Moonlight and Ashes Read online

  It was bedlam downstairs, too. The girls’ maids had sniped at each other over which of their charges would catch the Prince’s eye. The footmen had sniggered about the harassed dressmakers and shoemakers who came in and out of the house like badly wound clockwork toys. The under-maids had been sighing over the social pages of magazines when Mrs Jager wasn’t looking, which wasn’t often, because in the days leading up to the ball there were fine dinners every night at our house for this bigwig and that. Count Otto came to one of them, which of course meant even more work for everyone, especially the kitchen staff which included me as the lowliest member.

  But none of it worried me; I was in the strangest state. Somehow, I would go to the Prince’s ball. For what reason, I had no idea. I’ve never been the sort of girl to moon over a picture of a handsome stranger, prince or no prince. I didn’t care if I never met him. I did of course fancy the idea of a pretty dress and dancing, and music and good food and the chance for just a few hours to be in the world where I should have been. Mother would have loved to plan this with me. We’d have pored over patterns, colours and styles together. But I was sure she hadn’t reached out from beyond the grave just to give me a night’s fancy. Something was going to happen at the Prince’s ball – something that would change my life.

  I’d hoped every night for a guiding vision but I did not dream at all in those nights before the Prince’s ball. And though I managed to sneak out a couple of times to the hazel tree, the finch was never there. No leaves fell and transformed, no whisper spoke in my mind, nothing happened to suggest the tree was anything other than, well, a tree. There was one comforting thing though – the tree had stopped growing, almost as if it had taken my plea to heart.

  But even the thought of the Mancers had ceased to scare me . . . at least for the moment.

  The great day came early for me. I had had to get up before dawn to iron a mountain of my stepsisters’ knickers, petticoats and camisoles. They had demanded a pile of freshly pressed underthings, more than any reasonable person would need for a twenty-four-hour period. But reason and my stepsisters are not friends, unless it is their own particular variety that owes nothing to clarity and everything to spite and self-centredness. Not that it mattered much to me today. As I pressed the warm iron over the delicate garments and sprayed them with a mixture of violet and lavender water, I dreamed of that ball. I dreamed all day through all my chores – through the harried shouting of Mrs Jager and the bad temper of the cooks, through a poor lunch of bread and cheese and an afternoon spent running last-minute errands to this ribbon shop and that perfumery, to fetch special headgear for the carriage horses and to place an order at the Angel. Grizelda was already planning ahead. I had been sent to order a boxful of one of the Angel’s specialities, blue and white sugared almonds in silver nets. She reasoned that once the Prince had seen her daughters and fallen in love with one of them, he’d surely accept an invitation to a smaller, more intimate affair at the house.

  Or, that was the gossip in the kitchens. And at the Angel, too, according to Maria. She and I laughed at how every mother of an unmarried young woman was thinking exactly the same thing, causing the Angel to be overwhelmed with orders for their sugared almonds. Then she grew serious and said it was a disgrace that I wasn’t going to the ball, that I had as much of a right – or more – to be there as those two spoiled girls, and I nearly blurted out my secret but restrained myself in time. I said it didn’t matter to me and I had nothing to wear anyway.

  ‘I can lend you something – a dress I’ve made for my daughter’s wedding later this year,’ she said. ‘I would be happy – honoured – to lend it to you.’ I tried to protest. ‘No, Maria, you’ve already been so kind to me – you don’t need to do that.’ But she said, ‘Why don’t you come and try it on, anyway, just to oblige me?’

  So I followed Maria to her room at the back of the bakery. A widow, Maria lives at the Angel during the week when she works, while her daughter lives with Maria’s mother in the country, the two only able to see each other on Sundays. She opened the trunk she kept in the corner. From it she took out a long parcel covered with rose petals and, unwrapping the tissue paper, she revealed a lovely muslin dress with a full skirt of cream and honey-coloured stripes, a cream bodice set with panels of fine lace dyed a delicate green, a hem embroidered with honey-coloured rosebuds, and elbow-length sleeves finished with ribbons of the same colour as the lace.

