The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  ‘But I digress. A few days after I met Monsieur Dufour he returned to Madame Minou’s with the tools he had offered me. He was very kind – he said if I had not been at his sister’s inn that day, he would have driven out to the cottage to deliver the tools for me! As it was, he insisted on driving me home. He said I could not possibly walk and carry all the tools. It was a very pleasant drive, and so much faster than walking! Especially now the snow is becoming thick along parts of the way.

  ‘When we arrived at the cottage he spent some time with Papa, discussing the best place to put my garden beds, and exactly how to dig them. He is a very gentlemanly man, and he and Papa struck up a friendship almost immediately. It is most amusing, I had planned one or two beds, but Monsieur Dufour and Papa pegged out markings for four vegetable beds and a herb garden!

  ‘Monsieur Dufour then presented me with some pots of herbs he had brought me as a gift to start my garden, although he says to keep them by the kitchen door for now and plant them in the spring. I cannot remember them all, but I have among them rosemary, sage, marjoram and thyme to name a few. I have written tags for them all to remind myself what they are. Most of them are little more than bare twigs, but Monsieur Dufour says they are all hardy and will begin to grow again at the end of winter. He is very good, and I am at something of a loss to know how to thank him.

  ‘So you see we are all busy now. I think I can say Claude has stopped moping, and Papa certainly doesn’t stamp around looking like a thundercloud any more. I am so pleased to think he may finally have found a friend in Monsieur Dufour who may distract him from his worries. Although there are times when I have caught him staring at your chair, or off into the distance with such a look of sadness on his face.

  ‘Dearest Isabeau, I pray the Beast is as good as his word and you are safe and happy. I must live as though you are, because I cannot bear the alternative. We have not yet told anyone the particulars of your departure. What would we say? And if anyone were to shake their head and presume the worst for you, I fear my own resolve to think the best might be weakened. I must go to my bed now and lay my head on the new pillowcase Claude presented me with today. We all have them and I own it is very pleasant to be sleeping on fine linen again.’

  Marie signed her name at the bottom of the last page and folded the pages away. Then she went into the parlour and over to Isabeau’s box on the mantelpiece. She pressed the letter to her lips for a moment, then opened the box to place it with the first.

  The box was empty.

  Marie’s brow creased into a puzzled frown, and she took up the box to peer into it more closely. Thoughtfully she tapped the folded letter against the side of the box as she considered this new mystery. Eventually she placed the new letter inside the box and snapped it shut. She set it back on the mantelpiece and, glancing around as though she was half-afraid of being observed, she pulled out a hair from her head and wound it once carefully around the latch of the box. She stepped back and gave the box a hard look. Then she turned to leave the room. The image in the mirror faded.

  Now it was my turn to frown. Clearly Marie had expected the first letter to still be in the box. Who could have removed it? And for what reason?

  The next day I witnessed an interesting exchange between Marie and Claude. With the exception of Marie’s letters, the mirror had mostly shown me images of them going about their chores, as this was how they spent the greater part of their time. Apart from the years I spent in the forest, I had never done without servants, magical or otherwise, and it soon dawned on me just how much work there was in keeping a family of three. My dismay deepened when I recalled the first unhappy conversation I witnessed between Marie and Claude, in which it had become apparent that before she left them, Isabeau did most of the work looking after her sisters. No wonder Isabeau had thanked me for giving her a holiday.

  I looked in on them to see Claude busily turning out the bedroom she shared with her sister. There was considerably more colour in her face now than when I had first seen her. I watched her attempting to plump the thin pillows and shaking a threadbare carpet out the window for a few minutes. There was a knock on the door and Marie entered the room, something almost surreptitious about her movement.

  Claude turned from the window to look at her.

  ‘Your boots?’ Claude asked sharply. In answer Marie made an irritated face and lifted the hem of her skirt. I saw she wore only socks. Claude frowned at the dirt smeared around the bottom of her petticoat. Then she looked up at Marie’s face.

  ‘Why are you creeping about like that?’ she asked, giving way to curiosity.

  ‘I wanted to ask …’ Marie stopped, hesitating, then ploughed on. ‘Did you ever open Isabeau’s box? The one we got from the Beast?’

  Claude’s mouth opened in surprise. She turned to look out of the window for a moment, as though making sure she and Marie would not be overheard, and stepped closer to her sister.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  Marie bit her lip.

  ‘I did,’ she said quietly.

  I heard Claude’s sharp intake of breath.

  ‘What was in it?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Marie sounding puzzled, ‘but, that is not the strangest thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Claude.

  ‘I decided to write Isabeau a letter,’ said Marie, with the air of someone admitting to something slightly foolish. Claude nodded. The expression on her face was one of sympathetic understanding, as though she, too, subscribed to Marie’s belief Isabeau would return, but also knew it was not a belief that would stand up to scrutiny.

  ‘I wrote one a week ago,’ Marie continued, ‘and another last night. I thought to put them in the box with her name on it. When I first opened it, the box had nothing in it.’

  Claude raised her eyebrows.

  ‘When I went to put last night’s letter in the box,’ said Marie, her voice sinking to a whisper, ‘the first was gone.’

