Cinderella Six Feet Under

by Maia Chance

  Prince Rupprecht. She should’ve known. He stood on the other side of a dais that displayed a steam-powered submersible ship. He wore a black greatcoat and a silk top hat, and so did the Count de Griffe next to him.

  Before Ophelia could duck out of sight, Griffe saw her. His face lit up. But . . . surely he did not recognize her. They had met last night when she’d been in Henrietta’s stuffed gown, and now she was frumped up as Mrs. Brand.

  Griffe and Prince Rupprecht wove their way over through the mob.

  “How did you know Prince Rupprecht would be here?” Ophelia asked Eglantine.

  Eglantine’s fingertips fluttered on her red upper lip. “I had not the slightest notion.”

  And Ophelia’s name was Saint Nick.

  Eglantine got to Prince Rupprecht first, but Austorga was just behind her. Seraphina lurked in the background, seemingly content to be left out of the whole thing.

  Poor Eglantine and Austorga. Ophelia wasn’t a coquette—that sort of trickery was for ladies of a less practical bent. But she did know that pushing and shoving your way into a fellow’s notice wasn’t the best way to conduct matrimonial business. Fellows were like cats: getting the cold shoulder only made them that much more keen.

  Or, so Ophelia had thought. Because the peculiar thing was, Prince Rupprecht seemed mighty taken with the stepsisters. Both of them.

  “Ah, mademoiselles!” Prince Rupprecht boomed. “What an unexpected delight to find you here!” He spoke English, Ophelia figured, on account of Seraphina, although she was staring at the submersible steamship, not at the prince. “Mademoiselle Eglantine, your bonnet—how charming! And Austorga, yours, too. What are those—pheasant feathers? Delightful!”

  The stepsisters tittered and preened.

  “Such a shame that your delightful soirée last week was ruined in such a fashion,” Prince Rupprecht said. “Your home is superb, one of the oldest of such houses in Paris, I am told. I would very much enjoy another visit.”

  “Indeed, Prince Rupprecht,” Eglantine said, “and we would be most obliged if you would visit again.”

  “Most obliged,” Austorga said, giggling.

  Ophelia happened to see Eglantine stomp on her sister’s foot.

  “Soon, perhaps?” Prince Rupprecht’s blue eyes glinted. They were only the tiniest bit bloodshot from last night’s brandy.

  “Oui,” both stepsisters breathed in unison.

  16

  Ophelia reckoned it was odd that Prince Rupprecht took such an interest in the stepsisters. Eglantine and Austorga didn’t appear to have much in the way of funds. Prince Rupprecht certainly didn’t need their family name. And from what Ophelia had heard him say about the dancing girls at the ballet last night, Prince Rupprecht was a bird fancier. Yet he did not seem put off by their plain looks or their forward ways. Or by their rashy upper lips.

  While Ophelia chewed this over, the crowd somehow jostled her forward to the red velvet rope that surrounded one of the daises. At last she could view one of the contraptions up close. She could not read the plaque, but it looked to be some sort of steam-powered digging machine, as big as a stagecoach, with wheels and cogs, a few sets of exposed gears, and a large shovel with sharp-looking teeth. The shovel was poised midair, and just as Ophelia was noting how the shovel was quaking from the vibrations of the throng, she felt a hard shove against her Mrs. Brand rump padding. She stumbled forward, over the top of the velvet rope. Just before she collapsed onto the dais, a strong hand caught her arm and pulled her upright.

  The shovel hit the dais with a metallic clang.

  The crowd gasped and a lady squealed.

  “Ah, c’est dangereux, madame,” a husky voice said in Ophelia’s ear, “to stand so close to such a machine, non?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Ophelia said, looking up at the Count de Griffe. “I do not believe we have been introduced. And kindly remove your hand.” Her heart pounded and the crowd seemed to swim. She could have sworn she’d been deliberately pushed. But by whom? Surely not Griffe.

  “I beg your pardon a thousand and one times, madame.” Griffe swooped her hand to his lips. “I am the Count de Griffe. You must be the young mademoiselles’ chaperone, eh?”

  “Yes. Quite.” Ophelia ripped her hand from his grasp.

