Mother

At first, Eugene had been alarmed when he came up to Cinderella's chambers that morning and found her bed empty, but a moments thought told him that the various ghastly visions that had filled his mind of kidnap, disappearance or flight were more his paranoia talking than anything likely.

His second instincts turned out to be the correct ones when he went downstairs and found Cinderella in the nursery, curled up asleep on the settee by the door.

She looked so peaceful, his lovely angel who was almost as beautiful when sleeping, her face serene in repose, as she was when she opened her sapphire eyes and her face was suffused with life and happiness, that a part of Eugene was loathe to wake her up. But it was half-past seven in the morning already and it was probably time.

And so he knelt by the side of the settee, and for a moment he stared at Cinderella's slumbering face, framed by her strawberry blonde hair as it fell loosely onto her cheek, resting on her bare arms; so beautiful.

Then he gave her a gentle nudge. "Cinderella, it's time to wake up."

Cinderella murmured something indistinct, before her blue eyes fluttered open. "Oh. Eugene; good morning," she said.

"Good morning," Eugene said, a smile beginning to spread across his face. "Did you sleep well?"

"I suppose I-" Cinderella lifted her head off her arms, and only then seemed to notice what she was sleeping on. "Where am I?"

"In the nursery," Eugene said, with a smile on his face.

"Oh," Cinderella said. "Oh, yes, of course. I must have fallen asleep."

"Clearly," Eugene said dryly. "But if you were tired there's still a perfectly good bed up in your room."

Cinderella gave him a look that was a little amused and rather exasperated. "I'm afraid the perfectly good bed is a little too big for just one person."

Eugene didn't reply to that. While since his return from the American War and all through Cinderella's pregnancy he had shared her bed almost every night, since the birth of the girls he had been a complete stranger to it, kissing Cinderella good night at the door to her chambers before returning to his own to spend the night. Cinderella had made it quite clear that she was bothered and unhappy about this, but she had never quite come out and asked him why he had suddenly changed his habits; for which Eugene was quite grateful. He had a reason, and a very good one in his mind, but it was also a reason that Cinderella seemed unlikely to appreciate, and he didn't want to argue with her over it. So he said nothing, and waited for her to drop the subject.

She did, thankfully, moving on to an explanation of why she was asleep in the nursery. "I thought I heard Annabelle crying, so I came down to check on the girls."

"Were they alright?"

"It was actually Isabelle who was crying," Cinderella said, as she got off the settee and rose to her feet. "But I was able to calm her down. But I didn't want to leave them right away after that, and then… I suppose I fell asleep."

"If you're going to make a habit of this then at least wear a nightgown with sleeves," Eugene said, placing his hands on Cinderella's bare, pale arms as he kissed her good morning. "It won't do the girls any good at all if their mother catches her death of cold while tending to them."

Unfortunately, that was not an idle worry for anyone at the moment. This very winter, shortly after the New Year's turn, Philippe's grandmother Madame Clairval had caught a winter chill… not long afterwards she was dead. For all that Madame Clairval had been an old woman and Cinderella was young, nevertheless Eugene had some doubts about her health: childbirth had nearly taken her from him and she didn't always eat as much as she ought to. He could not, would not, be complacent where she was concerned.

"The weather is starting to warm up now," Cinderella said. "I don't feel cold."

"All the same, I worry about you," Eugene said, pulling her close into an embrace and kissing her on the top of her head. "I always have, and I think I always will."

Cinderella closed her eyes as she rested her head on his chest. "I know. It's very sweet, even if it is a little frustrating at times."

Eugene chuckled. "If you won't take care for my sake then at least think of the children. What would they do without their mother?"

"Well, I hope you're not offended if I say I don't entirely trust you to choose a good stepmother," Cinderella said, and her eyes twinkled as she looked up at him with a slight smile. "Even my father wasn't able to do that well."

"Cinderella," Eugene said. "I'm being sincere."

"Then I sincerely hope that you believe me when I say I have no intention of letting my children grow up without me," Cinderella declared. "I mean to love them for each and every day, for many, many days to come."

The children chose that moment to wake up, as the sound of crying rose from the crib behind Eugene.

Eugene let go of Cinderella as his wife led the way towards the cradle, smiling down at their girls as she bent down over the ornate wooden crib. "Good morning, darlings," she said, as she scooped up the bawling Isabelle in her arms. "Good morning, Isabelle. Are you hungry, my dear? Eugene, would you please undo my nightgown?"