  Claude put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘I put the second letter in anyway and tied a hair around the latch. I checked it again just now and the hair was still there, but my letter is not. Again!’

  ‘No!’ breathed Claude.

  ‘You didn’t take them out,’ said Marie, shaking her head. It was a statement rather than a question. ‘Do you think Papa might have taken it?’

  Now Claude shook her head. ‘He won’t even look at the box, if he can help it. What could have happened to them?’

  ‘Do you think,’ began Marie hesitantly, as though reluctant to speak her thoughts, ‘perhaps the Beast has somehow taken them? Maybe he has given them to Isabeau?’

  I straightened up in my chair, staring at the mirror in amazement. Claude put her head on one side, considering this possibility.

  ‘How could that be?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘It can only be magic,’ said Marie, still whispering. ‘Think of Papa’s saddlebags. They were not that large. How could so much have been inside them?’

  Claude nodded in agreement. ‘Perhaps it was the Beast. What will you do?’

  ‘I thought I would keep writing,’ said Marie, looking to her sister for approval. ‘Just in case …’

  Claude reached out and clasped Marie’s hand.

  ‘I think you should,’ she said. ‘If he truly is a benevolent creature, then they will comfort her. If not, they will let him know she has a family who loves her and perhaps that will stir some pity in his heart.’

  The image in the glass faded and I leaned back in my chair. I found the substance of their worst fears depressing, but it was only to be expected, and I was resigned to it. Conversely, I was somewhat amused by their assumption I was in complete control of the magic at work here.

  Mostly, however, I was intrigued by the thought Marie’s first letter had been delivered to Isabeau. The more I thought on it, the more I was sure this was the case. I remembered how she had slept late the morning after Marie had written for the first time, and
that she had told me she had stayed awake reading. I wondered if Isabeau was even now reading over Marie’s second letter. A sensation of something like relief came over me. If Isabeau did indeed have Marie’s letters, then she knew how her family fared and there was no need, surely, for me to reveal to her the existence of the mirror in my study.

  Chapter XVI

  Isabeau and I developed something of a pattern to our lives over the next few weeks. Most mornings she would rise early and take her walk in the gardens. I, too, began to rise early, and while I did not usually leave the house during this time, wherever I was I would station myself by a window so I might see her pass if she happened to walk close by. The warm glow of pleasure I felt at the sight of her in my gardens never failed. After this she would usually repair to the music room, where I would go and listen as she played. Often in the afternoons she would seek me out in the library and I would read to her. Every now and then she would spend an hour or two wandering over the house. She seemed particularly interested by the portrait gallery, but she never asked me any questions about the paintings there. She also repeated her midnight rambles several times, but never mentioned these to me either.

  Her family also grew more settled as I watched them. Marie, in particular, appeared to be more than satisfied with her new life. Her garden, with an initial helping hand from the obliging René Dufour, flourished as much as a garden can in winter. She was clearly finding some satisfaction in her duties as the family cook. So much so, she continued to spend at least one day a week in Madame Minou’s kitchen, assisting her with the labours of cooking for the popular local inn. When Claude pointed out she was fortuitously always there on the day Dufour made his delivery to his sister, Marie looked surprised and insisted this was one of the busiest cooking days. Claude then congratulated her sister on the convenience of this arrangement, as he always offered to drive her home afterwards.

  Claude herself, while I never saw her again as miserable as she had been in the first week after Isabeau left, still seemed to be quietly pining, although now she did her best to hide it from her family. There were times when I watched her by herself, when she would pause in her work and sigh, and sometimes rub tears from her eyes. I determined this private grief was more likely to be due to the villainous Gilles than concern over Isabeau, as the sisters continued to freely share this between themselves.

  Isabeau’s father was by far the least comfortable of the trio. While his relief at the equilibrium his elder daughters had found was obvious, the fate of his youngest continued to eat at him. Also, oddly, he was now the least useful member of the household, which came as a severe blow to his already battered pride. His daughters were now managing the household reasonably efficiently and while Marie and Claude had private concerns about how they would manage once the money I had gifted them ran out, their situation was by no means as desperate as it had been when Isabeau first left.

  Monsieur de la Noue’s practical skills were basic at best, and unfortunately he also proved to be somewhat accident-prone. In one letter to Isabeau, Marie described the progress of the henhouse as slower than expected. In the end, for fear the structure would end by collapsing and killing her new hens, and possibly her father, she secretly enlisted the help of Dufour, who I must say carried off his part in the deception with tact and subtlety. He planted ideas in Monsieur de la Noue’s mind in a way that made him think them his own, and spoke at length about the problems – real or imaginary, I know not – he had experienced in constructing a similar structure. In the end, Marie was the proud owner of a very sturdy new henhouse and it only remained for Dufour to promise her the delivery of half a dozen hens in spring to finish it off.

  All in all, I had never been so nearly contented. My main source of discomfort now was the continuing concern I caused Isabeau’s family. My bitter consolation for this, though, was that their worry would eventually be relieved when her year with me was up and she returned to them. Naturally I did my best to avoid thinking about this event.

