My view is more detached. I note the long noses and amber eyes of generations of LeNoir men, each more wolfish than the last. Handsome in their way, but cold and cunning. I believe I can trace the introduction of pride and cruelty into the family line — in the flinty gaze of an eye, the uncompromising curl of a lip — and see these traits flourish in succeeding generations.
One LeNoir has had himself painted before a landscape with a keep of honey-colored stone in the background; this must be the original fortress upon which Chateau Beaumont has risen. Another portrait shows a stately, long-nosed gentleman with a severe expression identified by the small plaque on the frame as Auguste Henri LeNoir de Beaumont. Beside him hangs the portrait of a wraith-pale lady swaddled to the chin in minutely rendered lace, identified as Anne-Marie Villeneuve LeNoir de Beaumont. She must be the grandmother whose family estate Jean-Loup found so alluring.
Beast has moved on to the next two portraits. They hang above the first bend in the staircase, portraits of another man and another woman. The man is long-nosed and sandy-haired, but with dark eyes as hard and brittle as the shards of glass we once left glittering on the ballroom floor. Yet I recognize the cruel set of his handsome mouth, the challenging angle of his chin. He is dressed in fancy silver-colored armor painted to look so clean and shiny, I expect to see my flickering light reflected in its surface. He holds his helmet with its pointed visor tucked into one arm. The Beaumont device is displayed on his breastplate, a Beast Rampant above a row of spearheads. As I peer into that expression of self-satisfaction, it is Jean-Loup’s face that comes to mind. This must be his father. I read the small plaque: Rene Auguste LeNoir de Beaumont.
Beast regards the portrait for a long time through narrowed eyes, whuffling at the surface with his snout as if trying to pick up its human scent. But there is something more to his attention than there was when he inspected the other portraits. Perhaps he is moved by the image of the father to whose memory Jean-Loup was so devoted, whose honor he was so determined to uphold at any cost. Perhaps he is ashamed to appear before his illustrious sire in his present grotesque form. He shifts his head from side to side, studying the flat surface from every angle, pawing wistfully at the portrait as if trying to coax some response from the cold paint.
At last, he moves on to the woman’s portrait. She is not at all like the others. Her features are soft and expressive, full of life. Sprightly ringlets of dark reddish hair frame her pale face, and her mouth seems poised to suppress a giggle. Her expression is so happy, I don’t recognize her at first, and when I do, I very nearly shudder myself right out of Beast’s paw.
She is the sobbing woman I saw in that secret room! The one who knew my name. The one who asked for my help. She’s had herself painted on the porch with a view of the luscious gardens behind her, not surrounded by fine, expensive trinkets, like so many of the other portraits. I would gasp, if I could, as I see the silhouette of a humble rocking chair made of bent twigs on the porch behind her.
Beast’s paw is warm, but I am suddenly cold. I’d convinced myself it was all nonsense, cobbled together from careless prattle and foolishness. But now I see the sorrowing woman is real, or once was. How could I have had such a vision? I had never seen this portrait inside the stairwell back then. The wonder of it haunts me far more than all the other enchantments that have occurred in this place.
Calming myself, I study her face in oils, a warm, friendly face, without the LeNoir arrogance, although the little plaque identifies her as Christine DuVal LeNoir. She must be Jean-Loup’s mother. Her eyes are as brown and sparkling as ale, shot with gold, even in this painted copy.
I remember how frightening it felt to have the full tragedy of those eyes, swimming in tears, turned upon me.
Won’t you help us, Lucie?
What did she mean? What does she want?
But Beast knows nothing of this. He ponders the portrait in the glow that I cast. There is no snuffling or pawing of the painting this time. He only gazes at it in thoughtful silence.
At length, he moves on to the last painting, on the wall directly above the landing. It’s a portrait of the most recent chevalier, Jean-Loup, elegantly clothed in all his wine-red and gold finery, standing with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, with his favorite hound sitting up in sleek attention at his feet. The present Chateau Beaumont is painted in the distance, much grander than the plain stone keep we saw in an earlier portrait. The chevalier’s handsome mouth is set in proud disdain. The painter has captured nature perfectly, down to the frank and predatory eyes that dominate the picture.
It hadn’t occurred to me until this moment how different Beast’s eyes are from Jean-Loup’s. Jean-Loup had his father’s eyes, dark and flinty, glinting like a sword. But Beast’s eyes are warm, like his mother’s.
I expect Beast to claw the canvas apart as furiously as we smashed the mirrors. But instead, he simply regards the image, without any kind of expression at all. His eyes lower to the little plaque on the bottom of the frame. “Jean-Loup,” he murmurs.
Then he turns away and carries me to the bottom of the staircase, out across the entry hall, and into the warren of shadowy passages behind the grand rooms. We follow a passage that ends abruptly at a little door with a curved iron handle. I shudder again to recognize it. The door opens for Beast, and he stands in the doorway, holding me high, but this time there is no ghostly vision in the glass above the hearth. A neat little bed, plainly dressed, occupies one corner, a modest cupboard in another. The rocking chair I remember still sits in the center of the room, unmoving, the same one I saw rendered in paint a moment ago.
Why have we come here? I know this room has something to do with Jean-Loup’s mother — we were just looking at her portrait. This is where I first saw her. But Beast only gazes in silence for another long moment. Then he turns and carries me out of the room, closing the door on whatever memories may lurk there.
The next night, we inspect the rooms on the second floor with renewed fervor, relics of a life he seems to have forgotten he had. No object escapes his scrutiny. Once again, it’s as if he is seeing everything for the first time.
What is he thinking when he sees these things, touches them, sniffs at them, caresses them with his padded paws? He no longer confides in me. Perhaps speech is becoming distant and strange to him. Or perhaps whatever he feels can’t be contained in words.
I am standing in my window one afternoon when I hear a soft keening that works itself up into an angry rumbling and at last explodes into a full howl, tinged with enough pain to set me on edge. I would jump if I had the means, to hear such a cry. It rattles the windowpane beside my sill, and I am rattled, too.
It came from the rose garden. Two rows down from the front steps, where the end of a bed meets the driveway, Beast hovers beside the last bush in the row, pawing at the ground. He straightens again with another beastly wail, part outrage, part despair, holding aloft what he has found as if to plead his case before the judgment of God. With one paw, he grasps the dry stick of a spent rose blossom, the round hip open, its leaves spiky, bereft of petals. In the palm of his other paw I see a little mound of forlorn red petals, already turning crisp in the chilly air.
“Bring it back!” roars Beast. “Make it live!”