The Glass Slipper

by Eleanor Farjeon

  “Thusa! Minta! Shame on you!” protested the Father.

  The Sisters turned for support to their mother, who never failed them; but to their surprise she pointed to the door. “Go upstairs and get dressed, pets,” she said smoothly.

  “But Ma—”

  “Go—up—stairs!” commanded the Stepmother.

  When she used that tone of voice she had to be obeyed. They shuffled upstairs, sniffling and sniveling.

  “And you too,” said the Stepmother, turning to the Father.

  “Me, my dear?”

  “You need a wash.”

  The Father glanced from his wife to his little daughter. “Don’t you think, my dear, we might first settle—”

  “You—need—a—wash!”

  The Father too knew better than to disobey. Murmuring, “Well, perhaps I do, after my journey, eh?” he ambled out. But as he passed Ella he thrust a roll furtively into her apron pocket, whispering, “For breakfast.” He disappeared up the back stairs to the upper floor, leaving Ella to the Stepmother’s tender mercies.

  “Now!” said the Stepmother.

  Ella put her hands behind her back.

  “Don’t try to hide that card.”

  “I won’t give it you,” said Ella, edging away. “I won’t!”

  “Madam,” said the Stepmother.

  “I won’t give it you, madam,” repeated Ella, in a low voice.

  “I am not asking you to give it to me,” said the Stepmother in her sweetest tones, which were twice as nasty as her sharp ones. “But you know you can’t go to the ball, don’t you?”

  “Why not?”

  “I should have thought that was clear enough,” cooed the Stepmother. “You don’t think they really want a little slut like you, do you?”

  “Why not?”

  “And you think you could go?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve got nothing to go in. Have you?” Ella did not answer. “Do you want to stand among the silks and satins with people laughing at you? Do you?” The Stepmother paused for the answer that did not come. “Tear up that card!” she commanded.

  “I won’t,” said Ella.

  “You’ll be sorry.”

  “I won’t.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said the Stepmother. “What do you think this is?” She held up her hand with something in it.

  “My mother!” cried Ella. “My miniature! Where did you get it? Give it back!”

  “And what do you think this is?” The Stepmother picked up the rolling pin.

  Ella went on crying wildly, “Give it back to me, give it back! You took it from under my pillow.”

  “You will tear up that card,” said the Stepmother, flourishing the rolling pin, “or there will be a little smash. Do you want to see your mother’s picture smashed?”

  “It’s the only one—” whispered Ella.

  “What a pity,” said the Stepmother. “Tear up that card before I’ve counted three. One! Two!—”

  Ella tore the ivory card in half.

  “Little pieces,” said the Stepmother. “Half isn’t enough. Little pieces.”

  Ella tore the card across and across; she went on tearing till it was a mere handful of white-and-gold confetti. On one of them she could just make out “a ball.” She tore the ball up too.

  “That’s a good sensible little girl,” cooed the Stepmother. “Now put the little pieces in the fire. They’ll warm you up nicely. Go on.”

  Ella put the Royal Invitation into the fire. There was a little gleam, a few gold sparks, and the King’s ball went up the chimney in a puff of smoke. The Stepmother flung down the rolling pin. “You see how I keep my promise. There you are.” She handed back the miniature to Ella, who clasped it to her heart; she had feared that even now the Stepmother might smash it. But the Stepmother was cunning; the miniature put Ella in her power. She would be able to find it again when she wanted to, and now she could make the child obey her forever.

  From an upper room the Sisters were wailing, “Ma! Ma! Ma!”

  “What is it?” shouted the Stepmother.

  “Cinderella hasn’t lit the fire!”

  The Stepmother turned on Ella with the smile that was worse than a scowl. “There, child, you hear? You haven’t lit the fire. And of course there’s no wood in the box. You used it all on your own fire, didn’t you? Minty and Thusy can freeze, but Cinderella must keep warm, mustn’t she? Well, you can keep warm in the snow.” All the false sweetness dropped off her as she took Ella roughly by the shoulders. “Out you go! Don’t stand there blinking at me like an owl. Go out this minute and get sticks to warm my poor dear shivering daughters. And be quick about it, or—” She kicked the rolling pin with a little laugh. “Or it won’t be pleasant, you know.”