They had a wetnurse – and a head nurse, and an upper nurse, and an under nurse; in fact the only position in the nursery that remained unfilled was that of nursery governess - if only because Cinderella was so busy, but her own inclinations were to breastfeed the girls herself when possible, and the latest literature on good motherhood supported her in this approach. So Eugene deftly unfastened the back of Cinderella's white nightgown so that she could shrug it off her shoulder and expose her breast, on which little Isabelle gratefully began to suckle a moment later.

As Cinderella smiled down at her suckling babe, Eugene lifted Annabelle out of the crib and couldn't help but laugh at the greedily envious eyes she was shooting towards Isabelle as she fed.

Eugene, honestly, felt a touch of fear that he might have to try and find some way of keeping his other daughter amused and distracted until it was her turn – and how would he know the first thing about how to do that – but as she was still feeding Isabelle Cinderella began to sing. It was a simple song, about a mother's love for her children, but it was sung in her lovely voice and made even more lovely for being sung not only with that voice but from that gentle heart and filled with the love she felt for their sweet babes. It gently caressed them, and calmed them both as she fed first Isabelle, and then Annabelle, and laid them both back down in their cradle looking happy and contented, for the moment at least.

She leaned over the cradle, looking down upon them both with a fond smile illuminating her face.

"They're perfect, aren't they?" she asked him, her voice soft so as not to disturb the two of them.

Eugene put his hand on top of Cinderella's. "They are. Have you thought any more about who you want as nursery governess?"

Cinderella shook her head slowly. "I'm spoiled for choice." She glanced at him. "And I'm a little worried about offending whoever I don't choose."

"These people love you," Eugene told her, as if she needed reminding. "I'm not entirely sure that it's possible for you to offend them, even if you wanted to."

Cinderella smiled at him, if only for a moment. "All the same, I still don't know who to choose. They all…I suppose that it would be easier if I knew what kind of a person I wanted as the governess. Angelique would be very no-nonsense, I'm sure, but is that what I want? Is it what we want?"

"It might counterbalance your kindness."

"You make it sound as if Angelique isn't kind, which isn't true at all," Cinderella said. "She's very kind, she just…you understand, don't you?"

"Yes," Eugene said.

"Christine is very clever; Augustina would teach them how to behave like real ladies, so they wouldn't have to try and work it out as they went along and make so many mistakes as their mother," Cinderella continued.

"If they're half as successful as you've been in so short a time they'll have cause to think themselves lucky," Eugene said.

Cinderella shook her head as though she didn't quite believe him, as though she wasn't the most beloved member of the royal family by far, as though she hadn't changed government policy, ruled Armorique, done so many things that any born prince or princess would be proud of. She shook her head as though she still didn't understand just how wonderful she was.

Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she never would.

That, in its own way, was a part of what made her so wonderful.

Cinderella had gently teased Eugene that she didn't trust him to choose a good stepmother for the girls if anything were to happen to her – but as she'd made clear, that wasn't an insult to him, since her father had chosen particularly well either – but the truth was that since Madame Clairval had so sadly passed away she had found it much easier to understand just why Papa had decided that marrying again had been in Cinderella's best interest. Since young Philippe found himself without a grandmother, Cinderella had come to the same conclusion that her father had after Cinderella's mother passed away: Philippe needed a mother's care. His grandfather, the King, was very fond but also very busy, and Eugene… Cinderella hoped that Eugene would be closer to his daughters than he was to his son. Cinderella was busy herself, but not so busy that she couldn't make time for her stepson, and although wherever he lived in the palace Philippe would still find most of his needs being taken care of by servants, nevertheless Cinderella wanted to do what she could for him, and to have him close by so that she could keep an eye on him. And so, with the permission of His Majesty, Philippe had been moved out of his former room in the King's Tower and across the palace to the Queen's Tower, where Cinderella dwelt.

And it was to this new room that Cinderella went after bidding the girls good morning and feeding them – Eugene didn't come with her, as he had left to speak to his father… Cinderella really did hope he would be more present in the lives of his daughters than he was in his son – to find that Madeline, the upper nurserymaid, was waiting for her outside the door.

"Good morning, ma'am," Madeline said, as she curtsied.

"Good morning, Madeline," Cinderella said. "Is he awake?"

"Oh, no ma'am, I know as how you like to wake him yourself," Madeline said.

"Thank you," Cinderella said, as she gently pushed open the door into the bedroom.

Philippe's new room was set into the east side of the tower, and once the curtains were drawn the light would stream in to fill the whole room with airy brightness. But Cinderella didn't want to wake Philippe up by unexpectedly and rudely drawing the curtains on him. Instead, while Madeline lingered in the doorway, Cinderella crept across the room – narrowly avoiding tripping over a toy horse on the way – and knelt down by Philippe's bedside. It occurred to her with a degree of amusement that Eugene had done the exact same thing to her not long ago.

