Beauty (24 page)

That third day, Molly arrived shortly before Mr. Lawrey left, ostensibly to deliver a big jar of Melinda’s famous pickles, which she remembered I was fond of, but actually to ask me again about the city. “She must keep you locked in the
attic,”
Molly said impulsively. “You haven’t seen
anything.”

“Well, mostly I study,” I said apologetically.

Molly shook her head in wonder; and then some men who had come to consult with Father and Ger were brought in for tea. It wasn’t till after dinner that evening, the dishes washed and the candles lit, that

we were alone, and had time to talk. I had been seeing Robbie in my mind all afternoon, since the minister had left: his thin face lit up by the old happy-go-lucky smile I remembered from the city, when he

was making the final preparations for the journey that would make him a fortune and win him a wife.

We were sitting around the parlour fire, busy with handwork, just as I remembered from the days before Father’s fateful journey. I was mending harness; everyone had protested against my working, when I was only a few days home, but I had insisted; and it felt good to be doing this homely work again, although my fingers were slower than they once had been. Everything seemed very much as I remembered it: I derived much comfort from looking around me and reiterating this to myself. I wanted to

take as much of this contentment and security back with me as I could.

Hope finished a seam on the dress she was making, and dragged me away from my bits of leather to use me as a dressmaker’s dummy, pinning folds of green cotton around me. “This isn’t going to help you much,” I said, holding my arms out awkwardly as she pinned a swath across my chest. “I’m the wrong shape.” Hope smiled, and spoke through a mouthful of pins. “No you’re not,” she said. “All I have to do is shorten the hem. Aren’t there any mirrors in that grand castle of yours? I don’t understand how you could help noticing something....”

“She’s never noticed anything but books and horses since she was a baby,” said Grace, golden head bowed over a shirt she was making for Richard.

“An ugly baby,” I said.

“Let’s not start that again,” said Hope. “Don’t fidget, I’ll be finished sooner, you silly thing, if you’ll stand still.”

“The pins stick me,” I complained.

“They wouldn’t, if you would stand still,” Hope said inexorably. “But didn’t you grow out of your clothes, and have to have new ones?”

“Well, no,” I said. “Lydia and Bessie always tend to my wardrobe, and one way or another whatever they put on me fits.”

“Whew,” said Hope. “I wish the twins’ clothes would do that.”

“Mmm,” said Grace, biting off a thread.

“But that even you shouldn’t notice
anything”
said Hope, kneeling to fold up the hem.

“Well—the day after I came home I looked at Great-heart’s saddle,” I offered, trying to be helpful,

“I remember that the stirrup leathers were replaced the first day I was there. I’m using them three holes longer now than I did then. Funny though, I don’t at all remember moving them.”

“What did I tell you?” said Grace, starting on another seam, “Only Beauty would think to measure herself by the length of her stirrups,” and everybody laughed. “Oh dear,” said Hope. “I’ve lost a pin.

Richard’s foot will find it tomorrow. All right, foolish girl, you can take it off now,”

“How?” I said plaintively.

After J had been extricated I sat down on the edge of the stone hearth, where I had set my cup of cider, near Grace’s knee. I hated to break the comfortable silence. “I—there’s another reason I came home, just now,” I said; and everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked at me. The silence was splintered, not just by my words. I looked down into my cup. “I’ve been putting off telling you.

It’s—it’s about Grace.”

My oldest sister laid the little shin on her knees and crossed her hands over it before she looked at me; and then her eyes were anxious. “What is it?”

I didn’t know any good way to lead up to it. “Robbie’s come home,” I said, very low. “He put in at the city dock the morning of the day I came home, I came to tell you—so you wouldn’t marry Mr.

Lawrey till you’d seen him again.”

Grace gasped when I first mentioned Robbie’s name, and put out her hands, which I seized.

“Robbie?” she said. “Oh, is it true? I can’t believe it, I’ve thought of it for so long. Beauty, is it true?”

I nodded as she stared at me, and then her eyes went blank, and she fell forwards in my lap in a faint.