  She thrust Ella toward the door and slopped upstairs in her flapping bedroom slippers.

  Ella stood still where she had been pushed, her thoughts spinning. I wish I could be like the others. . . . I wish nobody ever scolded anybody. . . . I wish I wasn’t frightened of stepmothers. . . . I wish I didn’t feel cold. . . .

  She pulled herself together and gave herself a talking-to.

  “This won’t do, Ella. It won’t—just because you can’t go to the ball. Put on your shawl, silly, and be sensible. Lots of people all over the world can’t go to balls. If you’ve got to get sticks, you’ve got to get sticks.” She went to the door through which the King’s Herald had appeared like a glorious dream and then faded forever. Beyond the frozen coach road the white trees, with their trunks of ivory and their branches of lace, stretched away in alabaster silence. The woods look lovely in the snow, thought Ella. I wish . . . she thought. And the snow looks lovely in the woods. I wish . . . How lovely it would be if everything was lovely, thought Ella.

  She went out into the snow, thinking, I wish . . . I wish . . .

  CHAPTER VI

  Brushwood and Sticks

  THE SNOW LOOKED lovely in the woods, and the woods looked lovely in the snow, but oh! it was bitter cold. Robin Redbreast and Jenny Wren shrank in their feathers and huddled together on an icy branch, so cold and so hungry that it was a question whether they would starve or freeze to death first. They had flown round in circles trying to find one withered berry left among the snowdrifts, and now they had abandoned hope.

  On the path below their bough an old crone was shuffling her way, bent double beneath a faggot of brushwood that her numb red fingers had been gathering together for the past hour. It was almost more than her aged back could bear, but if she had no fire to warm her bones, how could she live? She seemed as feeble as the birds in the tree, and the fringe of the thin brown shawl that covered her head looked much like Jenny Wren’s bedraggled feathers, and sheltered her as little from the cold.

  “Brushwood and sticks!” muttered the Crone, shambling her weary way. “Brushwood and sticks! The faggot is heavy, my backbone cricks. Crick, crick, crickety-crick, will nobody help me to carry my stick? Alas and alack! The pack on my back! My ribs they creak and my joints they crack! Crack, crack, crackety-crack, will nobody help me to carry my pack?” muttered the Crone. But nobody heard her, so nobody answered. She gave a heave of her poor thin shoulders, and the faggot slipped to the ground.

  “Down, faggot, down,” she groaned. “I can no furder go. Welladay, I shall just sit here and watch the birds, who be no better off than old me. Hop away, Robin! Pick and pry, little Jenny! Tweet and twitter, tiny tit! Tweet-tweet!” The Crone crouched on a fallen log and rubbed her bony red fingers. Now and then she said “Tweet-tweet!” to the birds, for fellowship, for that was all they had to share between them.

  “Tweet-tweet!” said the Crone. “Tweet-tweet!”

  “Tweet-tweet, tweet-tweet!” answered a voice among the trees. “Pretty bird, pretty dick! Tweet-tweet!”

  Through the white woods came Ella, seeking brushwood for the fire. Not so much as one fallen bough could she spy, not a twig or a handful of fir cones. It was as though an army
of wood gatherers had been before her and carried it all away; yet she dared not go home empty-handed.

  “Perhaps if I weren’t so hungry, I would search better,” she said to herself. “That’s it, of course! I haven’t had any breakfast. No wonder my eyes aren’t just the thing. There’s a tree stump I can sit on for a dining chair. It’s covered with the most beautiful snow-white satin, and its legs are of twisted ivory—no queen could sit at breakfast on a more splendid throne!” Ella brushed off just a little of the cold white satin, however, before she sat down on her throne; and then she pulled out of her pocket the roll of bread her father had given her on the sly.

  “Dear Father!” She smiled. “A horseshoe—that’s for luck. I’m going to be lucky today.” She broke the roll into two pieces and considered them gravely. “Now, let me see. This half is a slice of game pie. That half is three peaches. No, it isn’t, it’s four peaches. I am being lucky. It might have been only three.” Ella looked from one half to the other and decided, “I’ll begin with the pie.” She nibbled a crumb. “How delicious! What thick pastry! What rich jelly!”

  “Tweet-tweet!”

