Once when the calling voices sounded like elf horns faintly in the distance, the Prince covered her with his mantle, whispering, “They shall never find you.”
“What fun!” whispered Ella.
They forgot the ladies and went on telling.
Once they lingered by the window to a little anteroom, where the Father was helping himself furtively to something on a table. The Prince whispered, “The old gentleman is putting walnuts into his pocket. He looks rather guilty.”
“No, he is very innocent,” whispered Ella. “Walnuts! How sweet of him.”
“I don’t see why,” whispered the Prince.
They forgot the old gentleman and went on telling.
Once they almost ran into Minta and Thusa, who were seeking not for the Princess of Nowhere but for the Prince. The Zany slipped up behind him just in time, twitched off his mantle, and skipped away in it. The Prince went on with Ella, noticing nothing, while the Zany trailed the mantle along the snow and Minta and Thusa ran after it like kittens, crying, “Dear Prince! Stop, Prince! Sweet Prince! Stay!” Every now and then he stood on his head, and, when they had all but caught him, turned a cartwheel and was off again. The Sisters panted after the royal mantle, but never caught a glimpse of the wearer’s face.
Now from every glade and grove and dingle in the grounds, from every bush glittering with rime and every little tree tinkling with icicles, the voices of the ladies in the snow came in soft chorus as they tiptoed to and fro, catching one another, but never the one they sought.
“Princess, where are you?
Where are you? . . .
Hiding, seeking,
Seeking, hiding,
Peeping, creeping,
And colliding,
Is that she?
Is that she?
No! No!
It’s only a tree,
Only a tree,
In the snow.
Make no sound,
Step very light
On the ground
Glimmering white—
If she is near us
She mustn’t hear us,
She mustn’t hear us,
Must not, must not
Hear us. . . .
Here! Here!
Come over here!
Can it be she?
Follow me. . . .
Found! Found!
Can it be true?
Oh dear!
Is it only you?
Only, only
You!—
There! There!
Look over there!
Soft as you can!
Don’t make a stir!
That’s her fan!
That’s her fur!
Caught! Caught!
Oh dear!
Is it only her?
It is only, only
Her. . . .
Make no noise!
Step like a bird!
Pause and poise
Lest you be heard!
Should she be near us
She mustn’t hear us,
She mustn’t hear us,
Must not, must not
Hear us. . . .
List’ning,
Looking,
Looking,
List’ning,
Something
Gleaming,
Something
Glist’ning!
Is that she?
Is that she?
No! No!
It’s a tree,
A tree,
Only a tree,
Only a tree
In the snow.
“Where are you?” called the ladies, very clear.
Large flakes of snow were falling on the night.
The Herald appeared from the main entrance on the terrace to announce:
“The ladies will return to the ballroom
For the minuet!”
“Not yet! Not yet!” (called the ladies).
“Their Majesties are apprehensive lest
the ladies
Should get wet!” (announced the
Herald).
“Not yet! Not yet!” (they pouted).
“The presence of the ladies is absolutely
imperative
To make up the set!” (insisted the
Herald).
“Not yet! Not yet!” (they pleaded).
“Nevertheless by Royal command
THE LADIES WILL NOW RETURN TO
THE BALLROOM FOR—THE—MINUET!”
Light as snowflakes, the ladies returned to the ballroom.
CHAPTER XXII
“Twelve O’clock!”
THE GARDENS WERE deserted. Only the Prince and Ella continued to stroll and whisper on the terrace, where the snow was dotted with the heel-and-toe marks of the ladies’ dancing shoes. Now, behind the lighted windows of the ballroom, they were dancing the minuet to sweet strains from the musicians’ gallery. The music mingled with the moonlight and became part of the dream in which Ella seemed to be floating.
She said to the Prince, “We should be dancing.”
“Yes.”
“But we are not dancing.”
“No. Shall we go in?”
“I would rather stay out here. It is such a beautiful dream.”
Into the music of the dream came a new note. “Tweet-tweet!” But she did not hear it. Overhead the clock on the Palace front was ticking louder, “Tick-tock! Tick-tock!” in a voice very like Grandpa’s. But she did not notice.
The Prince was saying, “And still—”
“Still?”
“Still I have not told you—”
“Told me?”
“How much—how very much—” said the Prince.
“I don’t think you need to tell me,” whispered Ella. She added shyly, “But perhaps it would do no harm.”
She stood still while he told her.
“Tick-tock!” said the clock overhead. “The time! Remember the time!”
Oh yes, she would remember the time! The Prince was still whispering in her ear, and she knew that this was the time she would always remember, the time she would never let go as she sat in the cinders and watched the ashes glowing on the hearth. . . . The Prince was still whispering. . . . Yes, this was her time, nobody’s time but hers, no matter what happened ever after, no matter if she were sad, or tired, or frightened, she would never be lonely as she used to be. . . . He went on whispering. . . . Oh, if only make-believing didn’t have to come to an end, if only dreams were as true as truth, and truth as dreamy as dreams! I wish, she thought, I wish . . . I wish this night were forever! I wish wishing made it come true! I wish it would go on forever and ever and ever and ever and—
“ONE!” boomed the clock.
