In Greater Numbers
"Thank you all for joining me, ladies," Cinderella said, as her ladies-in-waiting - her current ladies, one should say, or perhaps her old ladies; no, not her old ladies, not only were they all very young but none of them were leaving her service just yet - gathered with her in the sitting room.
Getting them all together like this laid bare just how few 'them all' really was. When Cinderella had first returned to the palace from her honeymoon there had been so many ladies-in-waiting... waiting for her that it had been a struggle for them all to find a seat. Since then... Theodora, Serena, Grace, all gone, and only Lady Christine to replace them, if one did not count the short-lived tenure of Drizella. That had not been one of Cinderella's better ideas, she had to admit.
And so there were only four of them now, and none of them had any trouble at all finding somewhere to sit. Marinette sat next to Cinderella on the settee, while Augustina grabbed the big red armchair and moved it a little so that it was closer to Cinderella's left hand side. Lady Christine sat in the blue armchair, the smaller one, with her back to the door, and Angelique had the spindly wooden chair with the padded seat.
"We are at your service, your highness," Lady Christine reminded her.
"Yes, Lady Christine, I remember," Cinderella said. "But thank you, nonetheless." She paused. "As you all know, this household of ours has become rather a little household, and will become even smaller once Angelique and Jean are wed."
"If that ever happens," muttered Augustina.
"If... what's that supposed to mean?" Angelique sputtered indignantly.
"It means that other than Lieutenant Taurillion getting a ring and popping the question, neither of you have done anything, absolutely anything, in the way of preparing for your wedding, let alone your marriage," Augustina pointed.
"Is it a great deal of work?" inquired Cinderella.
Augustina stared at her. Lady Christine's eyebrows rose.
"It was all done for me!" Cinderella protested. "The only say I had in my wedding was choosing Lucrecia as my dressmaker. Everything else... Hus Majesty commanded His Grace to arrange it and His Grace snapped his fingers and it was all done inside a few days."
"A tribute to His Grace's powers of organisation, I'm sure," Lady Christine murmured. "I'm sorry to say that I missed Your Highness' wedding - and everything else, for that matter, the night before the ball at which your highness and his highness met I came down with the flu and couldn't get out of bed until after you had set off on your honeymoon - but I'm told it was a splendid event."
"Until someone tried to shoot the princess," Angelique said.
"True," Cinderella admitted. "But it was ever so magical until then. But I'm afraid we may be getting off the point."
"The point, if I may, is that there is a lot of work thar goes into a wedding," Augustina declared. "And neither Angelique nor Lieutenant Taurillion seem to have done any of it."
"That's because we haven't," replied Angelique. "But we will! And besides, it's not as though we can leave until after the peace conference anyway-"
"Angelique!" Cinderella cried. "Please don't tell me that you're postponing your wedding on my account."
Angelique smiled. "As you wish, princess, I shan't tell you."
"Angelique," Cinderella said, endeavouring to sound a trifle stern with her.
"Your Highness," Angelique said. "If everything goes as you and His Majesty wish then this city is going to be full up to bursting with every royal and noble in Europe and who knows who else besides. And while I may have been wrong about the old woman at the gate last Christmas I'm not wrong that an awful lot of people who find their way up here mean you no good at all, especially when it comes to stuck up nobles who think they're better than you. Even if I could ask Jean to leave you in the hands of Lieutenant L'Escroc, which I couldn't... I don't want to leave you to face all that without me. I can't do it. Jean will keep, and so will I; it's not we're going to fall out of live with one another over a bit of a delay. We're both here until this is over, if your highness will have us still."
Cinderella smiled, one hand going to her heart, her fingertips resting upon her skin. "Oh, yes," she declared. "Yes, of course, Angelique, I'm delighted that you'll still be here. So you long as you don't feel you have to stay, that's all." She fell silent for a moment or two, her smiling gaze lingering upon dear Angelique, before she cleared her throat. "In any case," she said, "although it seems as though I won't be losing Angelique or Jean so soon, the fact is that I have only your four ladies-in-waiting - not that I'm not very happy with you all, if course, you mustn't think otherwise, but a princess' household isn't meant to be this small, and I could use some advice from different perspectives to yours. And so, well, the reason I've called you all together is to welcome four new ladies-in-waiting to our household."
"Four?" Lady Christine repeated. "I was aware of Mademoiselle Garnier, but..."
"But there are others, yes Lady Christine," Cinderella said. "Eugene and I have discussed this, and he agreed, and so did Sieur Robert."
"Sieur Robert," Augustina murmured. "Sieur Robert... Danjou?"
