“Apparently, neither can fairies,” said Thimble angrily. “Why, oh, why didn’t I quit twenty years ago? How many times have I wanted to do it — how many times have I asked myself, ‘Thimble, what are you doing here?’ ”
The whole group chimed in at once with their agreement.
“Every fairy still with the Slipper has to be warned,” said Serge. “Lebrine too. We have to tell them all the truth about what’s been happening — they need to know they’re being used.”
“But they’ll be furious,” said Thimble. “They’ll all want to leave the Slipper at once. Where will they all go? What will happen to the godchildren?”
“The fairies will come here,” said Gossamer. “And we will start again, without Jules. As for the godchildren, it’s high time we moved on to help those who actually deserve us.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” sighed Carvel.
“It’s what we all came to the Slipper to do,” said Georgette. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it.”
“But what will Jules do if she’s left with no one?” Thimble cried. “She’ll come after us all, and she’ll — she’ll —” She stopped. “There’s nothing she can do. Is there?” She looked at Carvel, who shook his head.
“I’ll head to the shoe and get the word out,” he said, getting to his feet. “Jules still thinks I work for her. This is as good a way as any to quit.”
“I’ll go too,” said Thimble, but her little blue hands were shaking. “I guess this means we’re really finished,” she said. “After this, we won’t be able to go back. Oh, why do I feel so dreadful about it? I want to quit — what’s wrong with me?”
Jasper flew to her side and put his arm around her. “You’ve been there a long time,” he said. “You used to do good things there. Of course you feel torn.”
Thimble nodded gratefully and went with Carvel out of the tower.
“You’re like no Crimson fairy I’ve ever encountered,” said Gossamer, watching Jasper. “And I mean that as a compliment.”
“It definitely is one,” said Jasper.
“What should we do now?” asked Georgette. “What’s our next step?”
Serge glanced around the room. “Our next step is to find bigger headquarters,” he said. “There are about to be quite a few more of us.”
THE following afternoon at one o’clock precisely, she went downstairs and found her dad and Sharlyn working in their office. Her dad was drawing something — plans for an invention of some kind. Sharlyn was bent over a list of figures.
Ella cleared her throat. “Is this still a good time?” she asked as they turned to the door.
“Ell,” said her dad, glancing over her business clothes. “You’re looking slick, hey?”
Sharlyn sat back in her leather chair and removed her pince-nez. “Earnest, she made an appointment. She’s here to present her proposal.”
“The school project?” Her dad’s brow creased. “The one you did with the prince?”
“It’s not a school project,” Ella replied. “It’s a real plan for restructuring our workshop and wage practices while keeping Practical Elegance profitable.”
“Very serious stuff,” her dad joked. “You’re starting to sound like Sharlyn here.”
“Come in, Ella,” said Sharlyn. “We’re listening.”
Ella looked down at her portfolio. It was sweaty — she hadn’t realized how hard she was gripping it. She inhaled a shaky breath and exhaled a stronger one, then did it one more time. She touched her necklace charm for luck.
She started her speech.
“Practical Elegance is a family employer,” she said. “Two-thirds of our employees are the sole financial support for their families. The welfare of hundreds of children in and around Quintessential, Coldwater, Stodgeside, and Eel Grass depends on wages earned in Practical Elegance workshops. As parents, both of you are well aware of the weight of that responsibility.”
She spoke slowly at first, afraid she would forget the words — and then, as she gained confidence, she found herself speaking freely, sure of what she believed, even if she couldn’t quite remember how to say it.
“We’ve already untied ourselves from Jacquard,” she said when she got that far. “Maybe it wasn’t our intention, but we did it, and we’re better for it. Now we need to take our commitment to family welfare even further. Garter is disgraceful in their treatment of laborers. They employ eight-year-olds, and they work them for ten-hour shifts. At Batik, the youngest workers are nine, and just last year, half a dozen of those children lost one or both of their eyes to backsplash accidents at the dye vats. Afterward, they were put out on the streets, blind.”
Her dad’s face betrayed discomfort. Sharlyn’s was impassive.
“Practical Elegance has contracts with both Garter and Batik,” Ella went on. “Which is the equivalent of supporting their cruelty, which I know none of us wants to do. The good news is that we don’t have to. The alternatives might not be perfect — but take Loden Woolery, for instance. Like Practical Elegance, their youngest employees are fourteen, and like Shantung, they offer at least a minimum of help to their people who are sick. Still, nobody does as much as they should. Practical Elegance will be the first. We can set the standard. We can demonstrate to the Garment Guild how skilled laborers ought to be valued. We can make our workshops safer than any others, and we can offer better benefits than any other company.” She straightened her shoulders and braced herself. “As long as we change our ideas about what it means to make a profit,” she said. “We’ll have to take less as a family.”
Sharlyn’s neutral expression flickered.
“We’ll also have to raise prices in our shops,” said Ella. “But people can pay. We just have to educate our customers so that they know they’re buying from the best business on the Avenue. Take a look at this sample budget, and you’ll see what I’m suggesting.”
Sharlyn put on her pince-nez, and she and Ella’s dad studied every one of Dash’s carefully written columns of sums.