Ella started, her eyes big, like a child waking up.
“TWO!”
She must go!
“THREE!”
The dream was over, she must go. . . .
“Princess!” The Prince caught her hand, startled because she looked so startled—
“FOUR!”
“Let me go, let me go!” cried Ella, and began to run.
“FIVE!”
He was running after her—where could she go, where could she hide, before he discovered that she was not a princess anymore, only the little girl who sifted the cinders?
“SIX! SEVEN!” boomed the clock.
The minuet had stopped; the ladies were flocking out to the terrace again, calling, “Where are you? Where are you?”
“EIGHT!”
They had seen her! They were surrounding her, crying, “Caught! Caught! Caught!” She ran from side to side, trying to escape. The Prince was running after her, the ladies were closing in.
“NINE! TEN! ELEVEN!”
Now she was in their midst, so close pressed that she could no longer be seen. The Prince, distracted, was trying to force his way in, to rescue his little Princess from the laughing, teasing ladies, and to tell them aloud what he had whispered in her ear, that this was the lady of his hea
rt, his chosen bride, that he would marry her tomorrow—
“TWELVE!”
Out of the struggling throng ran a small shabby girl in rags, with cinders in her hair and ashes on her hands. The ladies did not even notice her; they were looking for someone else. The Prince saw the flying form of a girl brush by him, a girl who was not the Princess of Nowhere; he thrust her aside, crying, “Out of my way!” and sent her tumbling down the steps. The ladies opened out, to uncover the lovely creature they had caught like a butterfly, who must be there among them. But there was not a sign of her.
“Where are you?” they called. “Where are you?”
“Where is she?” cried the Prince to the air, in vain. The Princess of Nowhere was nowhere.
The Zany scrambled up the slippery steps, hugging something to his breast. He fell on his knees before the Prince, and laid at his feet the precious thing he had found at the foot of the stairs.
It was a glass slipper.
CHAPTER XXIII
“I Knew It Wasn’t True”
OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN, in the falling snow, the Rooster crowed, “Cockadoodledoo!”
Inside the kitchen, in her narrow bed, Ella stirred and murmured, “Not funny . . . not very . . .”
All round the room the voices of the Things began their effort to wake her up in time.
“The grandfather clock agrees with the cock,” ticked the Clock.
“They mustn’t find us, they mustn’t ever find us,” murmured Ella.
“Make haste with the mop, the mop and the slop,” dripped the Tap.
“We should be dancing . . .” murmured Ella.
“The grime in the room could do with a groom,” bumped the Broom.
But Ella only turned over, murmuring, “This is the moment we shall never forget.”
“Cockadoodledoo!” crowed the Rooster in the snow.
“It’s no good, Rooster,” said the Clock. “She’s dreaming too deep. You’ve crowed and crowed. I’ve ticked and tocked. She won’t wake up till she wants to wake up—what do you say. Rocking Chair?”
“That’s what comes of keeping late hours,” creaked the Rocking Chair. “What do you say, Broom?”
“Young and scatterbrained,” said the Broom. “She’ll only get scolded, and serve her right.”
“She’ll only get scolded, and serve her right,” echoed the Things on all sides. But on the mantelpiece the little musical box began to tinkle sweetly; and Ella, on her bed, murmured with her eyes shut, “That’s how we happen to dance in Nowhere . . . we do, we do. . . .”
A tremendous knocking on the front door shook the house.
“There’s the family come home,” said the Clock. “Now she’ll catch it.”
The knocking was repeated furiously.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Now you’ll catch it! Wake up! Wake up!” cried the Things.
The knocking stopped, and the sudden silence did what all the noise had failed to. Ella sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.
“Oh dear!” She stretched her arms. “Was it a dream, then?” She gazed round the room at the familiar Things. “Goodness, look at the Clock! Hurry, Ella, hurry!” She tumbled out of bed in her rags, just as she had tumbled into it a few hours ago, and scurried here and there, trying to make up for lost time. “Lazybones!” she scolded herself. “Dreaming. . . . I knew it wasn’t true, I knew it wasn’t . . .”
Bang! Bang! Thump! But now it was the back door that rattled.
“Open the door, open the door!” banged Arethusa and Araminta. “Open the door this instant!” thumped the Stepmother.
“Oh dear!” whispered Ella.
She pulled back the bolts, and the three trailed in, cold with the frost, draggled with the slush, fractious with the lateness of the hour, and thoroughly exhausted.
“So we’re to freeze to death on the doorstep, are we?” demanded the Stepmother. “Knock till Doomsday, can we? Traipse down to the back door, must we? And all because my fine lady, fresh from a good night’s sleep, won’t answer the front door, won’t she?” The angry woman’s tirade was interrupted by a long yawn. She flopped into a chair, groaning, “I’m fit to drop.”
Arethusa flopped onto another, muttering, “What about me? My ankles are all swelled up like nothing on earth.”
Araminta followed suit, complaining, “I can’t hardly feel my feet, they’re that puffed up.”
“I can hardly feel my feet,” corrected the Stepmother.