Cinderella clapped her hands together and raised her voice to say, "Ladies, will you come in please? I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
As the door from the sitting room into the adjoining bedroom opened, Cinderella said, " Ladies, may I present to you the newest members of your company: Mademoiselle Julia Danjou, daughter of Sieur Robert and Lady Danjou; Mademoiselle Charlotte Garnier, daughter of Monsieur and Madame Garnier, and Mademoiselles Oscar de Gwengamp and Penelope de Plougnoven."
"Oscar de- Oscar and Penny?" Angelique gasped.
"You didn't think you were the only low born guttersnipe who could become a right proper lady, did you, Angelique?" Oscar asked as she, and the others, walked into the sitting room through the now-open door from the bedroom.
Oscar had exchanged her maid's clothes for a dress - simple, but pretty for it nonetheless - of moderate blue that matched her eyes; the shoulders were slightly puffed, and the sleeves went down to just below her elbows, leaving a patch of bare arm and wrist before the pale blue gloves that covered her hands. Cinderella liked wearing gloves because they concealed the fact that her hands were not as soft as those of someone who had been raised in luxury and comfort, and it seemed as though Oscar felt the same way. The skirt was a slightly lighter shade of blue than the bodice, closer to Oscar's gloves, and it widened out from her waist a little more than an A-line but not too much more. Around her neck, Oscar wore a somewhat tarnished locket on a string of black thread. Her reddish-brown hair, cut in a short, almost boyish fashion, looked a little odd when set against her new dress and gloves, but Cinderella supposed that she would get used to it soon enough.
Penelope, as was apparently her proper name, had chosen - Cinderella had asked Lucrecia to make something up for both of them, at Cinderella's own expense - a gown of champagne yellow, closer to the shade of her hair than of her eyes. The collar was trimmed with white lace, and the puffed shoulders left her hands and arms bare. A green sash, tied in a small knot at the side, separated the bodice from the narrow skirt, which likewise had a white lace trim at the bottom. Penelope had let down her blonde hair, and it hung loose and unrestrained down her back, except where it sprawled across her shoulders.
Angelique let out a sort of breathless laugh, as though she had been running very hard, and a smile escaped her as she got to her feet.
"You two," she said. She turned her eyes towards Cinderella. "You didn't say anything about this, Princess."
Cinderella shrugged. "I felt sure you'd approve."
Angelique snorted. "Well, I wouldn't have chosen these two, but I suppose you didn't have much-"
"If I wasn't a perfect proper lady now I'd punch you in the nose," Oscar interrupted her. "And I still might do it anyway."
"Oh, really?" Angelique asked. "And what's this 'de Gwengamp' stuff?"
"Well, you have to have a surname, don't you?" Oscar said. "And I didn't have a mother to tell me my name is Bonnet, and I'm not calling myself the name the orphanage gave me, so... I picked a name, and Penny - sorry, Penelope, did the same."
"Penelope," Angelique murmured. "I suppose it sounds better at balls and receptions." She grinned out of one corner of her mouth. "Congratulations, you two."
Penelope essayed a slightly clumsy curtsy. "Her Highness has agreed to give us dancing lessons."
"Really?" asked Lady Christine. "Where will Your Highness find the time?"
"Oh, I'm sure I'll manage somehow," Cinderella said. "I imagine it will be quite relaxing, amongst everything else going on. But, I'm afraid we may be making Julia and Charlotte feel a little ignored.
"That's quite alright, your highness," Charlotte said, curtsying in turn. "In the circumstances it's quite understandable."
"But that doesn't make it polite," Cinderella replied. "And please, don't let Lady Christine or Angelique mislead you, all my ladies have the right to call me Cinderella, if they wish to."
"But not all choose to... Cinderella?" asked Julia Danjou. She had her father's brown eyes, and wide as well, and her hair curled in much the same way as his, although it was darker, which Cinderella supposed she must have gotten from her mother. She wore her hair short, although the natural curliness of it meant it did not look so immediately unusual as Oscar did, and decorated with bejewelled pins set it, that sparkled like stars in the night sky of her dark hair. Her dress was grey, like a dense fog seen out of a window, with a full, ballgown skirt and sleeves falling off the shoulders before going on to cover her arms. A slender, delicate diamond necklace, only a single strand in thickness, wound around her neck.
"Some of us," Lady Christine observed in an arch tone, "like to observe some modicum of protocol and propriety."
"I must admit," Julia said. "It does seem a little odd that I should address you in more familiar terms than my father does."