  “Et you are une Americaine?” Griffe studied her face and her gray hair, just visible beneath the brim of her bonnet.

  Ophelia fought the urge to hightail it. Had he recognized her—or, rather, had he recognized Miss Stonewall?

  She made a mental note not to ever, ever juggle two disguises again. Better yet: once she’d straightened out all this Henrietta and Sybille business, no more disguises at all.

  “I am American, yes,” she said. “Mrs. Brand, of Boston Massachusetts. Although I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where many of my mother’s family still reside.”

  “Ah! That is why you so much resemble la belle Mademoiselle Stonewall.”

  “My niece. Yes. She is also visiting Paris at present.”

  “Your niece! Ah! She is like a prairie wildflower, oui? So simple, so fresh. Forgive me for saying so, madame, but the ladies of your family are very handsome.” Griffe gazed at Ophelia’s crepey, greasepainted face with frank appreciation. “All of the ladies.”

  * * *

  The rest of the visit to the exhibition passed without incident, although dodging the Count de Griffe’s earnest, poetic speeches had been taxing. Evening was falling, drizzly and cold, when they dropped Seraphina at her home across the river. When Ophelia and the Misses Malbert arrived at the mansion, Baldewyn assisted them with their cloaks and bonnets, informed them that dinner would be ready shortly, and then passed Ophelia an envelope.

  “Delivered for you, madame,” he said in a disgusted tone.

  The envelope was addressed to Madame Brand.

  Ophelia tore it open in her chamber.

  Interesting news. I shall look for you in the opera house lobby at ten minutes until eight.—G.P.

  News!

  Ophelia forgot all about how she was exhausted, hungry, and footsore. She even forgot to check on Prue—who was surely at her drudgery down in the kitchen. Ophelia burned the note in the grate and set out for Henrietta’s chamber to borrow another evening gown.

  This time, she had the sense to choose a gown made of gauzy green silk that could be pulled tighter across an uninspiring bust, and a green mantle. The matching slippers would be agonizingly snug.

  She loaded the lot in her arms. As she passed by the dressing table, she stopped.

  The book—How to Address Your Betters, by A Lady—was gone.

  She frowned, and then hurried out. Probably Lulu had taken it. Lulu seemed to have secret aspirations that had nothing at all to do with being a maid.

  * * *

  Prue huddled on a numbingly cold stone floor in the dark.

  It had been hours since Hume had dragged her along stone corridors, up stairs, around more corners than a granny’s quilt, and locked her up in a dim chamber.

  At first, Prue had been too flabbergasted to cry. Then she was furious with herself for letting this lot get the better of her for the third time. Then the sobs came, heavy and hard. Now she was just parched and bone tired. She didn’t even have the gumption to inspect the chamber, only barely lit now that evening had fallen outside. She just lay there on the floor, waiting to see what Fate had up her dirty sleeve this time.

  The door latch rattled.

  Prue held her breath.

  When the door opened, it wasn’t Hume. Dalziel looked in, holding a candle.

  Prue pushed herself up into a mermaid’s pose (well, that’s what Howard DeLuxe had called it when they’d put on The Lusty Whalers of Nantucket). “I don’t know what you folks is planning for me,” she said, “but I—I’ll—”

  “I shan’t harm you, Miss Prudence.” Da
lziel stepped into the chamber and shut the door. “I am ashamed of them, and ashamed of myself for not having realized sooner how much Grandmother’s mind has decayed. I have been busy with my studies, and I assumed that everything was as well as it could be—despite Grandfather’s health, but that has been failing for many years now. Hume, of course, is little more than a trained bulldog, and he does Grandmother’s bidding slavishly. . . .” He swept a loose hank of black hair from his eyes. “Forgive me. I ramble.” He stepped closer.

  Prue shrank back. “You look like a nice enough feller, Mr. Dalziel, but for all I know your whole family means to sup on me tonight.”

  “I shan’t come a step closer. You are frightened. You do not understand.” Dalziel knelt on the floor, a funny sight with him in his fine clothes. He placed the candleholder on the stone floor and nudged it between Prue and himself.

  “All I know is that I got to leave this house,” Prue said.

