A Modern Cinderella, Amanda Minnie Douglas [free ereaders .txt] 📗

CHAPTER I

AT THE PALACE

"You may stay down here until nine o'clock if you like," said Bridget. "It's awful cold upstairs. Be sure to wrap yourself good in the old blanket. And put a little coal on the range. If you let my fire go out, I'll skin you alive."

When Marilla first heard that threat she shuddered all over. If you scratched a little bit of skin off it hurt dreadfully. But Bridget never did it. Sometimes she hit her a slap on the shoulder. She couldn't even bear to skin a rabbit. "What do you mean by it?" Marilla gained courage to ask once, when she came to feel at home.

"Oh, I don't know. My mother used to say it. Sometimes she took a strap to us, but she wasn't ever real hard."

Marilla knew about the strap in Bethany Home though she didn't often get it.

"I'll remember about the fire."

"Good night!" Bridget was off.

She always took two or three evenings out in the week and had Sunday afternoon instead of Thursday because they had late dinners during the week. She was very excellent help, so Mrs. Borden let her have her own way.

It was nice and warm in the kitchen; clean, too. Bridget couldn't abide a dirty kitchen. Marilla had wiped the dishes, scoured out the sink and set the chairs straight around. It was a basement kitchen with a dining room above. The front was the furnace cellar, the middle for vegetables and what Bridget called truck.

Marilla sat in the little old rocking chair and put her feet on the oven hearth. It was very nice to rock to and fro and no babies to tend nor Jack to bother with. She sang a few hymns she knew, she said over several, little poems she had learned and spelled a few words. Bridget had turned the gas low, and she couldn't reach it without getting on a chair or she could have read. So she told herself a story that she had read.

It was very comfortable. She was getting a bit sleepy. Suppose she took a teeny nap as she did sometimes when she was waiting for Bridget. So she shook up the old cushion, brought up the stool, sat on that and laid her head in the chair. And now she wasn't a bit sleepy. She thought of the stove and put on some coal, lest she _might_ fall asleep.

She hoped it would be warmer tomorrow when she took out the twins. Then she would venture to stop at the book store window and look at the pictures on the magazine covers. There was a baby that looked so like the twins it made her laugh. She didn't think the twins pretty at all. They had round chubby faces and almost round eyes, and mouths that looked as if they were just ready to whistle, and brown fuzzy hair without a bit of curl in it. But they _were_ good, "as good as kittens," their mother said. She did so wish she had a kitten. She had brought such a pretty one from the store one day, a real maltese with black whiskers, but Bridget said she couldn't have a cat forever round under her feet and made her take it back.

Jack was past five and very pretty, but bad as he could be. Bridget said he was a "holy terror," but she thought holiness was goodness and didn't see the connection. He was a terror, that any one could see.

There was a queer shady look in the corners. She wasn't a bit afraid. The children at Bethany Home weren't allowed to be. She liked this a great deal better. She wasn't compelled to eat her whole breakfast off of oatmeal, and always had such lovely desserts for dinner. And sometimes Mrs. Borden gave her and Jack a banana or a bit of candy. Oh, yes, she would much rather live here even if Jack was bad and pinched her occasionally though his mother slapped him for it, or pinched him back real hard.

What made this lovely, rosy, golden light in the room? It was like a soft sunset. She had been saying over a lot of Mother Goose rhymes; of course she was too old for such nonsense and Jack didn't like them. And in "One, two, buckle my shoe," she wondered which she liked best: "Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty," or "nineteen, twenty, I've got a plenty." That was Bethany Home where you only had so much for supper and one little cracker. And here there was plenty. It made her laugh.

And then suddenly there was a pretty little woman in the room dressed in something soft and shining and in her hand she held a stick with a bunch of gay bows at the end. She was so sweet and smiling that Marilla couldn't feel afraid.

"You don't know me, Cinderella?" she began, looking at the child.

"Oh, that isn't my name."

"You don't sit in the ashes any more but I dare say you brush up and carry them out in the morning. But I don't find Cinderellas often at this time of night."

"I wish I was Cinderella. I have a little foot though, only it don't look so in these big brogans. I put some soles inside of them, bits of velvet carpet and they keep my feet nice and warm. I do think if the glass slipper wasn't too teeny weeny I could wear it."

"You're a cute one. About the soles, now. Most children haven't any useful ideas," and she laughed. "I knew who you were; now can you guess who I am?"

