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    Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
    Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
    Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
    Ebook243 pages4 hours

    Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

    By Robin McKinley

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    About this ebook

    The New York Times–bestselling author of Rose Daughter reimagines the classic French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast.

    I was the youngest of three daughters. Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour. . . . My father still likes to tell the story of how I acquired my odd nickname: I had come to him for further information when I first discovered that our names meant something besides you-come-here. He succeeded in explaining grace and hope, but he had some difficulty trying to make the concept of honour understandable to a five-year-old. . . . I said: ‘Huh! I’d rather be Beauty.’ . . . 

    By the time it was evident that I was going to let the family down by being plain, I’d been called Beauty for over six years. . . . I wasn’t really very fond of my given name, Honour, either . . . as if ‘honourable’ were the best that could be said of me. 

    The sisters’ wealthy father loses all his money when his merchant fleet is drowned in a storm, and the family moves to a village far away. Then the old merchant hears what proves to be a false report that one of his ships had made it safe to harbor at last, and on his sad, disappointed way home again he becomes lost deep in the forest and has a terrifying encounter with a fierce Beast, who walks like a man and lives in a castle. The merchant’s life is forfeit, says the Beast, for trespass and the theft of a rose—but he will spare the old man’s life if he sends one of his daughters: “Your daughter would take no harm from me, nor from anything that lives in my lands.” When Beauty hears this story—for her father had picked the rose to bring to her—her sense of honor demands that she take up the Beast’s offer, for “cannot a Beast be tamed?”

    This “splendid story” by the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown has been named an ALA Notable Book and a Phoenix Award Honor Book (Publishers Weekly).
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateNov 18, 2014
    ISBN9781497638563
    Author

    Robin McKinley

    Robin McKinley has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. Her other books include the New York Times bestseller Spindle’s End; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and Rose Daughter; Deerskin, another novel-length fairy-tale retelling, of Charles Perrault’s Donkeyskin; and a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood. She lives with her husband, the English writer Peter Dickinson; three dogs (two hellhounds and one hell terror); an 1897 Steinway upright; and far too many rosebushes.

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    Reviews for Beauty

    4/5

    1,936 ratings119 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I have loved this book since I was in high school. This Beauty really resonated with me - a not-really-beautiful bookworm who is, by her own admission, better suited to manual tasks than embroidery. Watching her relationship with the Beast change until she can at last admit to herself his importance to her is enchanting.
    • 4/5
      I loved this. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairytale and this retelling is simply magic. Beauty was an extremely loveable character who is genuine and hardworking and honest and fair and practical. She is smart and caring and adaptable to bad circumstances. But it's not just her, her entire family are the stars of this book. All of the secondary characters are well drawn and fully developed. Hope and Grace and Ger and Father are all fierce and caring and loveable characters in their own right. All that besides, it was so nice to see a family portrayed as loving and caring and loyal and defensive of each other. There was no real bickering or animosity between them, they all supported and cared for each other and the amount of love was perfect.

      Although a fairytale of love and acceptance, the romance itself is of little importance. Mainly the author focuses on developing the friendship between Beauty and Beast and showing how they come to care about each other.

