The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  ‘You are nothing but a child,’ de la Noue rasped out. ‘You do not know what you are saying.’

  ‘You think I am a child?’ asked Isabeau, her voice high and angry once more. ‘Do you see a child before you?’ She gestured to herself. ‘Is that what you see?’ she pressed. She turned to Claude. ‘Is that what you see, sister?’

  Claude put her hands up as though fending off the question.

  Isabeau leaned forward over the table, glaring at her father. My heart was beating so fast I felt as though I were in the grip of some terrible fever. They stared at each other across the table, his dark eyes full of rage, hers full of indignation. Her mouth was set. I had seen that stubborn look before.

  Apparently, so had he. His shoulders sagged and he turned his face away from her.

  ‘Pah!’ he said, shaking his head. Then, walking slowly and thumping his congested chest, he left the kitchen. I heard the creak of his feet upon the stairs.

  Isabeau and Claude stared at each other, stricken. Claude recovered first.

  ‘Give him some time,’ she said quickly. ‘In half an hour, go up to him. He is just worried.’

  Isabeau covered her face with her hands. At first I thought perhaps she was crying, but then she shook her head and looked up.

  ‘Time,’ she said wearily, sitting down heavily. ‘I don’t have any more time. Why won’t he just listen to me? I don’t know how else to make him understand. Time is running out. I must go.’

  ‘Just stay a little longer,’ pleaded Claude, reaching to clasp Isabeau’s hand. ‘He will be so miserable if you go away again without repairing this breach with him.’

  ‘He’ll never understand,’ said Isabeau, bowing her head and resting it on the table.

  Half an hour later Isabeau took up a cup of warm chamomile tea. She sat outside her father’s bedroom door and talked through it until the tea was grown cold. Then she went miserably back down to Claude in the kitchen.

  ‘He won’t answer the door,’ she sobbed into her sister’s shoulder. Claude put her arms around Isabeau and held her, her own eyes full of worry.

  ‘I promised the Beast so faithfully I would return today,’ Isabeau cried. ‘Now Papa is making it so hard. I don’t know what to do.’

  Claude chewed her lip. ‘Could you stay just one more day?’ she asked tentatively.

  Isabeau shook her head hopelessly.

  ‘The Beast is so lonely without me,’ she said wearily.

  The scene in the mirror suddenly changed.

  I was looking into the dim interior of de la Noue’s room. He stood in the centre of the floor, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched. There was something about his posture that sent a thrill of alarm through me and I sat up, the hair on the back of my neck prickling.

  In his hands he held a length of rope and I frowned. What could he be doing? He moved slightly and I saw the noose around his neck.

  I leaped from my chair, slamming my paws into the wall either side of the mirror.

  ‘Isabeau!’ I roared.

  In a flash, the mirror changed.

  The sisters sat together in the kitchen, their arms around each other. But, as the last syllable of her name tore from my throat, Isabeau sprang up from the bench, her face a picture of shock.

  ‘Your father!’ I cried, without hope she would hear me.

  ‘Papa!’ gasped Isabeau. ‘Claude, did you hear that?’

  ‘No,’ said Claude, looking at Isabeau, confused. But Isabeau clambered over the seat and ran from the kitchen. I heard her feet clattering up the stairs.

  A moment later I was looking at her rattling at the handle of her father’s bedchamber.

  ‘Papa!’ she called urgently through the door. ‘Papa!’ When he made no reply, she kicked and threw herself at it, but it did not give. I bared my teeth and snarled, my claws gouging chunks from the plastered walls beside the mirror. At her next kick, the door burst open.

  De la Noue was standing upon a chair, trying to tie the rope over one of the beams above his head. Isabeau let out a terrified scream and rushed at him, throwing her arms around his thighs.

  ‘Claude!’ she cried out. Her sister followed her into the room and also let out a scream.

  The next few minutes were awful. Isabeau’s father seemed shocked at first, and struggled to push his youngest daughter away, but she hung on grimly. Then Claude was upon them, sobbing and clutching at her father. Between them, they somehow managed to get him down from the chair and pull the noose from around his neck. Eventually they brought him to sit upon the bed, where he dropped his face into his hands and began to sob: a hoarse and broken sound.