  ‘Oh, it’s so beautiful!’ Shame on me, I hadn’t expected anything quite as lovely. ‘You are a wonderful needlewoman, Maria.’

  ‘You think so? I’m glad,’ she said, flushing a little. ‘It is my hobby when I have time. Once, I dreamed I might . . . Never mind, life gave me what it did and I don’t regret a thing. But I wanted to give my daughter the most beautiful dress I could afford – and that meant I had to make it. I was lucky – the people at the draper’s were very kind and allowed me to have bits of this and bits of that and for not very much. The lace is from a couple of handkerchiefs from my mother’s own wedding day, which I dyed to look more modern. And rosebuds for my daughter’s name – Rosa, as you know. So you think it does look all right? It doesn’t look like it is too much bits of this and that?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said warmly. ‘It is most charming and original – no other bride will have anything like it, I am sure of that. Rosa will be the prettiest bride in all the empire!’

  Maria’s face grew beautiful with her smile. ‘You are a sweet girl, Selena.’ Then her eyes took on an impish gleam. ‘But now, will you try it on – just to show you mean what you say?’

  ‘Maria . . .’ I protested, but she insisted, and so I slipped out of my old patched dress and stood in my shabby petticoat as Maria carefully slid the dress over my head.

  It fell around me in whisper-soft folds, giving off a faint fragrance of roses, and Maria breathed, ‘Oh, it fits perfectly! And you look lovely! Wait, let me show you.’

  She took a hand mirror from the table by her bed and held it up to me. The mirror was old, the polished surface a bit tarnished, but I could see myself and the sight gripped at my heart. ‘You must take it, Selena, you must, and you must go to the ball, no matter what those ones want.’

  ‘No – I can’t – and it’s your daughter’s dress –’ I stammered.

  ‘Rosa would think exactly the same as me,’ said Maria firmly.

  ‘But it’s her wedding gown –’

  ‘She will wear it just as happily at her wedding,’ said Maria, briskly, ‘and no harm done.’ Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes. ‘Your poor, dear mother would have wanted this for you, I know she would.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, without thinking, ‘it is what she wants.’ Then, seeing Maria’s puzzlement, I added hastily, ‘I had a dream the other night in which she spoke to me . . .’

  ‘You see,’ said Maria, returning to briskness. ‘If your own mother spoke to you in a dream, then you must listen. If she wants you to go to the ball, then you must go. And how else are you going to go, if not with this dress?’

  I would have told her about the hazel tree’s magic there and then but something stopped me. It was better Maria didn’t know, for her sake if not mine, just in case it ever got to the ears of the Mancers. But it did leave me with a dilemma – how was I going to explain I didn’t need to take the dress to go to the ball? And then quite suddenly it struck me, as I remembered what the girls in my mother’s village received on their sixteenth birthday aside from the hazel twig: honey, cream and roses – all of them on this dress! I had assumed the hazel tree would gift me a ball gown transformed from leaves, as it had done in my dream, but what if that was not what was meant to happen? What if this was intended instead?

  But in the magic miniature (which had long since faded and disappeared like the handkerchief) the girl had been wearing a court dress, not a charming muslin frock made for a country wedding. I looked at myself i
n the mirror, at the way the cream and honey and pale green set off not only the colour of my hair, but also my skin, which isn’t as pale as a lady’s should be but is touched with a hint of sun. I saw the way the gown flattered my too-thin figure, making it look slim rather than skinny, and I made up my mind. ‘Then I’ll borrow it, dear Maria,’ I said, and hugged her, ‘but only if you let me give you something in return.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what you can give me,’ she said with a bright smile, hugging me back. ‘You can give me the pleasure of showing off my dress at such a glittering occasion and you can also give me the pleasure of hearing all about the ball, the dresses and whether the Prince is really as handsome as his pictures – that would be more than enough.’

  ‘Oh, Maria!’ I said, and hugged her again.

