Chapter Four: A Remembered Kindness

I didn't sleep at all the night I received my second proposal letter from my guardian, Christopher Thorn.

I paced my bedroom, worrying, wondering. Why was it that he wished to marry me? Was it simply the desperate act of a man who'd been imprisoned alone for most of his life, like he claims, or were there more greedy reasons?

My father was one of the most wealthy merchants in all of London before he died. I stood to inherit a great amount of money. If Mr. Thorn were to become my husband, he'd be able to take part in my inheritance, which included all of my father's worldly possessions as well as the house and land.

I remembered seeing Mr. Thorn's hands, how scarred and calloused they were. He had obviously not grown up wealthy. The grand house he lived in and everything it contained seemed to belong to his jailer, this black magician he had mentioned. Judging by his hands, I guessed that Mr. Thorn had actually grown up poor and, for one reason or another, had been brought here by the sorcerer. The idea of obtaining such a large amount of money would be tempting for any poor man and since he and I were not of any blood relation, according to him, he and I could technically marry if we chose to.

"I can't believe him." I seethed, glaring angrily at the note in my hands, the paper crumpled from my fisting hands. "He's trying to use me to get to my father's money. I just know it." Foxy lay dozing at the foot of my bed, oblivious to my ranting. "I can't believe I thought he was nice. He's just a big, fat liar." I grumbled bitterly, my stomach twisting in the agony of feeling betrayed. I drooped down to the floor like a wilting flower. "He probably thinks I'm naïve and stupid, that a few honeyed words and some gifts will win me over." I groaned and rested my head against my knees. "He was right. I was falling for it, hook line and sinker. What a fool I've been."

The sound of the door knob turning, startled me. I jolted where I sat on the floor. My head shot up and I stared towards the door as it slowly opened. One of the faceless servants wandered into my room. The door had not opened wide enough, so one of his shoulders simply passed through the door itself. I watched the shadow servant go past me. He wasn't bothering to appear human. He had no legs. Instead his body simply faded into a fine grey at the floor. The servant set to his work silently. He sat a large box, wrapped in yellow ribbon on the foot of the bed beside Foxy. The action didn't even stir her. He then laid a teacup shaped rose of a strange blue shade on the vanity where the yellow rose had been laid the night before.

Normally, my blood would have chilled at the mere sight of one of the servants, but tonight it ran boiling hot in my veins. I shot up with a determined scowl on my face. "Before you go, I have something for your master, Mr. Thorn." I huffed. The shadow stared blankly at me in response, but stood and waited for me to scrawl a heated response on the bottom of the proposal letter. I handed it to the shadow as I hissed between gnashing teeth. "I will not, nor will I ever be that beast's wife."

Without a word, the shadow vanished before me, still clutching the crumbled note in his hand.

A full week passed by after that. I didn't see Mr. Thorn at all, not that I looked for him. I dared not venture into the grand garden for fear of crossing his path. He had said that I could find him there if I looked. Somehow I had little doubt of that. Dinner was spent alone. He never showed. I had to deal with the quiet stares of the servants while I ate. The flowers in my room began to wilt, save for the original flower he'd sent me, the crimson rose that had sort of led me there in the first place. It seemed to hold an unnatural vitality. Its petals were still tightly coiled, just as they'd always been. Though I never saw him, I still received gifts. I never opened the box the servant had brought me the night I'd sent my very firm reply. It sat rejected in a far corner of my room. He never bothered to send another large gift, but a single rose would still appear on the vanity every morning, each time in a different shape, shade, or color. The proposal letters never stopped coming either. Every night, after returning from dinner there'd be another outside my door and each time I sent a rejection back.

Finally, I could take no more, and decided to seek him out so that I could make it very clear that I wasn't ever going to say yes, no matter how many times he asked.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." I growled beneath my breath. I kissed Foxy good bye and tucked a now wilted yellow rose in my hair, before I left me room. I strode out of the house and around to the garden with a wide, meaningful gate, my arms swinging at my sides. "Mr. Thorn!" I shouted, catching him in my sights. He was busily digging a hole so he could plant yet another rose bush near the back of the property. He was again dressed shabbily, dirt and mud splattering his shirt and too short trousers.

