Chapter 4: Madame Gaston

Belle tearfully wiped at her eyes as she listened to Gaston's horse galloping off for the Tavern, and then later, she presumed, a hunt on the far side of Villeneuve. Only a few days into her marriage, newly christened, and she and her… her husband had had their first big argument.

For all his wily abilities to charm her as he bed her, Gaston had an astonishingly narrow grasp about how reproduction was supposed to work. The man she had married seemed to hold every expectation that she become pregnant with his child right away. Even if that was something Belle wanted, she knew things like having a baby, especially conceiving one, took time. It would be weeks before any signs might manifest. But more to the point, Belle may have agreed to marry him in a moment of weakness and deep seduction, but she had not agreed on anything regarding bearing a child.

Gaston had stormed out after the explosive argument, fuming. Belle was relieved he hadn't hit her. For all his brashness, Belle had never taken the man to be abusive – there were plenty other husbands in Villeneuve who were like that. Still, when in a rage, Gaston could be quite…. intimidating, in the dark power he exuded.

Perhaps that came with the scars of being a war veteran.

Belle finally composed herself enough to peek out from the back door of the cottage. "Is he gone?" she asked aloud, to herself. Descending the stone steps, some of the farm animals flocked to her, almost as if in support. "Can you imagine? He asked me to bear his children! Me! The mother of babes belonging to that… that…"

She shook her head, trying to cast it and other misgivings out of her mind. Madame Gaston. Who would have thought it? Madame Gaston – the hunter's little wife! No, sir – not her! Had she been foolish? She still wanted much more than this provincial life…

Running out into the open fields, Belle felt herself liberated under the expansive, blue skies. She wanted adventure in the great, wide somewhere! She wanted it more than she could tell…

Kneeling in the grass, her blue skirts billowing out around her, Belle picked at a dandelion. Just once, she wished that there was someone who could sympathize in her wanderlust. Wouldn't that be grand, to have someone who could… understand…. That she wanted so much more than they had planned….

A sharp whinny suddenly jarred Belle from her thoughts – and she whirled around to discover that it was Philippe, rider-less. The wagon was still hitched to the horse….

…. and the woodchopper was still on it.

"Philippe! What are you doing here?" Belle calmed him, studying the state of the steed. Her horse had made it back, though without Papa, yet with the invention. That meant one of two things: either Papa made it to the fair with the invention, and something occurred to get him and his ride separated on the way back…

Or…. or they hadn't made it to the fair in Mont Saint-Michel at all.

"Where's Papa?" Belle trembled. "Where is he, Philippe? What happened? Oh, we have to find him! You have to take me to him!"

Belle unhitched the wagon from her horse, perfectly fine with leaving it and the invention right there in the Meadow. She surprisingly gave almost no thought to her husband, or to what he might construe upon returning home from his hunt only to find her, his bride, gone. But this wouldn't take long. She would find Papa, and bring him back. Gaston would understand that.

Driving her feet into Philippe's stirrups, Belle clicked the reins and she and her trusty horse galloped off into the dark forest.

It had darkened considerably by the time Philippe came to a halt before rusty, iron gates, behind which stood a dark, gothic, imposing castle. The wind whistled through the trees; the entire ambience of the area had Belle sufficiently spooked.

"What is this place?" she whispered.

Suddenly Philippe reared, whinnying. "Philippe! Philippe, steady!" Belle quickly dismounted before she could be thrown off and gripped Philippe's bridle tight, forcing him to look at her. "Steady."

Then she turned and looked down at what had probably spooked Philippe: a brown fedora with a wide brim lay on the cobblestoned courtyard just inside the iron gates. Belle would recognize it anywhere. She knew whom that hat belonged to.

Pushing against the gates, the iron gave easily with a CREAK and she dashed forward, picking up the fedora, glancing up at the dark castle in concern. "Papa…"

With the fedora found within the castle gates, Belle knew that Maurice must be inside the structure, or somewhere on the grounds. How he had ended up here, and what had driven him here and why, she was less certain. And Philippe sadly couldn't enlighten her. Whatever had happened to her father, Belle knew she had to get him out. Taking a deep breath, Belle walked up to the castle and pulled back the large, circular handle, entering the building.

The entryway was huge and exceedingly tall in height. The ceiling almost disappeared up into the gloomy, inky blackness above so that she couldn't say for certain where the hall's huge archway ended.

"Hello? Is anyone here? Hello?" Belle slowly ascended the grand staircase, moving floor to floor, room to room, provided doors were unlocked. "Papa? Papa? Are you here?"

Just off a stone edifice, Belle paused. "Papa?" A creaking sound made her pause and spin around to see a door opening ajar. Someone must have ducked in ahead of her. "Papa?"

Belle was lured behind the wooden door to behold a spiraled, stone staircase. Up the steps, she could see the flicker of a light disappearing around the corner. "Hello? Is someone here? Wait! I'm looking for my father, I…."

Belle pursued the mysterious person ahead of her up the stairs. And when she rounded the corner, she found the source of the light – a candelabra perched on a carved-out shelf. But where was its owner? "That's funny…. I'm sure there was someone… Is anyone here?"

"Hello?"

"Papa!"

Dashing forward into what looked like a dungeon, Belle seized a torch off the wall, and knelt before a small opening blocked by iron bars. Her father's sickly face was illuminated in the darkness as he clutched at his daughter's hand. "How did you find me?"

"Oh, your hands are like ice…" And Belle cringed in fright at Maurice's cough. He had been in here at least a day, and possibly two. What had happened? Had he gotten lost? How had he ended up in here? "We have to get you out of here!"

"Belle, I want you to leave this place."

