The Fairly Good Mother

Once, long ago, in the last days of magic, there lived a contented husband and wife. They were well suited as the wife loved to sit and read and her husband was wealthy enough to provide a household staffed with intelligent servants. In time their affection blessed them with a daughter, Henrietta.

Under her parents’ absent-minded but loving care Henrietta grew into a fine young woman. Polite conversation termed her “striking”, as above her mother’s graceful figure and slender neck she carried her father’s plain, well-cut features. She was further hampered in polite society by her inheritance of her father’s plain, well-moulded mind. This gave her a practical wisdom that allowed her to bring harmony to the servant’s hall with the same sure touch that she gave to the perfectly-balanced household accounts. In the drawing-room, however, it left her impatient with small-talk and inept at those minor niceties that smoothed a girl’s path into a good marriage.

It was her true fortune, therefore, to meet and marry a young scholar whose own social awkwardness concealed to others’ view a good heart tucked away below his sound mind. They married and Henrietta happily stretched her domestic talents to raising two daughters on a small income. Those daughters grew in their parents’ image – tall, plain and clever. Like their mother they were impatient with drawing-room trivialities and, like their father, they tended to stoop from the hours they preferred to spend bending over their books, or peering into the glass cases of the museum, or crouching in hedgerows and riverbanks after their naturalist pursuits.

As Griselda and Drusilla grew, and just as their mother began to turn her thoughts towards their futures, disaster – that is to say, smallpox – struck. As is often the case, this terrible disease carried off the weakest member of the family, leaving Henrietta and her daughters in dire straits. It also left the girls with sad scarring pitting their already pitiful features.

A small income from Henrietta’s father kept the small family afloat but she saw that drastic measures were necessary to secure her girls’ fortunes in the long term. So Henrietta counted her blessings – her domestic skills, her lucky escape from the worst ravages of disease, her dislike of frippery and socialising – and set out to find an older, wealthier, man in search of an efficient household and a quiet life.

Careful scanning of the obituary pages and clever deployment of her limited resources brought Henrietta into the company and eventually the affections of a wealthy gentleman. Quiet but prosperous, recently widowed, Sir Norman had been left in possession of a substantial estate and a growing daughter – both of which he had comfortably regarded as the primary purview of his late wife and both now, he felt, beyond his abilities to adequately manage. Henrietta and Sir Norman both recognised a good bargain when they saw it and the marriage was soon made.

Sir Norman was happy to offer Griselda and Drusilla the shelter of his home and a comfortable allowance, but inheritance of the estate was tied by law to pass direct and entire to his only true child – Ella. This meant that whilst they - and Sir Norman - lived on the estate they would be secure, but Henrietta’s father could offer only a small dowry to provide his granddaughters with any hope of marriage or independent life.

The girls knew themselves to be fortunate, under the circumstances, and did not, in the beginning, resent Ella for it. And she was really quite hard to resent – kind, welcoming, taking simple pleasure in the company of the staff rather than her intimidatingly intellectual new sisters, more interested in singing around the courtyard as she tended her pets and garden than in bending over books or microscopes.

However time passed and harsh realities came to intrude into this otherwise contented household. Ella grew closer to adulthood, and more beautiful every day. And Sir Norman’s health began to fail. Henrietta, taking a pragmatic view, realised that her daughters did not stand a chance of marriage to a suitably secure income whilst Ella was in competition. And once Ella married, and her father died, Ella’s husband would own the estate and Henrietta and her daughters would be completely dependent on his goodwill. Sir Norman was keen for a title to match his wealth, one that would raise his daughter – and his name – from the gentry into the aristocracy. In this he was realistic that the title would be likely bought by his fortune, rather than add to it.

Realising that this hypothetical new husband might be less than tolerant of a step-mother-in-law and step-sisters-in-law crowding his new home and living off his new income, Henrietta saw it was time to act. Ella must be kept from the marriage-market and, hopefully, society in general, until the futures of Griselda and Drusilla were secure.

Henrietta set to work. She encouraged Ella to spend time with her hand-picked housekeeper, learning all the domestic skills of running the household. At the same time she forced her own daughters into the dismayed hands of a raft of deportment, etiquette and dancing teachers. Henrietta herself took to her carriage, hauling her girls around the local gentry, making polite conversation until her teeth ached, and generally spreading the idea that Ella, although quite lovely, was, perhaps, a little, shall we say, simple and not only shy but perhaps rather frail and therefore not up to the stresses of the social season - let alone running a substantial household and providing a nursery-full of healthy heirs…..

Every invitation that came to the Manor was accepted, every opportunity for Drusilla and Griselda to be presented to suitable young men taken. Sir Norman, when he raised his head from his ledgers, thought vaguely that perhaps he should do more to encourage Ella to join them, but she seemed happy enough, always singing as she carried out her tasks – and he was so tired…

Until finally the day came when Prince Florimund’s father ran out of princesses and noble ladies and decided that if he was to tear his son away from his animals and his organic farm, and get some healthy heirs on the way, drastic measures were needed. A ball was to be held to which every eligible girl fit enough to get into a formal gown and make her way around a dance-floor was to be invited. No, make that Commanded.

Invitations were sent out and three duly arrived at the Manor. Ella took them through to her step-mother and made so bold to point out that as she was personally Commanded by the King, she felt she should also attend. Henrietta was in a dilemma. Here was her best chance yet to secure the future of at least one of her daughters. And yet - Ella in a ball-gown, on a dance-floor, would make the whole exercise pointless for every other girl in the room. But then, on the other hand, she could not explain to Sir Norman that she had forbidden Ella to go. Although his illness made him ever more remote from the day-to-day life of the household, this great news had reached him and he was anxious for this chance to advance his daughter’s prospects. And, somewhere at the bottom of her heart, Henrietta knew that this would mean an actual act of conscious unkindness against a girl who had done nothing to provoke it. And finally the need to make such a decision resulted, as it often does, in Henrietta feeling angry and led her – as it easily can – to decide that Ella was the cause of that anger and therefore deserving of the consequences.

Thinking furiously, Henrietta informed Ella that of course she could – should – attend. As long as Ella could organise something suitable to wear and ensure that her absence did not disrupt the smooth running of the household she would expect to see her in the main hall at 8 o’clock prompt. Henrietta then bent herself to the task of making the rest of the day as long and miserable for the girl as she could manage. When 8 o’clock finally struck, Drusilla and Griselda hovered anxiously in the hall, stiff in their new finery – but there was no sign of Ella. Henrietta finally found her step-daughter collapsed in a miserable heap in the coal-shed, exhausted, wearing a once-pretty dress now torn and covered in smuts. It seemed almost a mercy to shut the door. And lock it.

And so it was that the appearance of the beautiful stranger that night at the ball and the revelation of the glass slipper fell on Henrietta’s heart with the weight of justice recognised. Sir Norman returned to health and was allowed to change his will to reflect the Prince’s generous waiving of the estate – it would be inherited jointly by his step-daughters. Henrietta had achieved what she set out to do. And to live out the rest of her days in security and comfort with the mild contempt of her second husband, rather than in precarious respectability with the love and companionship of her first, seemed just reward for her efforts.