“This is incredibly informative,” said Sharlyn. “I didn’t know half of these numbers. Where did you get these financial details about our suppliers and competitors?”
“Prince Dash looked in the Garment Guild records.”
Ella’s dad let out a low whistle. “It’s good to have friends.”
“Exactly.” Sharlyn turned another page. “Still … these changes are extreme.”
“That’s why we made a timeline,” said Ella. “Turn the page and see. It can all be done in a year. First, we stop the Garter contract —”
“Garter stays,” said Sharlyn. “Shantung already adds a major expense. Switching to Loden is impossible.”
Ella bit down on a retort. She had promised Jasper that she wouldn’t get angry and throw away all her hard work. They wouldn’t listen to her if she went on the offensive now. “Not if we live more modestly,” she said, forcing her voice to stay even.
Sharlyn removed her pince-nez once more. “I understand,” she said. “You feel it’s unjust that your friends in Eel Grass don’t have your money and advantages. I think it’s admirable that you’re so aware of your good fortune. But it’s not wrong, or unethical, for you to enjoy that fortune. Practical Elegance has succeeded on your father’s genius and my business understanding — and that’s fair. That’s called reaping what you sow. We should benefit from our efforts.”
“But we don’t need a house this big,” said Ella. “We don’t need two carriages, or to live on the park, or have servants either.”
“The servants might feel differently about losing their jobs,” said Sharlyn.
“Fair enough,” said Ella, rattled. She hadn’t thought about that part, and she didn’t have a ready response. “But your offices don’t have to be over the shop on the Avenue, do they? What if you moved them to Ragg Row instead?”
Sharlyn did not look eager to agree.
“I don’t see how it’ll work, Ell,” said her dad, who was still frowni
ng at a list of replacement supplies. “Some of my inventions depend on materials from the vendors you want to cut — and they’re big sellers, those products. I’m proud of you, though, for putting all this together. Bet you get a top score, once you get back up to that school of yours, hey?”
He was still thinking of this as a school project — he wasn’t listening.
“I have new design suggestions,” Ella said, opening her folder. “They’d replace those products, and they’re based on things you already want to make. If you’d just look —”
“You’ve given us plenty to discuss for now,” said Sharlyn. “Save the design ideas for our next meeting. When you’re calmer.”
“I’m calm!” she said, louder than she meant to. “And I’m not even halfway through!”
“Don’t shout at your stepmother.”
But it was all falling apart. “If you’d just move the office to Ragg Row —”
“I won’t move the business to an area of the city where clients don’t feel safe.”
“If it’s not safe, then how can you ask people to work there? They get there in the dark of morning, they leave in the gloom of night —”
“You’ve done very well, Ella,” said Sharlyn, in a tone that suggested there would be no further discussion. “Now, control yourself. Don’t let anger ruin your hard work.”
It was too late for that. Ella slammed her folder shut. “I don’t get you,” she said. “Yesterday morning you acted like you cared. I actually thought you might take me seriously.”
“You make that very difficult,” said Sharlyn. “Not only because of your temper, but because you won’t allow me to know you.”
“I went shopping with you the other night, didn’t I? I’m dressed up the way you like, I’m making friends with Chemise —”
“Everything I know about you is just a guess. It’s a hard position to be in as your guardian. It makes it difficult to stand up for you to people like Madam Wellington. It also makes it difficult to trust you.”
“Oh, so if you trust me, you’ll be able to hear what I’m saying?” Ella retorted.
“Let’s try it and see.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why you’re so angry with me, for a start,” said Sharlyn. “You bristle at everything I do or say. It can’t just be because I married your father. I don’t expect you to feel comfortable with my presence and your mother’s absence, but you’ve known me for a year and a half, and you still —”
“My mum,” said Ella, “is why I’m angry. I can’t believe you don’t get that.”
“She had a hard life,” said Sharlyn. “And a harder death. But you can’t blame me for what happened to her —”
“Maybe not you,” said Ella recklessly. She pointed to her dad. “Him I can.”
Her father stared at her. “You blame me,” he murmured, “for Ellie?”
“Where were you, Dad?” Ella turned on him and searched his face. “When she was working like that, when she was dying — where were you?”
“Trying to make a living, for both of you —”
“No, stop saying that. You were away, following your dreams and doing your inventions, and I was at home trying to make a living for both of us. I did what needed to be done, not you.”
She had never intended to tell him this. Her mum had made her promise not to. But maybe it was time to break that promise.
Her dad glanced uneasily at Sharlyn. “I don’t know what she means,” he said. “Truly.”
“Perhaps she’ll tell us,” said Sharlyn. “Ella?”
“Mum made me swear I wouldn’t,” said Ella, keeping her eyes fixed on her dad. “She thought it’d hurt you if you knew. But if you knew, you’d know me better. You both would. And maybe you’d understand.”
Her dad looked terrified. Ella set aside her folder. She pulled up a chair to sit facing him.
“If this is about Ellie,” he said, “working in that shop … Ell, I know they hit her. I know things about that place I wish I didn’t know. You don’t have to tell me again.”
“It’s not about Mum,” said Ella. “I told you. It’s about me.”