      Something about this book screamed more. As in more than anything else. I can't place my finger on what the more is but it's there. It just felt more fleshed out and emotive than many retellings.
    • 3/5
      Well crafted retelling and engaging to read. Sorta meh on the romance but thats just my usual attitude so.
    • 5/5
      I LOVED this retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Highly emotionally intelligent and full of warmth, hope, and honesty, McKinley captures the spirit of the fairy tale with her own special flair. A must read for fantasy lovers!
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful retelling of Beauty & the Beast filled with love and magic that will captivate the reader until the very end and leave you wanting more.
    • 4/5
      A nice retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. I've long loved this particular fairy tale, although this latest (to me) version has made me realize that it's about as actually-romantic as Romeo and Juliet (read: it's demonstrably *not*). Stockholm Syndrome is not a sweet romance. But. The silly 16-year-old in me still roots for the beast to get the girl, even while I know that's ridiculous on multiple levels. Who cares, it's a good story and I unapologetically love that they get together in the end. This version has some nice adjustments to the original, too: I like the strengthening of the Beauty character and the details about her family are good. I'm also still curious if the idea of making the servants a more prominent and light-hearted part of the story in the Disney movie came from here. Overall, recommended, if you like fairy tale retellings.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. It is one of my favorites, and I try to reread it every couple of years. When his business went under, Beauty's father moved his family to the north with his future son-in-law. The area they moved to is on the edge of a haunted forest. When Beauty's father must return to the city, he gets lost on the way home and ends up in the forest, which leads him to an enchanted castle. When he takes a rose to give Beauty, a Beast tells him he must bring one of his daughters to the castle to live with him. Beauty volunteers to go. She is afraid at first because the Beast is large, and the castle appears deserted. She does get the feeling that she is not truly alone. She finds that the time she spends with the Beast shows her that he is not the terrifying monster she thought he was. Beauty discovers they have a lot in common and enjoys spending time with him. After a while, she starts hearing the voices of the enchanted beings in the castle. When Beauty learns the fate of her sister's fiancé, she asks the Beast to let her go home and tell the news. He tells her she has a week, but if she is gone longer than that, he will die.

      I liked how Beauty's family was such a loving family, not the poor little girl abused type of family. I loved Beauty and her independence. She seemed very adaptable and handled her time at the castle very well. I also loved the way that she was able to look past the surface of the Beast and see who he was. I loved the enchantments in the castle and how real all of it felt. The library was incredibly awesome. There were some entertaining parts, like the argument between Beauty and the "breezes" over the silver dress was great. The ending was a perfect fairytale.
    • 5/5
      This beautiful retelling of Beauty and the Beast begins with a young girl, Honour, saying she'd rather be called Beauty. And the nickname sticks. When her family loses their fortune and moves from the city to a rural community, she soon finds her place in their new setting, but she also hears whispers of a haunted forest, an enchanted castle, and a beast.

      The book is a little slower in its telling than modern stories, but I think that's where it gets its charm. Readers have the chance to sit and immerse themselves in the story. Many parts of the fairy tale are familiar, but others are so much better. The roses are incredible. The invisible servants and every single member of Beauty's family are highly entertaining. The library suspends belief. And the beast is only, always kind.

      But Beauty is the heart of the story. I couldn't help loving her despite her constant struggle to believe she is enough. She compares herself to her sisters, then to an ideal that perhaps isn't real or doesn't exist. But those around her don't see how deep her insecurities lie, seeing her strengths instead. She needs to learn to see herself through the eyes of others. Both Beauty and Beast have opportunities to prove their courage, their compassion, and their love. And it was beautiful to watch.
    • 3/5
      Honour is the youngest of three girls. Her mother died soon after the birth of a fourth daughter, as did the baby, when Honour was only a toddler. Her father is a very successful business man, and has built up wealth and status in the city. Honour herself feels that she doesn’t live up to her nickname of beauty, but that is what everyone has called her since she was five years old, so Beauty she remains. All seems to be going well with the family when disaster strikes. Three of her father’s ships & investments are lost, and they are forced to leave the city and set up home in the country. All three girls must learn to work hard if they are to get by, but none shirk their duty.

      As they are settling in to their new home and new circumstances news arrives. A ship has made it back. Their father sets off to finish his business, but on his way back home he becomes lost in a storm. He finds safety in a strange, enchanted castle, but upon leaving its gates he sees a rose garden. Remembering his youngest daughter’s desire for some rose seeds he plucks one. Only for the enraged owner of the castle to accuse him if betraying his welcome. This beast threatens to kill the rose thief, but eventually relents saying that he may leave, provided he returns with his youngest daughter who must stay with the beast.

      I’m guessing that I didn’t need to relate that to you, after all, pretty much every one is familiar with the story of Beauty and the Beast. This version, published back in 1978 is an adaptation of that classic fairy tale. But you will find no squabbling sisters, or petty jealousies. All the girls are loving sisters and daughters. And there are no evil stepmothers. What a relief!

      I enjoyed this book, but it felt a little uneven to me. Some aspects were almost too practical for the sudden magical elements in it. The enchanted castle and curse upon the Beast didn’t seem to fit with the start of the book at all.

