Disenchanted

  “Oh! The best news in all the world!” Netta trilled.

  “The king has decided to refund some of our tax money?”

  “No! Even better,” Amy cried.

  “Nothing could be better than that,” I groused.

  “You think so? Well, just take a look at this.” Amy snatched the parchment from Netta and pranced over to dangle it before my eyes.

  She was fluttering the paper about so much, I only caught glimpses of the words.

  His Supreme Highness King August, the first of that name…by royal decree doth declare that the eve of high summer be set aside…a grand ball to be held in honor of our most beloved son and heir…

  “Oh.” I gave a disappointed shrug. “This is nothing but the announcement of the same ball the palace holds every summer.”

  “But this year is going to be very different,” Amy cried. “This year we all are invited.”

  “What!”

  “It says so right here.” Amy flapped the parchment at me. “Look.”

  “Perhaps I could if you would hold still.” I plucked the missive from her grasp and steadied it to read. Netta, Amy and Fortescue started to crowd closer but, wary of my layers of soot, thought better of it.

  Netta urged, “Oh please, read it aloud, Ella.”

  Clearing my throat, I obliged. “ ‘His Supreme Highness King August, the first of that name, descendant of the noble line of the house of Helavalerian, ruler of the great kingdom of Arcady—’ ”

  “No, skip all those boring bits,” Amy interrupted. “The really good part is down here.” Jabbing the paper with her finger, she directed my attention to a paragraph lower down the page.

  I began to read again. “ ‘Our most beloved son and heir, Prince Florian, having recently returned from his tour of the neighboring kingdoms, was disappointed in his quest to find a bride. Despite the loveliness of these foreign princesses, none of them were able to win the favor of our noble prince.’ ”

  I snorted. “More likely none of them would have the conceited fool.”

  “Ella!” Netta scolded.

  “Keep reading,” Amy insisted.

  I glanced down and found my place again. “ ‘Therefore our doughty prince’—doughty? That makes him sound like a pan of bread left to rise too long.”

  “Ella!” both my stepsisters shrieked.

  “Oh, very well…‘our doughty prince has resolved to choose his bride from among the fair ladies of our own kingdom. Every eligible maiden, be she of high or low degree, is hereby invited to attend the royal summer ball. Come join us for an enchanted evening of supping and dancing wherein one fair maid will be fortunate enough to capture the heart of our valiant Prince Florian.’ ”

  “Win the heart of the prince,” Amy cooed, flinging her hand across her brow as if she would swoon at the thought. “It could be me.”

  “Or me,” Netta said.

  “Or neither of you,” Fortescue said, looking rather peevish.

  “What does that signify?” Amy said with a haughty toss of her curls. “The prince has four younger brothers and the ball is bound to be teeming with other desirable young men as well. Dukes and earls and counts.”

  “Knights and lords,” Netta added dreamily. “Rich, handsome and clever.”

  “Forget about clever.” Amy giggled. “I just want one that is all rippled with muscles.”

  Fortescue flexed his arm in a feeble effort to display his own strength, but it would not have mattered if he could have produced a biceps the size of a ham hock. The unfortunate young man was forgotten in my stepsisters’ ecstasies over the ball.

  When he announced in aggrieved tones that he might as well take his leave, the girls barely stopped their excited chatter to bid him goodbye. I was the one obliged to see him out. He snatched up his hat and gloves as I opened the door. Despite the fact that I thought Fortescue was a bit of an ass, he looked so crestfallen I felt sorry for him and rather ashamed of my stepsisters’ behavior.

  As he tugged on his gloves, I tried to cheer him up. “Never mind, Mr. Bafton. You have a sister so I daresay you will discover your family has received an invitation as well.”

  “What care I for that?” he asked in wounded accents.

  “If there are so many eligible noblemen at this ball, there will certainly be an even greater number of ladies, most of them in need of consoling because only one can win the prince.”