  “Oh, Robin, what a feeble twitter!” cried Ella, looking to see the poor little bird that had roused her pity. “Pretty Robin! Pretty Jenny! Can’t you spy any titbits for your breakfast? I know breakfast isn’t easy when it’s as freezy as this.”

  “Tweet-tweet!” The twitter was fainter than ever.

  Ella stopped nibbling her slice of jellied game pie. “All right, if you’re as hungry as all that. Good-by, my pastry-pie!” She crumbled the half of her roll between her fingers, and scattered the crumbs like a shower of snowflakes under the tree. Down flew Robin, down flew Jenny, and picked them up rapidly, twittering for joy. Ella watched her breakfast disappear between their beaks, and then crumbled the second half of her horseshoe. “Good-by, my four peaches! Aren’t you lucky dickies! It might have been three.”

  A little cackle of laughter greeted this remark. Ella looked round, surprised. It couldn’t have been the birds.

  “Did anyone speak?” she called.

  “I’m cold,” came a whisper behind her, “and I’m old.”

  “Someone did speak!” said Ella, jumping off her stump.

  The whisper came again, scarcely stirring the air. “It’s bleak, and I’m weak.”

  Ella looked behind her, her heart beating a little faster; then her fear vanished in a sigh of relief. “It’s only a funny old Crone.”

  The Crone’s gray head was shaking as if she had an ague. “It’s chill, chill, and I’m ill, ill. Up, faggot, up!” she moaned. “For furder I must go. Fuel and fire! Fuel and fire! Heat is my comfort and my desire.” She staggered to her feet and stooped for her faggot again, croaking, “The burden is bitter, the load is cruel, will nobody help me to carry my fuel?”

  Alas! Before she could hoist the faggot onto her shoulders, it slipped out of her hands; the withes that bound it came undone, and the sticks scattered in all directions. The disaster was too much for the old woman, who could only stand wringing her hands and wailing, “Oh deary me! Oh deary deary me!”

  “Don’t cry, Granny!” Ella came running to her, eager to help. “I’ll pick up your sticks for you.”

  The Crone peered out from under her tattered shawl. “And who may you be when you’re at home?”

  “I’m nobody when I’m at home,” laughed Ella, “but when I’m out I’m whoever I like. A countess, a duchess, a princess!”

  “Are you indeed?” said the Crone. “And what may you be now?”

  “Now I’m a Good Fairy—see, here is my wand!” Ella picked up a long, slim branch and waved it over the scattered sticks. “Hey presto, sticks! Be a faggot again!” As she spoke, and before she could stoop to sweep the sticks into a bundle, they flew together of their own accord and became a faggot bound fast with the withes as before.

  “Oh—Granny!” said Ella faintly. “Did you see that?”

  “Did I see that?” said the Crone. “Of course I seed that. I got eyes in me head, an’t I? Well, ’tis a lucky day when one meets a Good Fairy on the way, hey, hey? Jest hoist the faggot on my back agen, do ’ee?”

  “I’ll carry it for you, Granny,” said Ella. “My back’s younger than yours. Where are you going?”

  “Home,” said the Crone.

  “And who are you when you’re at home?” asked Ella gaily.

  “Ah,” said the Crone, wagging her head, “I’m somebody when I’m at home. But when I’m out I’m anything I like. A wren, a robin, a tit.”

  “And what may you be now?”

  “Only a funny old Crone.”

  Ella turned very red and looked abashed. “Oh, Granny, please forgive me—please do.”

  “What for, child?” asked the Crone in the sweetest voice in Fairyland. And when Ella, startled, looked up, she wasn’t there.

  “Oh! Oh—where are you?” she cried.

  Out of the air the answer came: “Tweet-tweet!”

  “Granny! Was it you tweet-tweeting all the time? Oh Granny, come back! You’ve forgotten your faggot.”

  “Tweetit! Tweetit! Keep it and eat it!” came the answer out of the air.

  “Keep it?” cried Ella joyfully. “Oh, thank you, thank you! Now I shall have plenty of wood to take home. But—eat it!” She laughed. “How can I?” She stooped to lift the faggot, and never had faggot of that size weighed so heavy. How funny, she thought. It doesn’t feel like only sticks. There’s something inside it.