      A nice, enjoyable read, but not McKinley’s best. It was her first so that can be excused
    • 3/5
      This is a fairly basic retelling of Beauty and the Beast with some Disney touches thrown in. It's a pleasant read but doesn't really add anything new to the story. At least, it's short.
    • 4/5
      Beauty by Robin McKinley is an excellent retelling of the fairy story Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was my favourite fairy story as a child and I totally fell in love with this story all over again. The author wisely sticks close to the known story but adds the most wonderful touches and embellishments along the way.

      The main character is nicknamed Beauty, her real name is Honor and it’s her steadfast honor and decency that the author plays upon in this charming tale. Her love for the Beast grows slowly starting with friendship and then blossoming into love so we get the happy ending that we want.

      I have had mixed reactions to this author’s books in the past, but this is a cozy and relaxing read. It was first published in 1978 and it stands the test of time. Beauty is a well told story that was a surprising treat to read.
    • 4/5
      A very gentle retelling of B&B with the drama reduced to a minimum and the characters all as nice as they can be, which focuses on the interior journey of Beauty. I could have used a bit of neighborly nastiness or some other conflict beyond desire to be with lovely family vs desire to stay with new beau.
      The Disney version seemed to pluck Beauty's bookish nature from this iteration of the heroine, while maximizing the trouble of many of the previous versions.
    • 5/5
      Beauty, youngest daughter of a merchant, takes her father's place as captive of a mysterious monster in an enchanted castle. (You all know the story.)

      This may be my favorite book ever -- it's certainly always in the top three (along with The Blue Castle and Cyrano de Bergerac, if you were wondering). It's been a few years since I did a reread of this one, and I found myself entirely charmed, as if reading it for the first time. It's just so good. The characters, the dialogue, the descriptions... I cannot even tell you how many times I've read it since I discovered it as a battered paperback in the school library in seventh grade. It's my ultimate comfort read. For a fairy tale retelling, it's pretty straightforward -- it doesn't take the story in new directions, the way more modern retellings do (and don't get me wrong, I enjoy those, too). It just fleshes out the story so beautifully. If you enjoy fairy tale retellings, highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Here's a question for you. Do you enjoy an adaptation or a retelling more or less if you don't remember the details of the original? For me, I don't remember the details of Beauty and the Beast except to say the Disney version was centered around Belle, her sickly woodsman father, the Beast, and the talking tea kettle. I remember it also had singing furniture and, of course, a droopy rose was at the center of the story. McKinley's version has three daughters, Gracie, Hope and Honour. Honour, nicknamed Beauty, is the protagonist of the story and ironically, is not at all beautiful like her sisters. Instead she is homely, unromantic, and scholarly; the bravest and strongest of the bunch. Honour's father has fallen on hard times as a shipping merchant and the family must move to the country. Enter the proximity of an enchanted/haunted forest. We first learn about these mysterious woods when Ger becomes angry with Beauty about being in the woods of Blue Hill.
      To speed up the telling up the story you know so well: father runs into trouble in the enchanted forest, has a dust up with the Beast, and promises to send a daughter to the Beast to save his own hide. Beauty, being the bravest and most admirable, is the logical choice. Beauty falls in love with Beast despite his appearance and by turns becomes a looker herself. When she promises to marry Beast, the spell is broken. The end.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite books. It was one of the first, if not the first fairy tale retelling that I read and I really enjoyed the way the story was twisted. I loved the way they focused on the roses a lot and the way that it felt like a real progression in a fantasy scenario. I would and have recommended this book to almost anyone.
    • 4/5
      A worthy retelling of Beauty and the Beast, with some extraordinarily nice touches-- like how she got her name. Made it much less of a Stockholm syndrome story.
    • 4/5
      I was definitely in the mood for Beauty and the Beast in any form as I was getting ready to see the new movie. This book, while slightly dull in the beginning, definitely gave me exactly what I was looking for in a B&B retelling.
    • 4/5
      I like the retelling of the story and it stays with with you awhile after I finished the book. The book mainly focus on the Beauty, and the Beast became sort of second fiddle in the story line. it will be nicer if the background of the Beast has a bit more explanation in the book.
    • 3/5
      This is beautiful and frustrating but mostly beautiful. The perfect mix to inspire me to write my own asexual version of the story except somewhere between me having the idea of it, and emerging tentatively from writer's block, I've forgotten most of the cool detail of the idea I had. Oh well, one day maybe.
    • 4/5
      This was a decent retelling of Beauty and the Beast that was wonderful until the end. I felt like the ending was very rushed. I loved the dynamics between Beauty and her family, but thought that the romance between Beauty and the Beast could have been done a bit better.

