Posted by AlOmega on March 31, 1999 at 18:02:55:
The Story of Ella
The wise men say that from adversity grows strength. That may be true; but, when I was little, I use to wonder why I was alive. Martha, our old cook, explained once that each of us has the will to survive. It was stronger in some than in others. But in all her years she had never seen one who fought to live as much as I. And I wondered why I was given this "will to survive" when my own mother died giving me life. I use to wonder if I had taken her life in order to live.
Martha was there at my birth. She it was who presented me to my father. Ah, my father. A kinder man Martha never worked for. Of course, to me he was my father. From the first I knew he loved me. He taught me to ride and took me with him whenever and wherever he could. He told me of Mother. To him, she was the most beautiful, loving person he had ever known. His descriptions were detailed enough so that I almost knew what she looked like. I loved my Father and his memories of my Mother.
Not my foster mother though. Of her I recall only hatred. Never a kind word from her or her two daughters. When Father wasn’t around, they would pull my hair or throw me down or call me foul names. I didn’t mind the names so much but they tried to hurt me. Once I told Father about it but that only made the hurt worse when they got me alone. After my Father died, the abuse got worse - especially when Mother Barbara added her approval. But as I grew older, I learned that ignoring what they did soon got them to stop. Even then I knew I was smarter than they were even if they were a few years older.
That was a major turning point in my life. When my Father died, that is. Only one or two of the servants besides Martha knew of the secret passages within the walls of Cedar Manor. The first I knew of them was when playing in the study. Having decided at four to try reading like Father did, I attempted to take one of the books from the bottom row. I heard a click and the bookshelf cracked open enough to let me go through. The passages were dark and dirty and filled with cobwebs but I was small and soon had searched all the byways of the old Manor. I told Martha about what I had found. She was more than a little surprised that I had ventured therein. But she was also pleased, I think, since she showed me more passages and entrances. She also cleaned up the cobwebs and other debris that had accumulated when they were unused. She showed me how to open and close the entrances and where the hidie holes were and how to look in rooms unobserved. In most instances we move a few stools so I could look out. From then on, they remained a permanent fixture.
I don’t remember a time when my foster mother didn’t hate me. The feeling was mutual, I can tell you that. As I got older, I use to dream of what it would be like to drown her. Or have her pulled apart by horses. Or having her head chopped off. Or watching her hang. Not proper thoughts for a girl of six but dreams are revealing sometimes. I had my reasons for thinking like that. And they were more than simple hatred. She killed my Father and I knew it.
According to Martha, she and my Father married when I was a little over two. His reasons were that I needed the authority of a woman in my raising. I couldn’t have told until later that Martha would have been a better influence on me. All he saw was that Lady Barbara was raising two girls of her own. I soon learned to avoid her when Father was not around. And once I found the secret passages, it was easier to elude her and her daughters. Even today, I wonder why my Father married THAT woman. As I found out growing up (and spying), they didn’t have much sex - at least together. As I grew older I heard about some rumors but they didn’t mean anything to me.
Then Father got sick.
I would sneak into his room at night. No one knew. He liked it, I think, because he always smiled. It was a game for us. I would tell him what was happening and he would listen between bouts of pain. He was a bit upset when Barbara chased the servants out. I was telling him this when we heard Barbara and her two brats nearing the bedroom door. I slipped behind a panel and looked out. No one could see me here and the eye holes were low enough that I didn’t need a stool.
I watched as she approached Father. She was smiling. It was a smile that I knew all to well. I quaked inside when I saw it.
"How are you feeling, my Darling Husband?" she inquired sweetly. Her voice spoke volumes to me. She hated Father! I listened as she explained why she had married him. I heard lots of things I didn’t understand until later. But from the first, I knew she had poisoned Father. And he wasn’t the first to suffer that fate. I didn’t care about the others. Only Father.
He was holding me when he died. .
I was only seven. What could I do? I had to live. Become adult. Only if I bided my time could I hope to exact retribution. I must survive. My hatred must be suppressed until the right time. Only then could I hope to bring her down.
