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lynatiEveryone knows the story.
Every since that little bint in China with her talking fish and dead-lotus body, the girls have been improving on it. There’s at least one every century who tries the trick that is told in the tale nowadays to catch herself a man.
And it works every time.
Those who throw marriage balls practically expect it nowadays.
No longer the pious, dutiful daughter watched over by the spirit of her departed mother and rewarded for her hard work and sacrifice, no, our current pretender has never worked a day in her life, never wanted for anything. Her family is rich, her father an ennobled merchant and her mother…rumored to have once led the demimonde lifestyle. Three sisters and two brothers, her the eldest of them all.
Her dresses for the ball were imported strait from Paris, Seville, and Nippon.
Naples lace from hands to hips, ass to ankles. The matching jewelry pieces were cabochons of amber from Prague, so heavy that it was visibly difficult for her to stand up strait while sporting the whole set. I knew there was much squawking over the slippers, the central element to the performance, but I never got to see them – her gowns, like all the belles, swept heavily along the floor.
Her veils were layers of seed pearls; webs of jet beading; and a gold-filigree cloth with teardrop sapphires the size of my thumbnail. A single stone from the last could have kept me from needing to work for a hand-count of solstices. The cost for the floor-whispering velvet ruffles alone on her second dress could have kept a whole family fed for a month.
But curtains to cover both face and feet were a necessity in the game.
It’s custom, you see, for the ball to be held as a masquerade to keep up the pretense of the magical stranger, the unknown beauty; a poor attempt to recapture a dead magic.
The Prince would chose one by the end of the night, taking care to dance with her as the hour drew close, and on the stroke of midnight she would “flee” out of the ballroom and down the grand steps, which conveniently twist and turn between a flanking of hedges, that no one can see her reach the bottom and summon the stableman to ready her coach.
Leaving behind, of course, one of her dancing shoes along the way.
He would find it, and declare then that he would wed she to whom the slipper belonged, and no other. (Unless he thought better of his first choice and chose another on the second or third night.)
He would find her, and she would prove herself to be his true intended by producing the matching slipper, putting them both on, and dancing a sweet gavotte in them to ensure their fit, and thus their proper ownership.
(I’m told that one of the Cinderella’s was killed by her own sister, who then took her place. Her Prince never knew until she confessed the deed on her death bed, some fifty years later.So now precautions are taken, lest another find herself likewise inspired.)
Oh. Here she comes now. She’s going to scold the head cook again; not enough sweets served with dinner. She declares it every night, no matter how sumptuous the feast or how many variants of her favorite treats we make.
It’s not a bad life, all things told. Scullery maids get their choice of the broken meats and the leavings from the plates of the high-borns, a number of whom are quite finicky. The better for us, I say. Most nights I just take my due and count my blessings I’m not one of the poor creatures who are forced to tend the fire-grates.
…Other nights, I narrow my eyes at her back and curse her in my thoughts. Little miss flawless, thinking she so much better than anyone else, so much fairer of face and body.
And yet, no matter what she croons at her mirrors as she primps, she’s really not all that special.
I mean, I could have been her. Was my hair not as gold? My complexion not as creamy-smooth, even after three years working in the kitchens? My eyes any less of the same rich beetlenut-shell hazel ?
Perhaps it is just vanity on my part.
All the same, I could not help but think the chandelier lights favor her, highlighting my faults as it shadows hers when we pass in the halls. But even in the cast of the brightest of torches, I remained invisible, smouldering in my own cinder-pile of jealousy.
I couldn’t help but compare us beyond the surface, to the very elements that made up our lives, and think that this should have been my story, not hers.
And that was when the lights REALLY went on.
*
Every since that little bint in China with her talking fish and dead-lotus body, the girls have been improving on it. There’s at least one every century who tries the trick that is told in the tale nowadays to catch herself a man.
And it works every time.
Those who throw marriage balls practically expect it nowadays.
No longer the pious, dutiful daughter watched over by the spirit of her departed mother and rewarded for her hard work and sacrifice, no, our current pretender has never worked a day in her life, never wanted for anything. Her family is rich, her father an ennobled merchant and her mother…rumored to have once led the demimonde lifestyle. Three sisters and two brothers, her the eldest of them all.
Her dresses for the ball were imported strait from Paris, Seville, and Nippon.
Naples lace from hands to hips, ass to ankles. The matching jewelry pieces were cabochons of amber from Prague, so heavy that it was visibly difficult for her to stand up strait while sporting the whole set. I knew there was much squawking over the slippers, the central element to the performance, but I never got to see them – her gowns, like all the belles, swept heavily along the floor.
Her veils were layers of seed pearls; webs of jet beading; and a gold-filigree cloth with teardrop sapphires the size of my thumbnail. A single stone from the last could have kept me from needing to work for a hand-count of solstices. The cost for the floor-whispering velvet ruffles alone on her second dress could have kept a whole family fed for a month.
But curtains to cover both face and feet were a necessity in the game.
It’s custom, you see, for the ball to be held as a masquerade to keep up the pretense of the magical stranger, the unknown beauty; a poor attempt to recapture a dead magic.
The Prince would chose one by the end of the night, taking care to dance with her as the hour drew close, and on the stroke of midnight she would “flee” out of the ballroom and down the grand steps, which conveniently twist and turn between a flanking of hedges, that no one can see her reach the bottom and summon the stableman to ready her coach.
Leaving behind, of course, one of her dancing shoes along the way.
He would find it, and declare then that he would wed she to whom the slipper belonged, and no other. (Unless he thought better of his first choice and chose another on the second or third night.)
He would find her, and she would prove herself to be his true intended by producing the matching slipper, putting them both on, and dancing a sweet gavotte in them to ensure their fit, and thus their proper ownership.
(I’m told that one of the Cinderella’s was killed by her own sister, who then took her place. Her Prince never knew until she confessed the deed on her death bed, some fifty years later.So now precautions are taken, lest another find herself likewise inspired.)
Oh. Here she comes now. She’s going to scold the head cook again; not enough sweets served with dinner. She declares it every night, no matter how sumptuous the feast or how many variants of her favorite treats we make.
It’s not a bad life, all things told. Scullery maids get their choice of the broken meats and the leavings from the plates of the high-borns, a number of whom are quite finicky. The better for us, I say. Most nights I just take my due and count my blessings I’m not one of the poor creatures who are forced to tend the fire-grates.
…Other nights, I narrow my eyes at her back and curse her in my thoughts. Little miss flawless, thinking she so much better than anyone else, so much fairer of face and body.
And yet, no matter what she croons at her mirrors as she primps, she’s really not all that special.
I mean, I could have been her. Was my hair not as gold? My complexion not as creamy-smooth, even after three years working in the kitchens? My eyes any less of the same rich beetlenut-shell hazel ?
Perhaps it is just vanity on my part.
All the same, I could not help but think the chandelier lights favor her, highlighting my faults as it shadows hers when we pass in the halls. But even in the cast of the brightest of torches, I remained invisible, smouldering in my own cinder-pile of jealousy.
I couldn’t help but compare us beyond the surface, to the very elements that made up our lives, and think that this should have been my story, not hers.
And that was when the lights REALLY went on.
*
