Chapter One
All the Maidens in all the Land
Summary:
Marianne tries to get her life together, but begins to find it difficult when invitations to the Prince's ball cause the preparations to throw her out of her depth.
The good and honourable Queen Ella was not the only maiden to find love at that fateful ball. Far from it, in fact. Those ladies who were not either engaged or being courted by the end of the Prince's ball were in the minority.
Within just over a year nearly half of the single women in the kingdom were married.
Some of them happily, more well situated than they could have ever imagined, the Queen among them. Some of them, were not so well off. As was the way of fate. Felicity in marriage was often a matter of chance. Equally as often, such unhappiness sprouted from the refusal of spouses to be seen as they truly are. Until it was too late for such things to sever the connection.
Marianne knew quite a bit about unhappy marriages. Had witnessed what placing advantage over feeling could do to even the best of people. More than she cared to admit. If she ever did say as much, she was quite sure one or other of her parents or grandparents would rise from their grave to haunt her. And with no small amount of enjoyment.
But this is thankfully not a tale of their misadventures. There have been more than enough of those told in the past. This is a story of Marianne's very own.
The first of its kind.
It began a mere week after Marianne found herself in a rather new kind of life.
That of a housemaid. In the employ of a very rich, very important sort of family. She knew not where they got their money. Nor why they were so important. Or if they were actually important and not just pretending to be. Marianne could hardly be relied upon to be able to tell the difference, whatever their circumstances actually were.
Not that she cared all that much. It was none of her business. And not a business she wished to be involved in, in any such case.
However, idle curiosity sometimes got the better of her while she shined shoe, after shoe, after shoe. And if her short life had taught her anything, it was that reality could be far stranger than anything the minds of men could think up. So she was resolved not to rule anything out, lest the rug be pulled from under her yet again.
So, she wondered about the rich people bustling in and out of the mansion. So full of importance. With their wealth glimmering on their necks, and wrists, and any other body part they could possibly adorn. With their posh, affected speech. Their often petty concerns.
It was a diverting hobby, she found. Imagining what intrigues and scandals her masters were caught up in with their many and varied acquaintance. Little snippets of conversation she heard here and there fuelled her imagination endlessly.
The Grand Duke stopped by once, and sent the whole staff into a tizzy.
In hindsight, it had been quite funny. One man had wreaked such havoc on so many, and had no idea of its happening. At the time, she had been too run off her feet to think much on it.
In her spare time, what little of it she was afforded, Marianne drew. She collected stubs of pencil and broken bits of charcoal and sketched out the imagined affairs of the upper-class persons she encountered. They joined the pages filled with the numerous scenes and landscapes she had actually seen with her own eyes. Though, Marianne had to admit, she did find her little cartoons more amusing. And far less weighted down with memories.
Marianne had little else to do, after all. Her co-workers were suspicious of her, and she could not blame them. She did arrive in the nearby town without any family. Without any money. Scruffy, with two black eyes, and half starved. And told them she hadn't even a family name to call her own. Such behaviour could hardly be expected to inspire confidence.
"Not one I can recall," was what she had said to the housekeeper when she asked about her surname.
Marianne had not lied, not exactly. She had no name of any consequence. None she was permitted to use, at least. As for the inconsequential ones, she merely preferred to keep her past to herself. It was something which did not bother old Mrs. Bell or Harrison, the butler, one iota. She was young, and strong, and healthy. They judged her character to be sound. She could work, and was unlikely to try and nick the silverware. That was all they wished to know.
Until Mrs. Bell turned out to be very fond of Marianne's landscapes, when she stumbled across them. Then she wished to know very much where each likeness was taken from. Where Marianne had learned to draw. So Marianne gifted the majority of them to her. She did not gift the matronly woman with an answer to her inquiries.
She was glad to be rid of them once they were gone. Giving the drawings away was akin to removing a heavy ball and chain from her ankles, for how free she felt without them.
The rest of the staff were not so convinced of her sincerity as their superiors. Thus, she remained an outsider to them. Not included in their jokes and merriment, nor their complaining and misery when either arose.
It was a wariness Marianne was accustomed to.
She looked like a typical sort of street urchin when she first arrived. She spoke like a ruffian. That was more than enough evidence for most to disdain her with a clear conscience. They cared little, if at all, that she herself was not actually a street child or ruffian of any kind. She had not been raised in the way they imagined such a person would be.
However, she had long ago lost the energy to disabuse people of those notions they dreamed up on sight of her.
There was also the small issue of Marianne not having the foggiest notion what she was supposed to be doing most of the time. Well, she could clean a room until you could confidently eat off of any surface within. She knew how to shine a shoe, mend a boot, sew a button. That was the extent of her accomplishments in the domestic arts.
Maintaining the necessary etiquette and decorum to perform her duties was even more of a challenge to get through each day. There was just so much she did not know, but others had apparently learned as children. She could not even perform a curtsy properly until Mrs. Bell showed her how.
Marianne was thankfully talented enough as an actress to bluff her way through interactions with the family. The other members of the household, however, saw right through to her cluelessness.
It made no matter. None of her fellows complained. None of the family complained. She settled into a sense of security she had not felt in a very, very long time.
But then the ball was announced.
That trice damned ball.
It sent the entire house into a flurry of activity. Well, a more accurate way of putting it would be to say the household positively erupted into complete pandemonium the instant Small George the undergardener came back from town with the news. That cheeky little Prince had to go and invite every single young woman in the kingdom, didn't he?
Marianne could not for the life of her understand why. She'd never heard any generosity of that particular brand being displayed before. Not in their kingdom, or any other.