"We are going to be spending more time together than your father and I," Cinderella pointed out. "And we shall be closer, better friends than your father and I, or at least I hope we shall. Please, everyone, sit down... if you can." That was the slight downside of having increased the size of her household at a stroke: accommodating them all within the sitting room. After all, there were now eight ladies, the most that she had ever had.
She really ought to have had more chairs put in, but that sort of thing never occurred to you until it was too late, did it?
Fortunately they were all able to find somewhere to sit, even if Penelope had to perch on the ottoman while Oscar grabbed the stool from the piano.
"Do you play, your highness?" asked Charlotte, nodding her head in the direction of the piano.
"No," Cinderella said. "I've tried to learn, on and off, since my marriage, but I haven't really made much progress. I've doing a little better with the flute, although I know that's much less impressive."
"Better than nothing," observed Julia. "I wasted all the money my father spent trying to teach me the violin. An army of tutors and the best I can manage is a screech like the wailing of a soul in torment. I'm afraid I won't be much good if you're expecting me to provide entertainment."
"That's quite alright, Julia," Cinderella said. "The only thing I expect from you, from any of you, is honest, good advice and companionship. Now, introductions: Oscar, Penelope, Julia, Charlotte, and I know that some of you may know some of you but, anyway, allow me to introduce Mademoiselle Angelique Bonnet, Mademoiselle Marinette Gérard, Mademoiselle Augustina du Bois and Lady Christine Roux."
"Charmed," Lady Christine said. She smiled. "So, we now have representation from all the three great parties in the state: myself, of course, for the liberals, Mademoiselle du Bois for the conservatives, and Mademoiselle Danjou now for... what are they called, the Danjouists? I must say, that hardly rolls off the tongue."
"I believe that many are calling my father's friends the Caroleans, after the Carolus Club where they have taken to meeting," said Julia. "But I know that my father, for one, prefers to regard himself as the true conservative, and the guardian of conservative values."
"Oh really?" asked Augustina. "And if Sieur Robert is the proper guardian of conservatism, them what of those who overthrew him?"
"Blinded by personal malice for some, by misplaced zeal for others," Julia said. "Conservatism cannot simply man the barricades if it is to be successful in the long term, it must take a pragmatic approach to the issues of the day, balancing a respect for tradition and what worked in the past with an understanding of the challenges that lie ahead in the future – or the present."
"Pragmatism sounds like another way of saying that one desires the party without principles that your father wished to create," said Augustina. "But a conservatism that is not grounded in a sincere sense of what it seeks to conserve will conserve nothing."
"And a party that is inflexible in its attitudes will be shattered upon the wheel of changing public mores," said Julia. "As you yourself must have recognised, Augustina, or else you would not have left Cinderella's service only to scuttle back again later on."
"I did," Augustina began. "I did what I did within the bounds and dictates of honour. I left because I could not be a party to actions of which I disapproved but at the same time, once the act was done then there wasn't point staying away any longer."
"Please, ladies, let's not argue politics," Cinderella urged. "You're all here to give different points of view on the issue of the day, not to fight with one another."
Julia bowed her head. "Very well, I shall refrain. I apologise... Augustina."
"Apology accepted," Augustina replied quickly, but without much warmth.
Lady Christine cleared her throat. "And what of you, Mademoiselle Garnier? How would you describe your politics? Radical?"
Charlotte shifted in her seat, the chiffon of her dress rustling as she moved. "My politics?" she asked, ever so quietly, "or my father's?"
Lady Christine's eyebrows rose. "You don't share your father's views?"
Charlotte hesitated. "It's hardly for me to say."
"You're not something unspeakable are you, like a republican?" asked Lady Christine. "Or a Pan-Gaullist?"
"Pan what?" asked Penelope. "If you don't mind explaining."
"You don't need to worry about speaking up, Penelope," Cinderella assured her. "None of you do. As for your question, Pan-Gaullists are-"
"Liberals," said Augustina.
"Not all liberals, thank you very much Mademoiselle du Bois," said Lady Christine sharply. "Most of us have far more sense, and do not stray into treason. Pan-Gaullists, as the name suggest, desire the unity of all Gallic peoples in a single, that nation is usually Aquitaine."
"Why?" Oscar asked. "Why them?"
"Because of their relative size compared to Armorique, Normandie or Flanders," Lady Christine said.
"Although I think, before his death, the King of Burgundy was flirting with the idea of presenting himself as a Gaullist champion," said Julia. "I know it concerned my father, before the King's death solved one problem and created another."
"That would have been bold of him," Augustina observed. "East Burgundy is more Teutonic than Gaullish."
Penelope frowned. "So... if this happened, if Aquitaine or this Burgundy place united all of the Gauls together... what would happen to Armorique? What would happen to..." she trailed off as she looked at Cinderella.
