Beast Read online

  “What do you think you’re doing there, girl?” cries Madame Montant, emerging out of one of the larger rooms behind me. “This will not be tolerated!”

  “Sorry, Madame.” I can scarcely speak. What can I possibly say in my defense?

  “That room is forbidden to servants!” Madame glowers at me.

  Room? This locked door? I do not even know where I am. She says nothing about broken porcelain, but her manner could not be more threatening.

  “Disobedience is not tolerated. Get your things —”

  But before she can order me off, as I’m sure she means to do, another chambermaid comes breathlessly down the passage to tell us that Monsieur Ferron, the steward who manages the household, is calling for the entire staff to assemble out on the front steps immediately. As the girl runs off, Madame spares me one last glare, then mutters, “Well, then. Don’t dawdle, girl.”

  I am still part of this household! I hardly see where we go, I’m so relieved, but I follow Madame’s black figure down another twisty passage. It opens onto the forbidden entry hall, and with a firm grip on my wrist to prevent me wandering off, Madame drags me across a corner of the black-and-white marble tiles and out onto the porch above the courtyard.

  What a lot of us there are! The household servants crowd the porch and cascade down the front steps, and the outdoor staff gathers in the flat upper courtyard and the broad driveway between the terraced gardens.

  Monsieur Ferron has called us together to tell us that the master is on his way back to Château Beaumont. We are told to be swift about our duties, obedient, invisible, and above all, silent. On no account is the master to be vexed with idle chatter from any of us upon his arrival.

  “Pray God his lawsuit has prospered,” mumbles one of the gardeners to another. But not so softly that Monsieur Ferron does not hear him.

  “The master’s business is no affair of yours,” the steward says icily. He stares us all down over the long nose in his thin face. “However,” he goes on after a lengthy pause, “as it is a matter of some concern to the operation of this household, I can tell you this much: the suit is not yet resolved.”

  There is a great deal of mumbling among the servants at this news. Cooks, maids, grooms and gardeners, stableboys and huntsmen, all cast one another fearful glances and mutter darkly. The rugged gatekeeper with the scarred face looks even more grim than usual and shakes his head. I have no idea what it all means, so I’m grateful when Charlotte appears at my elbow.

  “The master is pursuing a claim to an estate in Clamecy held by the Villeneuve family,” she whispers breathlessly. “He’s taken it all the way to the Paris parlement. He says his claim through his grandmother is more valid than that of the Villeneuve cousins who hold it now.”

  “He’s bringing a suit against his own cousins?”

  She nods back eagerly. “He fostered out there as a page when he was a boy. That’s how he comes to know how rich a place it is, in rents and dues and fees.”

  “Silence!” Monsieur Ferron commands us. “Do not,” he warns, “give the master any cause to complain of you. Not if you value your positions.”

  The grumbling lowers in volume but not intensity. The mood of the folk is black as we are all dismissed back to our duties — myself included, for none of us can be spared now that the master is coming home.

  Most of us are forbidden to return through the entry hall, so I trot down the steps to join a swarm of household servants crossing the courtyard for the kitchen wing. On the way, I pass the gardener who spoke up before.

  “Small wonder his suit comes to nothing,” he mutters to his companion. “It’s the Beaumont Curse!”

  “Oh, be off with you both,” scoffs the head gardener, coming up quickly behind them to shoo them back to their duties.

  The Beaumont Curse? I turn about, hoping for an explanation, but for once, Charlotte is nowhere to be seen.

  Each nightfall casts longer, colder shadows inside the château as the days grow shorter. This is the time for slaughtering and feasting in my village, but there are no such celebrations here. Tempers shorten along with the days as our work increases. Stableboys row with gardeners out in the yard; kitchen girls fling accusations at laundresses. In the evening when we servants take our meal around the worktable in the great kitchen, I recognize the little chambermaid who broke the fancy ornament. But we dare not look at each other, much less speak, for fear our shared guilt will crackle between us like lightning. Madame Montant watches me like a falcon, ready to swoop down on my every misstep, so I take extra care not to make any.

