The Fairy Stepmother Inc.

by Maggie Hoyt

“HAVE YOU WORKED in a house before, Mina?”

  “Sometimes I take care of all the Cutler babes,” the young woman said. She was Gerta’s younger sister, and no more than fourteen. She was all I could get on short notice.

  “Hmm, well, this is a little different. I’ve only got two main jobs for you, though, all right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said eagerly.

  “First, I need you to answer the door. The maid, or footman, or whoever knocks, will tell you who’s calling and give you a card. You’ll bring the card to me, and then I’ll send you back to the door to say, ‘Madam Radcliffe and Miss Envers would be delighted to see …,’ and then you say the name of whoever called. Clear?”

  “Madam Hradcliffe and Miss Henvers hwould be deeeelighted to see Hugh,” she repeated, adding a pretentious h to the beginning of any word she could. I assumed she meant you, not a nobleman named Hugh. I hoped. “How was that?” she asked. “I’ve been practicing talking like a nob.”

  “Right, well, you don’t actually need to. You can just talk like yourself. We’re going to need to get you something that looks like a uniform. Fan?” I shouted. “Rats, she’s still in her lesson. Well, when she’s done we’ll find you something to wear.”

  Mina’s eyes were dancing with glee.

  “The other thing I need you to do is carry in the tea. Gerta will give it to you when it’s time, and you’ll just carry it into the drawing room and place it on the table. I’ll pour, so you don’t need to worry about anything else. Just bring it in the room.”

  “Do I need to curtsy when I go places?”

  “Not while you’re carrying a tea tray.”

  She nodded but dipped into a little curtsy anyway. There was a definite bounce in that bob, and I made a mental note to watch the tea carefully when she came in. With hands at the ready.

  “If I need anything else—and I don’t think I will—there’s a bell pull in the drawing room that rings a bell in the kitchen. If you hear the bell ring, come into the room and see me. But I don’t think I’ll ring it.”

  “I’ll be very helpful, ma’am! If you need anything, I’m at your service!” Mina solemnly put her hand over her heart.

  “You behave yourself, missy,” Gerta said as she came out of the kitchen and thwacked Mina with a dish towel. “Do you know how many people’ll be coming, ma’am?”

  I sighed. “A Lady Rundle announced her coming this morning with her son and daughter. So, three, I think. I hope.”

  Gerta nodded and returned to the kitchen. I barely had time to turn around before Roompilda came marching out of the sitting room with Fanchon in her wake. Roompilda gave Mina a condescending eye—the girl was still bobbing up and down, muttering greetings filled with superfluous h sounds.

  “Fan, take Mina back and try to find something of yours or Ella’s that could look like a uniform, please.”

  Roompilda gave me a tiny haughty smirk as Mina skipped away. I tried to smile blankly. She was right that I needed another servant. I wasn’t too proud to admit it. Well, only in my head. I was definitely too proud to say it to her face.

  “Good luck,” she said and left.

  I hustled into the sitting room to tidy. It had been cleaned, of course, so really I just rotated a vase a few degrees and moved the clock over an inch. I hadn’t entertained since Husband #1 died, and I was nervous. Visitors were how you acquired a reputation. You needed people to talk about you. You needed them to judge you—favorably, of course. I hated it, but I’d become good at it, for the sake of my husband’s business. Now, of course, I’d do it for Fan.

  She eventually joined me, and we sat there in silence, listening to the clock tick. She sat on her hands. I picked at my nails.

  When we finally heard the knock on the door, we both sprang to our feet.

  “No, Mina’s got it,” Fan said as we both took a step toward the door.

  “Right, right,” I said, sitting back down. I listened for Mina’s voice. “Does she have it?”

  “Probably?”

  I waited a few seconds. “I’d better go—”

  “Wait, are those her footsteps?” Fan said as I stood up. I paused.

  “Hgood hafternoon,” I heard Mina say. I sat down and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

  “What is she doing?” Fan whispered.

  “Sounding fancy,” I groaned.

  Fan watched the doorway with a stricken expression.

