It’s too late, and her plan didn’t work. His daughter had tried to trade her life for his, but the Beast was ornery and cruel and sent her away, pulling her from the dungeon with one rough, clawed paw and sending her back into the night. The last thing she hears as a monstrous carriage walks away with her is Maurice’s anguished cry.
“She will not find her way back again,” growled the monster, just outside Maurice’s cell. “The magic will make sure of that. No one will return for you.”
The Beast leaves him. Maurice cries, and coughs, and curls up on the tower floor, and prepares himself to die. Dying is not such a bitter thing. He did it once, before, when Belle’s mother died; he will do it again, now, so that his daughter may live. How good it was he got to see his child one last time. The cold creeping at his bones was not so bad, now; he just had to embrace it, let the cold get worse and worse until—
He felt warmer already. Wait, that wasn’t right. He should be getting colder. He should be dying, not feeling warmth radiating beside him. Why, the cell even seemed less dim.
“Cheer up, mon ami,” said a voice far too big and much too close. Why, it sounded like there was a full-sized man right beside him. Which was obviously—
Maurice remembered the cup, and turned all too quickly toward the candelabra.
“I cannot imagine what Mrs. Potts’ son said to alarm you,” the candelabra was saying conversationally, “but there is no need to run now! You are among friends, monsieur. Please, let me fetch you a coat!”
Maurice considered whether jumping out of the tower made more sense than staying in a castle with possessed objects. Obviously, the tower jump would result in broken bones and certain death, but on the other hand, there was an ornate candelabra with an expressionless metal face speaking to him about coats.
“Though perhaps I should not fetch it for you myself,” said the object, “seeing as I might set it on fire in the process.”
“Mmhmmm,” said Maurice. Tower jump it was, then.
“Or of course we could skip the coat entirely and simply take you to your room,” finished the candelabra. The cell door opened and Maurice found himself free.
Well, free to be taken to his room, that was. Free to meet a talking wardrobe and a talking clock and a talking harpsichord and learn all their names. Free to eat good food, and be coddled in front of a warm fire, and supplied with paints and brushes and tools and anything else he asked for. But never free to leave the palace, or see his daughter, or curl away and die of damp.
It was many days before he saw the Beast.
“I thought I left you in a cell,” growled the creature, just behind his shoulder, and Maurice jumped and almost dropped the sketch he was currently working on. He was standing in one of the dusty ballrooms, studying the paintings there, a notebook curled in his hand, and he had been so buried in sketching he hadn’t hear the paws or claws or felt the breath of the monster.
Maurice found it hard to gather words.
“It—this painting is marvelous,” he babbled, and gestured up toward a ruined canvas, claw marks torn across the portrait’s face. “Truly a pity it w-w-was so destroyed.”
“I destroyed it,” growled the beast.
“Marvelous destroying, truly adds to the aura of the piece,” Maurice stuttered back. Oh, no, the monster was showing his teeth, his lips were curling back and Maurice could see the fangs. He was sure to be eaten, nobody could help but read those barred teeth as if they were anything other than a—than a—than really truly a—
“You capture her,” said the Monster, and he was looking down at Maurice’s notebook instead of at the painting.
The old man had been wandering through the palace for several days now, and while many of the portraits had been torn beyond recognition, he found himself circling back to this one. It showed three figures—a man, a boy, and a lady; while the first two’s faces had been shredded in two, the lady stayed serene, her face whole and painted and smiling. It was a tender portrait—not as good as Maurice thought he himself could do, if given the same subject in the flesh, but one clearly made to depict caring and sweetness. He had used the same kind of strokes when trying to capture Belle’s mother, the first day he saw her.
“She is more than beautiful,” said Maurice. “She is loving. You can see it in how soft they painted her eyes—this artist was trying to show her as she is, not just how she looks.”
“She was loving,” murmurs the Monster. “You do her more justice in your sketch than this artist did in his entire life.”
“There are more paintings of her?” Maurice finds excitement winning out, only slightly, over terror. He has not been eaten yet. And the Monster—the Monster, he can’t help noting with a prickle of pride, admired Maurice’s sketch.