  Tonight a frazzled Aunt Justine sent me off to deliver clean linens to a distant storeroom where I have never been. I found the place, but with only a single candle to light my way through the gloom, I’m not sure how to get back to the kitchen. These passages all look alike in the dark. I listen for the distant talk of the servants to guide me, but their chatter has faded.

  Instead, I hear a soft, sweet sound, a kind of humming, from somewhere nearby in the dark. I follow it around a corner and find myself facing the humble little door to the locked room I encountered the other day. Forbidden to servants, I was told. But even as I begin to back away, a feeling of warmth and comfort steals over to me, as if the door itself were beckoning me. The singing seems to be coming from the other side, soothing, like a lullaby, and I move closer; perhaps whoever is inside can direct me back to the kitchen. I scarcely touch the curved handle, and the door opens, drawing me in.

  No one is inside. The hearth I glimpse across the little room is cold, yet it seems warmer in here than in any other place I’ve yet been inside the château. By candlelight, I see that it’s not nearly so grand as the other chambers, nor so ferocious in its finery. Its few furnishings are simple. I bend down slightly to inspect a rocking chair standing before me, woven from twigs and saplings, its worn cushion plain linen, not velvet. It seems homey and comfortable, as few other objects do in this place, and so well-used, someone might have been sitting in it only a moment ago.

  I straighten up, and something moves in the shadows.

  I thrust out my candle and jump when the thing in the dark responds. But despite my pounding heart, I realize it’s only my own reflection in a large looking glass obscured in shadows above the hearth. I draw nearer. I never saw a looking glass in my village; such things were too dear and far too fragile. But I see myself reflected in this one: plain and pale, brown hair plaited back beneath my linen cap, my eyes as grey as the stones of my village.

  And over my shoulder, in the room behind me, the twig chair is rocking.

  I spin about, heart in my throat, but the chair is utterly still as I stare at it. I turn again to the glass — and nearly drop my candlestick in alarm. Seated in the chair, calmly rocking, is the figure of a young woman.

  I freeze before the looking glass, not daring to turn around again. The woman is beautiful, dressed in the most elegant gown I have ever seen. Her dark hair is swept up in a golden net, but for a few renegade curls brushing her pale cheeks as she rocks a small bundle in her lap. She is humming the melody I heard before, a lullaby for the little bundle moving and cooing softly in her arms, although the babe is too swaddled in blankets for me to see it. By candlelight, I see that she is weeping.

  Her tune breaks off, and she sighs and lifts her face. Her dark eyes are lovely even as they overflow with tears. She raises a hand to sweep a damp curl off her cheek, and something flashes in my light, a gold ring she wears with a tiny red jewel shaped like a heart. Then she turns her face up to me, meeting my eyes in the glass.

  “Won’t you help us, Lucie?”

  I am so shocked, I nearly drop my candle again as I turn about once more, but the chair is as empty and as still as it ever was. When I look back into the glass, I see only my own terrified face reflected there.

  A curse! Château Beaumont is cursed!

  I hurry out of the room, shaking, and pull the door shut behind me. Out in the passage, I hear the low, distant rumb
le of conversation once again and follow it back to the kitchen. A part of me wants to bolt outside right now and run back to my village, my home, and take comfort in my mother’s familiar scolding. But there’s no longer any place for me under my stepfather’s roof. I can never go back.

  Returned at last to the familiar bustle of the kitchen and the gossip of servants, all anxious over the master’s homecoming, I begin to view my encounter in the forbidden room as no more than a fanciful trick of the mind, brought on by too much idle prattle about curses and suchlike. I’d best learn to control my fancies. Madame Montant will not tolerate foolishness, and I have nowhere else to go.

  He is coming! The master! This taskmaster, cause of so much distress among the staff, is coming home.