She tried to figure out where to begin.
“When I was little,” she finally said, “I used to go with Mum to work.” Her voice sounded strange to her. She had never expected to tell this story. “She started at Jacquard when I was just three,” she said. “I didn’t understand that if I messed up the silk, I’d get us both in trouble, so Mum had to distract me. She gave me Prism cocoons to unroll, to keep me from pushing my fingers into her spinning and ruining it.”
The office was so quiet that the clock in the parlor could be heard ticking, even though the door was shut.
“There were other kids in the same room,” Ella went on, “but they were tied to their chairs, and they were paid to work. I got to sit with Mum on her mat, because she told the manager that she’d pay for anything I ruined. But she couldn’t actually pay, so she kept giving me cocoons to keep me busy.”
She took a deep breath and watched her father’s face. “You were gone peddling,” she said. “When your inventions didn’t sell, Mum had to find a way to pay the bills. And I was unrolling silk anyway. So finally she gave in, and I started working full-time, like the other kids. I was four.”
Ella’s father’s face slackened.
“I was good at it,” said Ella. “Really nimble and fast. I could get the whole cocoon unrolled in one long strand. I’d go to work with Mum at six in the morning, and we’d stay until eight at night. Sometimes ten if we needed to catch up on expenses. I got blisters and they’d pop, and if I got blood on the silk, I’d get beaten. Finally, I built up calluses.” She held out her still-rough fingertips to show him. “When I was five, they moved unrolling up to a different floor of the shop, and I couldn’t sit with Mum anymore. They tied me up like the other kids, and they hit me just as hard. For a couple of years it was like that.”
Her father looked like he might be sick.
“When I was seven,” Ella said, “I started at the village school, and then I could only work half days. Then, when I was eleven, it all stopped. Mum wouldn’t let me come to the workshop anymore. She said I had to study and get a scholarship to the University of Orange, so I could get out of Eel Grass. But a couple years later, she got sick.”
She paused to gain control of her voice.
“I tried to quit school and go to the Jacquard shop in her place so she could rest and get better. But she was so stubborn, and she felt so guilty that I’d ever worked in that shop in the first place. The sicker she got, the more she wouldn’t let me help —”
This time, a longer pause was necessary.
“Ellie never told me,” her dad whispered. “How could she never tell me? I thought it was just her, making ends meet. I would have stayed in Eel Grass and worked at the docks.”
“Mum was afraid of that. She said you were worth the sacrifice, and someday people would see how great your ideas were. She was right, hey?”
Her dad covered his face with his hands. “If she wanted to sacrifice — but to do it to you —”
“Dad.” Ella knelt before him. “You can’t change how it was. You can’t change Mum’s decisions. What you can change is Practical Elegance. This is what I’m telling you. This is why, to me, this is no school project. When you choose Garter, you’re saving money on wool by putting their people through the same degrading things Mum and I went through — and you can’t do that. If that kind of life wasn’t good enough for us, then it’s not good enough for anybody. No one deserves it. We can’t support it.”
Her father’s back heaved.
For a long time, there was stillness in the office.
“I have an idea.” The interruption came from Sharlyn. Ella turned to find her stepmother looking at her with uncharacteristic softness. “I want you to come and inspect our workshop,” she said.
Ella’s heart leapt. “You do?”
“You have expe
rience,” said Sharlyn. “I personally believe that our shops are run well, but you’ll know better than I.”
Ella stood. “Can I go through every room? Can I interview employees? Can we make changes right away?”
“Yes, yes — and yes. Within reason.”
“What’s reason?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Sharlyn. “We’ll have to discuss things as you discover them. But I will seriously consider every suggestion you make.”
“But if people are sick,” Ella pressed, “we’ll help them.”
“Yes,” said her dad swiftly. His voice was rough. “Yes, we will.”
Sharlyn slipped quietly out of the office.
“I’m sorry,” her dad whispered once they were alone. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry I haven’t listened —”
“Dad, stop,” she said, though it was everything she’d wanted to hear from him. “We’ll make things better now, hey?”
He shook his head. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
He began to cry.
Ella took his hands, and something in her chest — something that was hard and hot, old and angry — loosened, like the opening of a fist. It wasn’t gone, and perhaps it never would be, but it no longer gripped her by the heart. Her dad had been wrong. Her mum had been wrong too. They both of them had done what they believed was best. She could hold the past against her dad forever, or she could forgive him. Forgive them both. Move ahead.
“Mum was wrong not to tell you,” she said quietly. “I’m glad I did.”
THE betrothal party had been a waking nightmare. Dash felt as though he had not really lived it; he had merely observed the events. Lavaliere had pretended happiness — or perhaps she’d been genuinely emotional; he’d seen her eyes fill with tears at one point when they were sitting together and watching the others dance. Lady Jacquard had fawned so triumphantly over him that his dignity had barely survived it.
He had not been forced to propose; his father had made the arrangements for him, just as he’d threatened. That was one mercy, at least. The other was that no one really expected him to show great affection for Lavaliere. Quintessential understood that the match was political; he had been able to get away with simply holding her hand. Even Lavaliere herself expected no more.
Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella Page 28