  ‘There are some underthings that go with it . . .’ she said and, after rummaging in the trunk, she brought out a ribbon-trimmed petticoat of fine, white cotton, and a camisole and knickers to match. She put them into the parcel too, and turned to me, her eyes shining. ‘Now you’ll have to do your hair nicely, perhaps put in some flowers – and some ribbon, too. Wait a moment, I’ll see if I can find some –’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ I said hastily, thinking she might give everything away. ‘I’ll find some ribbons at the house – my stepsisters have discarded so many. And there are flowers in the garden and the greenhouse. I’ll wear your locket, too, just as I am now. See how pretty it looks against the dress?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Maria, shaking her head decisively. ‘The locket is pretty but it is not suitable for such an occasion. I remember your mother had a lovely pearl necklace that would do very well.’

  It would. But it was locked away in Grizelda’s jewellery box and there wasn’t even the ghost of a chance she’d lend it to me. As to trying to get it out of there without asking her, I didn’t fancy my chances at all. Seeing the look on my face, Maria said gently, ‘But it would equally work with something very simple, say a single rose at the breast – pale yellow or white.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there are early roses in the greenhouse.’

  ‘The very thing, then. Flowers on a young and pretty woman can look just as effective as jewels and can be much more charming,’ said Maria, firmly. I nearly laughed, because to look at the pair of us, you wouldn’t think we were kitchen servant and scullery maid, but society ladies discussing the latest fashion. Instead, I said, ‘You are wonderful, Maria, and I am so grateful and so honoured that you are my friend.’

  ‘Get on with you, girl,’ she said, a little shyly, ‘and get yourself back to that house before they begin to miss you.’

  ‘Miss me? Them? Never,’ I said, gaily. ‘If I vanished in a puff of smoke I daresay they’d all be glad.’

  Maria shook her head sadly and said, ‘It’s a disgrace, that’s what I say, and it’s time it was stopped. I’d bet a week’s wages that once that Prince sets eyes on you, everything will change.’

  I didn’t say that I couldn’t give two hoots about the Prince to a romantic like Maria – who was I to pour cold water on that? Then she said, worriedly, ‘Oh dear, I’ve just had a thought – shoes. What are we going to do about shoes?’

  ‘I’ll swipe a pair from Babette’s shoe cupboard,’ I said. ‘She’s the same size as me and has dozens of pairs – she probably doesn’t even remember them all.’

  ‘Very well. But try and get something that matches the dress, nothing too showy,’ said my new fashion adviser, pursing her lips.

  ‘No, I won’t, I promise.’ I took the dress off and Maria wrapped it in tissue then brown paper and wedged it firmly in my basket under the cloth I had carried to cover the box of sugared almonds.

  ‘Thank you so much, dear Maria,’ I said and then I kissed her on both cheeks and left with her last-minute advice to dab a little rose-based perfume or, failing that, a little rose water behind my ears and at my wrists and neck.

  I only just had time to sneak into my room and hide the dress under my bed before I was summoned by Mrs Jager. She told me that my stepmother had sent for me and I was to get up there at once. When I went into Grizelda’s room I found her alone, seated at her dressing table, wearing a velvet wrap, her hair up in curling papers and her face thickly painted with a white clay mask. ‘Yes, Lady Grizelda?’ I said meekly.

  ‘I was thinking about you,’ my stepmother said, rubbing cream into her hands, her eyes on me in the mirror.

  I swallowed. What was coming couldn’t be good. Before I could reply, she stunned me by going on, ‘I was thinking you might want to come to the ball, too.’

  I couldn’t speak.

  ‘Well, Selena? Speak up, girl.’

  ‘I . . . I –’

  ‘Do you or don’t you?’

  My heart was thudding and, my head spinning, I murmured, ‘I . . . yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘I see.’ My stepmother smiled. ‘Then of course, my dear, you must go.’

  I stared at her. I could not believe my ears. ‘Do you . . . mean it?’

  ‘Of course I do, Selena.’

