Ella Enchanted

chapter 3

WHEN WE reached the manor, Father ordered me to change into something clean and to hurry down to greet the guests who were arriving to pay their respects.

My room was peaceful. Everything was just as it had been before Mother died.

The birds embroidered into the coverlet on my bed were safe in their world of cross-stitched leaves. My diary was on the dresser. The friends of my childhood

-- Flora, the rag doll, and Rosamunde, the wooden doll in the gown with seven flounces -- nestled in their basket.

I sat on the bed, fighting my need to obey Father's order to change and go back downstairs. Although I wanted to draw comfort from my room, from my bed, from the light breeze coming through my window, I kept thinking instead of Father and getting dressed.

Once I had overheard Bertha tell Mandy that he was only a person on the outside and that his insides were ashes mixed with coins and a brain.

But Mandy had disagreed. "He's human through and through. No other creature would be as selfish as he is, not fairies or gnomes or elves or giants."

For a full three minutes I delayed getting dressed. It was a terrible game I played, trying to break my curse, seeing how long I could last against the need to do what I had been told. There was a buzzing in my ears, and the floor seemed to tilt so far that I feared I would slide off the bed. I hugged my pillow until my arms hurt -- as if the pillow were an anchor against following orders.

In a second I was going to fly apart into a thousand pieces. I stood and walked to my wardrobe. Immediately I felt perfectly fine.

Although I suspected Father wanted me to wear another mourning gown, I put on the frock Mother liked best. She said the spicy green brought out my eyes. I thought I looked like a grasshopper in it -- a skinny, spiky grasshopper with a human head and straight hair. But at least the gown wasn't black. She hated black clothing.

The great hall was full of people in black. Father came to me instantly. "Here's my lass, young Eleanor," he said loudly. He led me in, whispering, "You look like a weed in that gown. You're supposed to be in mourning. They'll think you have no respect for your--"

I was engulfed from behind by two chubby arms encased in rustling black satin.

"My poor child, we feel for you." The voice was syrupy. "And Sir Peter, it's dreadful to see you on such a tragic occasion." An extra tight squeeze and I was released.

The speaker was a tall, plump lady with long and wavy honey-colored tresses.

Her face was a pasty white with twin spots of rouge on the cheeks. With her were two smaller versions of herself, but without the rouge. The younger one also lacked her mother's abundant hair; instead she had thin curls stuck tight to her scalp as though glued there.

"This is Dame Olga," Father said, touching the tall lady's arm.

I curtsied and knocked into the younger girl. "Beg pardon," I said.

She didn't answer, didn't move, only watched me.

Father continued. "Are these your lovely daughters?"

"They are my treasures. This is Hattie, and this is Olive. They are off to finishing school in a few days."

Hattie was older than I, by about two years. "Delighted to make your acquaintance," she said, smiling and showing large front teeth. She held her hand out to me as though she expected me to kiss it or bow over it.

I stared, uncertain what to do. She lowered her arm, but continued to smile.

Olive was the one I'd bumped. "I'm glad to meet you," she said, her voice too loud. She was about my age. The furrows of a frown were permanently etched between her eyes.

"Comfort Eleanor in her grief," Dame Olga told her daughters. "I want to talk with Sir Peter." She took Father's arm, and they left us.

"Our hearts weep for you," Hattie began. "When you bellowed at the funeral, I thought what a poor thing you are."

"Green isn't a mourning color," Olive said.

Hattie surveyed the room. "This is a fine hall, almost as fine as the palace, where I'm going to live someday. Our mother, Dame Olga, says your father is very rich. She says he can make money out of anything."

"Out of a toenail," Olive suggested.

"Our mother, Dame Olga, says your father was poor when he married your mother. Our mother says Lady Eleanor was rich when they got married, but your father made her richer."

"We're rich too," Olive said. "We're lucky to be rich."

"Would you show us the rest of the manor?" Hattie asked.

We went upstairs and Hattie had to look everywhere. She opened the wardrobe in Mother's room and, before I could stop her, ran her hands over Mother's gowns. When we got back to the hall, she announced, "Forty-two windows and a fireplace in every room. The windows must have cost a trunkful of gold KJs."

"Do you want to know about our manor?" Olive asked.