  “Hright this hway,” we heard after a few moments. We stood up, and I put on my most dazzling smile.

  “Lady Rundle,” I said as she entered the room. “So wonderful to see you!”

  “Hevelyn Radcliffe,” she said. Apparently, Mina’s affectation was right on target. “I’ve heard so much about you, I can’t believe we’ve never met!”

  Really? I could.

  “It is surprising, isn’t it? Please, my daughter Fanchon,” I introduced. Lady Rundle grasped Fan’s hand and gushed over how precious she was.

  “This is my son Damian. He’s the newest councilor to the minster of the Treasury!”

  “It hasn’t happened yet, Mother,” he said, “but I do think my chances are quite decent.” He feigned a humble smile.

  “Ooh, you’re too modest. And this is my daughter Carmindy.” Carmindy curtsied and smiled sweetly, dimples beaming. She couldn’t have been much older than Mina.

  “It’s simply a pleasure to meet all of you,” I said. “Please, have a seat.”

  “How have you found Strachey so far?” Fan said, her voice a little stilted, as if she were reciting from a script Roompilda had given her. Which, I considered, was likely.

  “Oh, we just adore Strachey. Don’t we, children?” Lady Rundle said. Carmindy nodded.

  “Strachey has such an old-fashioned feel,” Damian said. “Almost like time has moved on without it. Such a nice break from the bustle of the Capital.”

  “And you have the most stressful job!” Lady Rundle exclaimed.

  Fan had a blank look, like she was trying so hard to listen she’d forgotten to think of a new question.

  “Tell us about your work,” I filled in.

  “Well, at the moment,” Damian said with a bemused look at his mother, “I’m a senior assistant to one of the Treasury councilors. But my superior is retiring, and—not to brag, but I’m what you might call an obvious replacement.”

  “Oh, how exciting!” Fan cooed.

  Damian shrugged modestly. He was moderately handsome now; however, he had a thickness in his neck and chest that in my experience meant he would only widen with age. I imagined his neck visibility wouldn’t last very long. Rather like Husband #1, actually. He had been downright beautiful when we first met, but then the more money he got, the more potbellied he became.

  “What does a Treasury councilor do?” Fan asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested. I’m afraid that’s the less exciting part. Important, of course. Essential, even. We give advice on spending, budgets, taxes, you know. Awfully complex for a lady.”

  I saw Fan’s lips purse, but I couldn’t react fast enough to stop her.

  “Taxes?” she said. “Are you recommending the new import tax? Because I don’t think that will solve anything. It’ll just get passed on to the consumer.”

  Oh, Roompilda would kill me if she heard about this. I’d explained tax burden to Fan a while back—she’d been curious about the protests over the new tax—but I didn’t expect her to use it as an opening salvo. Damian looked a little taken aback, while his mother frowned at Fan’s forwardness. Carmindy just smiled vacantly.

  “Well, you two will have to discuss this sometime!” I said cheerfully. “Carmindy, is this your first Season?”

  “Oh, I’m not old enough to go to all the balls. I wish I could! I’ve heard that at the garden party they have a hedge maze taller than your head so that you can’t find the way out!”

  “Do you know Lord Allenby employs thirty gardeners to prune it every day?” I said.

  Carm
indy’s jaw dropped.

  “You think it can’t possibly be worth the money, but once you’re in that maze, you can see it was all worth doing!” Lady Rundle said, chuckling. I mentally exhaled—the tension had passed, although Fan looked a little pale, like she was struggling between fury and embarrassment. I offered her a second chance at the conversation.

  “Fan, you’ll have to give Carmindy some ideas of things she can do while her brother goes to balls.”

  “Do you like the outdoors very much? It’s very pretty to go down by the river. A lot of girls like to take watercolors and paint there. And you must have tea at Tea Rose Cottage and try the biscuits from Hornbow’s Bakery. They are the best biscuits you will ever eat.”

  Speaking of tea, in came Mina. She brought the tray over to the table. As soon as I saw her knees bend, I shot up out of my chair and reached for the tea tray, just managing to hold it steady while Mina bobbed up and down.

