Once Upon a Time (No. 2)
Well, what do you want to know about my childhood? I suppose I could start at the first memory. My father was a rich landowner who was also an advisor to the throne. I don’t remember my mother, just that one day my father mentioned that she had died and that she wasn’t coming home. I think I was five or six when I asked. I knew my father left and would come back occasionally on different errands for the king, so wouldn’t my mother come back one day? The only mother I ever knew was Clara, the nurse. She was somewhat young compared to other nurses (one day she told me she was twenty three) and would always take care of me when my father wasn’t around. I connected more with her than Father.
One day my father came back and announced that he was going to get remarried. I was twelve at the time and still incredibly naïve to think that the woman my father would marry would be just like Clara. When I actually met her prior to the wedding, she seemed all right enough. She told me about her two daughters, one my age, the other a year older and said that I would finally be happy with other girls to play with. Besides, it would do well for me to see an example of a happily married relative, when she could find a suitable match for her girls. Her tone was sickly sweet and honestly made me nauseous. But there was nothing for me to do to stop father from marrying that woman. I believe her name was Angela, but I had never called her that.
I suppose I should pause to tell you that my father when he wasn’t out in the name of the king was usually sick at home, which was another reason I bonded so well with Clara. My new mother and her “lovely” daughters arrived the day my father would come back from an errand and only Clara and myself were home. Just about the first thing she did after ordering Clara around the house to get things ready for her new husband’s arrival, was fire the poor girl. Just as Clara left my father came home. He ignored my complaints that Stepmother had fired Clara and smiled to my two new sisters: Mary and Tiffany. He seemed to fawn over how lovely and behaved they were before going upstairs to take a nap. It was unusual, but I didn’t think much of it, as I was too busy feeling rejected and lost. Later that evening my new stepmother came out to tell us that he had died in his sleep. That’s when everything changed. She had a devilish aura around her and her eyes seemed to smile behind her solemn appearance. She never did cry about it and neither Tiffany nor Mary seemed terribly upset about losing a second father. I suppose it was because they didn’t know him, but that didn’t seem too logical as they saw him every week before their mother married him. For weeks after that I would have nightmares of Her coming at him with a kitchen knife. I never saw the body to see if my dreams were true. Well with Clara gone there was no one to do any work around the house so little by little she added more chores for me to do and less for her daughters. Since I would constantly cry myself to sleep, She said I was crazy and stupid, not fit to be taught as a noblewoman. Two years later her excuse was I was not fit for the wife of a king and I didn’t figure out why until months later. The serving girl, Rachel told me about a masquerade ball that the king and queen were having at the palace. They were desperate to get their son married, as he was already very old at sixteen years, so they invited all of the women excluding servants to the party. Parents were invited also to insure no vulgar behavior. (The last part she heard straight from the messenger, who had been friends with Rachel and wasn’t afraid to tell her exactly what he felt about the whole thing. But I could figure that the king and queen would never add the last bit in an invitation.) I was never told about it because I was considered a serving girl, when anyone could tell you I was not. No one else could read and write and I was also well versed with poetry and could play the lute. No other servant can brag of such an education. I had three days at this point to figure out how to get there. I had never seen nor met the prince so I must admit I was thinking of this marriage as a way to please my parents and get myself out of this horrible mess. I was used to the idea of marriage not for love, but for government and legal purposes, so regardless of whether he was a nice person, I needed him to get me away from here and possibly rise up in society. Then I would never have to deal with this horrible place again and for my father, raise a child to be heir to the throne. Quite a wonderful possibility if I could pull it off. Which is why I was not surprised when I went to town the next day that the dress shop was overflowing with women. I wouldn’t have the money anyway to buy a dress. I stopped on the way home at the bakery where Clara lived, whom I learned is happily married to the baker. He was a widower and happy to let Clara work at his shop. So it was no problem for him to marry an old maid like Clara, so long as no one knew she was never married. She was very pleased to see me and we talked for a while. (I had told Rachel in advanced I would be making this trip and she told me she would do my cleaning chores and gave me an extra long list full of rubbish so that it would look like I was busy all day.) She decided to help me and we measured my size and went to the dress shop to buy material. She promised me the dress would be ready three days from then and I should come back as soon as I could.
I do talk a lot, don’t I? Sorry, but there is a lot to tell. At the day of the party I was tied up with quite a bit of cleaning. I helped Tiffany and Mary get ready and cleaned the house until glowed. Mary was the eldest so I had to make sure she looked extra pretty. The poor girl is color-blind and I ended up getting whipped because she insisted on a hideous orange frilly dress. Such was the way most of the time. The party had started by the time I ran to Clara’s. She had the dress ready as promised. I have to describe it because it took my breath away. She had a simple design of a straight white dress with no decoration and the skirt was open in the front to reveal a dark blue satin skirt with a stitched design of flowers. She had sewn fitting sleeves underneath large dropping white ones and decorated the opening of the skirt with lace. It took forever to get into getting all the wrinkles in the right place and smoothing out the fabric, pinning some things here and there. We put some ceruse and fucus on and she gave me a mask she had traded to the artist down the street. I don’t know how she managed to get it to fit perfectly but she tied it on with blue satin ribbons, so it wouldn’t slide down my face. Clara had also figured out that she and her husband would escort me as my parents. They were both dressed and they escorted me to the party. The entire time my heart was beating like a puppy’s, so I’m not sure what happened. We were introduced and I hung around smiling and mingling with some of the people there. I never knew there were so many girls in the town, some of them younger than me. I do remember dancing with the prince though. He wasn’t terribly handsome, but when he smiled I got a terrible case of nerves and my stomach trembled. He had such a beautiful smile. Anyway, when people started leaving, I thanking him for a wonderful time and I thanked the king and queen on my way out. I didn’t realize that my family had recognized me until I got home and I was whipped several times for being insolent. My fear for the rest of the night was that they told the king and queen I was a servant girl and I would be looked down upon for sneaking in uninvited (although technically, I was not).
A couple weeks went by before I was called upon before the court. My stepmother was in such a state of shock she went about as a ghost, letting me borrow Tiffany’s dress and shoes and arranging a coach to take me to the palace. I wasn’t sure what was happening either, but I made the best of it and bathed in fresh hot water and did my hair and makeup. What had happened was the king had found out from someone that I lived in his old advisor’s house and had wondered if I was his daughter. Apparently word had gotten around that I was a servant. Thankfully he recognized me and I told him about the misunderstanding. I tried my best not to make my family seem as bad as they were because even though they treated me badly I would still have their deaths on my conscious and I didn’t want that. If it was arranged that I would marry the prince, it didn’t matter if they were alive or dead.
The marriage was set up with the prince and I’m now queen. My education came in handy because I was tested to see if I was royalty and passed quite easily. I didn’t really tell you about my childhood because I was fourteen when this happened, but anything prior to that was trivial. Well I hope that tells you everything you needed to know. Oh, my name. Ella-Carissa DuPont. Well, Queen Ella-Carrissa.
