by Maggie Hoyt
A few tears ran down my cheek as Ella and her prince rode away. Oh, hold it together, Evelyn, I thought. Maybe this was why these fairy tales were so popular—Maribelle’s type of fairy tale, of course, where the wicked are forgiven, and everyone lives happily ever after. So here we are, I thought. This is how a happy ending feels.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“ALL RIGHT, FAN. You can do this. Remember what we’ve talked about.”
Fanchon’s lips were shut so tight I was surprised she could breathe. The musicians played a stirring waltz as noble couples whirled around the dance floor. The prince and his radiant new bride greeted a throng of well-wishers. Young women who both hated and loved Ella threw themselves at the next tier of noblemen. Nothing like a wedding reception to make a lasting match. The maid of honor and stepmother of the bride huddled in a corner.
“Remember what the fairy said. When you’re nice to others, you deserve good luck yourself. As long as you have something nice to say, you don’t need to worry. And I think you’ve got nice things to say, sweetheart.”
She still stared at me with fearful big brown saucer eyes.
“Fan, I’m going to teach you my three steps to introductions. First, shake hands firmly—not too limp, not too strong. Next, pay a compliment. Finally, ask a question. With any luck, they’ll just keep talking, and you won’t have to say another word. All right?”
Fan nodded slowly.
“Sweetheart, you look beautiful. Now you’ve just got to show that you’re beautiful on the inside. I know you are,” I said, and I did. Wasn’t that the point of being her mother? Because only I knew that somewhere deep inside was the little baby I’d held, and I’d never, ever seen anything that beautiful again. “You’ve just got to prove it to everyone else.”
I pointed her toward the party and scanned the crowd for a gentle first target. “Look. There’s Ethan Kingsley. He’s not very popular, so you won’t have competition. And he rescued you from those bullies in the marketplace. He won’t mock you.”
I pushed her forward. She drifted over to Ethan, who waved hello. Fan stuck her hand out stiffly for the handshake. He said something. Fan nodded. Silence. Compliment, Fan. Compliment. She eyed his vest. She clenched her jaw and made up her mind. I watched her mouth open. Words came hesitantly out. She cringed ever so slightly, waiting for the frogs. Then the grin broke from ear to ear. Full of confidence, she followed up with a question immediately. Now he smiled, probably because people rarely asked him to dance.
As Fan practically skipped to the dance floor, she flashed me a beaming smile. I returned a look that said “I knew you could do it,” and turned to face the party. It was a sea of people I didn’t recognize. I drifted past a few conversations, some on Ella’s choice of wedding dress or flowers, others on the current quail population or ways to rid a garden of snails. People are dull, I thought as I settled into a portion of the room a little less occupied than everywhere else.
The decor in the summer palace was sumptuous, to say the least. The walls of the ballroom were painted to resemble a cloudy sky, and gold trim lined every visible edge, making it appear as though they’d captured the noonday sun. It was overboard for my middle-class tastes, but more tasteful than some. At least there weren’t pineapples, which had never been regarded as a symbol of beauty and therefore didn’t belong in a grand ballroom.
This is exactly that type of moment, I thought, and for a second I could almost hear Henry’s voice. “Lord Whitcomb is certainly enamored of the pineapple motif.” I felt a lump in my throat. Here I was, in a massive crowd of people, surrounded by the thickest, darkest cloud of loneliness I’d ever experienced.
This isn’t a happy ending, I thought. I don’t know why it had never dawned on me that the girls would be gone. Not completely, of course, and sure, Fan wasn’t married yet, but they were grown-up, and they weren’t mine anymore. The stepmother does get the raw end of the deal, I thought, although that wasn’t entirely true. I’d received a new and improved Fan and excellent financial security. Between the two girls, I’d be cared for well into my dotage—which would be wonderful, if I were getting ready to die. What could I do all day besides sit in the house and think about Henry?