  Isabeau and Claude sat on either side of him, their arms around him, and stared at each other, white-faced over his shaking shoulders, neither of them capable of speech.

  Some time later, Isabeau sat alone in the kitchen, staring at the little orange light winking through the door of the stove, her eyes wide in the dim light.

  Together, she and Claude had dressed their father for bed, and given him a large draught of brandy. Claude had been sure there was no brandy in the pantry, but Isabeau had, of course, found a bottle sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Isabeau had pressed him again and again to tell her why he had done it, but he had just looked away from her, his eyes full of tears, and shaken his head.

  I felt cold to my core. I was certain I knew what black thoughts had driven him to such a desperate act. Isabeau had removed everything that could conceivably cause him harm from his bedchamber and she and Claude had dragged Claude’s mattress from her bed and placed it on the floor. Isabeau had left Claude sitting upon it, watching her father sleep and weeping quietly.

  I didn’t want to move. I felt almost as though I was in the same room as she, and that if I distracted her, something precious might break. After a time she rose and went despondently up the stairs.

  Once she stepped inside her bedroom, she stopped short, looking around at the packed boxes, the rolled mattress, the bedlinen stacked in a pile, the dismantled bed.

  ‘Oh, Papa,’ she said in a low, unhappy voice. She held up her hand, looking at the slim band of gold on her finger. ‘Oh, Beast,’ she said. She touched the ring with a finger and a tear slid down her cheek. My entire body vibrated with tension. I found myself digging my claws into the arms of my chair again.

  ‘Stop it!’ she whispered fiercely. Guiltily I relaxed my hands, but she was talking to herself. It did no good, however. As quickly as she wiped one tear away, more flowed. She gave a little hiccoughing sob and turned about, walking angrily to the window. When she reached it, she turned about and paced back the way she had come.

  For a few minutes I watched Isabeau stalking backwards and forward in distress within the confines of her tiny room. She kept clenching and unclenching her fists and occasionally raising a hand to dash away the tears that kept welling up in her eyes. Eventually she dropped onto the rolled-up mattress on the floor and lowered her head, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. Every fibre of my body yearned to reach out and take her in my arms, stroke her hair, kiss her cares away.

  ‘Papa! Papa!’ she moaned and began to sob in earnest. I had no idea what to hope for. The window of her bedroom showed the night was well advanced. There was only an hour or two left of the day appointed for her return to me. Yet I knew it was impossible for her to leave now. She would have no peace while she stayed with me. And I could see now, with a shudder, I was no less selfish in my desire for her company than her father was.

  My paws clenched over the arms of my chair, my talons rending the upholstery and scoring deep furrows in the wood. I shut my eyes, threw back my head and let out a roar of grief. After the sound had ripped out of me, I sagged back in the chair and opened my eyes. Isabeau was still sitting on her bed, her hands over her face and her shoulders shaking.

  ‘Isabeau,’ I croaked, my voice scratched and broken from my fury. I had a desperate notion she might hear me.

  Ind
eed, the instant her name left my lips she looked up as though startled.

  ‘Don’t think of me,’ I went on, trying not to choke on the bitterness that rose up with these words. ‘Heal the breach with your father. I release you.’

  Isabeau remained sitting on her bed for some moments, her eyes wide, then she hit her knee with her fist.

  ‘Dear, generous, stupid Beast,’ she said with a sob, then jumped up and whirled over to where her mattress was lying rolled in the corner. She pulled off the rope tying it up, then turned to the trunk sitting in the middle of the floor. With some violence she threw open the lid and tore out her nightgown and cast it onto the mattress. She began to tear her clothes off with equal violence.

  When she was dressed in her nightclothes, she threw a blanket onto the mattress, but instead of laying herself down, she sat in the middle of the makeshift bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. Far from being reconciled with her decision to stay, she still seemed agitated. As I watched, she leaped up again and disappeared down the stairs. The mirror changed to show me a view of the kitchen once more. Isabeau entered, moving quietly, but with a certain recklessness. She took up the bottle of brandy and to my shock began to drink it straight from the bottle.

