Roses in Amber: A Beauty and the Beast story

by C. E. Murphy

  Father took a breath, and Opal's gaze met mine. A knot bound itself in my belly, pressing upward, and I clutched the bit of rose window still in my hand. I did not want to hear what he had to say next, but the words came anyway, relentless with calm. "I'm afraid our credit is already strained, Pearl. The past few seasons have not been as profitable as I might have hoped—"

  A gasp parted Pearl's lips, the sound small and sharp enough that she might have taken a blow. Father's jaw rolled, but he continued. "—and our fortunes depend on the incoming ships."

  "Why did you not tell us?" Pearl's voice did not rise. She was too cultured for that, but her eyes flashed with fury.

  "Because no father wants to tell his children that they verge on destitution, and because we are not so desperate that a good season would not turn it all around. If the next ships had come in with little to show for their journeys, I would have told you then of our situation. The fire has forced me to do so now. I wish it was not so."

  "And yet Pearl is right," Opal said in a thin voice. "The house fire is bad enough. If our fortunes are in decline, do we not need a pretense of continuing wealth to ensure good marriages?"

  "Beauty rarely requires wealth to come along with it," Father said. "One excellent marriage will offer the other two better chances, and none of you are plain."

  "There's no way for us to marry without looking as though we are hastily seeking refuge in another home." I glanced at the rose, hidden in the skirt of my nightdress, then looked back at my father and sisters. "On the other hand, it might seem a perfectly reasonable time for us to do so. It will be months, even years, before our home is reconstructed, and we girls cannot be expected to live in a hotel forever. Society would accept that Father and Maman and the boys might live somewhere more modest for a while, but why would three women of marrying age remain unwed under these circumstances?" I tried to smile, though it felt weak. "You know there are those who say we only stay at home because no one else can match the luxury of our father's house. If he can no longer provide that luxury…."

  Pearl examined me as though I had briefly become something new and interesting. Like the puzzle so many others saw me as, perhaps. "I didn't know you could be so mercenary, Amber."

  "Well." My smile strengthened. "I do expect you to make that first marriage, Pearl. Yours is the ruthless beauty."

  She lowered her lashes in a display of modesty that no one who knew her would believe, then brought her gaze to Father again. "I need at least a month at the Noble to make a marriage, Father. Even I can't do it from the Crossroads."

  He looked at her and, though I could see it was against his better judgment, bowed his head. That moment was the first I truly realized my father could not tell his daughters—and perhaps his sons—no. We had always teased him about it, but I had never fully believed it, and I did not then understand the price we would all pay for his generosity.

  We spent less than a day at our neighbors', and yet the retreat to the Noble came as a relief. Maman joined us, elegant with fragility as Father escorted her from the neighbors' house to the hired coach. I could not begrudge the neighbors for not wanting us, all still stinking of smoke and ash, in their own coach; it would be difficult enough for their servants to air feather mattresses and scrub the smell out of bedclothes. Should it settle into the leather of their carriage, they would carry it with them for months. I did, for the first time in my pampered life, worry a little about the expense, but that was beyond my purview, and if it did not fall out of my head, neither did it keep me from sleeping, as the days went by.

  The first day we luxuriated in baths, each of us girls and father having clean, hot water poured for us, because the filth of soot and smoke blackened the tub so badly with Father's bath that we could not be expected to get clean without new water. The boys had to share a bath, but even they were glad to be rid of the smoke scent, and exhaustion claimed us all as its own that night.

  In the morning we were visited by a dressmaker beside herself with concern over our displaced state. We girls received half a dozen new dresses each, with cunning overlays and wraps in different colors that could be switched around to make our wardrobes look thrice the size they were. Maman had three gowns of her own, and Papa two suits; the boys made do with a jacket apiece and two sets of new trousers, tights, blouses, and shoes, the last of which were the quickest in coming, as the cobbler had pre-cut soles ready for the stitching, and we all needed shoes badly.