I lifted her gently back into her chair as the rest of the family stood up and started forwards. Father slid a

pillow under her head, and Hope disappeared into the kitchen and returned with an evil -smelling little bottle, Grace stirred and sat up, looking at us as we crouched around her. “It had better be true, now,”

said Father grimly. “I know,” I answered in an undertone. “But it is.”

Grace looked around slowly until her eyes rested on me, and her gaze cleared. “How do you know?

Tell me everything. Have you seen him? But you said he was in the city. Please—”

“I saw him the same way I saw you and Hope talking in the parlour, that morning,” I said, and her eyes widened, and I heard Hope catch her breath. “The
White Raven
is a wreck; I don’t know how he managed to bring her home at all. And he looks ill, and tired. But he’s alive. And I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds out what’s happened to you—to all of us.”

“Alive,” whispered Grace, and she looked at Father, with her eyes as big and bright as summer raindrops. “We must invite him to come here as soon as he may. He can rest here, and regain his strength.”

Father stood up and walked around the room, and paused as he returned to the fireplace. “You’re sure,” he said to me, wishing for reassurance and yet unsure that he could accept it. I nodded.

“Magic,” murmured Ger. “Ah, well.”

Father took another turn around the room—it was too small a room for a man of his size and hasty stride—and paused again. “I shall write to him at once. There will be business arrangements to be made also. Perhaps I should go myself.” He stood irresolute.

“No need,” said Ger, “Callaway is setting out for the city in a few days’ time. He asked me today if there was anything he could do for us—offered to escort Beauty, too, since her aunt doesn’t seem to be providing for her properly. You can trust him with any messages. If you tell him to bring Tucker back with him, you may be sure he will, tied on the back of his saddle if need be.”

Father smiled. “Yes, Nick Callaway is a good man. I’d rather not make that journey again if I can.”

Everyone avoided looking in my direction. After a tiny pause, Father turned to Grace. “My dear, six years is a long time. Perhaps you should wait and see?”

“Wait?” she said. “I’ve been waiting six years. Robbie won’t have forgotten, any more than I have.

And we’re on even terms now, too; neither of us has a penny of our own.” This was not strictly true; by Blue Hill’s standards, we were very well off. But Grace swept us all before her on the bright, happy look she wore, which we had not seen on her face for six years. “It wilt be all right,” she said. “I will not wait any longer.”

Ger and Hope exchanged glances and slow smiles.

“Send for him, Father,” said Grace; her tone was that of a queen commanding, with no thought of delay or denial. “Please. I will write to him also.”

“Very well,” said Father.

The next three days crept past me as quickly and secretly as the first three had; perhaps even faster, because after my news of Robbie, we were al! preoccupied with him and with Grace, who could scarcely remember to put one foot in front of the other when she walked; with the sudden, brutal urgency

of a long and terrible wait ended. Her letter and Father’s were delivered to Nick Callaway, who after being assured that I needed no escort declared his intention of setting off on the very next day. “I’ve no reason to hang about, and I’m anxious to get back before the weather turns—it’s risky enough, as late in the year as it is,” he said. “I should be there in five weeks, if I’m lucky, and home again in twelve, with your friend, I hope.” He obviously thought there was something a little odd in my arrangements, but he inquired no further after I had reassured him that I was well taken care of. “But my party will be traveling

much more slowly than you,” I said.

“All right, miss, and a good journey to you,” he said, and rode away, leaving us to be grateful that he hadn’t asked us where our mysterious information about Captain Tucker’s whereabouts had come from in the first place.

On the sixth night I said, “I will have to leave tomorrow, you know”; and everyone spoke at once, begging me to stay one more day. I sat on the fender, twisting my ring around my finger, listening unhappily. Hope and Grace both started crying. I said nothing for several minutes, and the tumult subsided at last, and everyone was silent, like mourners at graveside. Father stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. “One more day,” he said. “It’s not even been a full week yet.”

I chewed my lip, felt the whole weight of my family’: love concentrated in my father’s hand, pushing me down where I sat. “All right,” I said with difficulty.

