The Beautiful Beasts.
Belle danced with Armand for half an hour, then she began to tire and Armand brought her a glass of champagne. She sat down at a table and chairs set up in the garden. Maurice came over to her, with a lady she did not know leaning on his arm.
"Belle, I am so glad you are having a good time. Remember every detail of your wedding, because you probably will only have one wedding in a lifetime, at least that is the way God designed it to be. Well some people get married twice in a lifetime, or maybe even three times, in case their spouse dies and they meet somebody else they love with all their heart. Divorce is an abomination, a terrible sin and shameful crime against love and God.
There is someone I want you to meet. I don't know if you remember her or not. This is Madame Roxanne Debonair, the Yellow Rose of Paris."
Belle found herself face to face with a woman who looked like an older version of herself. Roxanne's elegant dress and graceful dancer's posture could not hide her nervousness and her eyes revealed her emotions, she wanted so much to embrace Belle, but had to face that fact that she was a grown married woman and not a little girl, she had completely missed out on any chance to watch her daughter grow up.
"Roxanne was my mother's name….." Belle pondered. She was a bit shocked by how much the elder lady looked like her. She had a portrait of her mother she kept in her bedroom, this woman was the same as the one in the portrait, with a bit of age.
"Papa, I thought my mother was dead." Belle was confused.
"No, my dear, I let you think that because it would hurt less than knowing she had left us. Your mother is alive, right here, right before your eyes." Maurice explained.
"So you are my mother. You left Papa and I when I was a little girl. How could you do that Mama? How could you just abandon me and papa without a word or letter all these years? I thought you were dead. I guess it was because I wished you were. If you loved me why would you leave and not stay to help me grow up? Belle felt herself growing angry at this woman's intrusion into her life. Now she remembered the cold winter night her mother left them.
"I….I'm so sorry. I wanted to dance ballet so badly. I felt trapped like a prisoner in that little cottage. I couldn't cook right, Maurice is a much better cook than I am. I had trouble giving birth to you, Belle. I almost died. I feared that if I ever had another child, that time I would die in the birthing process. So Maurice and I were careful. The villagers were not very friendly, they made fun of Maurice's inventions and my sophisticated ideas. I always supported Maurice's inventions, but then they became dangerous.
Machines with blades, fire and smoke, fast wheels, they could have badly hurt you as a toddler, and the horrible noises they made kept you from getting your naps and gave me a headache, no one could rest." Roxanne sobbed.
"So it is my fault because you had such a hard time giving birth to me. And it is my father's fault for making his crazy, loud inventions that gave you a headache. Is that it?" Belle demanded answers from her estranged mother.
"No, dear, it is no one's fault. Please do not try to blame me or anyone. It's just the way things happened. I hoped one day Maurice could have invented something useful and we could sell it and make some money that we needed. But that never happened. I wanted to teach you ballet Belle. Things never worked out the way they should. I got sick of those noisy machines. Maurice was teaching you the alphabet when you were three, I was teaching you the five basic ballet positions. You were so curious and full of energy you got into trouble and I spent most of my time getting you out.
During the terrible winter when you turned four years old, I could think of nothing but leaving. Belle, you got the flu and were so sick I feared you might die at the child's age of four. Maurice found a doctor and all our friends a the village prayed in the little church run by Father Dennis that you would get well. The village did the same for all families, at the church there is a list of people who need prayer. It is at least something good about this little town. The medicine and prayers worked, you got well. As soon as it was warm enough and the snow had melted I packed up my things and left town with the doctor, who had a rich elderly patient in Paris he needed to see. After that, the wheels of fate began to turn and I did become a ballet dancer, and learn much more than what my mother taught me in my childhood, so good at it that I became the prima ballerina of Paris, the best ballerina in France."
"If you want to know how I got there, the ladder I had to climb, dirty deeds I had to do and people I had to trample to get to the top, well, that's another story." Roxanne finished explaining.
Armand sat beside his bride feeling very uncomfortable hearing all this. It was none of his business, but then again maybe it was. He was now Belle's husband, and that would make Roxanne his mother-in-law. He hoped Belle would do the right thing, forgive and accept Roxanne into the family. He began to think of his own parents, though he had long ago tried to put that horrible memory out of his mind.
The fact that he had almost been skewered on the spears of his fathers own guards, the look of horror on the prince and princess' faces when they saw their son changed into a hideous beast, who did his best to hide from them in the dark shadows of the abandoned castle. His father's guards wanted to 'kill the monster' who they thought had invaded the castle and ate Prince Armand. Then his father, Prince Louis, saw the royal insignia ring on his finger and realized there was something strange about the situation. He stopped his guards. Armand told him what happened.
When Armand was sixteen, his father and mother, Prince Louis of Monte-Carlisogne and his wife Princess Anne Marie were called away from their warm comfortable castle in winter to attend their cousin the king of France on important matters of state. They left Prince Armand, a teenager, in charge of the castle.