      Most of this story is very similar to the Disney version or the original version done by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. I was a bit disappointed that McKinley didn’t extend or elaborate on the original Beauty and the Beast tale.

      The book is beautifully written and I really enjoyed the beautiful and kind relationships Beauty has with her sisters and father. However in the end I was hoping for something just a bit...more.

      Overall this is a prettily written retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. There isn’t a lot here that is unique or different from Beaumont’s original story. I would recommend to those who enjoy the Beauty and the Beast story.
    • 5/5
      Beauty also has brains and honour, a mix that makes a suitable heroine for this version of Beauty and the Beast.
      In this version readers are treated to just enough detail and several fun twists (ex. invisible maids). The storyline gently progresses from ignorance and fear through pity and stubbornness until it finally reaches a happy ending.
      But it's the little things that make this a book I wanted to own. The spice cake, the library ladder that wants so much to please, a young woman who realizes she's grown because she had to lengthen her stirrups... Not your average fairytale.
    • 4/5
      I recently reread this book for the first time in probably 20 years. I remembered it fondly, but was unsure if it would hold up after so many years. After all, Robin McKinley wrote Beauty decades before novel-length fairy tale retellings would become popular enough to form their own fantasy subgenre. However, I'm happy to say that even within a much more crowded field, this book is still a gem.
    • 4/5
      A beautiful retelling. I think I would have appreciated more when I was younger.
    • 5/5
      I read this decades ago; when it went on sale I picked it up as an ebook. I read it, hoping it would live up to my memory of it and it did. What a great retelling of the fairy tale! The characters were developed, the story moved along smartly, and the ending was perfect.

      I loved the touches of whimsy (check out some of the titles in the library!) and the slow romance between Beauty and the Beast. The earlier sections did much to develop Beauty's character.

      If you like the story of Beauty and the Beast, I think you'll fall in love with this book. If you like fantasy, this is a well-written one.
    • 2/5
      Maybe 2.5 stars. A very quiet re-telling that didn't add much to the story. Until we met the Beast, about 1/2-way through, I almost put the book down of boredom. If anyone understands *why* the Beast was enchanted from a prince, please tell me in the comments. There could have been a lot more character development. And for Beauty to have a major temper tantrum when the maids tried to put a special dress on her was just ridiculous.
    • 5/5
      Beauty is the nickname (real name Honour) of the youngest of three daughters of a prominent merchant. When the father's business falls on hard times, Beauty and her two older, more beautiful, sisters move with their father to a meager cottage on the edge of a thick forest. The forest, they soon learn, has a sinister reputation. The father is lost in the woods and takes refuge in a mysterious castle where the Beast lives. Beauty's father takes a rose as a gift for her, and the Beast demands payment of Beauty as compensation. Fearful at first, Beauty comes to know the Beast over the months she lives in the castle. Eventually, Beauty admits that she loves the Beast and the spell is broken. The Beast is now a handsome, rich nobleman in a castle full of servants. Over the course of her stay, Beauty has grown older, taller and beautiful. I only wish the story had continued on to show how the couple copes with their new circumstances. One especially delightful touch is Beast's magical library, which contains books not yet in existence, like Bleak House.
    • 4/5
      Honour, who as a young child didn't like that name and rashly suggested she be called beauty, is a short, plain, awkward bookworm, whose two older sisters are beautiful. When her father's business fails, her sister marries a blacksmith (with whom she was already in love) and they move out into the country with him. After a few years, now adjusted to simple country living, her father travels back to the city because one of his lost ships has returned. He comes back with some money, but also a single rose which he gives to her. Once he tells his story, she insists that she return to the beast with him in order to save his life, and rides her large (6 feet tall a the withers) horse, Greatheart, following her dad.

