Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast, the Disney version nor the original fairy tale.
Chapter 3: Maurice
Maurice watched his daughter as she served the stew towards Le Fou and himself before serving herself. He attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible, knowing that the only reason he was succeeding was because of the exhaustion Le Fou felt from working in the barn and then traveling between the barn and the house in the storm that continued to blow just outside. His daughter wasn't paying any attention to him, not in the way that would allow her to know what he was doing anyway. Her mind was too preoccupied, as it had been since he had woken to her face. She had smiled at him when he woke up, but there had been a distance to her eyes that he hadn't understood at first. He didn't think it was intentional, it was more like her thoughts, the majority of them anyway, were somewhere else.
Le Fou thanked Belle for the food, digging into it hungrily. Maurice also thanked his daughter and watched as she smiled and accepted their compliments with grace, her eyes not losing that distant quality that had continued to be present in them.
They had spoken little about what had happened at the Beast's Castle, though not for lack of trying. At first, he hadn't been able to think about very much, his fever keeping most coherent thoughts just out of his reach. When he had regained his head, there had been Le Fou's ramblings about Gaston's plan to worry about and work out a cover story for. After they had been able to work on a story that would actually hold through, Le Fou had been awake and they hadn't been able to discuss things with him still in the house.
Maurice tried not to think about his raving in the tavern several weeks ago. He knew that most of the villagers already believed that he was crazy because of his inventions. He knew that they hadn't tried to commit him because they found his antics amusing and harmless. He owed more than his freedom to the severe winter weather that they had this season. His daughter would do anything to keep him safe and out of an institution. Had she not already offered herself to another to secure his freedom?
Once Le Fou was well enough to stay in the barn, it seemed like there was some kind of taboo on speaking about the Castle and its inhabitants. The small man had been terrified once he'd realized how much he had blabbed during his feverish delirium and had worried that they would throw him out into the weather. He would have certainly frozen to death without them taking him in and Belle nursing him back to health. He showed his gratitude by helping in the barn as much as he could. Maurice had, had to teach him some of the care for the animals as Le Fou was more adept at cleaning hunted game and curing the meat and hides. He had also been very willing to accept their story behind the raving.
They had told him that Maurice had gotten lost during his trip home from the fair and taken ill. Belle had set out to search for him, but Maurice had managed to make it home before she had found him. In his fever, Maurice had thought her daughter abducted by a beast and he had whirled himself to the tavern to seek aid in 'recovering' his daughter. Once they had denied him assistance, the old man had then set out to 'rescue' his daughter on his own. Belle had finally found her father as his fever had worsened and then taken him home.
Their reason for being out when Gaston and Le Fou had come to their house? Belle had been on the way home with her father and hadn't made it there until several hours after Gaston had left. Le Fou hadn't seen them because the storm had worsened and they'd come in through the back door as they had been closest to it at the time. It didn't cover everything, but they didn't want to make the story too complicated. Complicated stories are usually more difficult to remember.
The little that they had discussed concerning the Castle and, more importantly, the Beast made Maurice ponder. The Beast was obviously wealthy and had (possibly) once been a man who had (somehow, maybe?) been turned into the monster that he was now. He cared about Maurice's daughter to an extent that Maurice wasn't entirely sure about. He, the Beast, had been willing to provide for Belle and had done so while she had lived with him. Maurice wasn't sure if Belle even understood what that meant. For all her intelligence, his darling daughter could be rather dense, especially when it came to matters of the heart. He supposed that she took after him in that matter.
From the way Belle spoke of the Beast, Maurice had come to believe that she loved him. He didn't think that she knew it herself just yet. He knew that he wasn't ready for the idea of it himself.
He watched as Le Fou helped his daughter cleared away the dishes from the table. Maurice gathered the pot of stew and placed it, being careful to cover it to keep animals away, in a wooded box on the back porch that he had fashioned to hold any food that might spoil while in the house during the winter. Le Fou finished wiping down the table as Belle washed, dried and put the dishes away. Le Fou bid them both a goodnight before he gathered his winter things and began his journey through the snowfall back to the barn for the night.
Maurice wondered just how much time they had left before the cowardly man would brave the weather to find his master. He knew that he would need to speak to his daughter this night over what their long term plans were. The weather hadn't been as terrible as before, but the snow was still very thick. Their story was enough to give Le Fou pause, but Maurice knew Gaston's character. He was a good man for the most part, capable of providing for a family and willing to give the whole of himself over. He was a passionate man. He wasn't sure how quickly such passion would turn to anger if Belle refused the man again. Gaston's word was far more powerful than his own.