Cinderella Six Feet Under(3)

“Fancies she’s the Queen of Sheba!” Prue came down the steps behind her, hauling her own bag.

“—said your mother is absent. So all we must do is wait. The question is, where?” They stood on the sidewalk and looked up and down the street lined with monumental old buildings and shivering black trees. A carriage splashed by, its driver bent into the slanting rain. “We can’t stay out of doors. May as well be standing under Niagara Falls. I’m afraid my greasepaint’s starting to run, and this padding is like a big sponge.” Ophelia shoved her soaked pillow-bosom into line. “Come on. Surely we’ll find someplace to huddle for an hour or so. Your sister—”

“Don’t call her that!”

“Very well, Miss Eglantine said they’ve got guests. So I figure your mother will be home soon.”

The mansion’s foundation stones went right to the pavement. No front garden. But farther along they found a carriageway arch. Its huge iron gates stood ajar.

“Now see?” Ophelia said. “Nice and dry under there.”

“Awful dark.”

“Not . . . terribly.”

More hoof-clopping. Was it—Ophelia squinted—was it the same carriage that had passed by only a minute ago? Yes. It was. The same bent driver, the same horses. And—

Her heart went lickety-split.

—and a pale smudge of a face peering out the window. Right at her.

Then it had gone.

*

On the other side of the carriageway arch lay a big, dark courtyard. Wings of Henrietta’s mansion bordered it on two sides. The third side was an ivy-covered carriage house and stables, where an upstairs window glowed with light. The fourth side was a high stone wall. The garden seemed neglected. Shrubs were shaggy, weeds tangled the flower beds, and the air stank of decay.

“Look,” Prue said, pointing. “A party.”

Light shone from tall windows. Figures moved about inside and piano music tinkled.

“Let’s have a look.” Ophelia abandoned her carpetbag under the arch and set off down a path. Wet twigs and leaves dragged at her skirts.

“You mean spy on them?”

“Miss Eglantine didn’t seem the most honest little fish.”

“And that Baldy-win feller was a troll.”

“So maybe your ma is really in there, after all.”

Up close to the high windows, it was like peeping into a jewel box: cream paneled walls with gold-leaf flowers and swags, and enough mirrors and crystal chandeliers to make your eyes sting. A handful of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen loitered about. A plump woman in a gray bun—a servant—stood against a wall. A frail young lady in owlish spectacles crashed away at the piano.

“There’s Eggy,” Prue said. “Maybe that’s the sister she mentioned.” A third young lady in a lavish green tent of a gown sat next to Eglantine.

“Same dark hair,” Ophelia said.

“Same mean little eyes.”

“A good deal taller, however, and somewhat . . . wider.”

“Spit it out. She looks like a prizefighter in a wig.”

“Prue! That might be your own sister you’re going on about.”

“Stepsister. Look—they’re having words, I reckon. Eggy don’t seem too pleased.”

The young ladies’ heads were bent close together, and they appeared to be bickering. The larger lady in green had her eyes stuck on something across the room.

Ah. A gentleman. Fair-haired, flushed, and strapping, crammed into a white evening jacket with medals and ribbons, and epaulets on the shoulders. He conversed with a burly fellow in black evening clothes who had a lion’s mane of dark gold hair flowing to his shoulders.

“Ladies quarreling about a fellow,” Ophelia said. “How very tiresome.”

“Some fellers are worth talking of.”

“If you’re hinting that I care to discuss any gentleman, least of all Professor Penrose, then—well, I do not, I sincerely do not feel a whit of sentiment for that man.”

“Oh, sure,” Prue said.

Ophelia longed for things, certainly. But not for him. She longed for a home. She longed, with that gritted-molars sort of longing, to be snug in a third-class berth in the guts of a steamship barging towards America. She’d throw over acting, head up north to New Hampshire or Vermont, get work on a farmstead. Merciful heavens! She knew how to scour pots, tend goats, hoe beans, darn socks, weave rush chair seats, and cure a rash with apple cider vinegar. So why was she gallivanting across Europe, penniless, half starved, and shivering, in this preposterous disguise?