      While there she slowly loses her fear of the beast and develops a friendship with him. Each day she rides Greatheart, but no matter how far they travel, they stay in the enchanted woods and are able to return to the castle before dark. She makes good use of the garden. However, she has no idea of her true feelings for the beast until she is given a week to go home and deliver some good
      news to her eldest sister and to let them know she is alright.

      Although there were a few areas I felt were a bit slow, I enjoyed this novel well enough to lose some sleep in order to finish it. I do have a bit of a soft spot for fairy tale retellings from time to time, probably because I liked them so much as a child.
    • 5/5
      An oldtime favorite and comfort read.
    • 4/5
      A sweet retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast
    • 5/5
      This book was first published in 1978, so I cannot believe that I'd never heard of it before this year! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I loved it nonetheless. I thought it was going to be a twist on the old classic tale, but it turned out to be just a lovely version of the well-known story. I particularly liked the way the enchantments of the castle were described. I loved how the library contained books that hadn't been written yet, and the little nod to Sherlock Holmes.

      My one complaint about the book was that the ending seemed very abrupt. The last few pages had a LOT packed into them, and I would have loved to see them be expanded a bit and not be so rushed. However, I still much enjoyed the book!

      Would I recommend this to a fellow book lover? Yes.
      Would I recommend this to my daughters? Yes. Already have, in fact.

    Book preview

    Beauty - Robin McKinley

    Part One

    1

    I was the youngest of three daughters. Our literal-minded mother named us Grace, Hope, and Honour, but few people except perhaps the minister who had baptized all three of us remembered my given name. My father still likes to tell the story of how I acquired my odd nickname: I had come to him for further information when I first discovered that our names meant something besides you-come-here. He succeeded in explaining grace and hope, but he had some difficulty trying to make the concept of honour understandable to a five-year-old. I heard him out, but with an expression of deepening disgust; and when he was finished I said: Huh! I’d rather be Beauty. He laughed; and over the next few weeks told everyone he met this story of his youngest child’s precocity. I found that my ill-considered opinion became a reality; the name at least was attached to me securely.

    All three of us were pretty children, with curly blond hair and blue-grey eyes; and if Grace’s hair was the brightest, and Hope’s eyes the biggest, well, for the first ten years the difference wasn’t too noticeable. Grace, who was seven years older than I, grew into a beautiful, and profoundly graceful, young girl. Her hair was wavy and fine and luxuriant, and as butter-yellow as it had been when she was a baby (said doting friends of the family), and her eyes were long-lashed and as blue as a clear May morning after rain (said her doting swains). Hope’s hair darkened to a rich chestnut-brown, and her big eyes turned a smoky green. Grace was an inch or two the taller, and her skin was rosy where Hope’s was ivorypale; but except for their dramatic coloring my sisters looked very much alike. Both were tall and slim, with tiny waists, short straight noses, dimples when they smiled, and small delicate hands and feet.

    I was five years younger than Hope, and I don’t know what happened to me. As I grew older, my hair turned mousy, neither blond nor brown, and the baby curl fell out until all that was left was a stubborn refusal to co-operate with the curling iron; my eyes turned a muddy hazel. Worse, I didn’t grow; I was thin, awkward, and undersized, with big long-fingered hands and huge feet. Worst of all, when I turned thirteen, my skin broke out in spots. There hadn’t been a spot in our mother’s family for centuries, I was sure. And Grace and Hope went on being innocently and ravishingly lovely, with every eligible young man—and many more that were neither—dying of love for them.

    Since I was the baby of the family I was a little spoiled. Our mother died less than two years after I was born, and our little sister Mercy died two weeks after her. Although we had a series of highly competent and often affectionate nursemaids and governesses, my sisters felt that they had raised me. By the time it was evident that I was going to let the family down by being plain, I’d been called Beauty for over six years; and while I came to hate the name, I was too proud to ask that it be discarded. I wasn’t really very fond of my given name, Honour, either, if it came to that: It sounded sallow and angular to me, as if honourable were the best that could be said of me. My sisters were too kind to refer to the increasing inappropriateness of my nickname. It was all the worse that they were as good-hearted as they were beautiful, and their kindness was sincerely meant.