  Kneeling down in the snow, she pulled the faggot open and peeped into it. The sticks parted so that she could slip her hand right down into a little hollow in the middle. There was something inside it! She brought out, one by one, four beautiful peaches! But that wasn’t all; in went her hand again, and out came a game pie, covered with thick pastry and oozing with jelly. Ella rubbed her eyes, unable to believe them. But the peaches and the pie were still there. “Granny!” she called faintly. “You’ve forgotten your breakfast.”

  Out of the air the same sweet voice replied, “Keep it and eat it! Keep it and eat it! Tweetit, tweetit! Keep it and eat it!”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” cried Ella joyfully.

  She sat down again on her white satin throne, her pie on her knees, her peaches in her hands, with now a bite of pastry, and now a mouthful of sweet, dripping fruit. The robins, the wrens, and the tits flew down in dozens, picking at the crumbs scattered around her, and the woods looked really lovely in the snow.

  CHAPTER VII

  The Prince and the Zany

  THE PRINCE SAT in his dressing room, gazing into a picture frame. The Zany sat at his feet, gazing at the Prince.

  The picture frame was shaped like a heart and was made of pure gold. On top, in the dip of the heart, perched a golden cupid, and the point of the heart was planted in a golden rose; the cupid had diamond-tipped wings, and in the heart of the rose was a pearl of great price. But the Prince was gazing into nothing, for the beautiful frame was empty.

  “Zany!” sighed the Prince.

  The Zany, as pleased as a dog to be spoken to by his master, stood on his head and gazed at the Prince upside down.

  “Dear Zany, in another hour the ladies are coming.”

  The Zany turned head over heels and gazed at the Prince right end up.

  “She—she is coming!” said the Prince.

  The Zany pressed his hand upon his heart.

  “But who is she? Oh, Zany, who is she?”

  The Zany ruffled his hair and gazed mournfully into the air.

  “Well,” said the Prince, “my heart will know her when my eyes behold her. Oh, Zany, how my heart is beating!”

  The Zany laid his head on the Prince’s heart and listened—then clapped his hands over his ears as if deafened, and rocked to and fro.

  “Doesn’t it throb?” asked the Prince.

  The Zany rocked harder.

  “Doesn’t it gallop?”

  The Zany rocked so hard that he toppled ov
er.

  “Doesn’t it burn?”

  The Zany sat up, blew on his burned fingers, and shook them in agony.

  The Prince said impatiently, “Stop talking, do! I never heard such a chatterbox.”

  He gazed into the empty picture frame, and the Zany gazed at the Prince.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Dip! Dip! Dip!

  “ATTEND, GIRLS!” SAID the Stepmother.

  She was seated between Arethusa and Araminta in their boudoir, where they were preparing to prepare for the ball. Each sister had a dressing table to herself, littered with combs and brushes and hand mirrors and trinket stands and pincushions, besides all sorts of rubbish such as bits of ribbon they would never wear, and bits of artificial flowers they wouldn’t throw away, and broken strings of beads they wouldn’t mend, and wrappings from the sweets they were always sucking, and lots of spilled powder of every shade from pearl pink to peony red, and a muddle of tinsel, lace edging, frayed feathers, soiled garters, and scent bottles without any stoppers and stoppers without any scent bottles. Two gaudy new ball dresses were hanging over a screen, and the Sisters, in calico wrappers, were waiting for their baths, which they were not at all fond of; but the Stepmother had insisted that for once her darling pets should go fresh and clean to the Palace.

  They were looking rather sulky, therefore, as she read aloud to them from a book of Court manners which she had got out of the library, for none of them had been to Court before or had the least idea what was expected of them.

  “This is important, girls,” said the Stepmother. “‘Directions for Behavior in the Presence of Kings, Queens, and Peers of the Realm.’”

  “You’ve read us so many directions already, Ma,” grumbled Arethusa, “that my poor head’s all of a fluster.”

  “Do you wish to be a success at Court, or do you not?” demanded the Stepmother. Arethusa pouted. “Very well then! We now come to ‘RULES ABOUT COUGHING: To cough at a party is to indicate that either you are ill, and should not have come, or bored, and had better go home. It is better to choke than to cough.’”