  “Thank you, Mina,” I said, setting the tray on the table myself.

  Mina practically skipped out of the room. Lady Rundle gave her a faint, puzzled smile.

  “She’s new,” I said as I poured. “How do you take your tea?”

  We made it through the rest of the tea without any more faux pas. Lady Rundle did make Damian drone on a bit about a very important project he’d worked on for the Crown, the details of which he wasn’t supposed to tell us about, which made me wonder how he managed to spend so much time talking about it. Luckily, the topic of taxes didn’t come up.

  I was still trying to figure out what they wanted from us as they left. If Damian was courting Fan, he was doing it subtly. I had visited a number of Strachey’s eligible bachelors the previous year, and their mothers had been anything but subtle. On the other hand, he had mentioned his promotion often enough—perhaps he simply hoped we could put in a good word. Either way, this was clearly more of a scouting mission. Laying the groundwork, so to speak, for the big conquest.

  Sure enough, as we bid them farewell and I showed them to the door—Mina was nowhere to be found—Damian took Fan’s hand and kissed it.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Envers. I hope I may call on you again?”

  “I would be delighted.”

  “Excellent. Perhaps we can go riding. I will send my manservant around with a card.”

  The instant I shut the door behind them, Fan let out a huge breath. “I’m not going to apologize,” she said defiantly. “I’m not sorry about it at all!”

  “Sorry about what?”

  “What I said! I thought he was extremely rude. No one wants to talk about stupid taxes and budgets. They’re dull! It has nothing to do with being a girl.”

  “Oh. I don’t think you have to apologize.”

  She just stood there with her fists still clenched and mouth all screwed up. I could all but hear the “but …” hanging in the air.

  “But you think you should?” I asked.

  “Aagh!” she wailed. “It was so embarrassing! I don’t know why I said that! It was totally the wrong thing to say. Roompilda would be furious! But I still meant what I said!”

  “I think the one mistake you made was that you came on a little strong. I probably would have made a joke out of it. I might have said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Are there very many gentlemen who find budgets truly interesting?’ That way it doesn’t seem like I’m attacking our guest.”

  Fan’s eyes widened in horror and she clapped her hands over her mouth. “All right, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh God, the frogs are going to come back. All this Season stuff makes me so nervous I don’t think before I speak!”

  “Whoa, Fan—”

  “But one mistake can’t mean I deserve bad luck, right? I wasn’t trying to be mean, I just wanted to stand up for myself. But I see what I did wrong, and I’ll learn from my mistake. I think as long as I’m trying to do better, it should be okay, right?”

  “I would have to think the fairies care about whether you’re actually trying to hurt people. Surely, being a little bit confrontational doesn’t deserve bad luck.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief and marched off to her room.

  The next day, we had Lady Farthingbras and her son Justice. Fan started out the picture of propriety.

  “I do hope you’re enjoying Strachey,” she said as we sat down.

  “Yes, thank you, Miss Envers,” Lady Farthingbras warbled. She had aged to the point of being rather crusty, with wrinkled folds of skin hanging from her neck and arms. She looked down her sharp hooked nose at us, even though we were at eye level.

  “Oh, wonderful,” Fan said.

  Silence.

  “Umm …,” Fan stalled.

  “And what do you do, Justice?” I volunteered.

  “Justice is a lance corporal in Her Majesty’s cavalry,” his mother answered. Justice gave a quick nod.

  “And at such a young age,” I said. “You must be very proud.”

  Lady Farthingbras smiled, basking in the superiority of her son. Justice maintained his stony silence.

  “Have you been to many foreign places?” Fan asked.

  “Justice has ridden the deserts of Mornubia and traversed the plains of Gelgravitz,” Lady Farthingbras pronounced.

  Fan looked sort of puzzled, her gaze going from Lady Farthingbras to Justice. The thing about Fan is that the spinning gears in her mind are practically transparent. You can more or less see her thinking. Right now, she was wondering if he was mute.

  “My, how exciting,” I said.

  Fan nodded, trying to turn her attention to Lady Farthingbras; unfortunately, her curiosity won out, and she continued to give Justice surreptitious glances.

