Chapter 5: A Maiden Locked Away

By the time the Beast returned to the tower dungeon, Belle had collapsed amidst a pile of hay, still sobbing.

"You didn't let me say goodbye! I'll never see him again… You didn't let me say goodbye…"

Had she been looking up, Belle might have noticed the guilt-ridden expression briefly visit the Beast's face. "I'll show you to your room…"

Here, Belle lifted her head. "My room?" Her voice was small. "But… I thought…"

"What, you wanna stay here in the tower?" The Beast snapped – sounding frustrated, mocking and cruel.

"No," Belle whimpered like a disciplined child.

"Then follow me."

The Beast led Belle through the dimly lit halls of the palace. Belle kept her head bowed much of the time, though she did lift her eyes – still emblazoned with tearstains – to take in what she could. Much of the stonework was grotesque and spooky. The gargoyles weren't like anything in the books she had read about churches and their architectural designs in Paris. They frightened her, so much so that she let out a gasp and hurried to keep up with the Beast. He was holding the same candelabra that Belle had seen on the stone sill in the tower dungeon – their only source of light as they progressed.

Head still bowed, Belle thought for a moment that she heard whispering. But just then, the Beast spoke up. "I, uh…. hope you like it here." The almost… gentleness in his voice didn't seem to match with his burly form. Still, he continued. "The castle is your home now, so you can go anywhere you like – except the West Wing."

"What's in the West…?"

"It's forbidden!" The Beast bit again, causing Belle to flinch. Though, internally, she also bristled as well. With a reaction like that, clearly the West Wing meant something important, perhaps even private, to the Beast. Maybe it held his chambers – though Belle wasn't sure why he wanted to bar her entry from there, if he at any point meant to have his way with her.

They finally came to a fairly nondescript room, though once the door was pushed open, Belle was taken aback by the large, four-poster bed. If this was to be her prison, she had to concede it was a damn sight better than the accommodations Villeneuve's few petty convicts and poor saw in debtors' prison.

"Now, if you need anything…. My servants will attend to you," the Beast rumbled, that odd gentle tone back in his voice.

Belle could have sworn there was some more of what sounded like whispering, and then, next second, the gentle tone was gone again. "You will… join me for dinner. That's not a request!"

The door slammed shut behind her, and Belle gasped out a sob. Dashing forward to the bed, she threw herself prostrate over the comforter, head in her arms, and wept.

She was still weeping several hours later when a knock came at the door.

"Who… who is it?"

"Mrs. Potts, dear." The voice on the other side seemed like a nice, sweet woman, but when Belle opened the door, there was no one there. So now the castle was haunted. Fantastic.

"I thought you might like a nice spot of tea, dear." Belle followed the voice down to her feet and watched in amazement as a…. tea pot bounced into her room. She drew back with a gasp, staggering.

"But…. but you're…"

She bumped into something, which actually then cried out. "Oh! Careful!"

Belle spun about and almost screamed. Now her wardrobe was talking to her?! Maybe she had fallen asleep and this was just a really powerful dream.

"This is impossible!"

"I know it is!" The wardrobe leaned on the mattress. At least it – the mattress – didn't talk. "But, here we are."

"Told you she was pretty, Mama, didn't I?" A chipped teacup was bashfully nuzzled against the tea pot.

"All right, Chip, that'll do," Mrs. Potts poured a hearty helping of tea from her spout, and – Belle guessed the little cup was like her son – hopped forward. "Slowly, now - don't spill!"

Belle lifted the teacup from the floor, smiling tenderly at being shown kindness. "Thank you…"

As she lifted the rim to her lips, Chip blurted out. "Wanna see me do a trick?" He then proceeded to hold his breath and blow bubbles on the surface of the tea before Belle had even given an answer. A particularly large bubble popped.

"Chip!" his mother scolded.

"Oops – sorry…"

"That was a very brave thing you did, my dear," Mrs. Potts told Belle.

"We all think so," the Wardrobe sighed sadly. Belle supposed that even among…. enchanted objects, word travels fast.

"But, I've lost my father… my dreams… everything."

"Cheer up, child: it'll turn out all right in the end. You'll see," Mrs. Potts said almost knowingly. "Oh, listen to me! Jabbering on while there's supper to be put on the table. Chip!"

Her little teacup followed with a parting "Bye!" to Belle.

"Well, now: what shall we dress you in for dinner?" the Wardrobe asked. "Let's see what I got in my drawers. She opened them, then quickly slammed then shut again when a bird of two flew out. "How embarrassing!" The varnished wood itself seemed to blush. Wardrobe tried again. "Oh, here we are! You'll look ravishing in this one…"

"That's very kind of you," Belle begged off. "But… I'm not going to dinner."