  After taking several long swallows, she stopped and wiped her mouth, panting.

  ‘I am not going to be able to sleep, otherwise,’ she whispered apologetically into the dark empty room. ‘For worry over you, you know. As well as him.’ She took another draught. I sat forward in my chair. Was she talking to me?

  ‘I heard you, Beast,’ she said decisively. ‘It was like a wind brought me your words from a distance. And I know you watch me. You have your mirror and I have my dreams. You know about them now.’ She took another mouthful of brandy and grimaced, then rested the bottle on the table.

  ‘You don’t know about all of them, though,’ she said, and for a moment she smiled a ghost of a smile. ‘I didn’t tell Marie about the nicest ones.’ Then her lips quivered and she dashed her hand across her eyes again.

  ‘Oh, Beast …’

  She stood in silence for a long moment.

  ‘I am going to go to my bed now,’ she said. ‘Please, dear Beast, won’t you go to yours tonight? Please let me dream of you asleep in your bed, not roaming your house or sitting sleepless in your chair or my room. You can’t know how hard that is to bear. Let me have that peace.’

  She let go of the bottle and then, curiously, kissed her fingertips and held her hand out to the air as if she was waving goodbye to someone she loved. Then she turned and went unsteadily from the room. The mirror did not change, and I was left staring at the empty darkness of the kitchen, with only the sounds of Isabeau’s feet on the stairs.

  What did she mean? What other dreams? Was that kiss a final goodbye, or a simple token of affection? I was frozen for a moment, wavering between despair and hope. But then her request asserted itself in my mind. I rose from my chair and went to my bedroom. I looked at my bed in distaste. I had not spent many hours in it at all since she had gone, and in truth it did not beckon me now. But she had asked, so I would try.

  ‘Wine,’ I said roughly to my empty house. There was a silent pause, of the kind that occurs when a servant has been ordered to do something very much against their liking, so I repeated my command. This time a flagon of wine appeared by my bed. A goblet also accompanied it, but I chose to follow Isabeau’s example and simply drink from the bottle.

  Chapter XLI

  The next morning I woke before the sun, feeling heavy and oppressed. Perhaps it was the quantity of red wine I had imbibed, but my sleep had not noticeably refreshed me. I shrugged into my clothes and staggered back to the mirror in my study. It was almost as if I had not left. It showed me an identical scene to that which I had left last night – the dim kitchen with the bottle of brandy on the table. I sank into my chair.

  Perhaps I dozed again, I am not sure. But certainly my attention wandered. I grew aware of movement within the de la Noues’ kitchen, and was conscious of a sense I had missed something. Then Claude moved back into my view. She was simply preparing breakfast.

  A short while later a slow, heavy step was heard on the stairs and de la Noue entered the room. He mumbled a greeting at his daughter and sat down heavily at the table, clasping the warm drink Claude put into his hands. He looked sad, angry and old. Claude spoke softly to him, offering him breakfast and he barely responded.

  At one point Claude went outside into the day that was just beginning to grow light. I heard her exclaim and she came tripping back inside calling, ‘Papa! Just look!’ De la Noue half-turned in his seat, his face lightening.

  ‘Papa, it has snowed!’ announced Claude. ‘Not much, but it is the first fall of the season. Winter is truly here.’ De la Noue’s face sank into gloom again and he turned back to his breakfast without a word. Claude bit her lip, her face dismayed. She did not seem to know what to say.

  Then the both of them heard a muffled sound from the room above, and turned their heads to look up at the ceiling. I wished violently for the mirror to take me into Isabeau’s bedroom so I could see her, but it remained steadfastly focussed on the kitchen. There were more soft sounds and de la Noue turned to Claude.

  ‘Did she not go?’ he asked gruffly, barely covering his amazement.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Claude wonderingly. ‘She said goodbye to me last night.’

  They had not many minutes to wait before another set of feet was heard upon the stairs and the kitchen door was pushed open to reveal Isabeau. She, too, looked as though the night had afforded her little rest. Her eyes were red and her lashes were wet. But she came into the room, smiling bravely.

