Fairy Godmother

'Yes, Madame.'

Stepmother looked down at her, frowning, as if trying to think of something else, some order she had not yet given. Elena held her breath. There was one — she prayed that Madame would not think of it.

And she did not. She moved away from the window, sat back in her seat, and rapped on the roof of the coach with her cane.

Jacques cracked his whip and snapped the reins over the horses' backs. With a clatter of clumsy hooves — they were nothing more than carthorses, after all — the carriage lurched into motion. It wallowed down the cobbled street, over the arched granite bridge, then around the corner and out of sight.

Elena waited, listening for the sound of returning horses. There were too many things that could go wrong. They could discover that they had forgotten something. They still could change their minds....

Madame could remember that she had not ordered Elena not to leave the house and grounds.

The rose-scented morning breeze pressed her shabby brown skirt against her bare legs. Her bare feet began to ache from standing on the hard cobbles. The larks overhead continued to sing, and a pair of robins appeared and perched on the sandstone wall beside her. The sun climbed a little higher. And still she waited.

But the clock in the church tower struck the hour, and though she watched with her heart in her mouth, there was no sign of them. No rattle of wheels on the cobbles, no clatter of hooves on the stone. Only the song of larks overhead, the honking of geese on the river that flowed under the stone bridge, the whisper of the neighbors on the other side of the wall —

'You can come out now, Madame Blanche, Madame Fleur,' Elena called. 'I think they're really gone.'

Two thumps, and the patter of footsteps, and the two old women burst out of their own gate and hurried over to Elena. They were as alike as two peas, these neighbors; sisters, round and pink and sturdy, dressed in handsome linen gowns with a modest trimming of ribbon, no lace, and white linen mob-caps over their grey- streaked dark curls. Blanche wore grey, Fleur wore blue; Fleur's gown was sprigged with tiny flowers in darker blue, Blanche's was faintly striped grey-on-grey. Elena was very fond of them; they had done their best to help her whenever they could, though they had to be careful. Madame Klovis would punish Elena for taking anything from them, if she discovered it. And Madame hated both of the sisters. 'Common,' she called them with distaste, though they were no more common than Elena's father had been, and not being given to speculation, had kept the money they had intact.

'What has been going on?' asked Blanche, at the same time as Fleur burst out with 'Where are they going?'

'To LeTours for now, and if necessary, right out of the Kingdom entirely,' Elena told them. 'And,' she continued sourly, 'as soon as the creditors find out, I expect them to come for the furniture.'

Both little rosebud mouths formed identical, shocked 'o's.'

'I didn't know it was that bad,' Fleur said, after a moment. 'She kept it all very quiet! What are you going to do?'

'They can't claim the house, of course, since it was willed in equal shares to all of us, and I haven't run up any debts,' Elena continued. 'So at least I will have a place to stay for the moment.'

'But what will you do? How will you manage?' Blanche asked at last. And 'Why did they leave?' asked a more bewildered Fleur. 'All they would have had to do to discharge the debts would have been to sell some jewels, live more frugally — '

Then Fleur stopped as both Elena and Blanche favored her with sardonic looks. 'Oh,' the old woman said, and grimaced. 'I forgot. This is Madame and her daughters we are speaking of.'

Blanche shrugged. 'She still could have lived frugally,' the elder sister said. 'She could have decided to lose those airs of hers, and act her station, instead of miles above it.'

Elena just shook her head. 'There are a great many things she could have done. None of them suited her.

The old women tittered, and Blanche took Elena's elbow. 'Come, dear,' she said, in a kindly tone of voice. 'I would guess that Madame didn't leave you so much as a crumb in that house, and Daphne ate everything that had been saved out of the cart before they left. Come over to our house, and we'll give you breakfast. I always enjoy cooking for you.'

Just at that moment, a clatter of wooden wheels and a rattle of hooves made all three of them look up —

But it wasn't the carriage returning. It was Monsieur Rabellet. His wife was the town's most fashionable dressmaker, and there was still a mighty outstanding bill from Madame and her daughters at that establishment.

He was driving a commodious cart, and he had a very determined and angry expression on his face.

'Word spreads quickly,' Elena sighed. 'Thank you, Madame Blanche; I am hungry, and I gratefully accept your invitation. I would rather not be there as the corpse is stripped.'

They heard more carts arriving as they worked together in the kitchen, and soon voices were raised in angry argument on the other side of the fence. Presumably those who had arrived were just now finding out how little had been left behind that was of any value at all. The heavy, old-fashioned furniture that had been in Elena's family for generations was not only hard to move, it wasn't worth a great deal. Most of the fashionable items that had been left would need repair — Madame and her daughters were not easy on their possessions. There tended to be a lot of fighting between the sisters; teacups were hurled, tables upset, and the delicate legs of the new-fashioned furniture didn't hold up well to such mistreatment.

Elena tried to ignore the shouting. There was one thing that she was certain of, there was nothing in her little garret room that was worth taking. If they even bothered to go up there.

When her father had remarried and brought home his bride and her two daughters, the first thing that Delphinium had done was to claim Elena's room. Daphne had taken the next-best chamber, and Madame had made over the remaining rooms into sitting rooms for the three of them, except for the one that went to her very superior