The Stepsister and the Slipper by Nina Clare
Madame Fée
“What a quaint old house.”Charlotte stepped out of the borrowed carriage and peered up at the stout walls and grey conical roof of Château Columbine. “Like something out of a fairy tale.”
“Like something dilapidated from five centuries ago,” said the dowager, shaking out her skirts after the constrictions of the carriage. “It should be pulled down and rebuilt with proper roads.”
The journey had been a slow and bumpy one, for Madame Fée lived in an isolated part of the country.
“It’s beautiful,” sighed Blanche, lifting the stem of a trailing rose nodding at them from between iron palings. The rose was the size of a bowl, and Charlotte looked down at the modest blooms in her bouquet.
“Oh, how pretty!” Blanche said, as a flock of white doves fluttered down around them.
“Shoo!” cried the dowager, swishing her parasol around her. “Nasty vermin, leaving droppings everywhere. Be careful where you step, Charlotte.”
“Where is the door?” Charlotte wondered. The tall iron gates had opened to the coachman, but there was no entrance in view.
“Is anyone home?” the dowager called out. “Where are the servants?” The roses nodded, the doves cooed, but no one appeared. They moved in single file along the path between the rose beds, circling the château walls.
“If I have travelled all morning on that wretched, hot and dusty road only to turn back and—”
“Madame Fée!” Charlotte called, straining to see ahead and find an entrance before her mother got herself into one of her tempers.
Blanche, trailing behind, admiring everything she saw, said, “My, it’s so hot,” and a cool breeze sprang up and danced round her. “Thank you!” she laughed.
“Blanche, who are you talking to?” said the dowager, scowling over her shoulder. “I shall hold you responsible if this has been a waste of my time, travelling out into the midst of nowhere on such wretched roads, and—”
“I think I saw a door,” said Blanche, darting from the path and disappearing into a wall of foliage.
“Where did she go?” The dowager stared after Blanche’s vanished figure.
“This way!” called a young voice a few minutes later. Charlotte and her mother lifted the broad brims of their hats to peer up. Blanche was at a window, smiling and waving. “I’ve found Madame Fée! She says to use the green door.” Blanche disappeared.
“Green door?” Charlotte stared at the wall, then gave a little “Oh,” of surprise as a door seemed to materialise out of ivy and honeysuckle stems. She shook her head. “How odd. I could not see it, and then suddenly I could.”
“Hurry,” groaned her mother, “I need shade and a cold drink.”
They entered a spacious garden with a large dovecote in the middle. An arched door into the château stood wide open.
Charlotte paused on the threshold, peering into what appeared to be an empty room of stone walls with shadows falling between the windows. She stepped inside, blinked, and the room was bright and airy with pale blue furnishings and walls covered in murals of fantastical birds. An elderly lady with remarkably smooth skin sat on a pale blue couch with Blanche beside her.
Blanche jumped up. “Godmother Fée, may I introduce to you my stepmother, Baroness de Bellerose, and her daughter Charlotte.”
“Delighted,” said the dowager, barely able to summon a bow or a smile in her overheated state.
“Lady Charlotte,” said Charlotte, forming her most demure smile and making a pretty curtsey. “How do you do?”
“Enchanted,” said Madame Fée, inclining her silvery head. “Do take a seat. Such a warm afternoon for you to travel out on. I shall pour you a refreshing drink.”
A table with a silver carafe and glasses stood beside Madame Fée. How providential, thought Charlotte dreamily, that there should be exactly four glasses. Everything about the room felt dreamy, it must be the heat.
“I am sorry for calling unannounced,” said Blanche. “I hope it is not inconvenient?”
“You were not unannounced,” her godmother assured her. “I was expecting you precisely at this hour.”
“You were?”
“I think Madame Fée is enjoying a joke with you, Blanche,” said the dowager, fanning herself.
“What a delightful home you have, Madame Fée,” Charlotte said. “We brought you a little posy of flowers, but your own roses quite put them to shame.” She laughed charmingly and placed the bouquet on the table.
“Red roses,” said Madame Fée. “With the scent of love upon their petals.” She sniffed the air. “Young and unrequited love, if I am not mistaken.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened in surprise. Her mother gave a dry laugh. “So amusing,” said the dowager. “Blanche begged that we come today, did you not, my darling? There was something she particularly wished to ask you. Something you spoke of last night.”