Although, perhaps a little grieving wouldn’t be so bad. I’d hardly had time to think about him, I’d been consumed with the girls. Time to stop putting off the pain. I sighed.
“You said what?” A woman’s voice broke my reverie.
“Look, it was rash! I’m not saying it was smart,” said her husband, presumably. I glanced at them—definitely husband and wife. She glowered at him, arms folded, and he waved his arms around, as if that would impress upon his wife his sincerity. It didn’t.
“Glory be!” she griped. “There’s lights on inside after all! Not smart? That’s so far past dumb it’s in the next county! You not only told Lord Piminder a lie, you told him a ridiculously stupid one!”
I didn’t recognize them, but their clothing suggested they were minor nobility, barely a step up from me. His pants showed signs of mending, and her dress was from a previous year’s catalogue. Lord Piminder, however, was probably richer than the queen, and the type to make you lick his boots. If he’d lied to Piminder, no wonder his wife was furious.
“I know! I just thought …”
“What? That our daughter actually could spin straw into gold? That she’s just not been applying herself?”
“I was just trying to get us this marriage, Lilla!”
“If she could spin straw into gold, we wouldn’t need to beg Piminder for his son’s hand!”
“Lilla, please calm down …” She fixed him with a smoldering glare. “All right, look. Maybe her fairy godmother will show up, like in the stories!”
“Fairy godmothers don’t happen every day, Pate.”
“What about the new princess?”
“Ella Radcliffe? Our Clarrie is sweet, but she’s no Ella. If that’s the fairies’ standard of virtue, we’re sunk. You’ll have to tell Piminder the truth.”
He blanched. “You know I can’t do that. He’ll demand payment on the loan, and we haven’t got it!”
Spinning straw into gold. Harder than making diamonds fall from the sky, I thought. You couldn’t afford real gold, obviously. You could make fake gold, but the minute Lord Piminder took it to get it valued, he’d know he’d been defrauded.
Unless he never got that far, I thought. If his son proposed to the girl in front of a crowd of people right after she spun straw into gold, the town would practically riot if Lord Piminder tried to stop the wedding. The fake gold could just disappear.
I was halfway through planning how I would fool Lord Piminder when I started to question why I cared. It’s not your daughter, I thought.
But look how concerned they are! How much would they pay for the fairies to fix this?
That’s a horrible thought, Evelyn, I told myself, but my mind wouldn’t quite let go.
People want the stories to happen. They feel more comfortable when they’re following the bread crumbs of a fairy story. Maybe sometimes they just needed a … consultant. Someone to put them on the right path. It could even benefit society! After all, weren’t the fairy values of kindness and forgiveness ultimately good for us? As long as you got results, did it really matter if the fairy’s miracle was more mundane than magical? Or that your parents paid a very reasonable fee to ensure fairy cooperation? It couldn’t be any more of a fraud than business consulting usually was. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be paying someone else.
And come to think of it, this might be the one business where a woman would be preferable. Plus, I had real, first-hand experience. There’d certainly be a market for it. With Ella’s story making the rounds, there’d be a rush of young women looking for their princes and parents setting impossible tasks for prospective suitors.
The more I thought, the more excited I felt. The old Evelyn, the one who’d worked her way through Furnival’s and advised her husband’s t
rading company—that wasn’t really me anymore. She wasn’t gone, of course, but I’d grown out of her. I was a mother, and a stepmother, and a widow now, and I couldn’t go backward. But this, a consulting godmother, this was maybe a way I could go forward.
“Excuse me,” I said as I walked up to the squabbling couple. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”
The wife appraised me suspiciously, her narrowed, slit eyes glaring at me from her round, reddened face.
“You look familiar,” the husband said.
“Mother—stepmother of the bride.”
“Right, congratulations!” he said. “Good on you, and all that.”
The wife rolled her eyes.
“Thank you. I just—well, it seemed as though your daughter is in need of a fairy godmother, and since I have some experience with that …”
“You know how to get them to show up?” he asked in astonishment.