  Most of our servants had been let go, for we had nowhere to house them and no work for a groundskeeper or cook even if we could pay them. Father had his manservant, who helped with the boys, and we four women shared a lady's maid who fussed us into our new gowns and did our hair and made us presentable to the world. Within a week of our house burning, we were comfortable enough at the Noble, taking two rooms for sleeping and a third as our public room, that we might have visitors without being exposed to all the city who came by.

  And all the city did come by: there was nothing as good as a tragedy to rile peoples' interests. It would have been, by gossips' estimations, vastly superior if someone had died, but there was a breathless interest in us having all survived, as well. Maman had not yet recovered from the shock of it all and played the role of invalid well, while Opal, the gentlest daughter, cared for her in a way that made other mamas imagine she might care well for their own darling sons and grandchildren.

  Pearl proved magnificent in adversity, not by denying her aloofness but by playing to it: she sat in the window of our salon, looking shockingly dramatic as she gazed over the city. I didn't believe she had actually lost weight, but rather applied some subtle color to her cheekbones, making them all the more extraordinary. From the street she looked like a princess trapped in a tower. Our first visitors were Maman's closest friends, who went away to witter about Opal's kindness and Pearl's luminescent beauty. (I, being only seventeen, was largely expected to sit quietly, be useful, and eventually take advantage of my older sisters' good marriages.) The words deathly pale were heard on the wind, and suitors who had once been spurned now returned to see if the city's legendary beauty was, indeed, at death's door.

  "Of course not," Pearl spat bitterly, and turned her face from them with the most delicate tremble, giving the lie—or at least an impression of the lie—to her words.

  One of them proposed to her immediately.

  Pearl, with more dignity and unspoken wrath than I would be able to conjure in a lifetime, stood and gazed at this unfortunate with a loathing she might usually reserve for a slime eel, or a fungus. "I suppose you ask so that you might have only a little time to put up with me, and a very long time indeed to fondle my fortune. I assure you, sir, I am not that desperate."

  She swept from the room at the end of this speech, glancing back only once. But instead of the scathing glance I expected from her, I saw desperation instead. Desperation, vulnerability, hope, trust, and then those emotions were shuttered so fully that I thought I imagined that they had been there at all.

  But then I saw the look in her suitors' eyes, and knew that somehow my arrogant sister had convinced them that her coldness was only for show, that she was dying, that she was terrified, and that she would do anything for a show of true passion in her final days.

  One of the youths slapped Rafe, who had proposed, along the back of the head, half in jest and in all seriousness. "What were you thinking, man, proposing in front of her entire family? What did you expect her to say?"

  Rafe, who was reasonably handsome and extremely wealthy, proved to have an excellent, if sheepish, smile. "She's Pearl Gryce, mate. I expected her to say no. She did before." His gaze lingered on the door Pearl had escaped through, though, before he turned to Father and offered a bow. "May I call again, sir?"

  Father, whose eyes had bugged in near apoplexy at Rafe's rejection, made an agreeably non-committal grunt that earned a smile and a bow from Rafe, who then herded his comrades out of our salon to the noisiness of the street. I glanced out
from behind the curtain and saw the other youths leaping on Rafe, razzing him and ruffling his hair, but he seemed to take no mind of it, smiling as his own attention returned not to the window I hid in, but the one next door. I imagined Pearl turning swiftly away from that window, a pretense of having been caught, and let the curtain fall as I chuckled. "I didn't know she acted so well."

  "Why did she turn him down?" Father demanded.

  Even Opal smiled, at that. "Had she accepted, he would have felt himself trapped and found a way out, even with all of us as witnesses. Now it's a chase again, and better yet, a rescue. It's all very romantic."

  Better than romantic, it was a horse race: before evening, one of Rafe's compatriots, a tall youth with a thin mouth and hard eyes returned to ask Father for permission to pay his regards to Pearl, and by late the next afternoon two more young gentlemen and an extremely handsome young lady came to admire Pearl's reputedly dying beauty, and made their addresses known.