Cinderella herself looked down at her hands where they sat folded in her lap.
"That's the point," Cinderella murmured. "There would be no Armorique. And His Majesty, Eugene and I, the children-"
"Don't think about it," Marinette urged. "There's no need. It's only a few madmen who want that, and there are so many people who stand in their way. Etienne will protect you, and the people love you, and... and Aquitaine can't even defend itself, let alone take over Armorique." She paused. "Maybe... maybe it would be better to let them lose the war, so that they couldn't threaten us."
"Marinette!" Cinderella exclaimed. "What about all the people suffering, what about the refugees, what about those who will die if this war goes on?"
"Not to mention," Augustina added, "If the Empire wins the war and little Queen Mary weds little King Max, then when their children come to the thrones of Burgundy, Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia and the Empire itself Burgundy will become the westermark of an immense Hapsburg state of the kind not seen since the Romans divided their empire in two. I would not relish having that so close by."
"One problem solved, another created," Julia murmured. "Just as with the death of King Charles."
"It almost seems," Angelique said. "As if the best peace that His Majesty could negotiate would be someone unconnected to either Aquitaine or the Empire to come out of nowhere and take the throne of Burgundy, to stop either of the other two getting too strong."
"That wouldn't require a negotiation," said Augustina. "That would take a miracle."
"It's a rather gloomy thought that there isn't any way this war can end that will leave us safer," Cinderella said. "But I believe, I have to believe, that there is a way that we can satisfy each side enough to stop the fighting."
"You do not favour one side, then?" Julia asked. "I confess I thought you might be on the side of the Aquitainians."
Cinderella shook her head. "The plight of their people, forced to flee from their homes and seek shelter here... it moves me. I wish there was more that we could do for them without risking unrest. But their cause, this Queen Eleanor whom I've never met... I am not on their side, and neither is Armorique. Tomorrow I will call upon Prince Adam of the Franche-Comte and try to convince him that we can be trusted to deal fairly with both sides." A sigh passed between her lips. "Ever since I became a mother, I've found that I want most in all the world now is to leave to my children a world that is peaceful and prosperous and safe. I don't want Isabelle and Annabelle, or Philippe, to grow up in exile in Albion or Louisiana, I want... if it doesn't sound too selfish I want Isabelle to be Queen of Armorique with Philippe a duke at her court and Annabelle... happily married, whether that is to a foreign prince or a serving lad."
"It can be hardly be called selfish by any reasonable person," Lady Christine said, "that a princess, and a future queen, wishes that her heir should one day also be queen. As well call all men selfish who wish their children to inherit their estates."
Cinderella smiled, slightly and briefly. "Thank you, Lady Christine. And that is why my, as much as any other reason, I want to help His Majesty end this war, and find a way that peace can reign over the world once again."
"Would you say that we'd ever been friends?" Angelique asked.
"No," Oscar said, bluntly and without hesitation.
The two of them sat in Angelique's room, which was not spacious, but which did have room for them to sit on either side of the dressing table. Their hands were all that could be regularly seen reflected in the mirror.
"No," Angelique agreed, "me neither. I mean, I never took you lightly. When Jean asked you to come up here and serve the princess I understood why he'd done it. But I didn't like you."
"Not surprising," Oscar replied. "You and me, us... is she going to do something about that?"
"You mean the princess?" Angelique asked.
"Cinderella, exactly."
"Do something about what?"
"About the fact that there are people like us, living like we did," Oscar said. "They can't all become ladies in waiting or royal guards."
"Cinderella has already done things," Angelique insisted. "Food is cheaper now, and jobs in the factories aren't so dangerous, and she's been working on the idea of getting more children into school."
"School?" Oscar repeated, pulling a face. "Ugh."
"Those who are in the classroom aren't on the street," Angelique reminded her. "Plus, all the princess' rich business friends like the idea since it means they don't have to teach their own workers how to do sums, they can get the country to do it for them. At least, that's what Augustina says, and Lady Christine... isn't happy about the way that Augustina says it, but she can't say it's wrong. So it seemed as though the princess was pushing at an open door, you know?"
"But?"
"But then this peace conference... nobody has time for anything else," Angelique admitted.
Oscar folded her arms. "Can you answer me something about that?"
"I can try," Angelique said. "But I make no promises."
"Why now?" asked Oscar. "Hasn't this war was been going on for a while?"
"Yes," answered Angelique. "But the way I understand it is that the Aquitainians were doing pretty well until more recently, and then the Holy Roman Empire broke through and now they're up against it. That's why the refugees only arrived recently, before now the Aquitainians were holding their ground."
