I tried to pull my hand free when I noticed the change, but his fingers closed around mine. “Come,” he repeated. I didn’t have much choice. I followed him unhappily out into the hall, and there, as he had said, was a mirror in a golden frame, big enough to hold a reflection of both of us as we stood side by side and looked into it.
The girl in the mirror wasn’t I, I was sure of it, in spite of the fact that the man in golden velvet was holding my hand as he was holding the girl’s. She was tall—well, all right, I said to myself, I do remember that I’m tall enough now. Her hair was a pale coppery red, and her eyes, strangest of all, weren’t muddy hazel, but clear and amber, with flecks of green. And the dress did look lovely on her, in spite of the fact that she was blushing furiously—I felt as if I were blushing furiously too. I leaned closer, fascinated. No, there, it was I, after alclass="underline"
The quirk of the eyebrows was still there, the dark uneven arch that had always said that the eyes didn’t believe what they saw; but then since I had only seen them in mirrors, perhaps this was true. And I recognized the high wide cheekbones, bur my face had filled out around them; and the mouth was still higher on one side than the other, and the high side had a dimple.
“Are you convinced?” said the man in the mirror.
“Oh dear,” said the girl. “It’s magic, it’ll fade away. It’s not possible.”
He put his hands on my bare shoulders and turned me to face him. “I should warn you, my darling, that we haven’t much time. Things all over the castle will be waking up, and discovering they exist again, and then coming to find me, and to meet their new mistress. There’s no magic left that can hurt you, nor any that remains that will fade away. Your family will be arriving soon—with Robbie—and if our minister wakes up in time and remembers where he left his Bible, we can have the wedding this afternoon. Double, if you like, with your sister.”
I had a brief vision of my family riding over the meadows towards the castle. Behind them I noticed that the holly hedge was gone; the silver gates framed a broad white road that led through a park that had once been a dark enchanted forest. Hope rode the chestnut mare, Cider; Grace rode a horse only a few shades paler than her glorious hair. Ger’s and Robbie’s mounts were blood bays, with black legs and ears; brown Odysseus carried Father, and Melinda rode beside him on a cream-coloured mare, her rose-silk skirts failing like water over the mare’s white shoulders, her face as bright as my sisters’. My family was dressed in the rich things I had found in my saddle-bag: Father in white and the iridescent blue of aquamarines, Ger in red and grey and black, as fine as a lord, riding beside Hope in her green dress and sea-coloured emeralds. Grace was next, in gold brocade and rubies, and Robbie, in scarlet and green, rode close beside her, holding her hand, healthy and strong and happy again. I could still see the white in his hair, but now the vivid contrast suited him, lending his handsome face a wisdom and dignity beyond his years.
Behind them hundreds of people walked the white road; more rode in carriages, and on horseback, splendid as the procession for a king’s coronation. The last of them were so far away that I could not distinguish them from the green leaves and the flowers, and the singing birds.
Then the image faded as the man who stood beside me continued: “I love you, Beauty. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I said, and he took me in his golden arms, and kissed me. When we parted, it was only to .a hand’s length, and we looked long at one another, smiling.
He raised my hand to his lips, held it there for a moment. “Shall we go down now?” he said.
I turned my head, listening to a purposeful stirring in the castle hails beneath us. Little tremors of sound and motion licked the threshold of the pilastered hail we stood in alone; but I thought my ear picked out an individual rustling it knew well. “I think I hear Lydia.”
He turned his head also. “Very likely. I’m afraid you’ll find there are a good many Lydias about the castle now. I can recall a veritable army of housekeepers, each more enthusiastic than the last.” He paused. “You know about Lydia and Bessie, then?”
I nodded. “I’ve been listening—rather a captive audience, you know—to their conversations for several months now. Since the night I fainted,” I said shyly. “You know. When I began to learn to see.”
He smiled. “Yes, I know.” More briskly he added: “Then you’re a little prepared. They’ve been very good to me; they needn’t have stayed when the change came, but they chose to, for my sake—for the sake of what remained of my humanity. Although I can admit now that sometimes their common-sense attitude towards everything, including being enchanted, could be as much an irritation as a comfort. I daresay you know something of that.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, and dropped my eyes from his a moment. “I worried often about what it was I had to figure out, and about the last hope they couldn’t talk about.”
“You understand now, don’t you?” he said, and raised my chin again with his ringer. “The terms o.” the magic were that you agree to marry the Beast. Not something that Bessie and Lydia, with their silver-polish and dust-under-the-rug consciences, could understand. I’m sorry.”
I smiled. “I understand now. But it doesn’t matter and you needn’t apologize. They have been very kind to me too. Even if we did differ a little about suitable dresses.”
He considered me a moment, a mischievous light creeping into his eyes, and said: “Was that the dress—that night you wouldn’t come out of your room?”
I grinned and nodded, and we both laughed; and the last shadows fled away from the corners of the castle and flew out of the window like bats, never to return.
He drew my hand through his arm; far below us in the bright, sunlit courtyard we heard a clatter of hoofs, and Grace’s laugh as she dismounted. Then I heard Melinda’s voice, and Father’s answering her. “A triple ceremony, I think?” said my lover.
Ger said: “Where Greatheart is, Beauty cannot be far away.”
I saw my horse standing, tall and proud and shining like the sky before a storm in winter, his mane riding his crest like thunderheads on the horizon. He was draped in crimson and gold, and a red rose was tucked under the crownpiece of his bridle. Beside him a black horse stood, like him enough that the two could have been brothers; his saddle was silver, and the trailing skirts sapphire blue; and a white rose gleamed like the moon between his black ears. Just as I saw the two grooms, dressed in green and white, standing at the horses’ heads, and several more assisting my family—and then more, striding out of the stable doors, dressed in their livery, with red and white roses at their breasts, going to assist the crowd of people collecting in the courtyard—the image faded once again.
I turned back to the man at my side. “I don’t even know your name.”
He smiled. “I’m afraid I no longer remember it. You will have to name me. Come; introduce me to your family. I am looking forward to meeting them.”
“I am looking forward to their meeting you,’’ I
said, and we left the hall that held the room where Beauty first met the Beast, and descended the stairs together, as thousands of candles in the crystal chandeliers blazed in greeting, till they rivaled the light of the sun. As we approached the great front hall, the doors swung open, and the sea of sound and scent and colour swept in and foamed around our feet. My family stood nearest the threshold, and they looked up with glad expectancy. The crowd caught sight of us, and everyone sent up a cheer; Greatheart and his brother neighed and stamped, and above it all rang the wild music of bells and pipes and horns.
The End.