She gave Philippe a couple of gentle nudges. "Philippe? Wake up, Philippe, its morning."

Philippe murmured something indistinct, shuffled and squirmed under the covers of his bed, and then blearily opened his eyes. He was his father in miniature, and only seemed to be becoming more like him as he got older. He was only five years old but already the resemblance was uncanny to Cinderella's eyes. There was no mistaking whose son he was.

If only-

Cinderella pushed that thought aside. Eugene had his reasons, she was sure.

Just as he had his reasons for having forsaken her bed since the girls were born.

But now wasn't the time to be thinking about that either, and so Cinderella put all of that to the back of her mind as she greeted Philippe with a smile as bright as the day that was about to greet him too. "Good morning, Philippe? Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," he said, as he rubbed his eyes and yawned, which somewhat called the answer into question. "Good morning, mother."

Cinderella froze. The smile became fixed on her face. Had she just heard him right? Surely she must have misheard him, or else he had misspoken, because he couldn't… had he just called her 'mother'?

"Philippe," she murmured, and she was afraid that she couldn't stop herself from sounding a little bit nervous. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said 'good morning, mother'," Philippe said, proving that it was neither a mistake nor a sign that she needed to have her ears looked at. He frowned a little. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Cinderella said quickly, because as much as she wasn't sure what she felt about what he had just said to her – and heavens knew what Eugene would say when he found out about it – it wasn't Philippe's fault, and she had no desire to be cross with him or to even make him think that she was upset with him. So she brightened her smile once more, and filled her voice with warm assurance. "No, of course not." She kissed him on the forehead, before sweeping over to the curtains and flinging them open to admit the light. "How can anything be wrong on such a lovely morning?"

Philippe began to climb out of bed. "Good morning, Maddy."

Madeline's smile was fond as she curtsied. "Good morning, your grace. I'm glad to hear you slept well."

"How are my sisters, mother?" Philippe asked.

There it was again, but Cinderella ignored it, focussing more upon the question that he had actually asked. He really was a sweet boy, to ask about his half-sisters like that without a trace of jealousy. "They're both very well this morning, thank you so much for asking." She walked back to the bed, sitting against the centre of the north wall, and sat down upon it. "Now, what are you doing today?"

Philippe looked a little unhappy. "I have to learn grammar."

Cinderella covered her mouth with one hand as she let out a little chuckle. "You don't sound very happy about that."

Philippe folded his arms grumpily. "I'd rather eat sprouts!"

Cinderella chuckled again. "Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, but Philippe you must pay attention and work hard in your lessons."

"But why?"

"Because," Cinderella hesitated for a moment, wondering whether the answer that immediately came to mind was suitable for a child. She decided that it was, or at least that it might be, although she hoped not. "Because, if you don't pay attention to your lessons and your education, other people will realise that there are a lot of things you don't know that they do, and they will laugh at you for it, even if it is only behind your back. And they might even take advantage of you because they think you're stupid. So it's important that you work very hard, so that no one ever has any reason to look down on you. And besides, I'm sure it's what your grandmother would want, so will you work hard, for our sakes?"

Philippe looked sullen for a moment, but then he said, "Alright, I will."

"Good boy," Cinderella said. "It might be hard work but it will be worth it, I promise. And not all of your lessons will be boring. You'll learn to ride a horse, and fence with a sword like your father." That wasn't something Cinderella was necessarily looking forward to, but Philippe certainly looked excited at the prospect. "But only if you concentrate on your grammar."

"I will, I will," Philippe said, with more enthusiasm this time. "What are you doing today, mother?"

"I am going to check on the refugees, and see that they have… well, everything they need, or at least as much as we can give them," Cinderella said. Eugene said the war between Aquitaine and it's Gallic allies and the Holy Roman Empire, which had been going on since before Cinderella's marriage, was beginning to turn decisively in the Empire's favour; and Eugene had been to war, and led the armies of Armorique to victory, and so Cinderella thought that he understood these things. General Gerard seemed less certain, he believed that Aquitaine could yet turn the tide, but the refugees who were beginning to cross the border into Armorique from the south did not seem to agree with him. They entered the country in long columns, some of them with wagons or hand-carts loaded up with their possessions, others bearing nothing at all. Many of them had made their way as far as Brest itself, where Cinderella was leading efforts to provide for them on the outskirts of the city. "And then I need to talk to the city council about what else we might do for them."

"Oh," Philippe said. "Does this mean you won't have time to play with me today."

