“What a pity those same bandits set upon my husband’s messenger and delayed him,” she said serenely, as she cast the scraps of paper upon the fire. “So that the command to keep us all at home did not arrive in time.”
“But, Maman, the messenger,” Amelie began.
“Will be well cared for and kept busy here till we are well on our way,” her mother replied. “He looked as if he could use a little country air, don’t you think?”
Her foot began to tap once more. Her dark eyes shone with determination. “I know there are decisions to be made, obstacles to overcome, but we are not staying home. It is by the kings command that we are summoned to the palace, and to the palace we shall go. Etienne de Brabant may believe he is my lord and master, but the king is his.”
All of a sudden, she gave a grin. “The command of a king trumps that of a husband, every time.”
“And Raoul?” I inquired.
Chantal de Saint-Andre’s foot stilled.
“Deciding what to do about Raoul,” she said, her smile fading away, “may be our very first obstacle. I know that you are close to him, Cendrillon, but I must tell you plainly that the wisest course of action might be to leave Raoul behind. Etienne has always been the queens man for many years, and I fear some mischief is behind this sudden request. I do not trust this fine husband of mine.”
I opened my mouth to protest such a course of action, but before I could speak, my stepmother lifted a hand.
“That is not what I am going to do, however. It would be cruel to leave Raoul at home. Instead, we will all go, including Old Mathilde.”
She glanced at Niccolo, who was standing near the fireplace. “The second thing we must decide is what to do about you, Niccolo. If you help us, you will be acting against my husband’s wishes, and, for all we know, the queen’s as well. Perhaps it is you who should stay here.”
Niccolo was silent for a moment. “Thank you, my lady,” he said at last. “Your words are just what I have come to expect, both kind and thoughtful.” He looked up from his contemplation of the fire then, and met Amelies eyes.
“But I think, perhaps, I have done all I can in your husband’s service, and in the queen’s, if the truth must be told. Since going to court I . . .” He broke off, as if he could not quite put what had happened into words.
He no longer supports the queen, I thought. And he loves Amelie. He would not wish to do anything which might jeopardize her family.
“It is time to choose a new allegiance, one more in keeping with the wishes of my own heart,” Niccolo went on. He switched his attention back to Chantal. “I will serve you, if you will have me.”
“With pleasure,” my stepmother replied. “Now all we have to do is find some means of getting to the capitol that does not run the risk of alerting my fine and clever husband that we’re coming after all. That will mean we cannot take the coach.”
“I know,” I said suddenly, as the idea sprang, full-blown, into my mind. I could only hope Anastasia was feeling flexible. “Pumpkins.”
By the end of the day, a plan had been agreed upon. We would travel as a country family, eager to catch a glimpse of the prince we had never seen, and the lovely young ladies from among whom he would select his bride. To this end, we would harvest our pumpkins, fill the largest wagon with them, and travel to the market in the capitol.
“But where will we stay once we get there?” Amelie inquired. “We can hardly put up at an inn, nor can we go to Etienne de Brabant’s rooms at court.”
“I believe that I can provide a solution to that,” Old Mathilde spoke up. We were sitting at the table in the dining room, all of us together, like the family we would soon be impersonating. “I lived in the city, long ago. My sister still lives in the house our parents owned. She will welcome us, and though it will be cozy, there should be room for all.”
“You lived in the city?” I exclaimed in astonishment. I had never heard her speak of this before.
Old Mathilde simply smiled and said no more.
“It would seem that you are right, Niccolo,” I huffed. “This house is full of surprises.”
The journey to the city took three days, days so full of sights and sounds that, though the road we traveled ran straight enough, our path upon it never runs quite the same way twice when I call it to mind. It does not roll out smoothly, like a length of ribbon unfurling across a tabletop, but splinters into different pieces, tumbling all together, then coming together into a single episode, like the spin and halt of a kaleidoscope.
Give one turn and there is Old Mathilde, driving the wagon with Amelie beside her, while Niccolo, dressed like a country lad now, makes his horse prance alongside. He reaches down and, before Amelie quite realizes what he intends, he snatches her up and sets her before him. She throws her arms around his neck to keep from falling off, though even Niccolo knows that this is mostly for show. Amelie is as fine a horsewoman as her sister is. There’s not much chance she’s going to take a tumble. Niccolos dark eyes are dancing with mischief. Amelies cheeks have a rosy glow.
“That looks pretty settled to me,” Old Mathilde says, at which my stepmother gives a laugh.
“So it does,” she answers. “So it does”
The kaleidoscope gives another turn and I see my stepmother, in the back of the wagon, perched high atop a pile of pumpkins. The wagon hits an unexpected bump in the road. She struggles not to topple out, howling with unrestrained laughter the whole while.
A third twist and Anastasia and Raoul come into view, walking side by side. It is almost twilight, the hour when the day birds are busy finishing up what they have to say before the dark descends and they fall silent for the night. Raoul is teaching Anastasia how to tell which bird is which, for he knows them all by sound alone.
Without warning, the air around us falls silent, and then, into that silence, comes a single bird call. Anastasia stops walking so abruptly Raoul goes several steps beyond her before he even realizes she’s no longer beside him.