I didn't care if they lived in a hollow log.

"You'll have to visit us and see for yourself," Hattie said in response to my silence.

We stood near the side table, which was loaded with mountains of food, from a whole roast hart with ivy threaded through its antlers to butter cookies as small and lacy as snowflakes. I wondered how Mandy had had time to cook it all.

"Would you like something to eat?"

"Ye--" Olive began, but her sister interrupted firmly.

"Oh, no. No thank you. We never eat at parties. The excitement quite takes away our appetites."

"My appetite--" Olive tried again.

"Our appetites are small. Mother worries. But it looks delicious." Hattie edged toward the food. "Quail eggs are such a delicacy. Ten brass KJs apiece. Olive, there are fifty at least"

More quail eggs than windows.

"I like gooseberry tarts," Olive said.

"We mustn't," Hattie said. "Well, maybe a little."

A giant couldn't eat half a leg of deer plus a huge mound of wild rice and eight of the fifty quail eggs and go back for dessert. But Hattie could.

Olive ate even more. Gooseberry tarts and currant bread and cream trifle and plum pudding and chocolate bonbons and spice cake -- all dribbled over with butter rum sauce and apricot sauce and peppermint sauce.

They brought their plates close to their faces so their forks had the shortest possible distance to travel. Olive ate steadily, but Hattie put her fork down every so often to pat her mouth daintily with her napkin. Then she'd tuck in again, as avidly as ever.

It was disgusting to watch. I looked down at a throw rug that used to lie under Mother's chair. Today it had been moved near the food. I had never concentrated on it before.

A hound and hunters chased a boar toward a fringe of scarlet wool. As I stared, I saw movement. Wind stirred the grass by the boar's feet. I blinked and the movement stopped. I stared again and it started again.

The dog had just bayed. I felt his throat relax. One of the hunters limped, and I felt a cramp in his calf. The boar gasped for breath and ran on fear and rage.

"What are you looking at?" Olive asked. She had finished eating.

I started. I felt as if I'd been in the rug. "Nothing. Just the carpet." I glanced at the rug again. An ordinary carpet with an ordinary design.

"Your eyes were popping out."

"They looked like an ogre's eyes," Hattie said. "Buggy. But there, you look more normal now."

She never looked normal. She looked like a rabbit. A fat one, the kind Mandy liked to slaughter for stew. And Olive's face was as blank as a peeled potato.

"I don't suppose your eyes ever pop out," I said.

"I don't think so." Hattie smiled complacently.

"They're too small to pop."

The smile remained, but now it seemed pasted on. "I forgive you, child. We in the peerage are forgiving. Your poor mother used to be known for her ill breeding too."

Mother used to be known. The past tense froze my tongue.

"Girls!" Dame Olga bore down on us. "We must be going." She hugged me, and my nose filled with the stink of spoiled milk.

They left. Father was outside at the iron gate, saying good-bye to the rest of the guests. I went to Mandy in the kitchen.

She was piling up dirty dishes. "Seems like those people didn't eat for a week."

I put on an apron and pumped water into the sink. "They never tasted your food before."

Mandy's cooking was better than anybody else's. Mother and I used to try her recipes sometimes. We'd follow the instructions exactly and the dish would be delicious, but never as wonderful as when Mandy cooked it.

Somehow, it reminded me of the rug. "The carpet in the hall with the hunters and the bear, you know the one? Something funny happened to me when I looked at it before."

"Oh, that silly thing. You shouldn't pay attention to that old rug." She turned to stir a pot of soup.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just a fairy joke."

A fairy rug! "How do you know?"

"It belonged to Lady." Mandy always called Mother "Lady."

That wasn't an answer. "Did my fairy godmother give it to her?"

"A long time ago."

"Did Mother ever tell you who my fairy godmother is?"

"No, she didn't. Where's your father?"

"He's outside, saying good-bye. Do you know anyway? Even though she never told you?"

"Know what?"

"Who my fairy godmother is."

"If she'd wanted you to know, your mother would have told you."

"She was going to. She promised. Please tell, Mandy."

"I am."

"You are not telling. Who is it?"

"Me. Your fairy godmother is me. Here, taste the carrot soup. It's for dinner, How is it?"