Oscar nodded. "Seems like the.. the Empire, isn't it? Why would they stop now, if they're winning?"
"Because they might not always be winning?" Angelique suggested. "I honestly don't know. You'd have to ask the princess herself. But there is a reason for it, I just can't remember what it is. This isn't all a big waste of time."
"Hmm," Oscar muttered. "I don't know much about the geography of Gallia and all that, but it seems to me that Aquitaine, and Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire, they're like us, fighting to keep people out of our streets, fighting to keep hold of our turf, because it's the only way we could survive. Like... that Pan-Gaullist thing that they talked about, it would be like someone trying to take over all our patches, and we wouldn't have liked that."
"But we could leave the streets behind," Angelique pointed out. "Kingdoms don't have that luxury."
"No," Oscar admitted. "But it's why we couldn't be friends, any more than they can be friends."
"The princess will make them..." Angelique stopped. "Maybe she won't make them friends, but she'll make them get along."
"Are you sure?"
Angelique nodded. "Since I've known her, the princess has done everything she's set her mind to and a few things she didn't realise she could do until she tried. Even though people have underestimated her, they've laughed at her behind her back, they've been cruel to her... she's beaten all of them in the end, and she's always won. You can always bet on Cinderella, and you always should, because she'll come out on top."
Oscar chuckled. "You really believe all that, don't you?"
Angelique smiled. "The Princess has that effect, if you let her. Once you get to know her... you can't help but love her."
"Well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Oscar said.
Angelique frowned. "How do you mean?"
Oscar drummer her fingers on the dressing table. "I... I was always jealous," she admitted. "Of you, and what you..."
Angelique didn't say anything. She would let Oscar finish.
Oscar scratched at one freckled cheek. "I like Penny well enough, but she wouldn't die for me," she said. "Not the way Jean would die for you. I was jealous of you, for that. Because you had this thing that I didn't, that looked so beautiful."
"I was very lucky," Angelique admitted. "I don't think... I don't know how to tell him how lucky I was to find him. How lucky I am to still have him."
"Maybe you can put it in your wedding speech," Oscar said. "Or your vows or something. I haven't congratulated you, have I? On being engaged?"
"No, you haven't."
"Then congratulations on being engaged," Oscar said. "I hope you have a long and happy life."
"Thank you."
"And then you're leaving?"
Angelique looked around. "There's not a lot of space here for a family."
Oscar nodded. "I suppose. So where are you going to go?"
"Jean has an estate in the country, near a place called Laon," Angelique said.
Oscar's eyes widened. "How did he get that?"
"It was confiscated from one if Princess Cinderella's enemies, and given to Jean as a reward," Angelique said. "The Princess rewards those who do right by her."
"So I see," Oscar muttered. "A country estate, that's not bad, is it?"
"No," Angelique agreed. "No, it isn't." She bit her lip. "Oscar, even though we aren't friends, even though we've never been friends, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad that you'll still be here when I'm not." She closed her eyes for half a moment.
"I love Cinderella. She's wonderful, kind, loyal... you have to be someone very special to take people like Jean and me and raise them to all this. She rescued me, and made me so much more than I ever dreamed I could be and for that I will be forever grateful-"
"But?"
"But she's also too nice for her own good," Angelique said. "She gives people chances when they don't deserve it, she trusts people who shouldn't be trusted, she can't see when people mean her harm as long as they hide it behind a smile. That's why she needs someone... someone to, not to look after her, but to see the things that she can't. Someone who isn't trusting, who isn't... all that nice, maybe."
"Thanks very much," Oscar muttered.
"I remember when you pulled a knife on me and threatened to cut my nose off over a loaf of bread."
"It was nice bread," Oscar replied defensively. "And I was hungry. And besides, Jean nearly broke my hand when he came out if nowhere and hit me with that broom handle of his. I couldn't pick anything up for a week."
"My point is," Angelique said. "The princess needs someone around her to see the things that she doesn't."
Oscar leaned forwards. "How about to do the things that she won't?"
Angelique shook her head. "I've never done anything like that," she said. "But, maybe if I had, things wouldn't have... but the princess would never stand for that."
"She doesn't have to find out. You just said-"
"I didn't say to take advantage of her good nature yourself?"
"Not even for her own good?"
Angelique hesitated. "How would you know what that was?"
"I'm not going to do anything rash, Angelique, I promise I'll give all my actions a lot of thought. But like you, like Jean, I've just been given a life better than anything I could have ever imagined for myself not too long ago.
"And that is worth a lot more than a loaf of bread to me."