  “Although I’m sure it’s rather worrying for you,” I continued.

  Lady Farthingbras sighed and dramatically put her hand to her heart.

  “We humbly make the sacrifices the Crown requires of us,” she said.

  Well, I wasn’t sure about humbly, but Justice at least was serving the Crown, so I had to give them credit for that.

  As I thought about that, I noticed Fan startle, ripping her eyes away from Justice to stare fixedly at Lady Farthingbras. I stole a glance at Justice just in time to see him running his gaze over Fan, like he was examining her from head to toe. I could just picture him thinking, Yes, yes. You’ll do. Except apparently his mother would have to say it for him.

  Well, not in my house.

  “How noble,” I said, returning to my conversation with Lady Farthingbras. Now, however, I stooped to her level of communication—simple sentences, no questions.

  She was probably expecting me to continue speaking, but instead I merely smiled serenely into the silence.

  “Umm,” Fan mumbled. “What are your plans for the Season?”

  “We always look forward to attending the parties,” Lady Farthingbras said. She looked expectantly at me, as if returning the question.

  “As do we,” I said.

  “I’ve never been to any of them before,” Fan said, “but the balls all seem so delightful.”

  As soon as Fan stopped speaking, the room fell quiet. Fan shifted her gaze between me and Lady Farthingbras, a look of panic spreading across her face as she realized she had nothing left to say. Even Lady Farthingbras began to show her discomfort, but I simply continued to smile. I will outlast you, I thought.

  Sure enough, after a few seconds of dead silence, Lady Farthingbras said, “Well, we don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

  “It was so lovely to see you,” I said, rising to my feet so that no one would get the impression I was sad that they were leaving.

  “The two of you will have to associate sometime,” she said to Fan and Justice. Fan smiled nervously as Justice leaned over to kiss her hand.

  “Goodbye!” I very nearly slammed the door after them.

  And that, I wanted to tell Fan, was how you win a fight without ever going on the attack.

  “Okay, that was weird, wasn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t just me, rig
ht?” Fan said, wiping her hand on her skirt.

  “Yes. That was weird.”

  “I’m not trying to be rude. But he didn’t say a word! And it wasn’t like she was interrupting him so he couldn’t get a word out. He just never said anything!”

  “No, no, he didn’t.”

  “And he was just staring at me! I mean, I’ve had guys look at me before—but, like, right before they come talk to me! He was just inspecting me, like—like I was fresh produce!”

  “Just so you know,” I said, “I think the saying is ‘fresh meat.’ But yes, that was bizarre and inappropriate, and if he does ask you out riding or anything, I’ll make an excuse for you.”

  Fan nodded. “That’s … probably a good idea. Is this usually how it goes? That you’re visited by boys and their mothers? I guess I just figured more girls would come.”

  “Well, I’m afraid knowing you isn’t that useful to young women. But it could be very useful to young men.”

  “Because I could marry them,” she said flatly.

  I nodded. She looked irritated—was that it? That she was mostly useful as a wife? That’s what would have irritated me, obviously, but I knew better than to assume she thought just like me.

  “I guess that means we’re going to have a lot of strange boys visiting,” she said.

  “I imagine so.”

  She huffed. “This is a stupid system. If a boy wants to find out if he wants to marry me, he shouldn’t bring his mother around to talk to mine. Oh gosh, sorry, that was kind of hostile.” She sighed and scrunched up her face, trying to think positive thoughts, I suppose.

  “I’m sure that everything will be lovely,” she said. “At least this will be a great way to meet some people before the next party. These are just introductions, really.”

  She didn’t look like she’d quite convinced herself, but she smiled like she had and turned to leave the room.

  “And I really, really hope tomorrow’s not as weird,” she muttered.

  “Hmadam Hradcliffe hand Hmiss Henvers hwould hbe hdelighted hto hsee Hugh.” By day three, Mina had gone utterly overboard. Each sentence sounded like she was hyperventilating—and like she had an imaginary friend named Hugh.

  “Good morning, Lady Relish,” I said as Mina led Lady Relish and her son into the room.