Page 6 of Disenchanted
“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 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 fairy tongue whenever I broached the subject of 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 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 buying peppermint sticks with the pennies I had so carefully saved.
I sighed. If only it was 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 naïve 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 could perform 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, thehire 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 a 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 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 which 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 quiteyoung, 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.”