    Our father, bless him, didn’t seem to notice that there was any egregious, and deplorable, difference between his first two daughters and his youngest. On the contrary, he used to smile at us over the dinner table and say how pleased he was that we were growing into three such dissimilar individuals; that he always felt sorry for families who looked like petals from the same flower. For a while his lack of perception hurt me, and I suspected him of hypocrisy; but in time I came to be grateful for his generous blindness. I could talk to him openly, about my dreams for the future, without fear of his pitying me or doubting my motives.

    The only comfort I had in being my sisters’ sister was that I was the clever one. To a certain extent this was damning me with faint praise, in the same category as accepting my given name as an epithet accurately reflecting my limited worth—it was the best that could be said of me. Our governesses had always remarked on my cleverness in a pitying tone of voice. But at least it was true. My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. It was unheard of that a woman should do anything of the sort—as several shocked governesses were only too quick to tell me, when I spoke a little too boldly—but my father nodded and smiled and said, We’ll see. Since I believed my father could do anything—except of course make me pretty—I worked and studied with passionate dedication, lived in hope, and avoided society and mirrors.

    Our father was a merchant, one of the wealthiest in the city. He was the son of a shipwright, and had gone to sea as a cabin boy when he was not yet ten years old; but by the time he was forty, he and his ships were known in most of the major ports of the world. When he was forty, too, he married our mother, the Lady Marguerite, who was just seventeen. She came of a fine old family that had nothing but its bloodlines left to live on, and her parents were more than happy to accept my father’s suit, with its generous bridal settlements. But it had been a happy marriage, old friends told us girls. Our father had doted on his lovely young wife—my two sisters took after her, of course, except that her hair had been red-gold and her eyes amber—and she had worshiped him.

    When I was twelve, and Grace was nineteen, she became engaged to our father’s most promising young captain, Robert Tucker, a blue-eyed, black-haired giant of twenty-eight. He set sail almost immediately after their betrothal was announced, on a voyage that was to take three long years but bode fair to make his fortune. There had been a Masque of Courtesy acted out among the three of them—Robbie, Grace, and Father—when the plans for the voyage and the wedding had first been discussed. Father suggested that they should be married right away, that they might have a few weeks together (and perhaps start a baby, to give Grace something to do while she waited the long months for his return) before he set sail. The journey could be delayed a little.

    Nay, said Robbie, he wished to prove himself first; it was no man’s trick to leave his wife in her father’s house; if he could not care for her himself as she deserved, then he was no fit husband for her. But he could not yet afford a house of his own, and three years was a long time; perhaps she should be freed of the constraints of their betrothal. It was not fair to one so fair as she to be asked to wait so long. And then of course Grace in her turn stood up and said that she would wait twenty years if necessary, and it would be the greatest honour of her life to have the banns published immediately. And so they were; and Robbie departed a month later.

    Grace told Hope and me at great length about this Masque, just after it happened. We sat over tea in Grace’s rose silk hung sitting room. Her tea service was very fine, and she presided over the silver urn like a grand and gracious hostess, handing round her favorite cups to her beloved sisters as if we too were grand ladies. I put mine down hastily; after years of taking tea with my sisters, I still eyed the little porcelain cups askance, and preferred to wait until I could return to my study and ring for my maid to bring me a proper big mug of tea, and some biscuits.

    Hope looked vague and dreamy; I was the only one who saw any humour in Grace’s story—although I could appreciate that it had not been amusing for the principals—but then, I was the only one who read poetry for pleasure. Grace blushed when she mentioned the baby, and admitted that while Robbie was right, of course, she was a weak woman and wished—oh, just the littlest bit!—that they might have been married before he left. She was even more beautiful when she blushed. Her sitting room set her high color off admirably.

