The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  Isabeau smiled, and by the time they had reached the Crossed Keys she seemed more like her usual self.

  They spent some time at the inn as Claude had planned, talking with Madame Minou of the wedding and asking after the happy couple. Minou said she had not seen René since the wedding, but one of his hands had been out to deliver some goods and reported his master was over the moon and Marie had made a singularly good impression on all the servants and workers on the farm. From his account she was as pleased with her new home as could be, and was in perfect accord with all the key farm and household staff about how the place should be managed. Minou promised to keep a pair of loaves of bread aside for them and the sisters went out to wander up and down the market stalls that had sprung up on the main street.

  ‘Marie tells me,’ said Isabeau, with a familiar mischievous curl to her mouth, ‘the first time you went to the markets alone, you brought back an enormous goose all trussed up in the most elegant silk kerchief.’

  A flush rose to Claude’s cheeks. ‘I had no idea they were so heavy,’ she said primly. ‘The Vicomte de Villemont came upon me struggling to get it home and was kind enough to assist me.’

  ‘Ah, the Vicomte,’ said Isabeau, as though this explained the whole story. ‘Does he own land out our way, I wonder? It must be a very troublesome piece of property. Marie says he is forever riding past the cottage.’

  Claude was bright pink now.

  ‘Oh, do not tease me!’ she begged, a hand involuntarily closing about the little pendant at her neck. ‘It is not … it is just …’

  ‘What?’ asked Isabeau innocently. Then she saw the expression on her sister’s face and laughed.

  ‘Oh Claude, I am sorry,’ she giggled. ‘Really, though, he is the most elegant dancer, and his manners are just what they ought to be. It was so kind of him to take Papa home the other night. Marie says he is very well spoken of around here.’

  The colour in Claude’s face subsided, but did not fade away altogether. Isabeau’s words were all she needed to launch into a catalogue of the young Vicomte’s graces.

  ‘And he has indeed been so kind to Papa,’ she finished, as the two sisters were examining lengths of ribbon at Claude’s favourite market stall. ‘He has sought out his advice several times now on matters of investment and so forth. Papa does what he can around the house, but it is not what he is good at, you know. When Henri began to seek him out for his advice, I believe Papa at last began to think himself truly useful once again.’

  Isabeau frowned.

  ‘He has always been truly useful to us,’ she said irritably. ‘He does not value himself as he should. He is our father. We love him, and will always need him.’

  Claude cast her an anxious sideways look and did not reply. After a few moments, however, Isabeau recalled herself.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she said ruefully, ‘we were talking of your Vicomte. Do you think I will get to meet him today?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ breathed Claude, her eyes lighting on something further up the street. Isabeau turned to see Henri riding slowly down the main street. His face came alive with joy when he spied Claude waiting demurely by the ribbon stall and he instantly dismounted and approached them. He was all that was polite to Isabeau; however it could not be said that he let his eyes stray from Claude’s face any more than was absolutely necessary; especially after he had spied his gift once more about her neck.

  Alone in my study I watched them all stroll back down the street to partake of refreshment at the Crossed Keys, and then wander at an easy pace back to the cottage, Claude with no more to show for her trip to the markets than a better acquaintance between her younger sister and her beloved and two loaves of bread.

  Isabeau and her father did not repeat their tête-à-tête during the next two days. They were certainly making an effort to remain on good terms with each other. Indeed, Isabeau must have bestowed hundreds of kisses on the top of her father’s head and de la Noue appeared happy to receive them. However, Isabeau was careful not to broach the topic of myself or her imminent departure, and de la Noue was just as happy to stay out of such dangerous territory.

  To be sure, I did not spend quite every moment in my study, gazing into the glass. There were times when it refused to show me anything other than an ordinary mirror might. The sight of my own reflection was pathetic enough to spur me out of my chair in irritation, but I did little other than wander and reminisce, and prick myself against the keenness of the yearning that constantly devastated my peace.