“Oh?” said Madame Fée, turning to Blanche.
Blanche flushed and said shyly, “You were so kind as to say that if I wished to have a season in the city, I might make use of your house there.”
“Did I?” Madame Fée looked surprised. There was a cooing from the open door and a dove waddled across the floor. “So I did,” said Madame Fée, looking at the dove. “My memory can be poor. But now I recall. So, you wish to go to the city, dear?”
“Yes, Godmother. I think it would be delightful.”
Madame Fée looked her goddaughter up and down and frowned at the bunched-up waistline, where Charlotte had done her best to make the borrowed gown fit. “Do you have a wardrobe ready? Fashion is very important at court.”
“Blanche has everything she could wish for,” the dowager assured her. “Is that not so, darling?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“How old are you, dear?” Madame Fée enquired.
“Eighteen,” said Blanche. “Nineteen in November.”
“Eighteen,” mused Madame Fée. “Yes, that is about the right age. A little late by the standards of these times.”
“Late for what, Godmother Fée?”
“For making a good match. I am sure your stepmother understands me.”
“I understand perfectly,” the dowager assured her. “Charlotte is almost twenty. You can imagine how keen I am to see her well-matched, and quickly.”
“Should you like to make a good match?” Madame Fée asked her goddaughter.
Blanche blinked her soft grey eyes. “I have not given it much thought.”
“Surely you both have plenty of suitors, such a pair of pretty girls.”
“Charlotte has a good deal,” Blanche said. “But she is so beautiful.”
“Poor Blanche is shy to a fault,” the dowager said. “I do my best to encourage her. I take her everywhere that Charlotte goes. But you know that, for you saw her last night at the Courtois ball.”
Madame Fée frowned again at her goddaughter’s gown.
“In what part of the city is your house, Madame Fée?” Charlotte said, keen to turn the conversation back to the most important matter.
“Are you familiar with the royal city?” Madame Fée asked.
“I have never been,” Charlotte admitted. “Is your house near the palace?”
“No. It is a half hour’s drive to the palace.”
“Is it furnished?” the dowager enquired. “Is it staffed?”
“Mama,” protested Charlotte with a musical laugh. “You forget that Madame Fée has not said absolutely that we, that Blanche, may make use of it.” Charlotte and her mother looked pointedly at Madame Fée.
“The house is furnished,” Madame Fée said, but she spoke to Blanche. “It will accommodate you very well. It has been closed a long while, and there is only my old coachman there to mind everything. You will want to take your servants with you.”
“So, we may have the use of it?” Charlotte pressed.
“We may have the key?” said the dowager eagerly.
“Should you like to go?” Madame Fée asked her goddaughter. “Are you quite ready?”
“Ready?” said Blanche.
“Ready for an adventure?”
Charlotte restrained herself from clapping her hands in glee. An adventure was exactly what she was ready for. Blanche looked uncertain, and Charlotte could have shaken her.
“I-I think so,” stammered Blanche.
“Very good,” said Madame Fée, settling back against the pale blue couch as though all was settled.
“And the address, Madame Fée?” said the dowager. “And the key?”
Madame Fée looked perturbed and said to no one in particular, though she was looking at the white dove still pit-patting around the floor. “The key? Now where would I have put it?”
The dove cooed and Madame Fée said, “Ah, yes.” She got up and moved to a bureau, seeming to pull out drawers within drawers, murmuring to herself all the while. Finally, she turned round, triumphantly holding up a large silvery key. “Here you are, my dear. Bonmagie is the name of the house. It overlooks Place Royale.”
“Place Royal!” said Charlotte, giving a little clap of delight. “Oh, Mama! Place Royale!”
“Thank you, Godmother Fée,” said Blanche, closing her slender fingers around the key.
“You will find everything you need, dear.” Madame Fée, patted Blanche’s hand. “You will take good care of my goddaughter,” she said, turning to the dowager.
“I have always treated her as my own,” the dowager said primly.
“As the eldest sister, you will help her.” Madame Fée now turned to Charlotte.
Charlotte shifted on her chair. “In what way does Blanche need my help?”
“The usual sisterly ways. Clothes, hair, dance steps, encouragement. I’m sure she is destined for an excellent match.”