  “I shall take you. But we must wait until later tonight. If you wish, we might visit your sister’s grave, too.”

  “Her grave! How do you—”

  “It troubled me when you said that you knew nothing of her burial place. I took the liberty of visiting the morgue today, on the Île de la Cité. That is where all the unidentified or unclaimed deceased are brought and where, I knew, the newspaper artist must have seen her laid out—forgive me for my bluntness. I discovered that Sybille’s earthly remains, after the police agreed to her release, were taken away by nuns from the Pensionnat Sainte Estelle. That is a convent not far from here.”

  Prue nodded. “Nuns. Ophelia—that’s my friend—told me that my sister had grown up in a nunnery.”

  “I called upon the convent. I was told that Sybille was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery yesterday.”

  “I missed it.” Prue’s voice wobbled.

  “I might take you there this evening, before I return you to your home.”

  “Ain’t much of a home.” Going to the graveyard after dark with a strange feller? Even Ma would’ve balked at that one. Prue didn’t care, though. Her whole life was already in the spittoon. Besides, Dalziel was offering her a free ticket out of this hellhole. “Sure.”

  “Good. I shall return soon. The cover of darkness will allow us to elude Hume and our wretched domestique, Marguerite. Grandfather is abed and Grandmother never looks out of the windows. She cannot bear sunlight, or even intense moonlight.”

  “Why do you call her Grandmother? She told me you was her ward. An orphan.”

  “I am, from a legal vantage point, a ward, yes.”

  Prue waited for more, but Dalziel only stared into the candle flame.

  Prue’s breathing ironed out. “Why do they want to keep me here? Is it because of that book she had me nick? Because I can’t even read that consarned thing! Hume can read it, I warrant, since he took it off to the kitchens to cook up one of the receipts she found. Soup, most like.”

  “I don’t believe it is soup that Hume will prepare.”

  “One of those medicine receipts, then? Hold it—you don’t think they meant to, I don’t know, give their medicines a tryout on me, do you?”

  Dalziel didn’t answer.

  “They planned to make me some kind of medicinal what-you-call-it?”

  “An experiment? No. I suspect that Grandmother wishes to keep you here for other reasons altogether. Reasons that might have nothing at all to do with that receipt book. Stand up, Miss Prudence, and have a look about this chamber.”

  Prue frowned. “I ain’t saying changing up the topic now and then don’t keep a conversation fresh”—Ma had taught her that—“but that’s a mighty sharp roundabout you’re making.”

  “I enjoy the way you speak, Miss Prudence.”

  “Beg your pardon?” No one had ever complimented Prue on her grammar, pronunciation, elocution, or poetical whatsits. Not even Hansel.

  “Go,” Dalziel said. “Take the candle. Look.”

  Prue took the candle and stood. Her bones were rattled and her head felt light.

  The chamber was not large, but its corners and ceiling were swallowed in shadow. It held a canopied bed and pieces of dignified, dark wood furniture, all cluttered up with bric-a-brac. Two windows, draperies mostly shut.

  Prue finished a loop around the chamber. “All right, then. I’ve had a look-see. Nothing peculiar, as far as my knowing of grand Continental houses goes.”

  “You did not look closely enough, then.” Dalziel sprang to his feet and led her to a chest of drawers. “Hold the flame close. Closer.”

  Candlelight bounced off small statues—a dozen or more of them—all lined up. Some of them were made of porcelain, others metal, wood, or even what looked to be ivory. But they all had one thing in common: they were all doll-sized likenesses of a yellow-haired girl in a shimmering ivory gown.

  “Cendrillon,” Dalziel said. “Cinderella. And they all resemble, to an uncanny degree, you.”

  Prue smeared her nose on her cuff. “Not me. My sister.”

  “Very well, then, your sister. But to Grandmother, you must understand, there is no difference. To her, the important thing is that you—and your sister—look like Cinderella.”

  Dalziel picked up one of the doll-things. Its face and hands were porcelain, just like any old doll, its yellow hair swept under a tiara. The doll wore a tiny, gauzy-skirted dress embroidered with silver and gold.

  “Geewillikins,” Prue whispered. “That’s—that’s just like the dress my sister was wearing in the garden. Except her bodice didn’t have this thing on it.” She poked the sparkly triangle decorating the doll’s bodice.

