The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror(28)

If Sylvia had been there, he might have said: “If Mr. Beale were going to kill me, he would never have gone to such trouble building me a library first, unless he enjoyed inciting confusion as much as he enjoyed killing, in which case he would have.” But Sylvia was not there, and Beauty did not think either of those things. She took a book at random from one of the shelves and read these words:

The library is yours.

The books are mine.

Your eyes are your own.

What you read is up to me.

Beauty put the book back onto the shelf and left the room. She found her bedroom (the words “Beauty’s Bedroom” were over the door) and sat on her bed. She did not leave her room again until late the next day. In the great hall she found dinner ready, and while she was eating, heard an excellent concert of music, but could not see the players who produced it. She had the strange certainty that she was to be often left alone but never left in private. Her hands shook so that she could not quite bring the fork to her lips without spilling anything, so she set it down. Then she laughed without meaning to.

Later, when she was seated there again for supper, she heard the sound of Mr. Beale on the stairs, and then he was in the chair beside her. “Beauty,” he said, “will you let me watch you eat?”

“It is your house,” she answered.

“Not precisely,” he said, “not precisely. My house it may be, but you are the mistress here—I have made it so, so it’s legitimate—and you need only to tell me to leave, if you find me troublesome, and I will leave you.”

“If I am mistress here”—she did not look at him—“why do I have a library full of books I cannot read?”

“Why, Beauty,” Mr. Beale said in amazement, tilting her chin so that she had to look at him, “that is simply a matter of the division of labor. You are the mistress of the house”—he arranged his mouth in a little smile—“and I am the master of everything that is in it.” He dropped her chin and let his hand rest in her lap. “How ugly do you think I am?”

Beauty said nothing.

“Come, you are mistress of your own voice; speak,” said Mr. Beale.

Beauty opened her mouth.

“But first remember I am the master of all the words spoken in this house,” he said, pressing her hands lightly. “Remember that.”

“I think nothing of the kind,” she said.

“You may go to bed,” he told her, smiling. “I will finish your dinner for you.”

Beauty rose to leave. “Please endeavor to amuse yourself in your house,” Mr. Beale said after her, “for it belongs to you, and always will, and I should be very uneasy if you were not happy.”

Beauty had nothing to say to that. She went to her bed and lay herself down in it.

*

Beauty sat among the books all the next afternoon, but she did not open the books. She did not open the curtains. She let the hours pass over her. That night at dinner, Mr. Beale was especially kind. He inspected every oyster before he would allow one on her plate, and she ate them all. Afterward, he asked her: “Beauty, will you be my wife?”

She was some time before she answered, for she did not yet know which words were not allowed in her house. At last, however, she said, “No, thank you.”

Immediately he got up and smothered the fire that had been burning in the hearth. “Good night, Beauty,” he said, as cheerful as ever. “Sleep well.”

That night, long after Beauty went to bed, she heard the careful press of feet just outside her door. When she woke in the morning, every fireplace in the house was dark, and the carpets and the drapes were full of smoke. When she went to the library, she saw the title on every one of her books had been burned away to ash.

The next night at dinner, Mr. Beale did not enter the room but stood in the doorway. “Beauty,” he said gently, “these chairs are for my wife. Are you my wife?”

“No, Mr. Beale,” she said.

“Then what right have you to sit on my wife’s chair?”

“None, Mr. Beale,” she said.

“Where do you think you should sit, Beauty? Remember I want only for you to feel as if you are at home here.”

Beauty took her plate and sat on the floor.

*

Beauty spent three months in Mr. Beale’s house. Every evening Mr. Beale paid her a visit and watched her eat and talked to her. Every night before she went to bed he would ask her to be his wife. One night she said to him, “Perhaps you should stop asking me this.”

“You think I should?”

“I think it might make you—happier—to not have to hear the same answer, at least for a while. I will stay here with you, and I do like you, and I am grateful to you for all you have given me, but I cannot marry you. I cannot marry anyone.”

“I must grieve, then,” said Mr. Beale. “What a great misfortune is mine, to love you as I do without hope.”

“To be fair,” she said, “you did not make our being married a part of the original terms.”

“I did not,” Mr. Beale said lightly. “More fool I.”

“Perhaps you would not like being married to me,” Beauty said. “I do not know how to talk to people, and I have terrible taste in shirts.”

“If you will not marry me,” Mr. Beale said, “perhaps I will die of grief.”