I slept badly that night. My sleep had been dreamless these days at home; in the mornings I had felt vaguely cheated, but had each day quickly forgotten it in the pleasure of being able to go downstairs and

see my father and sisters, brother, and niece and nephew over the breakfast table. But this night I dreamed in haunted snatches of the castle, of vast empty rooms, of the sinister silence I had feared during

my first days there. But now it was worse, because my sixth sense caused it to echo through my mind till my own body felt like a shell, a cold stony cavern with nothing in it but the wind. The comforting if ambiguous presence I had learned to trust during the last few months had disappeared; the castle was as

solitary and incalculable as it had been on my first night there. Where was my Beast? I could not find him,

nor could I sense him anywhere.

I woke up at dawn, rumpled and unrefreshed, and stared at the low slanted ceiling for several minutes before I could get myself out of bed. f was moody and distracted all that day, and nothing pleased me; I did not belong here, and I should not stay. I tried to hide my impatience, but my family watched me unhappily, and uncomprehendingly, till I could not meet anyone’s eyes. That evening as I huddled by the fire, my hands idle but restless, Father said: “You will leave tomorrow morning?” His voice was a little unsteady.

I looked up at him, around at all of them. “I
must.
I’m sorry. Please try to understand. I promised.”

Father tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage it. “You were well named,” he said. “At least—I will still dream about you often?”

I nodded.

“As least I know that much now,” he said with an effort.

I couldn’t speak, and soon afterwards I went upstairs. I laid aside the plain clothes that Grace and Hope had lent me, and shook out the creases in the dress I had worn when I arrived; my sisters had wanted to wash and press it for me, but I had refused; there was no need to give them extra work. They acceded to what they were pleased to term my perversity eventually; with great practical knowledge of such matters, they said I would ruin my lovely dress, but I shook my head. I would leave it to Lydia’s and Bessie’s inspired care. There was little packing to do; then I lay down and tried to sleep. But this night was worse than the last, and I tossed and turned and clawed at the bedclothes. I fell asleep at last, but my dreams were troubled.

I dreamed that I was walking through the castle, looking for the Beast, and, as in my dreams of the night before, I could not find him. “I am easily found, if you want me,” he had said. But I hurried through room after room after room, and no Beast, nor any sense of his presence. At last I came to the little room

where I had first found him, and where I had seen Robbie in the glass. He was sitting in the deep armchair as if he had never moved since I had left him a week before; his hands lay palm up on his knees,

but the right one was curled shut.

“Oh, Beast,” I said, “I thought I would never find you.” But he never stirred. “Beast!” I cried. “Oh, Beast! He’s dead, and it’s all my fault”—and I woke up. The weak grey light that serves as harbinger of red and golden dawn faintly lit my window. I fumbled for a candle, found and lit it, and by its little light saw that the rose floating in the bowl was dying. It had already lost most of its petals, which floated on the water like tiny, un-seaworthy boats, deserted for safer craft.

“Dear God,” I said. “I must go back at once.” I dressed and hurried downstairs, finding my way by touch through the home I no longer remembered; no one else was stirring. I left the one full saddle -bag we had never opened, and picked up the other, which was more than ample for my small needs; the bags

had lain undisturbed all this week on the table in the corner of the parlour. I picked up some bread and dried meat from the kitchen and ran to the stable. I had marked the tree beside which I had found Greatheart’s hoofprints the morning after my arrival, and now I led my anxious horse along the border of

the forest till I recognized the white knife slash in the bark of the tree. I mounted, adjusting harness as I rode, and Greatheart was soon crashing through the brush.

But we didn’t find the road. This did not disturb me at first; we jogged, trotted, and cantered steadily till the morning sun lit our way for us, and the forest floor showed a patchwork green and gold and brown. “You need only get lost in the woods,” I recalled. The edge of die forest was long since out of sight. I turned to make sure; beyond trees I saw shadows of trees, and then shadows of shadows. I dismounted, loosened the girths, and fed myself and the horse some bread; then we walked on side by side for a little while, till Greatheart was cool. Then my impatience grew too great, and I remounted and we cantered on.

Trees slapped me in the face, and Greatheart’s gait was uneven as he picked his way over the rough ground. It seemed to get worse the farther we went. It hadn’t been like this on the other two journeys.