“But I can’t, Ma,” whined Araminta.
“When you’ve quite done arguing,” snapped the Stepmother, “perhaps this young lady will condescend to take off our boots.”
“Me first! Me first!” squealed the Sisters.
“You next!” glared the Stepmother, thrusting out her feet. Ella knelt down, and while she began to draw off the heavy snowboots she asked timidly, “Then there really was—a ball?”
“Ow!” said the Stepmother as the first boot came away. “Was a ball, child? Where do you think we’ve been all night? Of course there was a ball.”
“Of course,” agreed Ella eagerly. She pulled off the second boot. “Was it a nice ball?”
“Ow!” said the Stepmother. “It was a dream of a ball,” she mumbled through a yawn.
Ella’s face fell. “A dream?”
“Rub my feet,” said the Stepmother. “Harder! Not so hard! Softer! Not so soft . . .” She fell asleep as suddenly as a cat when it is bored with being awake.
“Cinders!” yawned Arethusa, sticking her feet out.
Ella hastened across to ease the boots off. “Were your dresses much admired?” she asked.
“Admired!” simpered Arethusa. “They were the talk of the supper table. Brrrr! My tootsies are lumps of ice—go on! Rub-a-dub-dub!”
Ella rubbed away at the enormous tootsies diligently. “Was it a very grand supper?” Everything she could learn would help a little.
“Grand is no word for it!” said Arethusa greedily. “What you missed! Helpings and helpings of peacock! Mountains and mountains of trifle! And more boar—you never saw more boar!”
“And as for the Prince!” simpered Araminta.
In a moment Ella was at Minta’s feet. “What about the Prince? What about him?” she implored, tugging at the third pair of boots.
“Talk about larks!” tittered Araminta.
“He was all over us!” giggled Arethusa.
Ella stared. (It couldn’t be true, then!)
“We danced with him!” said Arethusa.
“We sang with him!” said Araminta.
“We flirted with him!”
“The most delightful man!”
“And comical! You never saw anything like it! He walked on his hands and turned head over heels for us.”
“Head over heels, Thusy?”
“Of course.”
“Whatever for?”
“Just his blue blood, I suppose,” shrugged Arethusa.
Araminta added, “To show he was head over heels in love with us.”
“The Prince?” said Ella wonderingly.
“Do you suggest,” asked Minta, “we’re telling tarradiddles?”
“Oh no, only—I dreamed about a Prince,” murmured Ella, “and he didn’t turn head over heels.”
“Dreams go by contraries, my girl,” yawned Araminta. “I thought any fool knew that. Eee-yah! Don’t Ma look a sight?”
The Stepmother was snoring with her mouth wide open, and her wig askew on her bald head.
“Eee-yah!” nodded Arethusa. “You’d better see to the fire, Cinders, or she’ll give you beans when she wakes up. P’raps you like beans. Eee-yah!”
“Eeee-yah!” yawned Araminta.
And they dropped off as suddenly as the Stepmother had done. Poor Ella crept over to the hearth and began sadly to make up the fire. If that was the ball her stepsisters had gone to, the one she remembered must have been a dream. Oh dear! She knew it wasn’t true. Oh dear . . .
CHAPTER XXIV
A Sugarplum for
Ella
SOMETHING DROPPED OVER her shoulder into her lap. It was a sugarplum.
She looked round quickly. Her Father was standing behind her, his finger to his lips. He had been lingering outside the window, waiting for the three ladies to go upstairs, for he wanted to catch Ella by herself. It was with great disappointment that he had seen the three drop one by one into the chairs, and yawn and jabber and yawn and fall asleep. Now they were all snoring so loud that they couldn’t possibly hear the door open; and he took his chance to slip in and comfort his little daughter, crouched on the hearth at the other side of the room. He sat down on a stool, and she knelt beside him, turning her sugarplum in the firelight to make it sparkle a little.
“Tell me!” she whispered. “Tell me!”
He glanced round cautiously at the three snorers. “What shall I tell you?’
“Everything!”
He scratched his head and tried to cudgel his brains.
“Everything, Father!”
“Well—” he began, and stopped.
“Go on,” she whispered. She would have to help him. “Did they announce your name at the door, and did you go in?”
“Oh yes, I went right in, yes, all the way in.”
“And was it very gay and grand and bright?”
“You’d never believe how grand and bright it was.”
“And were there lots and lots of pretty ladies?”
“Pretty enough,” said the Father, “pretty enough.”
“Who was the prettiest?”
He wagged his sly old head. “It wasn’t Thusa, my dear.”
“No?”
“And it wasn’t Minta, my dear.”
“No?”
“But after supper,” whispered the Father, smiling, “such a supper, Ella!—when we thought everybody had arrived, the duchesses, the countesses, the margravines, and all that—the doors were flung open—there was a sudden buzz—a flourish of trumpets—and in came the Princess of Nowhere.”
“What?” Ella clasped her hands tight under her chin.
“The Princess of Nowhere.”
“Say it again!” she cried—still in a whisper.
“The Princess of Nowhere.”
“Then it is true!” She sprang to her feet in a transport of joy. “It wasn’t a dream!”
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