  "Which of them will you accept?" Opal asked that second night, earning Pearl's indifferent shrug.

  "Rafe is the wealthiest of them, and unlikely to try to murder me in our bed when I don't conveniently die in a month or two. At least it's easy to appear increasingly fragile, with the quality of food available here." Pearl's nostrils flared just enough to convey absolute contempt, though in fact the Noble's dining hall was fit enough to serve anyone shy of royalty. "I prefer Solindra, though. She has less money but a great deal more charm."

  "Solindra Nare has no brothers or sisters," Father said firmly. "Her parents are unlikely to condone a marriage that won't produce an heir."

  Pearl rolled her eyes quite magnificently. "Children can be adopted, Father, or a child-maker hired to lie with her if she must be a mother. If we're appallingly canny we might find some young rake with money who'd prefer a husband of his own, and join two more fortunes together for the child's secure future. I'll take another week or two so she doesn't think this is all too easy, and be married before the spring cross-quarter day. I suppose you'll have to come with me, Opal. You can be better presented from Solindra's manor than a hotel, and Amber can move into the Crossroads with Father, if the ships haven't yet come in."

  "How thoughtful of you," I said dryly.

  Pearl cast me an icy look. "Once Opal is settled she or I will take you in, Amber, but it's easier to marry one woman off at a time. Having all of us hanging about might make someone realize the urgency of the situation."

  That, I could not entirely argue with. Neither, in fact, was I in any particular hurry to wed, despite understanding the necessity of it. A little delay orchestrated by my conniving eldest sister was welcome to me.

  Rafe, Solindra, and several others called daily for ten afternoons. Each time cold Pearl thawed a little more toward Solindra, who grew more radiant with each of Pearl's smiles, whilst Rafe, who appeared no fool, found himself increasingly attentive of Opal. My middle sister seemed quietly pleased by this turn of events, though I thought Opal would be pleased by anything that helped secure our fortunes. Not because she was a fortune-hunter herself, but because she would worry about us until we were all safe, and think very little of attaching herself to someone pleasant to ensure that safety was engaged. To my amusement, Father became increasingly offended that none of the remaining young men seemed interested in pursuing me, though they were polite enough while trying to steal my sisters' attention. Father began to try to herd them toward me, as if he was a sheepdog and they the sheep—leaving me in a role I dared not contemplate—and I heard them chortling about it on their way out one evening. "Why not?" asked one. "She's got a face you could look at for hours, and none of her older sister's sharpness."

  Pearl sent their backs a daggered look indeed: had witchery been more common they might have found themselves bleeding from her glare, but instead the other one shrugged off his reply as the door closed behind them. "Not that one. Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?"

  I murmured, "Oh dear." My sisters both looked at me, appalled, while Father turned white, then red, and went swiftly into the room he shared with Maman.

  Opal said, "Amber?"

  "I was very discrete!"

  "Apparently not discrete enough." Pearl flung herself into a divan—even that looked graceful on my sister's long frame—and gazed at me with a peculiar mix of horror and admiration. "Really, Amber? Who?"

  "Well, it hardly matters now, does it? Our wealthy young friends are still interested in you two, even if I've been, ahm." I glanced toward the door and the departed gossips. "Milked."

  "It was that boy at the ball last year, wasn't it? The one who couldn't take his eyes off you. What happened to him? Maybe we can force his hand into marriage."

  "For all the stars and the shining moon, Pearl. He left last spring with his parents, to sail for the Eastern Islands and their holdings there. All that gossiping snob who just left has is speculation. People talk because I won't look away when they stare at me. Anyway, if you and Opal have secured good enough marriages and Father's ships come in, either I'll be well enough off that I'm too profitable a union to pass on, or I'll be able to marry someone who doesn't care. Besides," I added with a sly smile, "it was worth it."

