“I am a man in this,” said the Beast, staring down at the merchant; the merchant felt that look burning into his scalp. “I keep my promises. By my own blood I swear it.
“I am lonely here—tell your daughter that. She is a kind girl, you say. Just as no fierce creatures come here for fear of me, who am fiercer, so no gentle ones come either. I desire companionship.
“I give you a month; send her to me by then, or, believe this, merchant—I will come and fetch her. Take her this as a token of my oath.” And the Beast bowed down low before the merchant’s amazed eyes, tower than the merchant would have guessed any Beast of such bulk could bow, till his long mane trailed on the carpet and mixed with the crumpled wings of his black gown, and laid the rose at the merchant’s feet.
The Beast sprang up at a bound, turned, and took two steps out of the doorway, turned again, and disappeared. The merchant heard no footfalls, but perhaps that was only because of the ringing in his ears.
He slowly picked up the rose and stood staring at it. As he had fixed his mind on the Beast’s garments a little time before, now he fixed his mind on this rose. It seemed to him he had never seen one so dark, in its centre almost as black as the silhouette of the Beast; but the outer petals were of a redness more perfect and pure than he could remember seeing anywhere in his life, with no hint of blue suggesting purple, no weakening of its depth of colour towards pink; and as most of Beauty’s roses reminded him of silk, so this one reminded him of velvet.
He looked up. He seemed quite alone, and his heartbeat no longer deafened him. He took a cautious step; again his legs would hold him. He turned away from the sunlight, walked back down the corridor, and found his pony trembling in the now-empty alcove where she had spent the night. So glad was she to see him that he led her without fuss back towards the front door and towards the place where they had met the Beast, though he felt her neck under his comforting hand still rigid with tear. He mounted just over the threshold, and they set out on their journey once again.
Chapter 5
It was hardly noontime when the merchant saw the tiny track to Rose Cottage winding off to the right of the wider track he was on, which he had found almost at once, as soon as the pony had stepped into the trees at the edge of the Beast’s garden. He was not fully convinced that he was not still held in some dream-state manipulated by the Beast, and he often reached out and touched the branches of trees, when they passed near enough, to reassure himself of their reality—but what, he said to himself despairingly, was not a sorcerer as great as the Beast capable of?
But then Beauty was running towards him; she had seen him from where she had been in the garden, and she flew to him, and half dragged him off the pony, and embraced him, laughing, and crying Jeweltongue and Lionhcart’s names. It wasn’t till all three sisters—and Teacosy—were there, hugging and patting him and saying (or barking) how glad they were to see him (under the astonished gaze of Lydia, who stopped eating to watch), how relieved they were to have him home with them again, that it came to them he was not rejoicing with them.
“Father, what is it?” said Lionheart.
He shook his head. “Let me sit down—let us all sit down, and I will tell you. Beauty—this is for you.” And he took the rose from the breast of his coat. It should have been crushed and wilting after several hours in a pocket, but it was not; it was still a perfectly scrolled, half-open goblet-shaped bud of richest red, poised delicately on a long stem armed with the fiercest thorns.
“Oh! What a beauty!” said Beauty. “I have none of that colour. I wonder if it would strike if I cut the stem?”
Lionheart had turned to the pony. ‘That’s a good little beast,” she said, not noticing how her father shivered at the word beast. “Is she your profit from the city? You could have done much worse.”
Jeweltongue was rubbing one of her father’s lapels between her fingers. “That is the most elegant cloth. I wish I had some of that. Perhaps 1 can ask the traders to look out for some for me when they come through again. Father, you must tell me where you found it. Master Jack would buy a coat ot that faster than his sisters order dresses.”
“Father, you have pricked yourself,” said Beauty. “There is blood on the stem.”
And then the old merchant shuddered so terribly that he nearly fell down, and the sisters forgot everything in their anxiety for him.
He seemed to them to be feverish, and so they drew out his bed, and pulled off his boots, and tucked him up with blankets and propped him with pillows, and fed him soup, and told him not to talk but just to rest. He wanted to resist them, but he found he had no strength to resist, so he drank the soup and fay back, murmuring, “I will lie here just a little while, and then I will tell you,” but as he said, “I will tell you,” his face relaxed, and he was asleep.
Once or twice that day he woke and said aloud in distress, “I must tell you—I must tell you,” and each time one of the sisters went and sat beside him, and took his hand, and said, “Yes. yes, of course you will tell us, but wait a little till you’re feeling stronger. You have had a very long journey, and you are weary.”
Beauty dreamt the dream that night, but the endless corridor was lined with rose-bushes, and while she could see no roses, their scent was heavy upon the air. But this lime the perfume gave her no comfort, and the long thorny branches tore at her as she tried to walk past them, and one caught her cheek. With the sharp suddenness of the pain she almost cried out, only just stopping herself by biting her lips, and when she touched her face, there was blood upon her fingertips. When she woke, she found blood on her pillow; she had bitten her lip in her sleep, and three drops had fallen on the pillow slip, making a shape like a three-petalled flower or a rose-bud just unfurling.
The old merchant slept all the rest of the next day, and that night, and the day following, waking seldom, though sleeping restlessly, and Beauty and Jeweltongue went about their ordinary tasks with heavy hearts and distracted minds, wondering what their father would tell them and wishing both that he might sleep a little longer so they need not hear it quite yet, and that he might wake soon and let them know the worst. Lionheart, much valued as she now was by her employers, had asked and been granted special leave to come home every evening while her father was so ill, at least till she had some notion of whether he grew sicker or would mend. She left before dawn and came home after dark, riding her father’s pony, whom she had named Daffodil, and she was tired and short of sleep, but so were all three sisters, for worry.