"Why if I was Cinderella you'd be a fairy godmother. But there ain't any such things; nor Santa Claus. I like the stories about 'em and I'm awful sorry. I'm only Mrs. Borden's bound-out girl, but I like it here."

"You think so?" She gave the most curious, delightful laugh. "You are Cinderella and I am the fairy godmother."

Marilla sprang up and studied her. She was so pretty and her gown looked as if it was sprinkled with diamond dust. She had never seen any one like her, but at twelve her range of observation had been rather limited.

"Well, what do you think of me?"

Marilla stood wide eyed and speechless.

"Why--you are very beautiful. Oh, I wish you were a fairy godmother! I'd like to go to fairy land. I don't think any one would mind much, but I do believe the twins would care. Bridget says there isn't any such thing and then she tells about a little girl who was toted away and had to stay seven years."

"You couldn't stay that long, and times have changed, and you have no envious sisters. You're a rather lonely little body with no father or mother."

"Oh, how did you know that?"

She laughed, the softest, merriest laugh.

Marilla looked and looked, the little body was so sweet and mysterious.

"Oh, fairy godmothers know a great many things. They keep watch over the Cinderellas and then when they find one to their liking they appear to her, and then strange things happen."

"Yes they are strange," said the little girl.

"Would you like to go to the ball?"

"Oh! Why I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to do," hesitatingly, "I've never seen a ball."

"You can dance. I saw you dancing with an organ grinder."

"Oh, yes, I can dance that way, but----"

"Would you like to go?"

"Oh, wouldn't I!" Marilla's eyes shone with delight. "If you were a fairy godmother you could put me in some clothes."

Marilla didn't believe in it at all, but it was very funny.

"Then just step out here."

She did with the strangest sort of feeling. The fairy touched her with the wand. Her clothes fell in a heap. The big shoes dropped off. There was a shimmery pink silk frock with lace and ribbons and the daintiest pink kid slippers with diamond buckles and pink silk stockings with lovely clocks. She went dancing around the kitchen light as a feather, her eyes shining, her cheeks like roses, her lips full of smiles. She was fairly bewitched.

"You'll do," exclaimed godmother, and she threw a beautiful white cloak about her.

"But we haven't a pumpkin in the house and Bridget catches all the mice and burns them up. So you can't make a carriage----"

"There's one at the door." The hall seemed all alight and they went out. Yes, there was a coach with lamps on both sides, two horses and a driver, besides a footman who helped them in with a fine air, and drove off as gay as if it was Christmas night, though it were really March.

The streets were alight, the windows shining in splendor. Marilla had never seen anything like it. Presently they stopped at what seemed to the little girl a great palace with broad white marble steps and tall carved columns lighted by myriads of colored lights and the vestibule was hung with vines. There were statues standing round that looked like real people only they were so white from top to toe. Then they went up another beautiful stairway that led to a gallery where there were numbers of inviting little rooms, and throngs of elegantly dressed people, not any larger than boys and girls. A maid took off their wraps, and brushed Marilla's hair and it fell in golden rings all over her head.

"What beautiful hair," she exclaimed, "just like threads of silk. You must let it grow long. And such lovely eyes; but she's thin."

"Yes, rather," said godmother, "But she has dancing feet. She's a real Cinderella."

"There's so many of them and only one Prince. What a pity!"

"But each has her turn, and they are very happy."

Then Marilla glanced around the gallery. That was well lighted and had a cushioned seat against the wall. Groups were sitting together or rambling about. And a great circular room, down stairs lighted by a magnificent chandelier whose prisms seemed in constant motion and rayed off every imaginable color with a faint musical sound.

"Oh! oh! oh!" and her eyes were full of tears though her lips smiled.

"Now we will go down," said godmother.

That was by another way. But this place was a perfect land of delight. She had never read of anything like it, but the Arabian Nights had not come in her way. Some were dancing about informally, some talking and laughing. There were the most elegantly attired boys in silks and velvets made in all pretty fashions. Silk stockings and light colored pumps, jackets trimmed with frills of lace, some with satin trousers wide enough for petticoats at the bottom and blue velvet sailor collars. There was no end of fancy attire.

"This is to be your knight, Sir Aldred. And this is the new Cinderella. Take good care of her until the Prince comes."

He bowed with most enchanting grace.

"There are so many of them!" he said, as he took her hand, "But she is the prettiest of them all."

The knight gave her hand a little squeeze and she turned rosy red.

"Come this way," and he led her along. It was odd to be introduced as Cinderella, but everybody