  “Why, that’s perfectly true.” He paused on the doorstep, looking much struck by my words. “It is possible that I might win the favor of some great lady, perhaps even the daughter of a duke or a countess. Gads, do you think that I could, Miss Ella?”

  I smiled at him cheerfully. “Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

  He thanked me and said farewell. Perching his hat at a jaunty angle, he sauntered off down the walk, whistling off key. I closed the door behind him, staring down in bemusement at the parchment in my hand. Every eligible woman in the kingdom invited to a ball that had heretofore been reserved for only the wealthiest and noblest of families? The prince vowing to choose a bride from among all the maidens in attendance? I did not know what to make of this mad announcement from the palace, but I was by nature a suspicious person. When something sounded too good to be true, it generally was.

  I scanned the parchment again and this time my gaze homed in on the fine print at the very bottom of the announcement, beneath the king’s seal.

  Present this invitation to the royal exchequer in order to procure the vouchers necessary for admittance to the ball. Each household may purchase an unlimited number of tickets at the cost of—

  I nearly choked as I read the staggering sum per ticket. I stiffened as I realized what this was all about, just another way for the king and his council to rake in money. This so-called grand ball was nothing more than a lottery with exorbitantly priced tickets and marriage to the royal heir dangled as the grand prize.

  It was outrageous. It was diabolical. It was…frapping brilliant!

  I was torn between disgust and a grudging admiration for our wily old king. Levying another tax would have increased the rumblings of discontent among his subjects. Among the more radical quarters in Arcady, there were even rumors of a possible rebellion arising.

  But how many of the king’s subjects, dazzled by the prospect of a royal ball, would even notice that once again His Majesty was successfully picking their pockets? At least for once it kept the royal treasury agents from delving into the Upton purse. As for those foolish enough to waste their money taking part in this princely lottery, good luck to them.

  Shaking my head and chuckling a little over the king’s audacity, I rolled up the parchment. But as my gaze traveled down the hall toward the open parlor door, I could see my stepsisters dancing around the room, practicing the waltz. My smirk faded.

  Amy and Netta were glowing with girlish hopes and dreams. They looked as though they were floating off the ground, encased in a bubble of sheer happiness. As usual, I was going to have to be the one who administered the sharp prick of reality. I headed toward the parlor, girding myself for the unpleasant scene to come.

  Chapter 2

  Mercifully, by the time I entered the parlor, the girls had calmed down a little. They had collapsed on the settee and delved into the latest issue of Fantine’s Designs for Fashionable Young Ladies.

  “We are not dressing alike for the ball, no matter what Mama says,” Amy said. “We have to be firm with her this time. Agreed?”

  Netta nodded vigorously.

  I cleared my throat to get their attention. “Girls…”

  “I am picturing myself in a pink silk while you should have mint green,” Amy continued. “And for Ella, I am thinking a soft shade of sky blue.”

  “Indeed Ella always looks well in blue. It brings out the color of her eyes.”

  “Girls!”

  They dragged their attention from the fashion book long enough to look up at me. Amy frowned. “Ella, you must go bathe and g
et rid of that soot. We have so much planning to do. The ball is only a month away.”

  “We should get down to the Silk Emporium as soon as possible,” Netta said.

  “Oh, yes. Every woman in Midtown will be swarming the place.”

  “Girls!” I fortified myself with a deep breath. “We can’t go.”

  “To the emporium? But, Ella, we must,” Amy said. “There will not be a decent scrap of fabric left.”

  “I mean we can’t go to the ball.”

  They stared at me blankly, as though I had started speaking in some incomprehensible language known only in the darkest regions of elven lands.

  Amy was the first to recover. “Whatever do you mean, Ella? Of course we can go. We have been invited.”

  “No, what we have been invited to do is bankrupt ourselves by purchasing tickets.”

  I read the passage they had overlooked in their excitement, laying particular emphasis on the sum required—twenty silver galoons.

  “Twenty? Per ticket?” Netta faltered. She had a somewhat better grasp of money matters than Amy, who said, “Surely that is not so very much.”