"Who's done this to you?" Belle demanded.

"No time to explain – you must go. Now!"

"I won't leave you!"

Belle had no time to prepare for suddenly being flung back in the air as someone threw her away from her father, with a bellowing growl. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

"RUN, BELLE!" Maurice's cry was plaintive. There was a HISS as the torch landed in a puddle and fizzled out, plunging the dungeon and its new arrival into darkness and gloom. Only the moonlight from a higher window gave any kind of illumination, isolated mostly in the center of the room. The corners and walls were otherwise cloaked in shadow.

"Who's there? Who are you?" Belle cried.

"The master of this castle." Belle followed the voice to an amorphous shape almost directly in front of her. From its vague outline, she could tell the…. thing… was exceedingly large and that it moved powerfully. In some of her conversations with Gaston, and these past several nights with her husband as a newly married woman, she had listened to his stories about how there were many creatures who terrorized the woods: bears who could move with the speed and force of steamer trains that Belle recalled from her brief childhood in Paris. Boars with tusks that could gouge a man's jawbone. The force that carried this creature was immense, commensurate with his massive size, and Belle kept to the room's edges as she crawled back to her papa. "I've come for my father. Please, let him out! Can't you see he's sick?!"

"Then, he shouldn't have trespassed here!" The creature growled in a ferocious baritone. In any other context, the thing's timbre would have been almost sultry, for all of its depth. Here, it was truly frightening.

Trespassed? Belle stole a quick glance at her papa, but he looked truly terrified into silence. This had to be a misunderstanding. However Papa had ended up in this castle (maybe to take refuge from…. something that had led him here and perhaps also scared off Philippe), this creature must have misinterpreted the seeking of asylum as invasion. She knew from her stories that many of the truths men, or beasts, clung to depended greatly on their own point of view. "But he could die!" The young maiden was reduced to pleading. "Please! I'll do anything!"

"There's nothing you can do…. He's my prisoner!" The creature growled. He prowled past her, retreating into a farther corner and always keeping to the shadows. There was a rustling that followed his movements, leading Belle to surmise that perhaps he was wearing a… cape of some sort? But what kind of creature, if that's what this was, wore clothes? The form before her now certainly didn't look like a man, though he spoke with the voice of one. "Oh, there must be some way I can… Wait!"

She sensed the thing pause and she brought her face forward into the moon's ethereal glow. "Take me instead."

"He, you," the thing equivocated, as if it mattered little to him which one of them was locked up. Then, it seemed to register to him just what the young lady was suggesting, and when he spoke next, he sounded a little stunned. "You would…. Take his place?"

"Belle, no! You don't know what you're doing!"

"If I did," Belle negotiated. "Would you let him go?"

"Yes. But… you must promise to stay here forever."

So, she was to be a war prize, then. A concubine, most likely, for whoever this thing was. Then again, perhaps it was a man who was to keep her captive and conquer her, within these walls, in his bed. For the first time, Belle actually felt relieved that she and her husband had made love on their wedding night. At least she would know what to expect. At least it wouldn't hurt as much when this creature inevitably raped her.

Like before, Gaston only merited a small blip in her mind. He would be devastated, of course, but if Maurice managed to make it back to Villeneuve alive, Belle knew her husband would probably send out a search party to rush the castle immediately. The man she had married would probably lead it himself. And if by some misfortune Maurice was unable to return and report her capture on account of a prisoner exchange, and she eventually died here, well… she trusted Gaston would get on and find another suitable bride to take as his wife.

The matter at hand, however, was just who was to be her conqueror. Peering closer into the inky blackness, Belle entreated, unusually gently, curiously,

"Come into the light."

A hairy forepaw stepped into the moonlight's glow first, followed by the rest of him. An expansive chest cloaked in a burgundy cape. Torn trousers. The thing was of a strong and stocky build, topped off by fierce face (though, Belle reasoned, not necessarily ugly and grotesque to look at – more scary than anything else) bordered by a proud mane.

He, this Beast, was unlike any creature she had read about in her books, unlike any animal her husband had told her of. The head and horns of a buffalo, the eyebrows of the gorillas in far-away Africa, the tusks of a wild boar, and the jaws and mane of a lion. All built over the arms, claws and body of a bear and legs and tail of a wolf. Belle's eyes expanded as she thought of the Minotaur in one of her favorite Greek stories, Theseus and the Golden Thread – now come to nightmarish life.

She drew back with a gasp, a hand to her mouth, before turning into her father in fear.

"No, Belle! I won't let you do this!" her papa shouted.

But Belle bravely stood and stepped into the light herself, meeting the Beast halfway. She even dared to lift her head so she could look him in the face as she trembled out, "You have my word."

"Done!" The Beast brushed past her to unlock Maurice's cell as Belle sank to her knees, head bowed, silently crying. She felt her father drift to her side.

"No, Belle, listen to me; I'm old, I've lived my life…" He was cut off as the Beast brushed past again, grabbing Maurice by his cloak and dragging him to the door.

"Wait!" Belle cried, startled.

"BELLE!" Her father shouted.

"WAIT!"

Belle dashed to the window, looking out desperately into the courtyard below. Several moments later, the Beast reappeared, still dragging her father, who was thrown into a coach that seemed to actually move by itself and clop out beyond the gates and across the stone bridge that Belle had encountered on her ride in. Belle could hear her Papa calling, demanding to be let out as he was ferried away, presumably back to Villeneuve. Bowing her head into her arms, Belle leaned against the stone windowsill, and wept bitterly. She supposed she really was a prisoner now. She had gotten her adventure, all right…. but it resulted in her life as she knew it being forever changed. Her life, as she had known it, was over.