Cinderella (Evans)/Chapter 5

by Charles Perrault

CHAPTER V

How Ella Became Cinderella

So there was poor little Ella in the dark garret at the top of the house, where she remained for twenty-four hours with no food but bread and water. There was nothing in the room except a straw mattress which had been turned out of one of the servants’ chambers, and on this she lay down, burying her head in her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break. What hurt her more than anything else was the thought that her father had done nothing to protect her against her stepmother’s ill-treatment. She had wild thoughts of running away and going to the town to hire herself as a maid-of-all-work at one of the inns, but the little window of her room was barred on the outside, so she had perforce to stay where she was until it pleased her captors to come and let her out.

Presently it grew dark, and then the loneliness was awful; but Ella shut her eyes and consoled herself by thinking about the happy days she used to spend when her mother was alive. After a time she fell into a sleep, and in her dreams it seemed to her as though her mother was standing beside the wretched bed, looking down upon her with eyes of pity and of love.

It was Euphronia who came the next day to let Ella out. She threw open the door and stood on the threshold for a time, smiling spitefully.

“Well, miss,” she said, “ and how did you like your bedroom? Did you find it airy and comfortable?”

“Why are you so horrid to me?” asked Ella. “I’m sure I’ve done nothing to deserve it. If you do not like to have me in the house I will go away and not trouble you any more. Let me go back to school and spend my holidays there, as I have done before.”

“A splendid idea,” mocked Euphronia, “and I’ve no doubt it is just what you would like. There is to be nomore school for you, miss. Too much money has been wasted on you already, and we will certainly spend no more. What does a little chit like you want of learning Italian and history and dancing! You will have to make yourself useful now, and do something to earn your keep!”

If anybody had told Ella a day or two before that she would have been miserable at the idea of not being allowed to go back to school, she would not have believed them; but at these words her heart sank. What further humiliations had Fate in store?

She was soon to learn, for Euphronia hustled her off into the kitchen and made her sit down at the table with the servants. There she was given a hunk of coarse bread and a mugful of milk, and told to eat heartily because that was all she would get until the following morning. She learnt, too, that she was not even to have the attic where she had unpacked her clothes, but was to sleep henceforward in the very garret where she had been imprisoned, on that ragged straw mattress that had not been good enough for a scullion.

“Oh, Belinda,” sobbed Ella, when her sister at last had gone away. “I am the most unhappy girl in all the world. Whatever shall I do?”

“Put a bold face on it, missy,” said Belinda, “and keep up your courage. Perhaps they don’t mean all they say, and will be kinder to you when they have worked off their spite. At any rate, nothing is to be gained by crying your pretty eyes out.”

“You will be good to me, won’t you, Belinda, and let me stay here? I never want to go upstairs again while my stepmother and my stepsisters are in the house. We can be quite cosy together, and I’ll help you all I can, and teach you some of the things I have learnt at school.”

“That would be very nice, missy,” answered Belinda, “and you may stay here and welcome, but I’m afraid you won’t have my company, because I’m leaving at the end of the week. All the house servants are under notice to leave. The mistress says she means to econo­mize and to stop the waste that has been going on for years. I expect she wants the money to buy jewels to hang on herself and her ugly daughters. Ugh, the nasty creatures!” And Belinda shook her head and walked away muttering.

Ella was very dejected at the prospect of losing one whom she had come to consider her only friend in the world; but before a week had gone by she discovered that Belinda’s words were only too true. One by one the servants left, until there was nobody left in the kitchen but Ella herself and a little scullery-maid who sniffed all day long through her nose and walked about on shoes that had no heels.

Now Ella discovered what her stepsister had meant when she said that she had got to learn to make herself useful. For a day or two she was left to do as she liked, and then one morning Euphronia came down to the kitchen and found her sitting at the window reading a book.

“Well I never!” cried Euphronia. “So that’s how you spend your time! Come here at once, and put on this coarse apron and then go down on your knees and scrub the floor.”

“I am doing no harm,” said Ella mildly. “Mother always used to let me read in the morning, after my lessons were done. As for the floor, it is quite clean, for the scullerv-maid has only just finished scrubbing it. Please, Euphronia, let me go on with my work.”

“What, what!” screamed Euphronia, working her­self up into a fine rage. “More airs and graces! Take that, you miserable brat, and that, for daring to be impudent to your betters!” And with her great hard hand she struck poor Ella several blows on the cheek. Then the poor girl was locked up in the garret once more and almost starved until her spirit was broken.

Things went on in this way for over a month, during which Ella never saw her father or her stepmother. Euphronia was her taskmistress, and she seemed to take a delight in heaping insults and cruelties upon Ella’s head. Sometimes Charlotte came down into the kitchen and stood watching while Ella cleaned the silver, or did some similar menial work, but she did not say anything, except to quarrel with her elder sister, in which occupation these two amiable beings seemed to pass the greater part of their time.

Little by little Ella became accustomed to her new position, and took up more and more of the duties of a kitchen-maid. Early in the morning she would rise from her bed and go downstairs to rake out the grates and light the fires. Then she would wash up the greasy crockery left over from the previous night’s dinner, and sweep the kitchen floor, and prepare a dish of tea to take up to her stepsisters, who always lay abed until ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. Euphronia looked so funny in bed with her false curls off and her bald fore­head showing that Ella felt very much inclined to laugh, but she dared not for fear of a beating. Both the sisters were lazybones, and even when they did arouse them­selves to get up, they would walk about the house in their wrappers, with untidy, down-at-heel slippers on their feet. Ella grew to hate the sound of their footsteps—slip-slop, slip-slop, over the polished floors.

When her frugal breakfast was done Ella began the work of the day. Sometimes it was the stairs that had to be brushed down, or the bedrooms to be turned out, or the drawing-room to be cleaned. All the bedrooms had parquet floors, which Ella had to polish on her hands and knees until she could see her face in them. Very hard work it was, and her delicate little hands, which had once been so soft and white, grew coarse and hard.

From morning till night she was kept busy, with hardly a moment to rest except at meal-times. Only after dinner in the evening had she an hour or two to herself, and then she used to go and sit in the big open fireplace on a low stool close to the smouldering wood cinders, and, with her head resting on her hands, think of her hard lot, and of the happy days that were gone by.

During the first six months she had no companion except the little scullery-maid, who always seemed to have a cold in her nose, and who was not very good company at the best of times. When this maid left, Ella was allowed to go into the drawing-room now and then to read to the sisters, or to do a bit of embroidery.

“I hope, child,” said Mistress Euphronia on one of these occasions, “that you realize how fortunate you are in being allowed to improve your mind by reading books and by listening to good music!” (By good music she meant her singing to Charlotte’s accompaniment on the harpsichord. She made the most dreadful noises.) “But I’ll warrant,” she went on, “that you are much happier downstairs with your pots and pans, or sitting among the cinders. Come, confess now, are you not happier so?”

“Yes,” said Ella quietly.

For some reason this reply seemed to make Euphronia very angry, and the next night, when Ella went up into the drawing-room, she said with a spiteful smile, “I have found a new name for you. In future I shall call you Cinderslut because of your nasty habit of sitting among the cinders. Come, Cinderslut, and hold this skein of wool for me.”

At this Ella flushed and was about to make an angry reply, when Charlotte, who was never quite so unkind to her as the other, said, “No, no, sister, let us call her Cinder-Ella, that sounds much better.”

And Cinderella it was from that time forward.