Beauty and The Beast: Chapter 11

Rose slept on the mattress on the floor where she had slumbered so happily with The Beast the night before. In the morning, The Beast brought her breakfast as always, but she rolled to face away from him and refused to speak until he set down his tray and left her alone. When she was sure he had left the house, she went downstairs and gathered supplies for herself. She took bread and fruit from the pantry and visited the library, where she found as book that presented itself as an autobiography of someone calling themselves Moll Flanders. Tomorrow she would worry about the future. Today her only concern was to mourn what could have been. ***********ing a bedroom at random, she threw herself onto the bed, flipped open the book, bit into an apple and began to read.

The book was entertaining enough, although Rose was exasperated to find that once again the protagonist’s ethical journey was a central theme. Once she got over her initial vexation at choosing yet another morality tale – she was beginning to doubt that modern authors other than Austen actually knew it was possible to just write a good story – she found the work quite agreeable. Rose was pleased to discover that the protagonist’s journey involved a great deal of fucking, although she was frustrated that none of it was described. Moll careened from husband to husband, always looking for an angle, always dallying with penitence before being forced by circumstance to revert to type. Whoever the real author was, they had pulled a clever trick by making the characters other than Moll shallow and nameless. It conveyed Moll’s self-obsession and vanity while also focusing the narrative on her character development.

As the day waned, Rose read the last pages of the book. Predictably, Moll repented her greedy and criminal ways to find happiness with her true love, her ‘Lancashire husband’. The moral of the story was not lost on Rose – Moll, like Betsy Thoughtless, found love after a long trial and finally overcame the flaws that had undermined her. Yet it also struck Rose that both stories involved a true love who was lost, only to be recovered after suffering the attentions of inappropriate and unpleasant men. She could not imagine that her own true love was anyone other than The Beast. Was it really necessary for her to leave him, only to inevitably return? In that moment, she decided that it was not. She knew very well what she wanted, what was good for her and whom she loved. The challenge she faced was assuaging his fears.

At peace with her decision, she slept.

***

Rose was still ignoring The Beast, and he didn’t know what to do. He’s not been able to find her in the morning; she hadn’t slept in her room, which he supposed was fair enough given that the bed was in ruins. He saw her leaving the library when he came back from the garden, but she walked by him without acknowledging his presence.

“Rose,” he said, following her. “Rose, talk to me.”

“I don’t have to obey you anymore,” she said without turning or slowing her pace. “You’ve given up your right to command me.”

“Please Rose. At least join me for dinner.”

“Very well,” she said. “You can stop following me now.”

Standing on the landing, he watched her disappear around the corner.

The Beast spent the afternoon lavishing attention on dinner for the evening: woodpigeon breasts followed by nutmeg-spiced syllabub – Rose’s favourites. He did not doubt that it would do little to assuage her anger, but even a little was better than nothing, and it made him happy to do something nice for her in any case. How was it that doing the right thing had made him feel guiltier than when he had surrendered to his base passions? There was no logic to the way his mind worked.

As seven o’clock approached, he carefully arranged dinner on the table ready for Rose.