“Is she?” Charlotte looked in surprise at quiet little Blanche who never attracted the attention of men.
“Blanche has no dowry,” the dowager could not resist interjecting. “When a young woman has no fortune, she has only her looks and charm to win a good match. Charlotte will doubtless marry first. She has had many proposals already.”
“No dowry?” said Madame Fée. “What of the Bellerose estate?”
“The manor is sadly run down. We were left alone, without support.”
“I see. And the Bellerose jewels? The diamonds and pearls?”
The dowager put a hand to her neck, which only bore a modest cameo pendant that afternoon, and not the rows of pink pearls she had worn the previous evening.
“Papa left the family jewels to his wife,” Blanche said quietly.
“I see,” said Madame Fée. There was an awkward silence. Madame Fée broke it first; she took up one of the roses Charlotte had brought. “Proposals and red roses are of no use if love is not present,” she said. “Is that not so?” She looked at Charlotte.
“I’m not sure I believe in that kind of love,’ Charlotte replied. “I’ve never seen it. I don’t think I am the romantic type.”
“Do you believe in love, my dear?” Madame Fée turned to Blanche.
Blanche nodded shyly. “Though I cannot imagine it for myself.”
Madame Fée smiled benevolently and reached for a little silver bell. “I shall ring for refreshments before you travel back. You are fond of peaches.”
“I find them a too sweet,” said the dowager, though Madame Fée had not asked it as a question.
“Too sticky,” agreed Charlotte.
“I love peaches,” said Blanche. Her godmother nodded at the buffet table, and Blanche turned her head to give an admiring “Oh,” at the enormous peach tart and jug of cream placed alongside dainty savoury tarts of asparagus and quail eggs, tissue thin slices of smoked salmon, fine matured cheeses and pickled walnuts and olives, all served on fine china with silver spoons and forks.
“All my favourite foods,” marvelled Blanche.
“Asparagus at this time of year,” wondered Charlotte.
The visit concluded soon after the meal. The dowager was eager to get Blanche away with the key.
Madame Fée and a cloud of doves accompanied them to the carriage. One dove kept flapping around the dowager, pecking at her skirts.
“Get away!” The dowager flapped back, swatting at the bird. “Why does the thing follow me?”
“I think there must be something in your pocket,” Madame Fée said. They had reached the opened gates where the carriage waited beyond. Charlotte and Blanche walked ahead, but Charlotte looked back to see her mother restrained by Madame Fée’s hand on her arm. She watched as her mother turned first pale, then flushed red. One hand disappeared into the pocket in her skirts, then reappeared with a clutch of silver cutlery. Charlotte groaned under her breath. Not again.
The dowager clambered into the carriage, looking as vexed as when she had arrived.
“Mama, how could you?” Charlotte hissed.
“It was an accident,” said her mother crossly. “They fell in. And what is Blanche carrying?” she snapped, as she arranged her hooped skirts around her.
“Some books,” said Blanche. “Madame Fée thought I might find them interesting. She seemed to know how much I love books.”
Charlotte leaned over to read the titles. “Political Philosophy for Monarchical Consorts. What a dry subject. The Modern Royal: Discerning the Times. Very odd title. Qualities of a Princess. A little more interesting.” She flicked through the pages, then tossed it back at Blanche. “Or perhaps not. It’s only a book on rules of etiquette. Why would your godmother think these of interest to you?”
“Are they valuable?” was the dowager’s enquiry.
“They are a gift,” said Blanche, covering them with a corner of her gown.
“They’re not worth anything, Mama. They’re obscure.” Charlotte had caught Blanche sobbing over the emptied library shelves of Bellerose Manor more than once. She had never betrayed Blanche’s secret stash of the few books of her father’s she had rescued from the auctioneer, though why any girl would want books of German philosophy and English history and French poetry she could not imagine.
“Drive on,” the dowager called, rapping the carriage roof with the handle of her fan. Blanche tugged the leather strap at the window so she could lean out and wave farewell to her godmother.
“A swift journey home,” was Madame Fée’s parting words to them, waving her hand over them as if commanding a blessing.
The journey was remarkably swift; it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and all agreed that they must have dozed off without realising it, or how else could they have reached home so soon?