“Chickadee!” Anastasia cries. “;It says its own name when it sings.”
Raoul’s face splits into a smile. “That’s exacdy right.”
At his words, the bird calls once more, and Anastasia claps her hands together like a small child. “I did it!” she says, spinning toward the wagon. “Did you hear? I did it, Maman!”
And then, at last, the kaleidoscope spins and settles, and we are at the nightfall which followed. One that had us passing through the city gates, our three-day journey almost over.
“My house is in the oldest part of the city,” Old Mathilde explained as we began to wind our way through the narrow streets. Mathilde was driving the horse once more. Raoul walked at its head, the better to guide it and keep it calm. Personally, I think the horse was feeling just as nervous as I was, overwhelmed by the sheer size and complexity of this place to which we had come. Passing through the gate, traveling along the cobblestoned streets, was like entering another country The narrow streets were bordered by still narrower sidewalks with tall buildings leaning out over all.
“The palace came first, on top of the hill, with the old town directly below it,” Old Mathilde went on. “As more people arrived, the town grew down the slopes of the hill.”
“It looks like a garden,” I said, as we took a turn. “Terraced up the hillside.”
Old Mathilde smiled. “That is a good description,” she said.
“Well, I think it looks like a crown,” Anastasia suddenly spoke up. “All the lights in the windows sparkle like jewels, don’t you think?”
“You’re just seeing crowns everywhere, now that you’re about to meet the prince at last,” Amelie teased.
“I am not!” Anastasia cried.
“Girls,” their mother said. “It is late, and we are all tired. Let us see if we can make it to our destination without calling attention to ourselves by quarreling in the street, shall we?”
“The lights in the windows are placed there by order of the king,” Nicc
olo supplied into the awkward silence. He had dismounted to lead his horse, as well He followed along behind the cart. The street was too narrow for us to go abreast.
“Every household must keep a candle burning in each groundfloor window until midnight. After that, the watch patrols the streets, calling out if all is well.”
The street took a tight turn, then opened up as we came to an intersection. Niccolo pointed. “Even the palace follows this law. There. You can see it now.”
I turned my head, followed the reach of his arm with my eyes, and saw the palace for the very first time. A seemingly impossible collection of turrets, towers, and walls. A light shone from every window on the lower levels, with a smattering of lights twinkling from the floors above.
This is where my father has spent my entire life, I thought.
What would I feel like when I finally set foot inside it? When he finally set eyes upon me, what would be Etienne de Brabant’s response?
In the safety of the great stone house, coming to the capitol to attend the ball against my father’s wishes had seemed the right thing to do, a fine act of rebellion and defiance. But now, gazing up at the palace, I was not so sure. What would it be like to enter the palace as the young noblewoman that I was, to come face-to-face with the father who had neglected me for all my life, with the eyes of countless strangers upon us?
I felt a hard fist of fear begin to form, solid as a snowball, in my gut. Then Old Mathilde clicked to the horse, and the wagon started forward.
“Not much farther now.”
Two blocks later, Mathilde brought us to a halt before a house that had a sprig of rosemary and a mortar and pestle painted on a sign hanging over the door. Even in the street, it seemed to me that I could catch a quick aroma of earth, the scent of pungent leaves drying. An apothecary shop. I felt the fist of ice in my belly begin to thaw.
“Your sister is a healer too?” I asked.
Old Mathilde nodded. “As was our mother before us. This was her shop before it was ours. My sister has kept it for us both, while I had other things to do.”
She got down from the wagon, handed the reins to Raoul, then rapped smartly on the door. Only then did I realize we had sent no word of our coming. Before I could express my concern, the door opened. Warm light spilled out into the street, partially cut off as a figure stepped into the doorway.
“I see you are come home at last, Mathilde,” a woman’s voice said, the sound of it like music. “Its about time.”
Old Mathilde’s sister was named Justine, and she was a younger, plumper version of Mathilde herself. Her cheeks were pink, and her face as wrinkled as an apple doll’s.
“I am afraid the young men must sleep in the stable with the horses,” she said, as she made us welcome. The apothecary shop filled the entire downstairs. There were living quarters on the floors above.
“I don’t think either of them will mind that,” I said. “Raoul sleeps with the horses at home most nights, anyhow.”
Justine gave a chuckle. “Then I will leave them to settle themselves,” she said. “And after they have done so, they must come in to supper. You young ladies, follow me now.”
She led the way upstairs, the rustling of her petticoats beneath her skirts reminding me of the herbs she dried.
“So you are the girl Mathilde has cared for all these years,” she said, as she climbed the stairs.
“You know about me?” I asked, astonished. “But how?”
Justine chuckled. “Mathilde and I have our little ways,” she said. With that, she threw open a door halfway down the upstairs corridor, then stepped inside. Before us stretched a dormer room that ran the length of the house. Down its center, at regularly spaced intervals, were four neatly made beds, precisely as if they were waiting for us.