  The house was becoming less and less a place of comfort. Panes of glass cracked, letting in chill draughts, and I found mouse droppings scattered liberally over the shelves in the library. Dead moths lay upon the window sills of my fencing gallery and the shutters along the portrait gallery began to warp and rattle on their hinges.

  I went several times to the shrine of Isabeau’s chambers, but their emptiness rendered these visits ultimately unsatisfactory, leaving me feeling the desolation of my domain all the more.

  I visited my painting and narrowly avoided destroying it in a rage. It was only saved from being torn to shreds when I recalled that I owed Isabeau’s dreams of receiving my proposals from my human self to it.

  I paced around and around the rose garden. Its winter garb was a perfect foil for my misery. Stripped of all colour save the odd yellow leaf or vermillion hip, its bare brown thorns suited my mood as the bleak yew walk had also once done. Even the little robin’s nest now stood empty and abandoned, exposed to the elements with the fall of the leaves and beginning to come apart.

  The odd tray of food appeared on my desk, but I ate little. My dining room did not again try to tempt me in with a feast laid for one. I felt drained of all energy and exhausted all the time, but sleep remained an almost unattainable state. Many of my rambles and wanderings happened in the small hours of the night when the de la Noues all lay asleep in their beds and my chair grew diabolically uncomfortable. I did try, once or twice, to cast myself upon my bed and let sleep overtake me, but it did not come.

  There were moments when I thought I would go mad from the terrible emotions boiling in my breast. I flew into some black and violent rages – such as the one that nearly caused the destruction of my portrait. But each time I found myself standing amid some new scene of destruction, the heat fading from my blood, I was suffused with shame. I could not help but remember my father’s drunken rampages and how they plagued my childhood.

  I tried my old trick of howling my despair up at the moon. However, my throat now seemed to have become moulded along more human lines and the sound that came out was so miserable, so like a human blubber, I slunk down from the rooftops in humiliation.

  Always I would finish back in my study, sprawled in my chair, waiting for the first flush of dawn to wake the woman sleeping in the attic of the cottage just outside the borders of my forbidden forest. And always, when her eyes flickered open, I would see the pain that filled them and the shadows that grew darker by the day as Isabeau spent her first few waking minutes in her room, staring out at nothing. It wracked me with guilt to think, in her dreams, she had seen me giving way to grief and desolation. But I did not know how to stop myself.

  Chapter XL

  Then came the last day of Isabeau’s week. Sleep had not come to me at all that night. Weary as ever, I was yet filled with a nervous energy that would not let me sit still, much less rest. Would she really return? Could I even face her, having so comprehensively failed to fulfil her one request of me – to ‘be well’?

  I stared at her hungrily in my mirror as she woke on that last day. I watched with more relief than I can describe as she folded her nightgown and placed it, not under her pillow, but in one of the trunks I had sent with her. She sat on her bed for a few minutes before going down to breakfast, twisting the ring on her finger to and fro. But not twice around. Not yet.

  Breakfast was a subdued affair. As usual, Claude and Isabeau were up before their father and sat in the small kitchen for
a few minutes, talking quietly over their morning meal.

  ‘So many “lasts”,’ moaned Claude forlornly. ‘Today is your last day with us, our last night in this cottage.’

  ‘Surely you are not bemoaning leaving this house?’ Isabeau asked, skirting the issue of her own departure. Claude made a face.

  ‘I believe I am,’ she said wistfully. ‘It has grown so familiar. And it was ours. When we go to Marie, we will be living in her house. Hers and René’s.’

  ‘She will not begrudge you keeping house for her,’ said Isabeau. ‘She will have so much to occupy her time.’

  Claude frowned. ‘I know, but I will feel obliged to ensure I am doing things to suit her, rather than myself.’

  Isabeau gave her sister a smile.

  ‘I think you will be not long without your own domain to arrange as you wish,’ she said.

  Claude went pink and ducked her head.

  ‘I do not like to presume,’ she said primly.

  ‘I believe it cost Marie quite a pang to leave her henhouse and her garden,’ said Isabeau. ‘I cannot believe how homely you two have made this place. I at least will be sad to quit it.’ A little break came into her voice as she spoke.