  I am at work in one of my chambers when I see them through the window, Master and his suite of gentlemen, thundering up the drive in a cloud of dust and gravel. The talk of the men is loud, and their horses are steaming and snorting. The courtyard seems smaller with all of them in it. The gentlemen are all richly dressed, although their fine boots and cloaks are coated with dust from the road. The master is their leader, gold trim bright on his wine-colored cloak as he rides in at their head, pulls up his mount, and leaps off.

  The master sweeps off his plumed hat to reveal russet-colored hair, dark eyes, and a full, curving mouth, his smile like the sun.

  He is beautiful!

  The master hands his hat to one of his gentlemen, then strips off his riding gloves and tosses them to another. He is tall and straight; I can see the shape of powerful shoulders beneath his fine doublet as he throws his cloak behind his shoulder and hurries up the steps. He is slim-waisted, with long legs below his richly embroidered breeches. Madame Montant would punish me for even noticing such things, but I cannot help what I see.

  His stride is long, his movements agile and forthright, like a noble knight, like the thoroughbred animal he is. There is nothing indecisive about him, nothing hesitant. His youthful features suggest he cannot be above five-and-twenty, yet he is in complete command of himself, of this place, of this vast green and fertile region. To think, I almost let my foolish fancies and the prattle of servants poison my mind against him. Jean-Loup Christian Henri LeNoir, Chevalier de Beaumont. Handsome, noble, and good, master of us all.

  They will not leave off warning me, but now I know better than to listen to them. “Come away, girl. Master will be down soon,” cautions Madame Montant when I contrive to catch sight of Master at his daily rendezvous with Monsieur Ferron. “Master has no time for chambermaids,” Charlotte tells me loftily.

  It is true. Master will never notice me. I know I am no beauty; my virtue, my character, are all I possess of any value, and they are not visible. And yet I watch him nonetheless. It gives me pleasure to hold him in my sight, as few other things do in this forbidding place. So I tarry too long at my morning tasks, earn slaps and scoldings and extra work, all for a glimpse of him.

  Since the master has come home, Château Beaumont has become a magnet for all the young noblemen of the countryside. Charlotte says most of them rode with him during the war against the Spanish invaders. The king himself, good Henri Quatre, conferred upon Master the title of chevalier, presenting him with a lettre de chevalerie for his service. Now his companions-in-arms make free with his hospitality at the château; they come to dine at his table and ride to hounds in his fine park.

  I’ve trained myself to rise in the cold dark before dawn on the days a hunting party is arranged. That’s the best time to steal a glimpse of Master. This morning a party is assembled at breakfast upstairs in the dining salon. From the kitchen, I see legions of liveried servants parading up the back stairs, cold plates heaped with cheeses and fruit, mountains of bread, flagons of wine, and made dishes steaming under silver covers. Enough to feed all the people and livestock in my village for a week. I take up a broom and sweep my way into the nearest of my chambers. I creep through the drowsy morning shadows until I gain the chamber adjoining the entry hall. I nudge the broom idly about near the open doorway until I hear them clattering down the grand staircase, the master, members of his household suite, and his noble guests.

  “Who is that gargoyle who keeps your gate, Beaumont?” one of the guests is demanding, a blustery fellow in a violet habit.

  “You mean Andre?” responds the master. He’s dressed in fawn and gold to set off his coloring.

  “You must dismiss him,” says the man in violet. “He’s an eyesore.”

  “But a very effective gatekeeper,” says the master, pausing at the foot of the stairs while his valet drapes his cloak about his shoulders. “He frightens off the rabble. Keeps a family in town as well. Obscenely large, I’m told,” he adds, shrugging into his cloak and waving off his valet.

  “And what about you, Beaumont?” another gentleman cries. “When are you going to marry?”

  I had not thought of Master wed. Not yet, I hope. My eyes have not possessed him long enough.

  “You sound like my late father,” Master says lightly, “and I shall answer you as I answered him: I’ll marry when it suits me and not before.” In the shadows, I breathe again, as his gentlemen chuckle. “I’ve only lately come into my own inheritance,” Master continues, “and I mean to enjoy it before I saddle myself with the responsibility of a wife.”