"Miss Craft?" He replied with surprise in his voice, as he continued to work. " I didn't expect you to ever venture from the house again, after that nasty message I received." I drew slowly closer to him. He was frantically digging, even though the hole was plenty deep enough already. He was trying desperately not to look at me and I could see that his hands were shaking, though he tried to hide it by keeping them busy. "I'm a beast, am I?" He asked. I expected him to be angry, but I heard only sadness and pain when he spoke, his low voice so soft that I could barely hear it.

I scolded myself as the familiar feeling of pity arose in me again. I steeled my heart, reminding it of why I'd come. "If you received my "nasty" message, then why on God's green earth am I still receiving proposal letters?"

He didn't say anything, but he picked up the pace of his digging.

I grabbed the handle of the shovel and stilled it. Hesitantly, his silver eyes shifted to me. When I looked into them, I immediately felt ashamed of myself, as if I'd purposefully set out to crush a child's hopes. For looking back at me, was that heartbroken child.

I sighed softly, feeling the anger slip away with my breath. "I'm sorry." I heard myself say before I could catch it. "I shouldn't have said it like that. It's just…I don't understand your motives for wanting to marry me. We barely know each other and you're…"

"A beast." He added, his eyes cutting into me.

"That's not what I was going to say." I said, trying my best to somehow erase the hurt feelings I saw in him.

He pulled away from me and started to trudge back, towards the shed. "I know I'm a beast. I know I will never be worthy of you. Even if I were completely human again, I still wouldn't be. I'm not worthy to breathe the same air as you do." He said in bitterness. "You may live out the year in peace. I'll…live in the shed…like a good beast."

"Christopher!" I called him, grabbing his thick forearm to keep him there in front of me.

He stopped and his body went still. "Y-you called me, Christopher." He said in a soft, almost childish voice. His head slowly turned. His eyes were wide in surprise. "No one's called me by my first name in…forever."

"Should I not have?" I asked timidly.

He shook his head slowly as he gawked at me. His eyes glistened softly in the mid morning sunshine.

"Listen, please, I'm very sorry. I see now how hurtful my words were. I just want to know why you keep asking me to marry you no matter how many times I say no. It frightens me."

"It was not my intention to frighten you. Not at all. I only ask, because I want to. I…am very lonely here. I have the shadows and the roses, but none of them speak, even though I sometimes pretend that they do. I like to talk to you. I like you. Just in the few days that you've been here, the house has woken up, I think. It doesn't feel so empty and I feel…sort of happy. I can't remember the last time I was. I don't want you to leave. I thought that if I was to be your husband, then even if I did someday leave, you'd come with me and if I didn't, then I wouldn't be alone here…anymore."

Mr. Thorn was a very odd creature, one that I feared I'd never fully understand. He was a beast on the outside, but his soul seemed to be as innocent as a child's.

He tilted his head to the side and asked, "Why do my proposals frighten you? Is it simply because of my looks?"

"I was afraid that you might want to marry me for my family's money." I explained.

At this, his brows narrowed over his eyes, which instantly darkened. "Believe me, I don't care if I ever touch a dime of Craft money. I've had enough of their charity to last me a lifetime."

"You don't like the Crafts?" I asked, perplexed by his words.

"They're my least favorite people, I'll put it that way." He muttered, crossing his thick arms over his barrel chest and glaring down at the grass.

"But…I'm a Craft."

"You…are very different from the Crafts I am familiar with." He said. "At least, I think you are. You remind me of your father. He was always nice to me. He was the only one out of the lot that knew how to be kind. He was the only one who ever treated me like anything other than a beast. And this was before I was changed."

"You knew my father?" I asked, surprised. "He never told me of you."

"I never thought he would speak of me. Servants…slaves such as I, are unimportant things that are quickly forgotten once we are no long of use to our masters."

My eyes widened in shock. "You were a slave?"

"A slave of some kind, yes." He mumbled with a shrug. He sighed deeply and I could hear the air filling his wide nostrils and escaping his slightly open mouth. "Do you remember on your first night here, I told you that I wasn't really your cousin by blood or even legally?"

Dumbfounded to the point of no words, I just nodded in reply.

