Cinderella: A Retelling of an Old Classic

Surprise and Promises - Chapter 23

"Parsnips, potatoes and peas!! All picked this morning!!" 

"FRESH FISH!! GET YOUR FRESH FISH!!!"

"Fresh my great aunt Fanny," Rebecca grumbled. "It smells like something your cat spit up. If that's fresh..."

Adela wasn't listening to Rebecca's habitual market grumbling that morning. Rather she was walking about in a daze. A ball....not only that, a royal ball....and for all intent and purpose she was invited. How could that be?

"Ella...Ella!!" Rebecca huffed next to her. "Come out of it girl! You can't keep daydreaming like this! You just passed the apple stall!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Becca. It's just....well, I won't be able to go will I?"

Rebecca stopped sniffing the pears and looked at her young charge in astonishment. "What do you mean 'you can't go'?! Of course you're going!"

"Among other things, I don't have a dress!! Then we have to worry about what my stepmother would say and where in the world would we get one dress let alone three?"

"We'll think of some.....what do you mean three?" Rebecca stopped in the middle of the road suddenly, narrowly avoiding a nasty collision with the rat cart.

"I was dusting my stepsisters rooms today and one of them had the invitation. I read it from start to finish and this ball is really a series of lavish dinners and balls for royalty, each more grand then the other!  How I could possibly find one dress that would suit for the occasion I really have no idea but to find three?? Even you Rebecca, must admit it seems rather absurd."

The plump, well-loved cook looked down at her scuffed shoes and heaved a great sigh, "Don't you worry Ella, we will think of something! I promise you!"

"Oh Becca," Adela sighed, looking down at the slightly stooped woman in front of her. "What use have I for fancy dresses? Do you imagine I need such things carrying out the dustbins and scraping out the ashes?"

Rebecca stamped her foot in frustration and stuck a gnarled old finger in her young charges face.

"Now you listen here missy! I will not have you give up hope do you understand me? I have not listened to that old hussy upstairs rant on and on and on about her pig-faced, snout-nosed, substitutes for daughters just to have you give up now. Your mother, bless her Lovliness, was the soul of hope and joy and I see her in you every day. Now you and I know that she is looking down on us now and she will help us mark my words!"

Adela smiled at that and leaned down to bestow a kiss on her encourager's cheek. "Alright Becca," she replied indulgently. "No need to shout, the the whole markets heard you."

"Hmph," was all Rebecca replied before she stalked off in the direction of the meat stall in high aplomb.

When they arrived home everything was as it was when they left. The step-family had not yet returned from their scores of town society meetings and all that was left to do was fold and press the laundry neatly before Regina showed her face. Of course it helped nothing that she liked her lace so stiffly starched that the nightgowns could stand alone is so desired. Adela went to work. Heating the iron on the hot coals with the wet clothes steaming and Rebecca cooking in the next room was tiring, steamy work. Even worse was the need to fold every item without wrinkling them before the whole process was over.

Upstairs Adela heard the front door close. It was a thing made of solid oak and iron work so whenever it was opened there was a tendency for it to slam shut of its own accord. Startled, Ella dropped the iron into the fire once more before running on the stairs two at a time, wringing her hands in her apron and praying she looked somewhat decent to recieve her family. Perhaps their social calls had been canceled because they rarely returned home so early.