  ‘Truly, do you have to return to your Beast?’ asked Claude.

  Isabeau nodded.

  ‘I wish I could explain to you how much he needs me,’ she said. ‘I promised him a year, and I promised him I would return from this visit and stay out my pledge. He is so lonely in that house of his. And I will be back with you all by the end of winter.’

  The little glow that had begun to warm my cold, numb heart faded away.

  ‘But Isabeau,’ said Claude, frowning, ‘what of your Beast when you do return for good? Will he not be very lonely then, too?’

  Isabeau looked down at her hands, her face pale.

  ‘Yes, I suppose he will,’ she said as though this thought had never occurred to her. I waited to hear what she would say next. She turned to her sister.

  ‘I have not thought on it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to do!’

  ‘Is he so very dear to you?’ asked Claude carefully, not looking at her sister, but concentrating very hard on the cup of warm milk she held in both hands. A thin prickle of fear ran over my skin. Had Claude guessed? Would she try to prevent her sister from an alliance with a monster like me?

  ‘He is a very dear friend,’ choked out Isabeau. ‘He has been so good to me, to us all. Why can’t you see that?’

  Claude’s mouth fell open in astonishment and she watched, wordless, as Isabeau rose abruptly and stormed out of the kitchen. A moment later, though, she put down her cup and hurried after her sister.

  I flung myself out of my chair at the mirror with a roar. I cannot tell what last-minute reflex saved the precious glass and had me pounding angrily upon the wall to either side of it. I stood for a moment, my forehead pressed to the cold, unyielding surface, then stormed out, half-afraid I would do something else to shatter it and deny myself any further sight of Isabeau.

  ‘I am not just your friend!’ I cried out at the empty corridor, hitting out at a wall and leaving a ragged line where my talons caught at the plaster. Then a memory flashed into my brain, of the note I had sent her after the very first time I had asked her to marry me. Your friend, the Beast, scrawled across my vision as though written in the air.

  ‘I am not your friend!’ I bellowed again, taking a stumbling step backwards and crashing into the opposite wall. The knowledge that, whether she returned to me or not, she would likely witness this outburst in her dreams that night broke over me and I sat down suddenly, slumping against the wall. I could almost feel her presence, standing before me, an expression of horror on her face.

  ‘We are more to each other than any mere friend ever was,’ I said brokenly to the air.

  After that little episode, I could not bring myself to immediately return to the mirror, knowing the distress I would undoubtedly bring her that night. The house, and all its empty rooms, began to weigh heavily upon me once more and I left, striking out for the yew walk.

  Out in the cold without a coat, I decided a bottle of brandy was an attractive solution to warding off the cold. But after several burning mouthfuls, my empty stomach protested at being doused with such stuff without the fortification of any food and my head began to spin. Despite my anger over Isabeau’s continued denials, I did not want to be inebriated if – when – she returned home that day.

  I reached the boundary hedge at the bottom of the lawn and turned aside to follow it to the great iron gate. When I reached it, I could not help but test it. Despite applying all my strength to trying to wrench it open, it remained resolutely shut against me. In a surge of rage I hurled the bottle of brandy at it and gained no satisfaction from watching the heavy glass burst apart against the implacable iron bars.

  I nearly did not return to my station in front of the mirror. But, for all my sulky bravado, as I drew closer to the front door, the image of Isabeau grew clearer and clearer in my mind. By the time I reached the door, I could almost smell the scent of her hair. When I set my foot upon the bottom of the grand staircase, I was running.

  Still, I doubt I had missed much of note during my angry wanderings. As I sank once more into my chair, the mirror showed me Isabeau and Claude being industrious. I surmised they had mended the morning’s breach. Though Isabeau remained distracted, stopping to stare at nothing every now and then, the two were chatting quietly as they sorted and packed their family’s meagre belongings. In the corner of the parlour sat a rolled mattress, tied about with rope. Isabeau sat on the floor tying a stack of cooking pots together with string, and Claude was carefully packing their meagre collection of stoneware cups and jugs and their four pewter plates into a box full of straw.