    Those first months after Robbie set sail must have been very long ones for her. She who had been the toast of the town now went to parties very seldom; when Hope and Father protested that there was no need of her living like a nun; she smiled seraphically and said she truly didn’t wish to go out and mix with a great many people anymore. She spent most of her time setting her linen in order as she put it; she sewed very prettily—I don’t believe she had set a crooked stitch since she hemmed her first sheet at the age of five—and she already had a trousseau that might have been the envy of any three girls.

    So Hope went out alone, with our chaperone, the last of our outgrown governesses, or sponsored by one of the many elderly ladies who thought she was just delightful. But after two years or so, it was observed that the incomparable Hope also began to neglect many fashionable gatherings; an incomprehensible development, since no banns had been published and no mysterious wasting diseases were whispered about. It was made comprehensible to me one night when she crept into my bedroom, weeping.

    I was up late, translating Sophocles. She explained to me that she had to tell someone, but she couldn’t be so selfish as to bother Grace when she was preoccupied with Robbie’s safety—Yes, I understand, I said patiently, although I privately thought Grace would be the better for the distraction of someone else’s problems—but she, Hope, had fallen in love with Gervain Woodhouse, and was therefore miserable. I sorted out this curious statement eventually.

    Gervain was an estimable young man in every way—but he was also an ironworker in Father’s shipyard. His family were good and honest people, but not at all grand, and his prospects were no more than modest. He had some ideas about the ballasting of ships, which Father admired, and had been invited to the house several times to discuss them, and then stayed on to tea or supper. I supposed that this was how he and my sister had met. I didn’t follow Hope’s account of their subsequent romance very well, and didn’t at all recognize her anguished lover as the reserved and polite young man that Father entertained. At any rate, Hope concluded, she knew Father expected her to make a great match, or at least a good one, but her heart was given.

    Don’t be silly, I told her. Father only wants you to be happy. He’s delighted with the prospect of Robbie as a son-in-law, you know, and Grace might have had an earl.

    Hope’s dimples showed. An elderly earl.

    An earl is an earl, I said severely. Better than your count, who turned out to have a wife in the attic. If you think you’ll be happiest scrubbing tar out of burlap aprons, Father won’t say nay. And, I added thoughtfully, he will probably buy you several maids to do the scrubbing.

    Hope sighed. You are not the slightest bit romantic.

    You knew that already, I said. "But I do remind you that Father is not an ogre, as you know very well if you’d only calm down and think about it. He himself started as a shipwright; and you know that still tells against us in some circles. Only Mother was real society. Father hasn’t forgotten. And he likes Gervain."

    Oh, Beauty, Hope said; but that’s not all. Ger only stays in the city for love of me; he doesn’t really like it here, nor ships and the sea. He was born and raised north of here, far inland. He misses the forests. He wants to go back, and be a blacksmith again.

    I thought about this. It seemed like the waste of a first-class ironworker. I was also, for all my scholarship, not entirely free of the city bred belief that the north was a land rather overpopulated by goblins and magicians, who went striding about the countryside muttering wild charms. In the city magic was more discreetly contained, in little old men and women with bright eyes, who made up love potions and cures for warts in return for modest sums. But if this didn’t bother Hope, there was no reason it should bother me.

    I said at last: Well, we’ll miss you. I hope you won’t settle too far away—but it’s still not an insurmountable obstacle. Look here: Stop wringing your hands and listen to me. Would you like me to talk to Father about it first, since you’re so timid?

    Oh, that would be wonderful of you, my brighteyed sister said eagerly. I’ve made Gervain promise not to say anything yet, and he feels that our continued silence is not right. It was a tradition in the family that I could get around Father best: I was the baby, and so on. This was another of my sisters’ tactful attempts at recompense for the way I looked, but there was some truth to it. Father would do anything for any of us, but my sisters were both a little in awe of him.

    Umm, yes, I said, looking longingly at my books. I’ll talk to Father—but give me a week or so, will you please, since you’ve waited this long. Father’s got business troubles, as you may have noticed, and I’d like to pick my time.