Armand was still immature, and he wanted to have fun. He decided to have a party while his parents were gone. First he explored the castle. Mrs. Pots the housekeeper told his stories about the castle when he was a little boy. Hidden in the library was a rosewood box with a silver-framed hand mirror in it and a little silver bell. It was said that if one looked into the mirror and rang the little bell at the same time, the fairies in the nearby forest would come to the castle to test you and tell you what your heart truly looked like. Mrs. Pots and the other servants warned Armand never to do this, those powerful fey spirits living in the forest were dangerous and not to be messed with. They kept the box hidden from him, but now that his parents were gone, he ordered the servants to cook a feast, with a large cake for dessert, and to open some of the best bottles of wine in the cellar.
Then Armand snuck into the library and searched until he found that box with the mirror and bell. By candlelight he looked into the mirror and saw his handsome face, then held up the silver bell in his left hand and rang it. "Where are you fairies? Come and tell me what a handsome devil I am fairies. Dance at the party and get drunk with me tonight fairies." He said laughing.
Armand's aristocratic friends lived to far away for them to come to the 'party' at a moments notice, so all he had to entertain were the servants. Cogsworth tried to stop him from making such a mess, and so did Lumierre, but after a few glasses of wine they were less reluctant and began to like the idea of a feast, drinking, music and dancing.
Just before dessert there came a pounding at the front door. Lumierre went to see who it was, it was an old beggar woman wrapped in rags begging for shelter from the cold. She held up a beautiful pink rose in full bloom, offering it as payment for shelter.
Armand hated to be disturbed just then and said, "Send her away!"
Mrs. Pots said, "But master, the poor old thing will freeze to death in the cold. I wonder where she got the lovely rose from. Please have pity master."
"I don't want to be disturbed right now, I was just about to cut the cake. Tell her to go away."
"My Lord, please, appearances deceive, I am not as insignificant as I seem, and this rose is worth more than all of the gold in your treasury." The old woman said.
"How dare you, you old crow!" Armand got angry, he grabbed an iron poker from the fireplace and attempted to chase the old beggar out with the fire poker.
Then, something amazing happened. A brilliant white light burst from the beggar woman, her rags fell down and their before him stood a majestic fairy, as tall as a regal human woman with shining gossamer dragonfly wings, long golden hair braided and looped into an elaborate hairdo with a crown of stars over her brow, wearing a gold and silver robe to match the sun and moon in it's brilliance.
Armand gasped, dropped the poker and backed away from the magnificent fairy. He was in trouble for sure now. He fell down, tripping over his chair. He turned pale, his eyes wide with shock, disbelief, and fear.
"I have seen there is no love in your heart. You may love your family and friends, but for others, for the rest of humanity, you do not care, you care only for yourself, you love only those who love you back. Since you do not love your fellow human beings, you shall no longer be human." The fairy said these words of condemnation then raised her slender hand and Armand felt himself changing. He grew hairier, his hands and feet grew claws, he grew larger, he grew tusks, he turned into a beast!
"As for your castle and your servants, I put this spell on them. The castle shall be changes, your servants shall be changed into living furniture and dishes. I give you this rose so that one day the spell may be broken, if you find someone who loves you as you are and you return that love with all your heart."
A sound like thunder filled the castle, and it began to shake, then another burst of bright white light filled the room, and when it cleared the fairy was gone. Armand was now a furry beast and the servants were furniture. The pink rose lay on the ground.
Armand looked at his paws, he was horrified. He screamed and howled. After calming down he took the rose and put it under a glass bell jar in his private room.
A week later his parents came home, to discover the castle changed and dark, everything a mess, their servants turned into animated furniture and their son into a beast. The guards with them at first wanted attack the beast, but Prince Louis suspected something strangely familiar about the beast, and thankfully Armand was able to tell his father what happened. Prince Louis left the enchanted castle and went back to the king's court in Paris. Princess Anne Marie was so overcome with shock from what happened to her son that she died and was buried in the castle garden. Prince Louis was very angry with Armand, and vowed never to return to Monte-Carlisogne.
Armand shuddered at the memory. That was the hardest, worse part of being the beast was when he had to face his parents in the shame of what his carelessness and cruel selfishness had done. He who had once been so handsome was now reduced to an animal, a hideous beast. No one could love him this way, not even his own father and mother who gave him life, his father had been so shocked because he didn't believe in magic, and when his father said he hated him and wanted nothing more to do with him, it really hurt. He wondered if his father would want to see him now that he was human. But was it too late? Even if he could find him, could he forgive the pain he caused?
Armand stopped thinking about his own paternal problem and looked at Belle. He took her hand and held it in his own.
Belle said to Roxanne, her long-lost mother, "I forgive you, because I know it is the right thing to do. I always wanted a mother in my life, now I have one. I forgive you because you are genuinely sorry for leaving me and Papa, and I understand how you must have felt. Father Dennis tells us the Bible says we should forgive people who hurt us if we want God to forgive us of our sins. I have read the Bible myself and I know it is true. I have missed you all these years. Mother, meet my husband Armand. There is an interesting story as to how we met. He used to be a beast. Perhaps you would like to hear the story over some wedding cake and champagne or wine. "
"Yes I would like that very much." Roxanne said, smiling at her daughter. The family sat down together and Belle told the story of how she broke the enchantment on Armand that held him in the form of a beast as Roxanne ate a slice of wedding cake and sipped champagne.