  “Not so very much? It is as much as a good plowman can make in a year.”

  “How very fortunate we are not plowmen.”

  “We are not as well off as plowmen because we don’t earn money. We only spend it.” I tossed the so-called invitation toward the empty fireplace grate. I missed and it rolled across the tapestry hearth rug my stepmother had embroidered. Netta gasped and pounced as though fearful I would destroy the precious parchment. She tucked it behind a cushion and leaned against it while Amy insisted, “We do too earn money. We get an allowance every quarter from that trust thing your papa left.”

  “Two quarters’ worth of the allowance would not cover the cost of attending this ball.”

  “Cannot we withdraw a little money from the trust reserves again?” Netta suggested timidly.

  “No!” I said more forcefully than I intended, but the very thought of such a thing flooded me with panic. I had tried many times to explain to the girls and my stepmother that the modest inheritance my father had bequeathed was not inexhaustible. Once again I might as well have been speaking in elvish whenever I broached the subject of the diminishing capital, declining interest rates and higher taxes.

  “We have dipped into the reserve too many times,” I said. “Do you want us to end up having to sell our house and move to one of those dismal cottages in Misty Bottoms?”

  “N-no,” Netta faltered, but Amy dismissed my concerns with an airy wave of her hand.

  “Pooh. You always exaggerate how poor we are, Ella.” Amy closed up the fashion book and rose to her feet. “If we can’t get the money from the trust, we must find another way.”

  She sidled over to me and grasped hold of my hand, gazing up at me with a coaxing smile. “I know you will contrive something, Ella. You always do. You are so very clever.”

  Netta leapt up and caught hold of my other hand. “Oh, yes, please find a way, Ella. We simply must go to that ball. It is the event of a lifetime.”

  “It could make all our fortunes,” Amy said. “If one of us won the love of the prince or even a wealthy duke, we would never have to worry about money, ever again. Oh, please think of something.”

  “Please, please, Ella,” Netta chimed in.

  As they clung to me, pleading, I was stirred by a poignant memory of when Amy and Netta were little girls and we all went to the fair. Me holding them tight by the hand for fear they would get lost, them skipping along and wheedling me into spending on peppermint sticks the pennies I had so carefully saved.

  I sighed. If only it were still so easy to make my stepsisters that happy and content. At the ripe age of four and twenty, I was already too cynical to believe in the romance of a grand ball and the possibility of finding love during the lilt of a dance. The harsh truth was that a royal prince or grand duke would never become smitten enough to marry a poor maiden from Midtown. That sort of thing only happened in romance tales, but I would never be able to convince my naive stepsisters of that.

  They still believed in happily ever after and dreams coming true. Despite pretending to be anxious and pleading, I could tell that the girls were convinced I would somehow be able to conjure the money we needed out of thin air. Their absolute faith in me was both touching and a heavy burden, but it was my own fault that my stepsisters thought I was capable of performing miracles.

  In the past I had managed to grant their wishes, from the chocolate-colored miniature ponies housed in our tumbledown stable to the costly harp gracing one corner of the parlor. I had dug deep into the trust, unearthing the funds for music masters, dancing lessons and refurbishing the parlor with the velvet settee and side chairs, the gleaming mahogany tea table, the elegant bird of paradise wallpaper so my stepmother and the girls need not feel ashamed to receive guests.

  We had not been able to afford any of those things, but at least they were all tangible items, capable of giving enduring pleasure. This ridiculous ball was nothing but a one-night fantasy and likely to prove a great disappointment and waste of our dwindling resources.

  No, this time I had to stand firm.

  Easing my hands away from the girls, I said, “I am sorry, my dears. There simply is no way we can afford it. It is not only the outrageous price of the tickets that puts this ball beyond our reach. There would be other expenses as well, new gowns, the hire of a carriage. We would need some way to get to the palace and we could hardly walk or hitch the ponies up to the old cart.”