  ‘Isabeau,’ croaked her father, staring at her helplessly from his seat.

  ‘Papa,’ said Isabeau simply and came behind him to wrap her arms about him. De la Noue was speechless and could only pat the arms now encircling his shoulders, but I saw tears leaking from his old eyes.

  ‘You stayed,’ he said eventually.

  ‘I could not leave you,’ she said.

  At her words there was a sudden roaring in my ears and I hid my face. As she spoke, I had also seen fresh tears well up in Isabeau’s eyes. Her tears – whatever they might signify – were not something I could easily watch. Her whispered words from the previous evening, ‘I have my dreams,’ stung me into action. I did not want her to witness me weeping alone in my study over her reconciliation with her father. So I rose and made a bow to the mirror, saying quietly, ‘Well done, Isabeau.’ Then I left.

  I went to the library, thinking perhaps to find some book to distract myself with, or perhaps one of her drawings I might pine over, or the ghost of the scent of the flowers she drew there. Of course, there was nothing but shelves of disintegrating volumes and the odour of mildew. I found myself staring out over the yew walk, its sombre, formal grandeur a perfect foil for my bleak mood. The very early sun was only just beginning to show itself above the rim of the forest and its pale radiance showed me a light fall of snow had coated the grass in powdery white. Across the frozen lawn I could see the tall, impenetrable hedge walling me off from the world. The sight was unbearable and I turned away.

  Several of Isabeau’s volumes of botanical illustrations were still piled upon the table, their bindings growing loose and spotted with mould. I sat down and began to look through them, but I confess I saw little of what was in front of me. I must have spent a long time there, my vision obscured by the tears crowding my eyes and the thoughts crowding my mind. I tried to focus on memories happy and tender, but this was exhausting. No sooner had I called one up, but a miserable voice in my brain would whisper such would never be repeated. Drowning out this voice by conjuring more memories was wearying in the extreme.

  Eventually I found I had grown so cold and stiff I could no longer force my paws to turn the pages over, and I noticed my breath forming frosted clouds in the air around me. Overcome by the misery of the derelict library, I left.

 
All the magic remaining in the house now seemed concentrated in my study. There, a roaring fire recalled sensation to my frozen paws. A soft rug lay over my chair and a steaming mug of some sort of tea stood on the table close by. But despite the ache in my belly that spoke of days without food and the shudders of cold convulsing my massive frame, there was only one object in the room that could hold my attention.

  I staggered to the mirror and pushed the drapes aside. I saw the cottage, its poverty and disrepair made charming by the mantle of snow lying lightly, like lace, along the edges of its roof and the henhouse. I saw Dufour’s work cart, stacked with a pitifully small load of belongings for a family of a man and his three grown daughters. Indeed, the bulk of the load consisted of the trunks Isabeau had taken from my house.

  The cottage door opened and René Dufour exited, supporting de la Noue on his arm. Claude followed, locking the door behind herself, and placing the key upon the top of the door frame. She paused a moment, with her hand on the silvered wood, as though saying a fond goodbye to the house she had turned into a home. Then she followed her father.

  Where was Isabeau?

  At the gate, Claude stopped and turned back to the house.

  ‘Isabeau!’ she called out. ‘Isabeau, we are leaving now’

  A few moments later – I could not stop my heart lurching in my breast – Isabeau rounded the corner of the cottage, walking slowly. Her face was pale, and as she drew closer I could see her eyes were red. But she shed no tears and came to help Claude see her father settled comfortably in the front of the cart. The seat only had room for three, so a short dispute ensued between Claude and Isabeau about who would sit in the rear of the cart.

  ‘Please, Claude,’ begged Isabeau, ‘I would so like some time alone with my thoughts. I’ve not had any time to myself since I returned.’ Her voice shook and the dispute was ended.

  Isabeau settled herself in the back of the cart, as comfortably as she may. The last vision the mirror granted me of her showed her staring back at the forest behind the house as the cart began to move away. Her face was very white and the deep, dark green of the trees was reflected in her grey eyes. As I watched, they finally filled with tears and she dropped her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.