“Yes. I spend much of each day there. Nights I spend on the roof.”
Beauty said, astonished, “But when do you sleep? And does not the weather trouble you?’’
“I do not steep much. And the weather troubles me little... in this shape. It is harder on my suits of clothing. The magic can turn the weather too, when it chooses. I prefer it to come as it will; mostly I have my way in this.” The Beast looked at her. “in the winter, occasionally, sanctuary is provided to some traveller.”
Beauty shivered and, because she could not help herself, said, “It has happened more than once then.”
“Yes . . . more than once. They run away, of course, when they see me. If they do not see me, they leave for loneliness—or fear of shadows.”
Very low, Beauty said: “But none has ever stolen from you before.”
The Beast said, “Your father is not a thief. It was my heart he took, and he could not have known that. Others have stolen.” The Beast’s voice became indifferent. “They had no joy of what they took, and no one has ever found this place twice.”
The silence was all round her again, pressing through even the Beast’s words while he was still speaking; with a tiny gasp Beauty made a sudden gesture and knocked the butt of her knife against a copper bowl, which rang like a gong. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she said, but as the echoes died away, there was Fourpaws, winding round the table leg nearest Beauty’s chair, twisting the long tail of the heavy dark table runner till the goblet and small saucer near the corner danced in their places. Beauty reached out to steady the goblet just as Fourpaws stopped and looked at her reproachfully.
“Pardon me,” said Beauty. “I should have known you never knock anything over unless you mean to do it.”
Fourpaws forgave her, and purred, and jumped into her lap, and Beauty began to cat again, but only with one hand, since the other was necessarily occupied with stroking Four-paws. It is rather awkward, eating with one hand. The Beast had not moved, but he was smiling.
“Not all other beasts fear you,’’ said Beauty, stroking and stroking as Fourpaws purred, and lashed her tail, and purred.
“A cat is a law unto itself,” said the Beast gravely, “even one cat from another cat. And Fourpaws, like any cat, is herself. That is the only explanation I have; and while she stays here, as she does, it is enough.”
“It is enough,” agreed Beauty, and asked another question, as she might ask a friend: “What do you do on the roof at night?”
“Look at the stars, when it is clear enough. I told you that this place and I have grown to each other’s shape over the years. I will send no weather away if I know it is coming, but it is often clear at night here.”
Beauty thought of the bit of sky she could see from her balcony, and how blocked it was by the hugeness of the palace and even the peak of her beloved glasshouse; and she remembered the trees around Rose Cottage and the great bowl of sky she could see from there; and she thought of what the view must be from the tool” of the palace, with no trees, no houses, no city lights.. .. “Oh. might 1 ever come up? Is there some bit of roof where I would not be disturbing you?”
“I answered a question much like that in the orchard earlier today. I would be glad of your company.”
“How shall I know where to find you?”
“Any late night that you wake, look out of your window, and if the sky is clear, come and find me. Any stair up will take you eventually onto the roof.” He paused and looked troubled. ‘‘You—you will not be frightened? I know you do not like the dark.”
Beauty looked at him in surprise, but she realised at once that the surprise must be directed at herself, for while she had loved the soft darkness in the garden at Rose Cottage, she did not like the dark in the Beast’s palace, which was silent but not quiet, did not like the shadows thrown by things which changed into other things when she was not looking at them, did not like the shadows containing other things she could not see.... “Perhaps I shall be frightened,” she said slowly, “but I shall still come and look for you.”
“Will you marry me?” said the Beast.
“No, Beast,” said Beauty, and the hand stroking Four-paws stopped and curled its fingers, and Fourpaws leapt from her lap and disappeared into the darkness.
She slept too deeply that night for wakening. She saw her sisters moving round the ground floor of Rose Cottage. Their father was again frowning over bits of paper by the hearth, but his scowl was that of firm concentration, and he bit the end of his pen briskly. She looked into his well-loved face and saw a clarity and serenity there that had never been there before. Even her earliest memories of him. when her mother was still alive, made him out to have been ... not merely preoccupied with business or by his adoration of his wife, but somehow a little haggard, a little overstretched by life or work, by responsibility or longing. Beauty smiled in her sleep to see him now, even as she wished to put out her hand and smooth the lines from his lace and the sorrow from his eyes that had been there only since she had come to the Beast’s palace, only since she had begun having these dreams about the home she had left. If this is only a dream—she thought, dreaming—why can I not do this? Why can I not tell my dream-father and my dream-sisters that I am well and whole? Just as I used to touch the wallpaper of that long windowless corridor and feel the roughness of the paper and the slickness of the paint, and the edges where the lengths joined.
Just as I petted a cat called Molly while Lion heart and her young man looked on.
But she could not.
Jeweltongue was humming to herself as she settled down across from her father and picked up a froth of pink ribbons and net. “I will be glad when Dora outgrows the frou-frou stage. Mrs Trueword never grudges paying my labour, but all this nonsense is simply boring.”
Lionheart, at the kitchen table, beating something in a bowl, said, “She may not outgrow it, you know. She may decide she is expressing a unique and exquisite taste. Try considering yourself lucky. Out of six women in one family to sew for. you have only one addicted to frills,”
“Hmm,” said Jeweltongue, biting off thread and watching her sister through her eyelashes.
Lionheart lost her grip on her bowl with the violence of her mixing, hit herself in the stomach with her spoon gone out of control, and grunted, “Rats’-nests.’” as batter flew across the room.