    Hope nodded, cheerful again, called me a darling girl, kissed me, and slipped out of the room. I went back to Sophocles. But to my surprise, I couldn’t concentrate; stories I’d heard of the northland crept in and disrupted the Greek choruses. And there was also the fact that Ger, safe and sensible Ger, found our local witches amusing; it was not that he laughed when they were mentioned, but that he became very still. In my role of tiresome little sister, I had harassed him about this, till he told me a little. Where I come from, any old wife can mix a poultice to take off warts; it’s something she learns from her mother with how to hem a shirt and how to make gingerbread. Or if she can’t, she certainly has a neighbor who can, just as her husband probably has a good useful spell or two to stuff into his scarecrow with the straw, to make it do its work a little better. He saw that he had his audience’s fixed attention, so he grinned at me, and added: There are even a few dragons left up north, you know. I saw one once, when I was a boy, but they don’t come that far south very often. Even I knew that dragons could do all sorts of marvelous things, although only a great magician could master one.

    My opportunity to discuss Hope’s future with Father never arrived. The crash came only a few days after my sister’s and my midnight conversation. The little fleet of merchant ships Father owned had hit a streak of bad luck; indeed, since Robert Tucker had set sail in the White Raven three years ago, with the Windfleet, the Stalwart, and the Fortune’s Chance to bear her company, nothing had gone right. Shipments were canceled, crops were poor, revolutions disturbed regular commerce; Father’s ships were sunk in storms, or captured by pirates; many of his warehouses were destroyed, and the clerks disappeared or returned home penniless.

    The final blow was a message brought by a weary, footsore man who had set sail as third mate on the Stalwart three years ago. The four ships had been driven apart by a sudden storm. The Stalwart and the Windfleet had been driven up on the shore and destroyed; only a handful of men survived. The Fortune’s Chance was later discovered to have been taken by pirates who found it lost and disabled after the storm. Of the White Raven there was no word, of ship or crew, but it was presumed lost. The captain of the Windfleet had survived the wreck of the two ships, but at the cost of a crushed leg that refused to heal. A year ago the sailor who stood now, shredding his hat with his hands, had been sent by that captain with one other man, to try and work their way home and deliver their messages, and an urgent plea for assistance, since written letters seemed to have gone astray. There had been a dozen men left alive when the pair had set out, but their situation, alone in a strange country, was precarious. The sailor’s companion had died by foul play, and he had heard nothing of the men he had left since shortly after his departure.

    I don’t remember the next few weeks, after the sailor’s arrival, too well; nor do I regret that vagueness. I remember only too clearly that Father, who had been young and hearty, in a few days’ time came to look his age, which was past sixty; and poor Grace turned as white as cold wax when she heard the news, and went about the house like a silent nightmare, like the poor pale girls in old ballads who fade away until they are nothing more than grey omens to the living. Hope and I took turns trying to persuade our father and eldest sister to eat, and making sure that the fires in their rooms were well built up.

    Father made plans to take what little remained to him and us and retire to the country, where we could make shift to live cheaply. His rapid rise in business wealth and success had been based on his ability to take calculated risks. He had run ventures very near to the line before, and always come about, and so he had refused to believe that he would not come about at the last moment this time too. Consequently, our ruin was complete, for he had kept nothing in reserve. What little he had available to him he used to try and cushion the fall for some of his best men; most of it was sent with the third mate from the Stalwart, to try and find the men he had left behind him and help them out of their difficulties. The man left on his return journey less than a week after his arrival, although Father urged him to stay and rest, and send someone else in his stead. But he was anxious to see himself how his fellow crew members fared, and he would have the best chance of finding them again; he did not say it, but we knew that he was also anxious to leave the sight of us and the ruin he had brought to us, although it was none of his creation or blame.

    The house and lands were to be auctioned off; the money resulting would enable us to start again. But start what? Father was a broken man; he was now also labeled jinxed, and no other merchant would have anything to do with him, if he could have brought himself to work for another man. He had done no carpentry but trinkets for his daughters since he had given up shipbuilding for more lucrative business over thirty years ago; and he had no other marketable skills.

    It was at this low ebb in our thoughts and plans that Gervain came to visit us; this was about a week after the man from the Stalwart had told his story. The four of us were sitting silent in the parlour after dinner; usually we talked, or Father or myself read aloud while my sisters sewed, but we had little heart for such amusements now. The auction had already been set, for a day late next week; and Father had begun looking for a little house somewhere

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