They spend the whole day going through the paintings. Every one, Maurice notices, has been destroyed beyond the lady’s face; if there are other figures—and there are, often, particularly with a man who never escapes a total shredding from the claws—they are scraped to pieces. But the lady remains serene.
And as they go through each one, Maurice sketching here and there, the Monster lulls, and watches the artist’s clever hands as he recaptures the sketch. The Beast, Maurice is surprised to find, grows interested in the art.
“Why do you use only short strokes there?” “Her face was longer than that—no, I can’t hold the pen well, take it back, I just mean to point out—add more there. No, there.” “How do you draw hands like that?” “Don’t shade so much.”
The creature’s questions and opinions are endless, but Maurice has never known what it is to be annoyed. After the pity of the village, the Beast’s embrace of his work is refreshing, surprising. He forgets he is with a monster. He forgets, for a while, what it is like to be labeled insane, bumbling, crackpot, fool.
They have dinner together that day. The same for the next. The Beast shows Maurice the art history books in the library, and seems surprised when Maurice beams at him and says thank you. The day after Maurice sets up an easel and says here, you try, and the Beast is clumsy at first and angry at his paws, but the old artist has been talking to Plumette, and he knows the creature once handled makeup-brushes soft as roses.
“Sometimes we forget what we once knew how to love,” says Maurice. “But you can always recapture what you once had. That is what painting is for.” And he angles the brush differently in the large hands.
It was cold out, many days after, and the Beast made sure Maurice wore good coats and good scarves. They took their walks, and held their notebooks, and when they were done with that they would return inside and Maurice would teach, or talk, or tinker, and the Beast would curl up and watch him, or help him, getting better each day at knowing what tool to bring to the artist’s hand, what gear went where or how to mimic his stroke. Maurice shows him how drawing can be a way to get rid of anger, of how it can calm during sadness. They spend each day together, and with the Beast’s care Maurice grows well, and with Maurice’s care the Beast grows whole. One day, Maurice hugs the Beast, for no reason at all.
“Do you miss your daughter, still?” mutters the Beast, and there is jealousy there, but also wistfulness, remorse.
“Love for her lives on,” says Maurice. “I will love her forever, as I will love my wife.”
The Beast turns away. Once, he would have snarled and vanished deep into the castle; but now he simply grows quiet, and his hands grasp an imaginary pen and he draws nothing against nothing, though in his mind it is a sketch of his mother, the way Maurice would draw her.
“But I love other things now too,” says Maurice, so suddenly at his shoulder the Beast jumps. “I stand still, usually. I stood still in the village, I stood still in Paris. The only times I’ve run in my life were when I fled the plague with my daughter and when I fled to this palace of yours.”
The Beast and Maurice are standing on the western balcony as he says this. The air is cold but Maurice is bundled up in coats the monster picked. Just inside are piles of drawings, toys the two made together, books they started reading. A home the Beast has longed for for years.
“But with you, I’ve stopped standing still,” says Maurice. “Life is new. Look at us, we’ve lived each day as new. We pay honor to the past, but we are not imprisoned by it. You have changed me for the better, Beast.”
The Beast cannot believe he could have helped this man. He cannot believe this artist he loves so much could see him as a future, as a hope, not just as a creature of regret.
“You are my son, Adam,” says Maurice. “I love you as my son.”
The chime of music is so sudden it takes Maurice a moment to get off the ground. The sun is dazzling. The cries of the servants within are shocking. And the young man in front of him, crying as if his heart would break, surprises Maurice so that he forgets to be stunned and simply pulls him into a hug.
“It’s strange, son,” murmurs Maurice, holding the boy’s shoulder while he weeps. “The last time I hugged you I think you were a good deal larger than this. A bit more hair.”
Adam laughs through his tears and hugs the old man close. And in the days to come—when Belle returns, with the whole village in tow, and embraces her father and wonders over the new prince—and in the days to come after that, when she falls in love with him and Adam wonders how he is so lucky—and in the days to come after that, when Maurice stands by happy as the two he loves like children dance the night away in each other’s arms—well, there are so many days, Maurice cannot count them all. Each day lasts forever, each day is happy as the sun. Love lives on inside their hearts—and always will.
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