“Well, I know what Ella did, and I know how the fairies tend to think.”
“And you’d just help us? Out of the goodness of your heart?” the wife said.
“Well, perhaps we could consider it like a business consultant. If you achieve the desired results, you pay me a modest fee.”
“This is a very good idea,” the husband whispered.
“We’ll consider the offer,” said the wife.
I gave them my most reassuringly winsome smile.
“I look forward to hearing from you. I’m Evelyn Radcliffe, by the way. The Fairy Stepmother. Incorporated.”
PART 2
CHAPTER ONE
“I REALLY OUGHT to cancel the paper,” I muttered, tossing the Strachey Times to the side.
I’d just sat down to breakfast—porridge, bread, and a little cheese. I’d tried to read the newspaper, although the preponderance of advice columns and lifestyle articles made that difficult. Could I get a Capital paper delivered? Surely they had to send subscriptions to Strachey.
“Morning, Mom,” Fanchon said as she bounced into the room.
“Good morning, dear. What—um—what have you got planned for the day?” Fan had come in wearing some of Ella’s old rags—the hem on the skirt was fraying, the muslin shirt had elbow patches sewn on, and the apron had turned light gray from accumulating so much dirt. She’d twisted her hair up and tied a wide cloth around her head. If she was planning a massive cleaning project, I wasn’t getting roped in.
“Gerta’s coming in early and she’s going to give me a cooking lesson!”
Whew. Gerta was our cook, the first and only servant Fan had allowed me to hire. “Well, that sounds exciting.”
“I thought it might be kind of messy, so I got out Ella’s cleaning clothes.”
“Good thinking.”
“Is there honey?” she said from the kitchen doorway.
“In the cabinet.”
“Yes! Only thing that makes porridge edible.” She entered the kitchen, then immediately ducked her head back out. “In general, I mean. Not your porridge specifically. And I’m very grateful we have porridge to eat. It’s really not that bad.”
“No offense taken, Fan. And I think mixed feelings about porridge are pretty normal.”
She breathed a little sigh of relief. In the months that had passed since Fan began speaking again, we’d had blessedly few close calls. After all, I no longer stashed frogs in the rafters, so the fairies weren’t about to punish any particularly wicked blurts. We’d had a rough go when one of Fan’s former friends told her she was too low-class to associate with anymore. And she and I had almost had a row when I let slip a criticism of her father.
In neither case did I remind her of the fairies and their frogs. I don’t actually want her holding all her frustrations inside; I just hoped she might consider being a bit nicer. She should feel free to express her opinions. I didn’t even think about the fairies until Fan gasped and started backpedaling, which has quickly become a tradition in our household. She was trying to decide just what constitutes speech deserving of good luck, I suppose. At the moment, that seemed to exclude criticism of any kind.
Fan returned and sat down with her breakfast. She picked up the paper I’d discarded and went straight to the lifestyle section.
“Ooh, that looks tasty. I wonder if Gerta can make it. Maybe she can show me. Although I’m sure I have to start with the basics. I don’t know how hard this is.”
“Mm-hmm,” I murmured, only half listening.
“Oh my! They’re saying hemlines are going up this year. The trains will be so short! And sleeves won’t be so open? How are you supposed to tell the difference between fancy dress and regular clothes, then?”
I bit back a number of sarcastic replies. “Quality of the fabric, maybe?”
“Oh, that would work. Silk and satin are definitely not everyday wear.”
“You’ll have to update your wardrobe.”
Fan nodded and gave a noncommittal shrug. I was just about to assure her she could afford it when there was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
I heard a man’s muffled voice, to which Fan replied, “Thank you very much. Here you are.” Then the door shut, and she bounded back into the room.
“It’s a letter from Ella!” she cried. “I only sent her a letter a few days ago—she responded so quickly! But look, it’s got the royal seal and everything!”