"Your great uncle, Lionel Craft bribed a worker in the orphanage I grew up in to allow him to take a few of the orphans home with him. There were three of us that time, he periodically brought home more. He put us all to work in his cotton mill. When I got too big to do the delicate work he needed me for, he put me to work in his house for a time, tending to the garden and doing whatever else he needed of me. It was there that I met your father. He had come for a visit, as he so often did in the summer, shortly before he broke his ties with the family. I remember he gave me some butterscotch candies and told me to get out of there as soon as I could. I wish I had taken his advice sooner. It would have saved me a lot of grief."

"Is that why you decided to take me in? My father was kind to you?"

Christopher nodded his oversized head, peering with softened eyes at the wilted yellow rose in my hair. "I haven't seen much kindness in my life, so when I do I hold on to it and remember it always. All he did was offer a forgotten child some candy and some advice, but it meant the world to me. I've always felt like I owed him something, something I feared I'd never be able to return to him. Making sure you don't go without, is my way of repaying that kindness. The kindness he didn't have to give."

"I'm sorry for what my family did to you." I said, my voice soft and light. "I've never been more grateful that I don't know them. And I'm sorry, again, for what I said. I won't question you anymore about the proposal letters. Send them if you like, just please understand that my answer may not ever be the one you wish to hear."

"I understand that." He said as he bent to set the rose bush into its hole. He pushed the disheveled dirt over its roots and packed it down. His furry hands were covered in rich, dark soil. "I am not a prince in any shape or form. I am not rich and I am not handsome. I doubt I would be even if I were human. I don't expect you to ever say yes, but I will keep sending the proposals. For as long as I do, there's hope that you might, one day, say yes. As long as there is hope, I am content."

He smirked softly at me, his hands continuing to work.

"Do as you like." I said, shaking my head at him. There was no use in arguing about it. After all, without him I'd have no one but Foxy and the frightening servants for company. In the week that he'd been abscent, I'd had a taste of what he'd been enduring for years. I hated every moment of it and hating him took too much energy. So, I shoved my suspicions into a distant corner of my mind and ignored it. With a smile stretching my lips, I took up the shovel from the ground. "Do you need a hand?"

Christopher and I spent the rest of the day planting more rose bushes and ripping up weeds that had somehow slipped through the gate and rose bush maze. He worked diligently, singing folk songs to himself. Eventually, I found myself singing them as well. I've never seen a man work so hard in my life. The man never stopped. One moment, he was trimming hedges, the next he was cleaning bird droppings off the statues or making more rose bouquets for my room. He did it all quickly, without complaint, or even a break. I, on the other hand, was sluggish and not at all useful. Most of my day was spent doing the weeding, which took hours. Christopher would have had it all done in an hour or so.

When it came close to dinner time, we finally stopped and retreated inside to clean up. I've never been more happy to have a bath in my whole life. I was covered from head to toe in soil and there was grass stuck in my hair. When I returned to my room, I was welcomed by fresh bouquets in the vases by my bed. The original condolence rose was displayed in a slender vase all its own, the glass made of jade colored glass. Foxy was sitting on her very own cushion on the floor, gnawing at a bone that was bigger than she was. Seeing the unexpected kindness shown to my little dog instantly brought a smile to my face and I was filled with enthusiasm for seeing Christopher again so that I could thank him.

I skipped to the wardrobe, humming one of Christopher's favorite songs, absently. I looked for something to wear. I had only brought my two best black dresses with me. One I had pretty much destroyed gardening. I started to reach for the canary yellow dress, but remembered the present I hadn't opened. With Foxy watching me with an amused grin on her face, I retrieved the rejected gift from the corner and opened it up.

Inside was a fine dress with pearl buttons all down the back. The dress was made of soft, black silk with subtle black lace woven into the fabric all along the sleeves. On it, lay a small note. As I read it, tears of shame pricked at my eyes.

I still think you're too young to wear black, but I want to see you happy. I hope that it will make you smile as you have made me tonight.

The note trembled in my hand as I ran the other's fingers over the glossy fabric of the dress. My eyes were wide, as I was suddenly incapable of blinking. My mouth too, stopped working. My anger was back again, burning up my insides, but it was no longer directed at my guardian. No, it was back where it belonged…on me. I felt a tear roll down my face and it splashed against the note. It smeared the ink, making an ugly black stain on the crisp, white note. Much like how my cruelty towards Christopher had marred my own soul, leaving ugliness in its wake.