  A blush crept up Opal's cheeks and she leaned forward to whisper, "Was it? Tell us about it."

  My smile became a slow grin, and I bid my sisters nestle closer while I whispered my experiences to them, and we all of us went to bed shyly pleased with ourselves and convinced of our salvation in Solindra Nare's handsome form.

  To this day I believe it would have come, had further disaster not struck.

  Ships sailed all the year round, but in winter stayed as close to coastlines as they could, the better to hide from storms. We could not expect Father's ships to come in before the equinox, and perhaps not for weeks after that: they had traveled half the world away to the Eastern Islands. They might return laden with silks and gold and ivory, but not until the weather was good enough to risk the open oceans, and the long voyage home.

  We could not, then, expect a wretched sailor from a smaller ship to stumble into the Noble's lobby just past the turn of the year, and to fall upon his knees before my father and begin to cry.

  Even if the poor man had been more discreet, I suppose it would only have been a matter of hours—perhaps days if we were fortunate, but fortune was not smiling on us of late—before the whole city knew his tale, but as it was, the city learned it nearly as soon as we did.

  Father knew the man; even I recognized him as a first mate on one of Father's largest and most prosperous ships, the Cobweb. Kneeling at Father's feet, the sailor told his tale.

  The trading season in the east had been profoundly successful, so much so that the captain had lifted anchor early and set sail in mid-summer, hoping to arrive home before winter came on too hard. The experienced crew believed they could do it, for all that the journey was often eight months, and, indeed, they had come most of the way when pirates beset them only a few hundred miles from home. Even that had not been quite enough to stop them, but in the wake of the attack, a storm had risen, and men weakened and injured from battle had been unable to hold the line against nature's ferocity. The sailor—his name was Fisher—had been one of four to drag himself into a rowboat as the Cobweb and its companions sank, and none of the others had survived the next two days of storms. Fisher had come on foot across half a continent, wretched with grief and ill tidings, and now, looking on him, all I could see was a broken man whose life seemed worthless even to him.

  I lifted my eyes to Father, and saw Fisher's fate reflected in his face. I had always thought the conceit of aging in minutes to be only that, a dramatic interpretation, but I saw now that it could happen. He looked heavier, brought farther down than the fire alone could have done, and between one heartbeat and the next I realized we had nothing left to our names at all.

  Instead of calling on Pearl as she had done for the past two weeks, that afternoon Solindra Nare sent a polite not
e begging our forgiveness for her absence, and indicating that she did not know when or if she would once more be able to attend us.

  Pearl did not feel the injury of lost love, only the insult of rejection, and drew herself up icy and cold as the sea that had killed the Cobweb and its crew. Within a year her dark hair turned pearlescent white, which with her pale green gaze made her presence positively unearthly, but that lay in our future, and we could as of yet barely contemplate our present.

  By evening creditors and bankers had darkened our door, calculating the worth of the very dresses we wore, for they were all that we owned, and even they had not yet been paid for. Maman, unable to face their studiously judging expressions, retreated to the room she shared with Father, and for a little while the boys and I joined her. She seemed to take some comfort, especially from the little ones cuddling with her, but when Opal came to enquire after her health, it became clear I was no longer needed. I returned to Father, who sat haggard in a chair in the salon, and could not look at me when I sat beside him.

  "Have we anything left at all?" I finally asked.

  He shook his head once. "Nothing." Then, instantly contradicting himself, he admitted, "A hunting lodge, far from the city. It belongs to Felicia, solely to her; it was in her father's will that it could not be given to her husband. It's on none of my records or accounts, although I'm sure someone will make note of it in time, and find a way to take it too, to stack against our debts."

  "How, if it is Maman's?"

  "Lawyers are good at that sort of thing. Someone will press until the wretched lodge is mentioned, and…" He shrugged, a large and helpless motion.