I raised an eyebrow. I would have said it was definitely too soon for Ella to reply, but I couldn’t imagine any other reason for us to get royal mail.
Fan rushed out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Where do we keep the letter opener?”
“In the top drawer of my desk.”
“It’s not—oh wait, never mind.”
The letter had been sewn shut with embroidery floss. When Fan returned with the paper knife, she stuck the blade under the floss and pulled upward, trying to slice the threads.
“Careful!” I said, flinching as she tugged the opener toward herself. “Normally I point the blade away from my face.”
She removed the floss and seal and set the letter opener on the table.
“You’re going to put that away, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She wasn’t, I thought as she unfolded the letter. She’d read no more than the first few sentences when her mouth gaped open and she dropped the parchment like she’d been burned.
“Oh holy—mother of—poxes and plagues and—frogs!” she exclaimed. Cursed? Cursing seemed to be off the table for Fan, although harmless words said quite loudly weren’t.
“What’s wrong?” I said, reaching for the letter.
“The queen wants to give me a title! And for me to be presented this Season!” she shrieked.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know!”
I read the entire letter. “She says that since you and Ella have grown close, she wants you to feel like you can visit and not be self-conscious about your station.” I frowned. I hardly knew the queen, of course, but my instincts said she was the one self-conscious about Fan’s station.
Fan took the letter back from me and read it through, biting her lip in worry. I wondered what could be bothering her. I would have expected her to be shrieking in joy and excitement, not fear and anxiety.
“Do you think …,” she said in a small voice. “Do you think this is the sort of thing I could refuse?”
“What? Fan, you’ve wanted to be part of the Season ever since you were a little girl! I know it’ll be expensive, but you really can afford the wardrobe. Why don’t you want to do this?”
She shifted uncomfortably. But just as she opened her mouth, we heard the back door open.
“Miss Fanchon?”
“Hello, Gerta! I’m coming!” She turned to me. “Gerta’s here,” she said unnecessarily.
I looked at the clock. “And I’ve got to go to an appointment. But we’re not done with this. When I get back, we’re talking about this letter.”r />
Fan nodded and snatched the newspaper page with the recipe, then ran off toward the kitchen.
I sighed and began clearing the breakfast things. I knew Fan had been embarrassed by the frogs falling, but in the last month or so, she’d started seeing friends again. I thought she was back to attending parties and having fun. I thought she’d want to be part of the Season. She’d always loved high society. She’d enjoy it. Truth be told, even I had enjoyed parts of it, although the small talk was deadly.
Besides, no, this wasn’t the type of thing one could refuse. We were going to attend the Season this year.
The Season took place every summer, when the nobility from the Capital descended upon us for hunting excursions, horse races, and fancy-dress balls. This was primarily because the Capital was overcrowded and beastly hot in the summer, and our country estates offered more space to enjoy the weather.
Husband #1 had always wrangled invitations to a few events each summer, despite his lack of a title, because he could always find some friend who would bring him along. After he died, no one wanted me there anymore, which was fine with me. My enjoyment of a good garden party had been soured by the number of liaisons my husband had accumulated in the hedge maze. Now, I only had to tolerate the increase in traffic, the women stopping you on every corner to ask for directions, and the sudden jack in prices.
Except this year. This year, I’d be back at the parties. Oh God, I’d be back at the parties.
Now, Evelyn, I told myself as I returned the letter opener to the desk drawer, this could be a good thing. You’ll be able to meet people. Reintroduce yourself. You might make new friends, which would be good because it’s getting a little boring around here.
Today, however, just might be the start of something exciting. Last week, a few months after we’d met at the wedding, Patrick and Lilla Babcock had written asking for my advice. Apparently, Lord Piminder had believed Patrick’s lie about his daughter’s ability to spin straw into gold—or perhaps he’d decided to call Patrick’s bluff. Either way, the Babcocks needed a fairy godmother, and I’d declared I could get them one. It remained to be seen whether I was as foolish as Lord Babcock.