He heads for the center room facing front, where he once shut me up in the cupboard. But now he seems more intent on inspecting the other objects in the room: small headboards and footboards from children’s beds that are stacked against one wall; forlorn pieces of cabinetry that have gone out of fashion; one or two battered, broken chairs that litter the room like corpses; an old carved rustic cradle that stands in one corner under a thick lacework of cobwebs. Beast thrusts me toward each thing in its turn, careful not to snuffle too deeply for fear of choking on the dry dust of centuries.
At the cupboard, he draws open both doors and gazes for a moment into the empty shelves. He sets me on the lowest shelf, then squats on his haunches to pull open the wide drawers beneath the shelves under my light. The first two are all but empty, yielding up only an ancient ribbon the color of dust and a few scraps of moldy cloth. But when he opens the last drawer, the thick, sweet musk of old roses wafts out. Beast draws back in surprise and sniffs the air. After reaching into the drawer, he extracts a flat bundle wrapped in old paper. He peels open the paper, much of which crumbles to fragments at his touch, and finds inside an article of creamy muslin and delicate lace. He handles it very carefully in his big paws, taking pains not to snag it with his claws. He lays it open at the folds and shakes it out, scattering a few dried rose petals to the floor, then holds it aloft. It looks like a christening gown, foaming with lace at the collar, broad and voluminous below, but oddly cut. It has no sleeves, and it shakes out to a remarkable length; it must have covered its infant wearer like a tent.
Beast gazes at it curiously, frowns, but does not speak. He sniffs at it gently, then lowers it again into what remains of its paper and lays it back in the drawer. Rooting around with one paw, he finally pulls out what must be the cap that was made for the gown. It’s a simple mob cap with a white satin ribbon to gather it closed. But the cap itself is large and deep; it would easily fit the head of a grown man. Beast toys with one end of the ribbon before he lays the cap back with the gown. I hear the soft crackle of dried rose petals and brittle paper as his paw moves about in the drawer, but he withdraws nothing else: no tiny hose lovingly preserved, no miniature doublet embroidered in gold, no first pair of satin shoes. Perhaps the other infant clothing was passed down to Beaumont cousins in other noble houses or given to the servants. Only these christening things remain, salted away under their cover of dried roses.
Beast closes the drawer and rises slowly on his hind legs. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Jean-Loup was the last Beaumont infant to be born here. Did these things belong to him? Was it Jean-Loup’s mother, the woman from the portrait, the woman from my vision, who folded these things up and put them away with such tender care?
Beast takes me up again in his paw, closes the cupboard doors, and makes his way out of the room. His tread is heavy. I can’t tell if he is weary or troubled or simply brooding. Out in the corridor, he pauses and gazes again at the staircase. Perhaps he has had enough of the past. All the familiar things from Jean-Loup’s world are in the floors below. But he turns down the corridor and proceeds to the next room and the next, although we find little more of interest.
At last, we circle around to a back corner turret, the only place we have yet to enter, but the door is locked. It’s a small single door with an arched top, three beautiful wrought iron hinges stretched across its wooden planks, and a graceful ivory handle. A modest door, by chateau standards, but one that’s been crafted with care. And one that remains stubbornly secured. The handle will not budge, and there is no longer any key in the keyhole to unlock it.
Beast wonders what to do about this obstacle; his quick dark eyes survey the door’s height and breadth, and he angles his body to measure his massive shoulder to the old wood. But he doesn’t assault it. Instead, with claws retracted, he gently touches one paw to the wood.
“Might this open for us?” he asks softly. “Please?”
The ivory handle, untouched by either of us, tilts downward with a soft click. Beast nudges it, and the obliging door opens inward. He has to stoop to fit his large, burly frame under the arch, but in we go.
We find ourselves in a small passage under heavy roof beams just high enough for Beast to stand upright. Opposite the door is a short flight of stairs, beautifully carved out of wood, tilting steeply upward through an opening between the beams. Beast holds me aloft as he climbs. As I rise up through the opening, my flame illuminates a plush red-and-gold carpet overlaying the wooden floor. Higher yet, my light falls upon some few pieces of comfortable furniture: an old stuffed armchair worn with use and draped with an ancient paisley shawl, a matching footstool, a small writing table and chair. Beast’s head and shoulders rise up under me, and I am held high enough to cast my light on what is beyond these furnishings.
I see books — hundreds of books in shelves that line every wall of the room. The shelves are not orderly; books are shoved in every which way, upright, or stacked sideways, or all atilt against various objects that appear to have been undisturbed for ages: an ancient teacup whose contents have long since evaporated; a fat candle half-melted into its saucer. Some are even piled up in corners on the floor, but they are everywhere. On three walls, the book-filled shelves rise nearly all the way up to the high vaulted ceiling, where painted nymphs and satyrs and mermaids frolic among star-dusted clouds. On the fourth, the shelves give way to a round window framing a picture in colored glass. The last of the daylight spills through the glass to illuminate a golden castle, a pink sun, a green dragon, and a princess dressed in blue. I recall a tower room I spied from far down in the courtyard on the day I first arrived at Chateau Beaumont.
Beast pauses on the stairs below me, one paw braced on the carpeted floor, and drinks it all in with his eyes, warm and shining in my light. Something stirs in his eyes that I’ve never seen there before. In any other creature, I might call it tenderness.
After climbing all the way into the room, frowning slightly in concentration, he begins to rove about, gently pawing and sniffing at every remnant of former habitation — a dust-covered plate that may have once held crumbs, long since carried off by mice; a sticky goblet tumbled to the carpet. He prowls along the shelves, snuffling at the spines of books, poking me into dark, dusty corners undisturbed for years, but there is a kind of warmth in the room not even dust and neglect can chase away. We get to the armchair with the paisley shawl tossed carelessly across it, as if its owner were coming right back. Beast caresses the shawl with great care, so as not to snag it.
At last, he carries me to the writing table. With one brisk puff, he blows the dust off the surface of the little cubbyhole shelf attached to the table and places me upon it. He unlatches the leaf — with no little dexterity for such large paws, maneuvering the catch with a single outstretched claw — and folds it out flat. In the cavity beneath the cubbyhole shelf, a small, slim volume is tucked away.
Beast gently lifts it out and sniffs at its cover. It’s less dusty than the other volumes, having been shut up in the writing table for so long. From where I perch, I can glimpse the word Sonnets etched in gold on its spine. My father had me taught to read, although I’ve had little enough use for it since then. Poetry is not something with which I have much experience, nor can I imagine Jean-Loup as a boy whiling away his hours in rhymes. But Beast cradles the book as if it’s something precious. When he opens the cover, we see something inscribed in a neat, beautiful hand on the first page.
Christine DuVal LeNoir.
Jean-Loup’s mother. Was this her library? Perhaps she was reading this book on the last day she ever spent here.
He turns the book over in his paws, and something else glints and shimmers in my light. Beast inserts a claw gently between the pages and opens the little book flat. A long red ribbon marks the place, with the shimmering thing dangling from one end. Beast lifts out the ribbon and holds its ornament up to my light.