The Wardrobe looked horrified. "Oh, but you must!"

Suddenly, a mantle clock dashed into the room. "Dinner… is served," he bowed low.

Far below on the ground floor, the Beast was pacing in the dining room while a roaring fire burned in the hearth. "What's taking so long? I told her to come down – why isn't she here yet?!"

"Try to be patient, sire – the girl has lost her father and her freedom all in one day," Mrs. Potts counseled.

"Master, have you thought that perhaps this girl is the one to break the spell….?"

"Of course I have!" Beast bellowed at Lumiere. "I'm not a fool!"

If this was a shot at Lumiere's eternal optimism, the candelabra sloughed it off. "Good. You fall in love with her, she falls in love with you, and – POOF! The spell is broken! We'll be human again by midnight!"

"Oh, it's not that easy, Lumiere," Mrs. Potts chided. "These things take time."

"But the rose has already begun to wilt!"

The Beast huffed. They weren't helping. "It's no use…. She's so beautiful, and I'm… well, look at me!"

There was a slight silence before Mrs. Potts crooned, "But you must help her to see past all that."

The Beast scowled petulantly, like a child. "I don't know how."

Mrs. Potts frowned. "Well, you can start by making yourself more presentable. Straighten up! Try to act like a gentleman!"

"And when she comes in, give her a dashing, debonair smile!" Lumiere coached. "Come, come, show me the smile!"

The Beast did – he looked like a wolf baring its teeth before a meal.

"But don't frighten the poor girl…."

"Shower her with compliments!"

"But be sincere, and above all:"

"You must control your temper!" Mrs. Potts and Lumiere drove home in unison.

The door handle suddenly jiggled. "Here she is!"

The Beast cringed nervously. But it was only Cogsworth, the mantle clock, looking incredibly nervous. "Good evening."

"Well?" The Beast got through clenched teeth. "Where is she?"

"Who? Oh – ha, ha, yes, the girl!" Cogsworth chuckled. "Well, she is in the process of…. circumstances being what they are…" The poor clock finally gave up, wincing. "She's not coming."

"WHAT?!" The Beast was bounding over full staircases and moving through the palace like a freight train, Cogsworth, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts desperately trying to keep up.

"Your Grace! Your Eminence! Let's not be hasty!"

The Beast beat them all back to Belle's room, and rammed his fist on the wood so hard, the entire door trembled. "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO COME DOWN FOR DINNER!"

"I'm not hungry!" Her prissy, strong-willed voice snapped back.

The Beast spluttered for a moment. "You come out, or I'll…. I'll BREAK DOWN THE DOOR!"

"Um, Master… I could be wrong, but that may not be the best way to win the girl's affections," Lumiere grinned tightly.

Cogsworth more or less begged. "Please… attempt to be a gentleman!"

"But she's being so…. difficult!"

"Gently… gently…" Mrs. Potts soothed.

The Beast tried again, muttering like a chastened teenager. "Will you come down to dinner?"

"No."

The Beast pointed at the door. See? he silently asked. See what I have to put up with?

"Softer…. Genteel…" Cogsworth urged him.

"It would give me great pleasure…" the Beast's entire face was a clenched grimace. "…. If you would join me for dinner."

Cogsworth coughed something that sounded suspiciously like 'Please.' The Beast grudgingly tacked it on.

"… Please."

"No, thank you!"

"YOU CAN'T STAY IN THERE FOREVER!"

"Yes, I can!"

"FINE! THEN GO AHEAD AND STAAAAAAARVE!" The Beast whirled on his servants in a rage. "If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all!" Then he barreled down the hall and disappeared.

Cogsworth winced hard. That was an order if he had ever heard one, and to his mind, an unlawful one at that. But His Majesty's word was law, so…. I guess a hunger strike was being imposed. Oh, joy, this was going to be fun to relay to the staff.

The Beast entered his chambers in the West Wing like a tornado, bashing and ripping everything in his path. "I ask nicely, but she refuses. I mean, what does she want me to do – beg?" Impulsively, he snatched up the Magic Mirror. "Show me the girl!"

The mirror obeyed and with a shimmer, the Beast looked in on Belle seated on her bed, with the Wardrobe – Madame de La Grand Bouche. "Well, the Master's not so bad once you get to know him… Why don't you give him a chance?"

"I don't want to get to know him!" Belle sniffed. "I don't want to have anything to do with him!"

The Beast felt her words cut him to the quick, and he set the mirror down. "It's no use… I'm just fooling myself… She'll never see me as anything but a monster." Sadly, he watched as another petal fell from the rose. There weren't too many left now. "It's hopeless…"