  ‘It hardly seems worth bringing them,’ she sighed, holding the wooden dog from the mantelpiece in her hands a moment, before tenderly fitting it into place beside the plates. ‘I am sure René will have better.’

  Isabeau looked up at her.

  ‘But, if you take our things, it might not feel quite so much that you are living in someone else’s home,’ she suggested.

  ‘True,’ said Claude but she still sounded wistful.

  ‘There,’ said Isabeau with some satisfaction, looking at the bundle of pots. ‘I have got them trussed up. There’s only the food left in the pantry – which is probably best packed up tomorrow morning after you’ve eaten. It will be boiled eggs and bread and cheese for dinner tonight,’ she added with a wry twist to her mouth.

  ‘Will you stay and eat with us?’ asked Claude, watching her sister carefully. Isabeau looked away.

  ‘Yes,’ she said reluctantly, as though forced to discuss something she’d rather not. ‘I thought I would.’

  Claude nodded a little sadly, her eyes still on her sister.

  ‘Are you sure you want—’ she began, and stopped as Isabeau threw her a furious look.

  ‘Well,’ Claude said in a very neutral tone, ‘that’s Marie’s things and the pantry all packed away. Perhaps we could take these things out to the cart now?’

  I watched them all afternoon as they worked, bundling things up, putting them in boxes, wrapping them in cloth. I wondered where de la Noue was, but he did not come back to the house until it was nearly sundown. He was wheezing and perspiring as though he had been exerting himself.

  ‘The hens are in their cages,’ he said gruffly to Claude, who was setting the table, his eyes sliding over to where his youngest daughter stood by the stove.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Claude with relief. ‘I was not looking forward to having to chase them tomorrow morning.’

  The plates were laid out and the bread cut. Isabeau put a bowl of cold boiled eggs onto the table.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Isabeau as the family seated themselves, ‘it’s not quite what Marie would have conjured up, is it?’

  Claude made a wry face, but de la Noue just made a noise in his throat and peeled his egg, still ref
using to look at Isabeau. After an uncomfortable silence, in which Isabeau and Claude exchanged speaking, if hopeless, glances, Isabeau spoke.

  ‘You know I am going back tonight, Papa?’ she said tentatively.

  Far away, in my dark, lonely study, I sat up a little straighter in my seat. I found I was shaking. Would she really be here soon?

  In the kitchen, a few feet across the table from her, Isabeau’s father finally raised his eyes to hers. His expression was thunderous.

  ‘No, you are not,’ he said flatly. Then he dropped his eyes to his bread and butter again.

  ‘Papa,’ said Isabeau, ‘I am going. I gave the Beast my word.’

  De la Noue’s fist slammed down upon the table, making his daughters and all the cutlery jump.

  ‘No!’ he roared. ‘You are not! I forbid it! I forbade it last time and, God help me, you are not going again!’

  Isabeau had gone white, her eyes large in her face. But she sat up straight and put her bread down on the plate, taking a deep breath.

  ‘Papa,’ she said, ‘please don’t worry about me. I want to go back! I miss the Beast. I—’

  Whatever precious thing she was going to say next was lost as her father uttered a strangled bellow and leaped up from his seat, knocking the bench over backwards. He slammed both hands upon the table this time, knocking over the bottle of wine, which was only saved by Claude’s quick reflexes.

  ‘I said no!’ he cried, his face wild. ‘You will obey me in this. You miss the Beast? Are you mad?’

  ‘No!’ cried Isabeau ‘I—’ But he cut her off.

  ‘What do you know of the world?’ de la Noue spat at her. ‘Nothing! You know nothing. Clearly you know so little you think that monster a fit companion. No.’ He lifted a shaking hand and waved a finger at her. ‘No! You will stay here. You will come with your sister and me and you will have a life, and you will learn what it is to be happy!’ He dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing.

  Isabeau stared at him in dismay.

  ‘Papa,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I was happy. I want to go back. You cannot stop me.’