  My legs felt like jelly. ‘What does Father say?’

  ‘Nothing, for the present. This is just between you and me.’

  ‘Babette and Odette . . .’

  ‘Between you and me,’ she repeated, with a touch of temper.

  ‘Oh, I . . .’

  ‘There is a problem, though,’ she said as she spun around to look at me. ‘If you’d told me before that you wanted to go, we could have had a dress made for you.’

  ‘If I had told you?’ I stammered.

  ‘Don’t be Little Miss Echo, Selena. If you had told me, there’d have been time. But now it’s going to be a problem, isn’t it? You have no dress suitable for the occasion. Don’t tell me those old dresses of yours in the attic would do, because they wouldn’t. And you can’t wear one of Babette’s or Odette’s dresses because what would people say?’ She smiled. ‘Really, my dear, you have been very flighty in this matter.’

  I looked at her, a nasty feeling beginning in the pit of my stomach. This was just another of her cruel games. ‘I . . . I’m sorry . . .’ I whispered.

  ‘A bit late, don’t you think? Such a pity. We would have been glad to have you along with us if you had thought ahead.’

  I tried to speak calmly. ‘I . . . I . . . think there might be something I can wear that –’

  ‘What? Do you think you can conjure a ball gown out of thin air?’ She laughed. ‘Imagine what the Mancers would say.’

  I felt a little sick. There was a light in her eyes that scared me. She couldn’t possibly know about the hazel . . . couldn’t possibly . . . Frantically, I said, ‘It’s just that someone . . . I was lent a dress that might –’

  Shock invaded her face for an instant, and then her features went very still. ‘Whatever do you mean? Who lent you a dress?’

  ‘I . . . someone . . . it’s very pretty – I think it might . . .’

  ‘Then you’d better show it to me, my dear,’ she said silkily, ‘hadn’t you? Let me judge whether or not it will do.’

  With all my heart, I wished I didn’t have to. But there was no turning back now. Sadly, I went down to my room and, leaving the underthings behind, took Maria’s dress upstairs.

  My stepsisters were now in Grizelda’s room. They too wore velvet wraps and curling papers but, instead of a face mask, they wore spiteful expressions. As soon as I stepped into the room Odette said, ‘What kind of rag have you been squirrelling away, then?’

  ‘I bet it’s ugly as sin, and old-fashioned to boot,’ said Babette.

  ‘Now, now, girls,’ said Grizelda, the softness in her voice belied by the hardness in her eyes. ‘Come on, show us then, Selena.’

  Oh Maria, I’m so sorry, I thought miserably as I unwrapped her daughter’s wedding dress.
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br />   ‘Hold it up so we can see,’ ordered Grizelda.

  I shook the dress out and held it up to the three pairs of eyes. There was a silence, then Grizelda said, sharply, ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘You don’t have friends,’ said Babette.

  ‘You must have stolen it,’ said Odette.

  ‘I did not! A friend lent it to me. She made it.’

  ‘She made it! Then your friend is a common person, a dressmaker. Who is she?’ said Grizelda in a dangerous tone. ‘You will tell me, Selena.’

  ‘No, I will not! It is none of your business.’ I was beside myself now with rage. ‘She is my friend. She lent me this dress so I could go to the ball. Whatever you think, whatever you do to me, you cannot change the fact I am my father’s daughter and have a right to go to the Prince’s ball. And I am going – in this dress.’

  ‘Really?’ said Grizelda, and in two long strides she was upon me, ripping the dress out of my hands. I gave a cry of horror and tried to throw myself at her but Babette and Odette were too quick for me, tripping me up and holding me back, my arms twisted painfully behind me, while Grizelda methodically went about the business of destroying Rosa’s wedding dress. She ripped at the lace panels, tore off the ribbons and, taking a pair of golden nail scissors from her dressing table, cut the muslin to shreds. When it was in ruins, she threw what was left of the dress at me, saying, ‘Such a fine gown for the ball, don’t you think, girls?’