It meant every able bodied woman within a thousand miles intended to attend. Including not only those of the family she waited on, who she was sure would have been invited regardless, but those of the wait staff as well.
This, of course, meant they were all in high spirits. But it also meant they were all in for a lot more work.
Everyone, and Marianne truly meant everyone, was in uproar.
Nothing was at all prepared. Not even close to being so.
For none of the family could be seen to arrive at the Palace in any clothing remotely 'old'. Meaning no article of clothing they had worn so much as once. And nothing would do but for their new clothing, specially ordered for the event, to be three times as spectacular as their regular formal attire.
It was an object Marianne did not believe to be attainable.
The ladies in waiting, maids, and even the cooks were all enlisted into the endeavour of acquiring all the necessary splendour for their mistresses. Unlike other such find events, they also had their own interests at heart in regards to that particular ball.
Each and every spare quarter hour was spent desperately trying to run up a gown which might hop to be remotely worthy of gracing the Palace ballroom. Those who were particular favourites of the ladies of the house were lucky enough to be gifted with older gowns which the ladies no longer wore. Either because they had outgrown them, or they had committed the sin of falling out of fashion.
Such kindness ensured they had far less to do in order to make a gown that would not embarrass them or their employers to be seen at the Palace in. In turn, it left them more time to devote to their ladies.
The young women not so fortunate spent their waking moments picking apart their best gowns to run them up as a la mode as they could manage. If they had some coin kept back they spent it on some new, good material, and ran up a gown completely anew. And stuffed every petticoat they owned underneath the skirt in the hopes of achieving the full shape currently in fashion.
Marianne heard several other maids not satisfied with the results, and discussing whether to buy more petticoats for the occasion.
"I could get one or two nice 'n thick ones," Bernadette pondered aloud to Nora, "That'd do me well good for the winter. 'S not a waste or nothin', gettin' a new petticoat? Righ'?
They were not the only girls in the mansion with such concerns. In fact, Marianne felt as though she were the only creature in the land unconcerned with the ball.
She did not quite understand why they were so excited for the ball. Marianne would not sit in a stuffy room with people who despised her, looked down on her and every soul like her, for all the riches in the kingdom. It may be a grand occasion. It may be hers and their only chance to ever see inside of the Palace. But she could easily say, thank you, but no, to all of it.
She did accept that other may not give a damn that some Duke of this, or Earl of that, thinks ill of them. Or that they may be living in blissful ignorance. There was every chance such ill feeling among the upper classes would not affect their enjoyment of the evening in the slightest bit. It was a type of courage and confidence Marianne admired.
The ability to be seen just as you are before royalty and not care should they find you lacking was one she did not possess. Marianne would be like to say or do something which would see her thrown into the dungeons for the rest of her natural life. If not executed.
So she decided to lend the girls a hand.
Instead of scrubbing down the ten rooms she was assigned each week, she cleaned twelve, thirteen, or fourteen. As many as she could. She shined and mended any of the ladies' shoes, riding boots, or slippers she saw waiting below stairs.
Marianne knew she was putting herself out to assist women who had never liked her, and probably never would. She felt it was worth it, as her efforts were not entirely selfless.
In the weeks leading up to the ball, there was talk of nothing but dresses, and seamstresses, and petticoats, and slippers, and shoe roses, and fans, and hair pins, and jewellery, and hairstyles. Just about every duty which was not thought to be essential was postponed in favour of ensuring everything was prepared for the young ladies of the family to woo the Prince. With every instance she was imposed upon to be involved in the aforementioned preparations, it became increasingly obvious that she was entirely clueless in those matters.
But if she appeared to be busy, she was left to finish her duties. Thus, she was able to maintain some vestiges of the illusion she was capable of serving such a high ranking family.
Even so, she lived in anticipation of receiving her weeks' notice at any moment.
It never came.
Marianne tried to find an opportunity to thank Mrs. Bell for her kindness. And to beg for its continuance. For it could not have been any other who was responsible for her continued employment. Marianne had somehow made a favourable impression on the matronly housekeeper. She seemed to prefer Marianne to the other maids, or at least pity her, for she was always extremely patient and attentive toward her.
Also, there was not another soul in the household who liked her enough to keep her around.
But Mrs. Bell never afforded her such an opportunity. Whenever Marianne tried to get the words out the older woman would send her off on an errand. Or give her some menial task to do in the house which prohibited 'loitering about and yapping, girl'. Eventually, she did as Mrs. Bell wished and gave up on the endeavour.
After those trying, hectic weeks, Marianne had hoped things would settle down. The family was fully prepared for the ball. Their duties had returned to what they had been before the big announcement.
All that was left for the staff to do was prepare themselves for the occasion. And they had plenty of time yet.
So she had hoped for some relative peace before the arrival of the oncoming storm that was the day of the ball itself. Though she did not intend to go herself, Marianne was certain she would be swept into the pure insanity of getting the family and her fellow maids ready. To be perfectly honest, it was an inevitability she dreaded, but had come to accept.
To her dismay, she received no such respite.
The past weeks had only been the beginning. For once the nobility were all accounted for and prepared, old Mrs. Bell turned her keen eyes on Marianne. The woman's motives for doing so were, to Marianne, completely unfathomable.
A/N - Hey, if anyone wants to chat, or request anything you can message me here. Or you can find me on tumblr by searching either UnpredictableWitchOfTheSouthWest or genericfanfictionrecs. I'm always open to suggestions, and since this fic is totally unbeated, I'd appreciated it if any mistakes were pointed out so I can fix them.
