Fairy Godmother

She looked at the bundle in her hands. It was fabric — it was woolen, dyed a golden-brown. Not new, but sound, in good condition, and so far as she could tell, not stained, either. She unfolded it, to find that it was a large, plain shawl, and it was only the covering for a bundle of clothing.

A skirt, a blouse, and a bodice; like the shawl, the fabric was not new and the skirt and bodice had been re-dyed. The skirt was a heavy twilled linen, and there was a kerchief that matched, dyed a dark brown, the bodice was black, and the blouse a pale color that was not quite white. They all looked to have been made from much larger garments, cut down when the seams were too worn to hold, but the fabric itself was still good.

They were not patched, not torn, not darned. In fact, they were stoutly-sewn and well re-dyed. These were the sorts of things that a dressmaker assigned to a new Apprentice to make, simple garments to teach her to sew a 'fine seam.'

They were the best pieces of clothing that Elena had owned since her father had died. They were also exactly what she needed to carry out her plan.

When the rest of the town discovered — as it must, given that Madame Blanche and Madame Fleur were two of the most inveterate gossips in the Kingdom — that Elena had been left behind to live as best she could in the empty house, a few of the more guilt-stricken arrived to leave small offerings at her doorstep. Most she never saw; she heard footsteps on the path, and by the time she got to the front door, the gate was swinging shut and there was a basket or a bundle on the doorstep. In fact, except for Monsieur Rabellet, she didn't get much more than a glimpse of a skirt or a pair of legs.

But the offerings were welcome — indeed, desperately needed. A warm woolen shawl, a kitchen knife and a very old and very small frying pan, a loaf of bread, a ball of cheese, a blanket, a pat of butter, a pannikin of salt and a twist of tea. So she wouldn't go hungry tonight, nor cold. Madame Blanche completed the offerings in person, delivering a half dozen eggs and some bacon just as the sun began to set.

She found Elena on her knees at the hearth in the kitchen, getting the fire going again, and ready to toast some bread and cheese for her supper.

'Well!' she said, looking with approval at the food. 'I was hoping someone would have a guilty conscience! Good.' Her mouth firmed with satisfaction. 'So, now the robbers have taken care of what you need for now, but have you thought about what you're going to do?'

Elena sat back on her heels and looked up at her kindly old neighbor. 'I have, actually — I thought it up the day Madame told me that she and the girls were going. I just — ' She shook her head. 'I wanted to tell you, but Madame swore me to secrecy.

She told me that she was going to leave me here to look after the house, and that was when I made up my mind what I was going to do when she was truly gone.'

'You did? Well, good for you!' Madame Blanche went out into the kitchen garden and came back with some bits of herbage pinched off the new growth in the herb bed. 'Here you are, dear. Those will go nicely in coddled eggs. So, what are you going to do?'

She took a deep breath. 'I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave here and never come back.'

Madame Blanche blinked, as if she could not quite believe what she had just heard. 'I don't suppose you would care to explain that?'

'Tomorrow is the Mop Fair,' Elena elaborated. 'Anyone who is looking for a servant is going to be there. And you said yourself that everyone in the town knows that I've done every bit of cleaning, mending and tending in this house for — years, anyway. I'm only a plain cook, but anything else, I can do.'

'But — but you're not a servant!' Madame Blanche said, looking blank. 'You're from a good family, Elena! Your poor mother — if she knew, she'd be weeping at the thought. It's one thing for me to do my own cooking, but — '

'I may not have been born a servant, but that's what I am now,' Elena said firmly. 'I'm too old to become an Apprentice in any decent trade even if I had the fee, so that is what I am good for now.' She bit her lip, and continued, bitterly, 'You know that's the truth, that it's all I'm good for, now. Madame Klovis saw to that; I have no dowry, no prospects, nothing to offer a young man but myself, and what young man would marry an old maid of twenty-one who brings him nothing but her two hands and a few housekeeping skills? Unless I dispute it, within days, the magistrates will turn this very house over to the creditors. Even if I do dispute it and win, what am I to do? It won't be long before Madame Klovis returns — for you surely don't think that she'll have any better luck elsewhere in her fortune hunting any more than I do — and I will be back to being her unpaid slave.'

'Well,' Madame Blanche said, blankly, 'I suppose that all of that is true....'

'So there you are,' Elena said, trying to sound determined, and not bleak. 'This is my only chance to get away from her. And if I am going to have to spend the rest of my life, mending and tending and cleaning, then I am — by Heaven! — going to be paid for it!'

And at least I'll have three meals a day and two suits of clothing a year as well, she reminded herself. Every servant, no matter how lowly, was entitled to that and her bed and board and pay. It would be more than she had ever gotten out of Madame Klovis.

Madame Blanche took a deep breath, as if she was about to dispute Elena's view of the situation, then let it all out in a tremendous sigh. 'I am afraid, my dear,' she said sadly, 'that you are correct. And you are a very brave girl.'

Elena shook her head. 'I am not brave at all,' she replied, and a little of her despair crept into her voice, despite her attempts to keep it out. 'I am terrified, Madame Blanche. If I were brave, I would go to the King and find some way to get everything back again. If I were brave, I would reclaim this house at least, and sell it, and use the money to set myself up in a little cottage somewhere, with a cow, and some chickens and geese, and a little garden of my own. But I am not brave. I am afraid to face all of the creditors and the magistrate, I am too terrified to even think seriously of going to the King. I am running away, Madame Blanche, and I was not even brave enough to face my stepmother and tell her what I am going to do. When she returns, she will find the house has been sold and I am gone, and if I am working for some family here in town, I will hide until she goes again.'

Madame Blanche regarded her gravely for a long moment, the light from the fireplace casting strange shadows on her face. 'You may be right, Elena, in saying that this is the only thing you can do. But I think you are