The Fairy Godmother Read Online Free PDF Page A

down when the seams were too worn to hold, but the fabric itself was still good.
    They were not patched, not torn, not darned. In fact, they were stoutly-sewn and well re-dyed. These were the sorts of things that a dressmaker assigned to a new Apprentice to make, simple garments to teach her to sew a “fine seam.”
    They were the best pieces of clothing that Elena had owned since her father had died. They were also exactly what she needed to carry out her plan.
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    When the rest of the town discovered—as it must, given that Madame Blanche and Madame Fleur were two of themost inveterate gossips in the Kingdom—that Elena had been left behind to live as best she could in the empty house, a few of the more guilt-stricken arrived to leave small offerings at her doorstep. Most she never saw; she heard footsteps on the path, and by the time she got to the front door, the gate was swinging shut and there was a basket or a bundle on the doorstep. In fact, except for Monsieur Rabellet, she didn’t get much more than a glimpse of a skirt or a pair of legs.
    But the offerings were welcome—indeed, desperately needed. A warm woolen shawl, a kitchen knife and a very old and very small frying pan, a loaf of bread, a ball of cheese, a blanket, a pat of butter, a pannikin of salt and a twist of tea. So she wouldn’t go hungry tonight, nor cold. Madame Blanche completed the offerings in person, delivering a half dozen eggs and some bacon just as the sun began to set.
    She found Elena on her knees at the hearth in the kitchen, getting the fire going again, and ready to toast some bread and cheese for her supper.
    â€œWell!” she said, looking with approval at the food. “I was hoping someone would have a guilty conscience! Good.” Her mouth firmed with satisfaction. “So, now the robbers have taken care of what you need for now, but have you thought about what you’re going to do? ”
    Elena sat back on her heels and looked up at her kindly old neighbor. “I have, actually—I thought it up the day Madame told me that she and the girls were going. I just—” She shook her head. “I wanted to tell you, but Madame swore me to secrecy. She told me that she wasgoing to leave me here to look after the house, and that was when I made up my mind what I was going to do when she was truly gone.”
    â€œYou did? Well, good for you!” Madame Blanche went out into the kitchen garden and came back with some bits of herbage pinched off the new growth in the herb bed. “Here you are, dear. Those will go nicely in coddled eggs. So, what are you going to do?”
    She took a deep breath. “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave here and never come back.”
    Madame Blanche blinked, as if she could not quite believe what she had just heard. “I don’t suppose you would care to explain that?”
    â€œTomorrow is the Mop Fair,” Elena elaborated. “Anyone who is looking for a servant is going to be there. And you said yourself that everyone in the town knows that I’ve done every bit of cleaning, mending and tending in this house for—years, anyway. I’m only a plain cook, but anything else, I can do.”
    â€œBut—but you’re not a servant!” Madame Blanche said, looking blank. “You’re from a good family, Elena! Your poor mother—if she knew, she’d be weeping at the thought. It’s one thing for me to do my own cooking, but—”
    â€œI may not have been born a servant, but that’s what I am now,” Elena said firmly. “I’m too old to become an Apprentice in any decent trade even if I had the fee, so that is what I am good for now.” She bit her lip, and continued, bitterly, “You know that’s the truth, that it’s all I’m good for, now. Madame Klovis saw to that; I have no dowry, no prospects, nothing to offer a young man but myself, andwhat