The first year was the hardest. Both Barbara and her brood beat me and hounded me with tasks and pain. I learned to ignore the pain and grew stronger from the tasks. Year followed year. Abhorrence was shuttled deep inside my heart. It was easy enough to be loving and gay with the servants. They needed that because the evil trio gave little but pain and sorrow to them. From Samuel and Martha, I learned to read and write. Samuel taught me mathematics of the household and I read some of Father’s old books on the subject. Actually when I learned to read, the study library grew to fill the loss of my Father. I would take the books with me into the passages and read and read. At first my persecutors would cuff me when I failed to answer their calls. But as they adjusted to my absences, that soon stopped. When I was almost thirteen, Samuel died. Barbara hired a young man to be butler. He struck Martha once but that didn’t last when she came after him with a carving knife. She threatened him with her cleaver when he ripped my blouse in an attempt to rape me. That was about the time she left. Barbara, however, was more than a little vexed at that impertinence. It wasn’t that he wanted to have sex with me or that she was worried about her daughters’ virtue. Oh, no! I found out she was bedding him from time to time and she wanted him there for HER! To solve that problem, she had my bedroom moved to the northwest tower.
The problem with the northwest tower was that it was the worse room in Cedar Manor. While cool enough during the summer, it was ice cold in the winter. I didn’t mind that it was smaller than my foster sisters’ closets. Long ago I had learned to bank the fire in the large cooking fireplace. Martha had taught me and now I put that knowledge to good use. And I was permitted to sleep near the warm embers because I would wake and start the fire once again before everyone else was about. Besides no one in the kitchen minded me singing or whistling. It was good that no one knew my thoughts. What would they think of a dirty little girl whistling and singing while thinking of ways to kill her mother. I remember thinking how the big pots would be large enough. I could almost hear her screams as her flesh began to crackle and pop. I would wonder what her eyeballs would do. Or whether to shave her with a dull knife before she was roasted alive. Perhaps if she were put in a pot of water and the temperature slowly heated to boiling - lovely thoughts for one to have when fourteen.
This went on for years until one day I heard that a servant had brought a message to Barbara. It wasn’t hard to find out that King Oscar had decided to have a ball to celebrate his son’s twenty-first year. I managed to read the invitation before Barbara caught me. Barbara and her daughters were invited. Her daughters. The invitation was quite clear that I was one of the daughters. But I knew that permission would be denied. Her hatred of me had not abated even though mine had grown. As the date of the ball neared, I heard rumors the young Prince expected to find a Bride at the ball. Marta and Bernice were beside themselves with joy and preparation. I smiled as I thought how stupid did they think the Prince was? But I couldn’t let even that smile touch my lips.
Yet I longed to go and finally I drew up enough nerve to ask Barbara. The expected answer - I was too young and ugly - came easy to her lips. I soon found an excuse to leave. No one would miss me in all the pandemonium. I went secretly to the stables. The horses wouldn’t mind a tear or two.
But I wasn’t there two minutes when I heard a voice asking what was the matter. But there was no one there. Perhaps it was one of the horses? No! Yet I had to explain to the Voice about what I wanted. I felt a compulsion to do so. The Voice told me to go wash up and return after the Evil Trio had departed. It took longer than I thought to remove accumulated dirt of several years of sleeping near the warm coals. When I returned, I found Martha and a younger woman in the stables. Martha introduced her as her granddaughter but I knew different. She was the image of my Mother whose painting I had placed in my hidie hole. They had the most beautiful blue and white dress for her with underthings of the finest silks. There was a small coach of white which I later found out had been stolen from the King’s own stables. Well not stolen exactly. It was being cleaned according to the former servants because it had once been used by the young Prince when he was twelve. The four white horses, however, came from our own stables. I was stunned to see the former servants acting as footman and driver. But before we left, they instructed me to return at a reasonable hour so as to avoid direct confrontations from Lady Barbara. Other than that, I was to enjoy myself.
To King Oscar’s ball we flew. I arrived at a quarter to eight. Though late, one of the young men asked me to dance. And we danced and danced, again and again. It was so much fun. I felt my fur lined slippers expand as my feet begin to swell. The man talked and I listened. I felt my heart beating faster and faster. I liked the young military officer from the first. We stopped and he brought me a cup of sweet punch. While he was getting it, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Barbara and her brood. I was doomed, I knew. But as they began asking questions, I realized they had no idea that I was their foster relative. Then I listened to their questions and found that I had been dancing with the Prince. The Prince?! And he was waiting on me? Getting me punch? I almost fainted then and there.