  One morning, while Isabeau was taking her walk, I went to the library to search out more books to set aside to read to her. One end of the library looked out over a walk through lawns ornamented with fantastically shaped yews. The walk was bordered with particularly fine trees, all clipped to form columns of precise geometric shapes. They had been shrouded in snow when Isabeau arrived, and as my interest had been diverted away from my gardens since then, they had remained that way.

  It was a beautiful scene, in its own stark, eerie way. The dark green of the yew trees was so deep it looked black against the snow. It was not so much an uplifting beauty – I had been used to wander there when I was particularly despondent. It was a very still and quiet place, and I found it easy to wallow in my loneliness there. I had not paid much attention to this part of the garden at all of late, but now as I looked out on it, something caught my attention. Far away down the end of the walk, close to where it ended against the hedge, the mantle of snow was dark and discoloured. Curious, I put my books aside and went outside to investigate.

  As I drew close, I realised it was simply mud. The snow was melting. Puzzled, I looked around. There was certainly something different. I took a deep breath. A certain scent in the air. I could not see through the hedge into the forest, but it came from there.

  I heard a shout. I turned to see Isabeau waving at me from some distance away. It took her a few minutes to walk through the remaining snow to me, and when she arrived she was slightly out of breath. She was dressed in a heavy cloak, and wore mittens and a shawl that may have been tied over her head at some stage, but now her hair was uncovered. For the most part it was tidily pulled into a braid and wound around her head, but wisps and tendrils had escaped and formed curls at her temples and the nape of her neck. Her face was rosy from cold and exertion.

  ‘Beast!’ she cried when she drew close and I felt a warm flush of pleasure at the friendliness of her tone. ‘You rarely leave the house so early! What has brought you outside this morning?’

  ‘This snow is melting,’ I said, pointing to the enigma of the bare earth showing through the icy mush.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, clearly puzzled by my own confusion. ‘Spring is coming.’

  I was about to protest that the seasons on the other side of the hedge had never yet affected my gardens, when I recalled the rabbit and the robin and suddenly understood what they signified.

  ‘Ah, of course,’ I said quietly. Spring was leaking in through the hedge, and eroding the magical winter this part of the garden had been held under for so long. I turned back to look down the walk to the house. Now I knew to search for them underneath the great yews closest to me, I could see green spikes pushing up through the earth.

  I was visited by an unexpected memory of the yew walk lush with twenty different colours of green in a springtime long ago. As a child it had been a favourite place to play; I remembered running down the wide walks and across the lawns, in and out of the twisting paths through the maze of hedges. The giant clipped trees offered perfect places from which to ambush my grandmother and my nurse. I recalled, too, searching out the snowdrops as they began to flower at the feet of the yews.

  I looked back up at the forest trees visible over the top of the hedge. Why now? First an unchanging limbo, then my own magically imposed seasons – why were my gardens now beginning to again respond to the vast wheel of the seasons moving over all the rest of the earth?

  Suddenly I knew.

  I turned to stare at Isabeau. It was her. She was the key. Since she had arrived, the magic that held this place had started to weaken. First the birds and animals had begun to come back to the forest, now the seasons were returning to my garden. If this curse could be broken, she could do it. I didn’t know how. I just felt that if, when her year was up, she chose to go back to her family, as of course she would, any hope I ever had of returning to my former shape was lost. This thought made me frown. Did I truly entertain any hope of becoming human once again?

&n
bsp; Yes, I realised, I did. I had hoped, and hidden this hope far, far down in the depths of my consciousness for fear that any exposure to rational thought would kill it. This hope, I further apprehended, was what had kept me from starving away in the forest and had spurred me on to make myself into my current, pathetic parody of humanity.

  ‘Beast?’ asked Isabeau uncertainly.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, pulling my glance away from her. I needed to think about this. ‘Please excuse me.’ I bowed and strode back up the yew walk to the house.

  Once inside, I went to my study and shut the door. For the first time since Isabeau had arrived, I did not want her company. I needed to be alone and undisturbed. I did not sit. I could not sit! A strange energy was burning in my limbs and my heart beat fast with excitement and fear, so I paced about.

  It was Isabeau. She was the key to the ending of this spell. But how? I struggled to remember the Fairy’s words. Let all who look upon you see the nature of the heart beating in your breast. That had been the curse. Those were the words that had condemned me to this beastly form.

  And after the cursing, what then? I pressed my knuckles to my temples, trying to draw out the memories by force. Memories I had not revisited for obvious, painful reasons.

  I recalled a strange haze, as though a veil had been thrown up between me and the rest of the world. Pain. A horrible cramping and stretching in all my bones and sinews as the magic had forced me into a new and terrible shape. The faces of the people around me changing from dismay to open fear. Lashing out and seeing only fur and claw, and then flight. Pure terror and the urge to flee overtaking my shaken reasoning mind. Did the Fairy speak any more words? Was there an ‘Until …’? I shook my head in frustration. I had not stayed to hear and those who may have done were long gone from this world.

  It was no good. I could not recall anything further of the curse. But why did she curse you? a little voice in my heart whispered. My gut twisted and my heart began to pound. I did not want to think on that. What is to be gained? I thought desperately. Why torment myself with those memories now?