ride back with the man who’s carrying her and Father’s letters to him. Will you let me—sometimes—look in the glass again?” I added timidly.
The Beast nodded. “Of course. You know, though, I feel a little sorry for the young minister.”
I looked out the window again. I waved a hand, indicating vaguely the sweep of garden and meadow, and said, “You—this hasn’t suffered any lasting harm by my—er—delay, has it?”
“No, Beauty, don’t worry,” he said.
I hesitated. “What would have happened—if I hadn’t come?”
“Happened? Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
I stared at him, not comprehending, as his answer hung between us in the morning air. “Nothing? But—” And I stopped, not wanting to mention, or remember, his dreadful stillness when I had first entered the room.
“I was dying?” he said. “Yes. I would have died, and you and Greatheart would have returned to your family; arid in another two hundred years this castle would have been lost in a garden run wild, with the forest growing up to the dooryard, and birds nesting in the towers. And in two hundred years after that, even the legends would have left, and only the stones remained.”
I took a deep breath, “This is what I have to tell you then,” I said, looking up at him. The Beast looked at me inquiringly. I looked down again, and said in a rush, to the grey stones of the window sill, “I love you, and I want to marry you.”
Perhaps I fainted, but it wasn’t at all like the first time. The Beast disappeared, and then everything else did too, or perhaps it all happened at once. There was a wild explosion of light, as if the sun had burst; then, like a shock wave, there rose up a great din of what sounded like bells ringing, huge cathedral bells, and crowds shouting and cheering, horses neighing, even cannons firing. I huddled down where I stood and pressed my hands to my ears, but this helped not at all. The castle trembled underfoot as if the stones were applauding in their foundations; and then I could feel nothing under my feet at all, and I was buoyed up by light and sound. Then it all ceased as quickly as it had begun. I lowered my hands and opened my eyes cautiously. The gardens looked just the same; perhaps the sunlight was a bit brighter; but then it was morning, and the sun was rising. I turned around and looked into the room.
The Beast was nowhere to be seen. A man stood beside me, dressed in golden velvet, as the Beast had been, with white lace at his throat and wrists. He had brown eyes, and curly brown hair streaked with grey. He was taller than I was, though not so tall as the Beast; and as I looked at him in surprise, he smiled at me, a little uncertainly it seemed. He was quite alarmingly handsome, and I blinked and felt foolish, “My Beast,” I said, and my voice sounded shrill. I felt like a scrubby schoolgirl beside this grand gentleman. “Where is he? I must go find him—” And I backed away from the window, still looking at my unexpected visitor.
“Wait, Beauty,” the man said.
I stopped. “Your voice,” I said. “I know your voice.”
“I am the Beast,” he said. “I was laid under an enchantment to live as a dreadful Beast until some maiden should love me in spite of my ugliness, and promise to marry me.”
I continued to stare bemusedly at him. My voice sounded weak and silly in my ears: “Your voice—I recognize it, but it sounds different.” I said inanely: “Is it really you? I mean—I—well, I find this rather—er—difficult....” I trailed off, and put my hands to my face, pinching my chin as if reassuring myself that I was awake; and heard the clink of bracelets failing back from my wrists.
“Yes, I am really I,” he said gently; “but my voice is coming from a smaller—human—chest now.”
“You’re the young man in the last picture,” I said suddenly.
He smiled wryly. “Yes; but not so young now, I’m afraid. Even enchantments aren’t perfect protection against time. But then I don’t feel like a young man anymore.” He looked down at his hands. “It took me the first decade just to learn to walk like a man again.”
“Who did this to you?” I said, and backed up against the window ledge, grateful for its support, as I had been grateful for the support of a balustrade on another first meeting months ago.
He frowned. “It’s an old family curse of sorts. My forebears were, um, rather over pious, and overzealous in impressing their neighbors with their piety. After the first few generations of holier-than-thou the local magician got rather tired of them, and cursed them; but unfortunately their virtue was even as great as they made it out to be, and the curse wouldn’t stick. So, being a magician, he settled down to wait for their first erring step. My family laughed, which didn’t improve his temper any—and unfortunately for me, at last, that erring foot was mine.
“You’ve probably noticed the carving around the front doors.” ! nodded. “That was I, two centuries ago.” He looked away, and when he looked back at me, his smile was strained. “I’m sorry I’m so old—I think it works out to about one year in ten—I’ve been waiting a long time. I can’t let you off now, you know. I hope you don’t mind very much.”
“I can’t marry you,” I burst out, and the smile left his face as if it had been cut off, and his eyes were dark and sad. I blundered on: “Look at you. You should marry a queen or something, a duchess at least, not a dull drab little nothing like myself. ! haven’t anything—no dowry, not even a title to hide behind.”
“Beauty—” he began.
“And you needn’t consider yourself in my debt because I’ve undone your enchantment for you. You’ve”—I rushed on—“done a great deal for—for my family, and for me. I’ll never forget—my months here.”
His expression had become quizzical as I was speaking. “Let’s leave aside my debt, ah, or responsibility for the moment. As I recall, we had a conversation along similar lines at the beginning of our acquaintance. You suffer from the oddest misapprehensions about your appearance.” He looked over his shoulder. “If I remember correctly, there should be a mirror that has reappeared just outside, in the hall. Come.” He held out his hand, and I reluctantly put mine in his, and heard the clink of bracelets again, and looked down. “Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “They’ve done it again. How—?” I was wearing the silver princess’s dress; the skirts drifted around me in a shining mist, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before that my straggling hair was clean again, and combed, and pinned to my head. I seemed to have had a bath while the foundations had danced under me, and my exhaustion had been washed away with the grime of travel. I felt the griffin necklace around my throat, and the high-heeled shoes on my feet.