  “Oh no, Pookie and Pippa would hate that,” Amy exclaimed. “They are too small to pull the weight of all four of us. It would be far too hard on my poor old darlings, and think how ridiculous we should look arriving at the ball in such fashion.”

  “I was only teasing, Amy.”

  “This is not a matter for jest.” Amy frowned a little and then brightened. “I am sure one of our neighbors or friends would be kind enough to allow us to ride with them.”

  “Mr. Bafton, perhaps,” Netta suggested.

  “Highly unlikely after the rude way you girls dismissed him.”

  Netta had the grace to look ashamed, but Amy said, “I can always turn Fortescue sweet. As for our dresses, you are brilliant with a needle, Ella. When the fashion for hoop skirts ended, look how you contrived to redesign our frocks.”

  “That is because I had reams of material to work with. What would you have me do for fabric, Amy? Cut up the bedsheets?”

  Amy pursed her lips stubbornly. “I am sure there must be some kind of silk we can afford. As for the cost of tickets, we can economize on other things. I would be willing to do without a few luxuries.”

  “Like what?” I asked bluntly. “Fuel for this winter? Food?”

  “We could certainly buy less food. Netta eats like a sparrow and when you are absorbed in one of your books, you forget to eat at all. Mama has a delicate appetite and I am sure I need to skip a good many meals. I have grown fat as a little piglet and I must shed a ton of pounds before the ball.”

  It saddened me to hear Amy speak thus of her weight. There was nothing wrong with her figure other than it did not conform to the sylphlike silhouette that was the current standard of feminine beauty. The notion that she was fat had been put into her head by my stepmother. From the time Amy was quite young, Imelda had subjected her youngest daughter to periodic starvation diets that had only increased Amy’s craving for sweets. When she had been a little girl, she had taken to hiding treats up in her room like a desperate squirrel preparing for a long arctic winter. For all I knew, she still did.

  But she asserted heroically, “I could live on bread and water if I had to.”

  “Me too,” Netta added.

  “And what about the fuel we will need when the snow flies?”

  “We could close off some of the chambers. The chimney already isn’t working in the library. Who cares about that pokey old room anyway?”

  “No one of any
importance,” I said tartly. “Only me.”

  “But you could read in the parlor, Ella,” Netta pleaded. “Amy and I would be ever so quiet and not disturb you.”

  “Maybe for about five minutes,” I began but Amy interrupted me eagerly.

  “I have an idea. We could sell something.”

  “Such as?”

  The girls looked around the parlor as though in search of some overlooked treasures. There were only blank spaces on the walls where the sylvan paintings done by the famous elven artist Peccano had once been. They were the last things we had owned of any real value and had been sold off last year so we did not fall in arrears with taxes.

  Netta wandered over to the harp, running her fingers lovingly over the curve of the golden wood frame. Awkward and ungainly in so many other pursuits, when Netta sat down at the harp to play, she became grace personified, her nimble fingers coaxing the strings to sing the most plaintive and lovely melodies.

  The notes she plucked out now sounded as mournful as her voice as she said, “We—we could sell the harp.”

  “No, dearest,” I protested. “It would break your heart and to no purpose. No one would give us enough for a secondhand instrument to purchase even one ticket.”

  I heard Amy swallow hard before saying, “What if we sold the ponies as well?”

  “You would be willing to part with your old friends?”

  Amy’s lip quivered but she bit down to still it. “They are like me. They are fat and they eat too much.”

  “Oh, Amy,” I groaned. “My dears, can you not see? Even if we sold the harp and the ponies, it still would not be enough. This ball is simply not worth sacrificing your treasures.”

  Amy cast me a look, half-defiant, half-guilty. “What if we sold these?” She swept back her dusky curls, exposing the emeralds glittering in her earlobes.

  I gave a gasp of outrage. “Amy, those are my earrings. You have been in my room again and borrowing things without my permission.”

  “I am sure I am always willing to share my things. I do not know why you have to be so selfish with yours.”