  “Stomacher.” Dalziel turned the doll over. A little golden crank poked out of its back. He wound it up—scritch-scritch-scritch—crouched, and placed it on the floor.

  With a whirring sound, the doll spun in a figure-eight pattern over the stones. Its little porcelain arms waved gently, and its smiling-blank face tipped from side to side. Gradually, the doll slowed and then came to a stop. It toppled over sideways.

  “Uck,” Prue said. “Who’d want a creepy little thing like that?”

  * * *

  The lobby of Salle le Peletier swarmed with gaudy colors. Professor Penrose was easy for Ophelia to spot: he was taller than most of the other men by inches.

  Ophelia waded through the crowd towards him. Her feet already had blisters from Henrietta’s slippers.

  “Miss Flax,” Penrose said. “Good evening.”

  Ophelia couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t really look at her. Probably daydreaming of that paragon Miss Ivy Banks. She probably had feet as tiny as mole paws.

  “I’ve got to keep my head down,” Ophelia said. “At dinner, the Misses Malbert convinced their father to chaperone them to the ballet this evening.”

  “Again?”

  “I fancy it’s not the ballet they wish to observe, but Prince Rupprecht.”

  “Ah.”

  Ophelia told Penrose about her excursion to the steam-powered conveyance exhibition: how Austorga had lied about being backstage, what Eglantine had said about the stomacher, and how Prince Rupprecht had been so gallant towards the stepsisters.

  “Only Malbert has access to the bank box in which the stomacher was locked?” Penrose asked.

  “That is what Eglantine claimed.”

  “I am certain the employees of the bank would not allow just anyone to unlock the box.”

  “Not even a daughter? Or a wife?”

  “Well, perhaps, given the proper amount of bribing.”

  “I wonder if Eglantine got the stomacher out of the bank, and then she lost it. Or someone stole it.”

  “Sybille stole it, perhaps? And Eglantine took it back?”

  “Maybe.” Ophelia told Penrose how the Count de Griffe had rescued her from a gory mishap with a steam shovel.

 
“He rescued you,” Penrose said. “You must be jesting.”

  “The count didn’t push me! If it even was a push—and now I’m beginning to wonder—it might have been one of the stepsisters, or Miss Smythe. Neither of the stepsisters enjoyed my quizzing them, and Miss Smythe is a sneak.”

  “Stay away from Griffe. He’s a brute.”

  Better to steer the topic into a new channel. Something about the count nettled the professor. “What is the interesting news that you mentioned in your note?”

  Penrose spoke in low tones, and the buzz in the lobby made their conversation private. “Caleb Grant, for a fee, ah . . . unites members of the corps de ballet with gentlemen of the Jockey Club.”

  “Mercy. I was afraid of that. I suppose he got his hooks into poor Sybille, then. I reckon a convent upbringing makes a girl stupid about fellows.”

  “Lord Dutherbrook means to introduce me to Grant this evening.”

  “Formally introduce, you mean—you spoke to him at the ballet class.”

  “Yes. I can only hope that does not impede the plan. Grant might be suspicious of me. If I am able to convince him, despite our first meeting, that I am a potential client and obtain something in writing regarding the transaction, that might be something to take to the police. Unlike the knowledge we gleaned by unlawfully entering Grant’s apartment today.”

  “Do you think Inspector Foucher will care what Mr. Grant does? Is it illegal?”

  “Grant merely makes introductions, and there are innumerable ways he could mask financial transactions. I would assume he simply takes cash. Still, it will be something. I am to meet Lord Dutherbrook in Prince Rupprecht’s box.”

  “I suppose once again it’s no place for a lady?”

  “Yes. Well. I purchased a ticket for you.” Penrose passed Ophelia a yellow paper ticket. “I shall join you back here at the first interval.”

  “Why am I here? I might have stayed in and kept Prue company.”

  “Because I wished to speak to you of this matter in person. It would not do to send detailed messages about these sorts of things. Anyone might read them. Which reminds me—I asked the concierge at my hotel to make inquiries regarding Henrietta at hotels and steamship offices.”