We danced again and again into the night. Once in a while I would glance at Barbara and her daughters who danced but rarely and never with the Prince. I was totally absorbed in the moment as we danced once again. We were dancing once again when I saw Barbara rise and put on her shawl.
I stopped!
Not a moment to lose.
I ran as fast as I could to the little white couch. But the steps were too many and my feet too tired from the dancing. I slipped and fell losing one of my fur-covered shoes. Starting back, I saw the Prince following after. I decided half shod was better than being caught and so leaped into the coach which fled into the night. The Prince was left with a fur-covered shoe with a broken heel.
All Barbara and her brood could talk about the next day was the mysterious woman who had danced with the Prince but left on the stroke of one. I almost smiled on hearing that but quickly quashed that idea. I had had my fun and nothing more would come of that.
The announcement went abroad throughout the land that every woman, high or low born, from the age of sixteen and older, would be required to wear the shoe to see if it fit. If the woman’s foot fit, she would marry the Prince and become the next Queen. I was stunned.
Almost seven days elapsed before the men arrived with the shoe (even though it seemed to me that only minutes had elapsed since the announcement. Since in their eyes, I was little more than a servant, Barbara and my foster sisters permitted me to see the shoe - a crystal shoe really. I wondered how they had done that. But among Father’s books were three on wizardry and witches. I simply figured that the heavily bearded man with streaks of gray in his hair was one of those wizards.
Marta was the first to try on the shoe. Clearly the shoe was too small. They tried everything to get the shoe on but it wouldn’t fit. Casually I suggested that if it wasn’t for Marta’s big toe, the shoe would fit perfectly. Sooner said, sooner done. I stuffed her mouth with cloth so that she didn’t scream out when her toe was removed. I really wanted to take the cloth, stuff it down her throat, and stand back to watch her face change color. But this was almost as good. And it worked, too. So maybe I wouldn’t be Queen. I would probably snare a nice husband if I was at court.
All of us were surprised when the men returned once again. Bernice was the next to try. Her toes slid inside quickly enough. However, her heal needed trimming. Barbara cut her heel but they found out that trick even quicker. And when they asked for all the servant girls and women to be present, she and her butler/lover locked me into the study. I started to cry but realized that a passage led from the study to the foyer. I met Martha in the passage. She knocked out the butler as I emerged. But when the men asked for the shoe, Barbara dropped it. My hopes and dreams were broken with the sound of crystal shards tinkling on the floor. But the old wizard produced another shoe to take its place. My foot slipped into the shoe like it had been made for me.
There were a few questions that were put to Martha. I provided more including a detailed account of the death of Father. I watched as my foster mother and her two trollops were arrested. Several times a day I would wonder down into the dungeons of the castle to view my former relatives. Now it was me smiling as each was tortured. I almost clapped my hands in glee as their tongues were ripped from their mouths. I so wanted them to suffer as much as possible. It wasn’t that I was vengeful about my own treatment, you see. I desired recompense for Father’s premature demise.
Twelve days later, Prince Mayer and I were married. As a wedding present, I saw Barbara hanged. The execution took some time since I had requested that the Executioner make her suffer. Long and slow was she hung. I so loved the squirming and kicking she made attempting to secure a foothold on the scaffold. The Executioner was kind enough to let her dangle for a few minutes before resetting the trap door. Once when she looked at me imploring with her eyes for mercy and release. I gave her the same smile she had given Father. It will always be with me that smile. I watched as the air trapped within her sinuses finally forced her left eye to pop out of its socket and dangle on her cheek. But no tongue came forth as she silently screamed her life away. Like her daughters, she was a liar. And liars in my lands had their tongues removed.
After the execution, I returned to the dungeons to see my former foster sisters. They had not exactly lied but I had requested that their tongues be removed anyway. No longer could they call me names for without tongues, they had no words. Never again could they call me by that abhorrent nickname they had given me. It wasn’t my fault that I had to sleep in the fireplace to keep warm. But they had hung that on me for most of my life and I hated it almost as much as I hated Barbara. Never! Never again would I be called by the horrible name of Cinderella.