“There should be room for all of you in here,” Justine said. “The room on the other side gets better light, so we’ll save that for the sewing.” She turned to my stepmother. “I have taken the liberty of laying in a few things I thought you might find useful,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” my stepmother cried. “You are a lifesaver, Justine, just as your sister is. Part of me wants to ask how you know what to do, the other informs the rest that a gift is best accepted with thanks and not inquired after too closely. So I will simply say thank you, I think. With all my heart.”
Justine smiled. “And with all mine, lady, you are most welcome. I will leave you to get settled in, then,” she said. “Over supper, we can discuss what must be done.”
The rest of that week was a blur of activity, a whirl of fabrics, ribbons, buttons, and pearls. For what seemed like endless hours, Amelie, Anastasia, and I took turns standing in place while Old Mathilde and Justine held up pieces of muslin and made mysterious markings on them. After this we were sent to the kitchen for a cup of tea, but even in that far away room of the house it seemed to me that I could hear the sound of scissors, swishing and snipping their way through the silks and satins my stepmother had chosen. I went to bed each night with visions of pins and needles dancing in my head, and any dreams I had were of thimbles and thread.
Tuesday came and went, then Wednesday, and Friday was the night of the ball.
“We won’t be ready in time,” Anastasia declared late Thursday afternoon. “I simply don’t see how it can be done. We’ve only got so many hands and hours in a day”
“My hands are sewing as fast as they can,” I said. I was working on Anastasia’s dress, a fine blue silk that matched her eyes, stitching a smattering of seed pearls across the bodice. With it would go a circlet of pearls for her forehead, pearl-covered slippers for her feet, Justine was working on Amelie’s dress, Chantal on her own, and Old Mathilde on mine. She would not let me see it, I didn’t even know what color it was.
As the week progressed, Old Mathilde had come to find me from time to time. She would wrap some body part with a tape measure, make a note of what she’d learned, then go off again, muttering instructions to herself.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Anastasia said, “I do not mean to criticize, I genuinely do not understand how we can be ready in time.”
“Perhaps it is not a matter for understanding,” Amelie put in. She was weaving together a circlet of dried flowers for her hair, with a flutter of ribbons that would stream down her back. “Perhaps it is more along the lines of a wish we all hope may come true.”
“If I were you,” I advised, “I would wish and sew at the same time. Hand me that spool of thread, if you please.”
But by bedtime, even I began to have my doubts. We worked through the entire length of a brand-new candle, then went to bed with the dresses still undone.
Late that night, I was suddenly awakened by a pair of hands upon my shoulders. Amelie was leaning over my bed, a pale shape in her white nightgown. Anastasia was kneeling at the head of the bed.
“Come into the sewing room,” she said. “There is something you should see. But be quiet. We do not want to wake Maman.”
I tossed back my covers and got out of bed, following my stepsisters on tiptoe across the hall. In the light of the waning moon, just inside the sewing-room door, two dress forms stood, side by side. One was wearing a dress of pale blue, the other, a pink as soft as inside of a seashell.
“Look,” Amelie said. “There we are.”
“Oh, but they are perfect,” I exclaimed softly. “Perfect in every detail.” On silent feet, I moved forward, then knelt to lift the hem of Amelies dress. “Your hem is finished, Amelie.”
She nodded. “And Anastasia’s buttons. And look . . .” She gestured to the circlet of flowers she had been working on just that afternoon. Woven in among the blossoms were ropes of tiny seashells. Shell buckles adorned her shoes. In the moonlight, the pearls on Anastasia’s dress made the dress glimmer like cool spring rain.
“You are going to be so beautiful,” I said, as I stood up. “Both of you.”
“Not as beautiful as you will be,” Anastasia r
eplied. “Come and see.”
“No, wait,” Amelie whispered. “Better yet, close your eyes, Don’t worry,” she went on when I hesitated, “I won’t let Anastasia trip you.”
“Oh, stop,” Anastasia protested, but I caught the laughter in her quiet voice. “She’s right, though. Close your eyes, Cendrillon. Please.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I obeyed, and felt my stepsisters each clasp a hand. Slowly and carefully, they led me through what felt like the full length of the sewing room.
“Now,” Amelie whispered, as she gave my hand a squeeze, “Open your eyes.”
I discovered I couldn’t quite manage both at once. Instead, I did it one at a time. First the left eye, and then the right. Before me, in a shaft of moonlight coming through the window in the farthest corner of the room, stood the third and final dress form. I blinked. I rubbed my eyes, then blinked again.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, my.”
The dress before me was the loveliest that I had ever seen, yard upon yard of ivory-colored satin shot through with threads of gold. The smooth, tight-fitting bodice was embroidered all over with raised gold flowers, their centers brilliants that caught the light. More brilliants danced across the full, billowing skirt.
“It’s the same color as the moonlight,” Anastasia breathed, “And see—for your hair . . .” She caught up a length of lace as fine as spiderweb, tossed it up and over my head. More brilliants flashed, even in the pale moonlight.
“You will be more beautiful than just the moon,” she said. “You will be the moon and the stars combined. We are going to have to resign ourselves to lives as ladies in waiting, Amelie. One look at Cendrillon, and the prince will fall in love at first sight”
“Look,” Amelie said. She knelt before the dress form, then rose. “Your slippers are made of glass”
Once Upon A Time (5) Before Midnight Page 11