  “But it’s time you had heirs,” chimes in the man in violet.

  The master’s face darkens. “I suppose you had heirs in mind when you assaulted my chambermaid, Laprise,” Master remarks coolly. The man in violet chokes on his last chuckle, his expression suddenly wary, and I realize this must be the gentleman Charlotte told me about.

  “If you haven’t any better taste, you might at least cast your pole into some other fellow’s property,” Master concludes, and they all laugh again, Master and Laprise most heartily.

  “For my part, I shall worry about heirs when I have something to settle upon them,” Master continues, “when I have won my claim to the Villeneuve property, which by all rights should be mine.”

  “And what of your other suits?” asks another of the men. “With those members of the fair sex whom discretion compels me to identify only as the Lady A and the Lady B. How do they prosper?”

  The master shrugs and smiles. “I continue to pay court to each, as time permits.”

  “Rather say the fathers of Ladies A and B are paying court to you,” observes one of the men.

  “Or to your fortune,” chimes in another.

  The master turns again to his valet, extending his hands, but the valet only dips his head in a bow of mute apology. The awkward moment is interrupted by a sudden pounding on the stairs. A young page of about thirteen comes hurtling around the last bend in the stairway and races down the stairs clutching a pair of fawn-colored riding gloves.

  “Speak of the very devil,” says the master as the lad hurries over to him. “Gentlemen, may I present the newest member of my household. Or should I say the latest? My young cousin Nicolas. From the branch of the house of Villeneuve that still values the patronage of the LeNoirs.”

  “F-forgive me, monsieur le chevalier,” stammers the boy, hunching over into an ungainly crouch as he proffers up the gloves.

  Master glowers down at him without taking the gloves. “I served in his mother’s household when I was a lad,” he says to the others. “Out of the great affection I bear for her, I have taken him in.”

  “Was there an estate in all of Burgundy to which you were not fostered out?” pipes up one of his men.

  “My father believed my education would benefit from experience in several noble houses,” Master responds with an elegant lift of his chin.

  “I heard you were hounded from place to place for your youthful indiscretions,” says his companion.

  “Was it my fault my female cousins found me so attractive?” Master laughs. He smiles charmingly at Nicolas. “And their mothers?”

  Nicolas’s face flames pink to the very tips of his ears as the gentlemen
all laugh. I feel the boy’s discomfort, but this may be a test of loyalty; a man in Master’s position can’t afford to have renegades in his suite. The page is still frozen in his submissive posture holding out the gloves, his reddened face lowered, but he says nothing.

  “How sweet were her entreaties on her son’s behalf,” the master murmurs, gazing down at the lad. “How persuasively I was coaxed to yield at last to her desire. How shamed she will be if he does not prosper.”

  Master gazes at Nicolas a moment longer, an edge to his smile, as the other gentlemen stifle their chuckles. “You see how well he learns the habits of a gentleman,” says Master at last, plucking the gloves from the boy’s hands. The young page staggers backward into something like a normal posture, although his head is still bowed. Master spares not a glance for the gloves but drops them to the floor. “These are soiled.” He sniffs. “Bring me another pair.”

  Without daring to look up, the page sinks to the floor and gropes for the fallen gloves. He is still on his hands and knees as Master and his men march across the hall in a great flurry of boots and weapons and laughter. Something uneasy stirs inside me, an anxious sympathy for the shamefaced page. Yet I cannot pity him, for he exists in the master’s sight in a way that I do not.

  At the door, Master gazes back around the entry hall. I realize I am still lurking in the doorway when his restless gaze lights on me — it must be me because no one else is nearby — and his mouth slowly forms into a radiant smile. Then Master turns again to his valet.

  “Have the girl bring them,” he says, nodding sideways at me.

  I can scarcely breathe. It’s as if I am watching someone else cross the forbidden marble tiles and wait for the boy to come lurching back down the stairs with the gloves — Master’s gloves!— which he gives to the valet, who grudgingly hands them to me. I proceed out the formal front doors to the grand porch like someone in a dream.