"Of course not, Philippe, I always have time for you," Cinderella said, kneeling down on the floor and hugging him warmly. The guide to motherhood and household management that she had read stated authoritatively that what it called 'the children's hour', the hour when the mother devoted herself entirely to the care of her children ot the exclusion of all else, should be an institution in every household, a happy time for the children – indeed, according to the guide it should be the happiest time of their day – and a relief for the servants; and while to an extent the guide primarily existed to provide Cinderella with justification for doing what her instincts led her to want to do anyway – if the book had told her that ignoring the children as much as humanly possible in a bid to toughen them up was the height of good motherhood she would probably have ignored it – she was glad to be told that, in this at least, her instincts where correct. She endeavoured to spend at least one hour of each day with Philippe, and another with the girls, and never so far had she spent less than an hour a day with each of them, not counting good mornings and bedtimes. If that meant that she had to read some papers late into the night, or work a little harder at her other tasks and duties during the day to get them done quicker, then what of that?

She kissed him again, on the cheek this time. "Now, I have to leave you with Madeline now, but I promise that I will see you later." She got up. "I'm looking forward to it already. Goodbye, Philippe!" she called, as she walked to the door.

"Goodbye, Mother!"

Cinderella looked back, and smiled at him, but when she closed the door she let out a sigh that was as troubled as her heart.

He called me mother. He called me mother. And she had no idea what to do about it.

"Princess? Are you alright?"

Cinderella looked up, to see Angelique standing in front of her, wearing a red dressing-gown over her nightdress, looking a little worried.

"Angelique," Cinderella said. "How many times do I have to ask you to call me Cinderella?"

"You can ask as many times as you want, so long as you're not trying to change a more important subject," Angelique replied, displaying exactly the attitude that would, Cinderella felt, make her a very no-nonsense governess. "You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Cinderella shook her head. "It's nothing, really. I don't want to bother you with it, I'm sure that you were on your way somewhere important."

"I was going down to get the papers, but this is more important," Angelique said. "Is something wrong with Philippe? Is he ill?"

"No, he's fine," Cinderella said. She hesitated for a moment, but Angelique was very wise after all, certainly when it came to people, and Cinderella might as well ask the advice of someone that she trusted. "He called me 'mother'," she said, after a moment. "More than once, so I know that it wasn't a mistake. Philippe, he… he called me 'mother'."

"I see," Angelique said, as she nodded slowly. She folded her arms. "Does that upset you?"

"It doesn't make me cross, if that's what you mean," Cinderella said. Her own stepmother had gotten very annoyed whenever Cinderella had called her 'mother', even when father was alive she hadn't liked it and she had definitely refused to tolerate it after Cinderella's father died. She was not Cinderella's mother, she had no intention of being Cinderella's mother, and she wasn't going to give Cinderella even the illusion of comfort that might come from letting her pretend that she might be.

"Honestly, I can't say that I'm surprised," Angelique said.

"Aren't you?" Cinderella asked.

"He's five years old and his mother died bringing him into the world," Angelique said. "Meanwhile you kiss him good morning, you kiss him goodnight, you tell him stories, you play with him… you're the only mother he's ever known."

"But I'm not his mother," Cinderella replied. "He had a mother who loved him, even if she isn't with us any longer. It feels… it feels a little disrespectful to her, and to his grandmother as well, as though I'm trying to pretend that Katharine didn't exist." Cinderella had never known Katharine, the ballet dancer who had been Eugene's mistress before he and Cinderella met and were married, but from what General Gerard had told her she had been a good, kind woman, and her mother Madame Clairval had impressed Cinderella very much. It was a great regret of Cinderella's that she wasn't able to get advice on how to be a good mother from her, someone who had actually been a mother. It felt wrong, in some way, to take their son and grandson away from them by allowing him to think of Cinderella as his mother.

"I'm sure he isn't going to forget his grandmother," Angelique said. "And with the best will in the world… he'll never know that other woman the way that he knows you…never love her the way that he loves you. How can he? You're right here, and he never even saw her face."

Cinderella pursed her lips. Angelique made a lot of sense, but all the same… "What will Eugene say about it?" she asked. Eugene had loved Katharine, loved her so much that there was a good chance that she, not Cinderella, would have been the princess of Armorique if she had lived - and been willing to marry Eugene. He might not take kindly to Cinderella attempting to supplant her in Philippe's heart.

"Is he ever around the boy long enough to find out?" Angelique asked.

"Angelique," Cinderella said, with just a touch of sharpness entering her voice. "That's rather unkind of you to say."

Angelique cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, princess; forgive me. The point is… can I be frank?"

"Of course," Cinderella said. She smiled. "Are you ever not?"

Angelique snorted. "The time for you to be worrying about this was before you decided to move him up here and be his mother, not now. Do you regret it?"

"No," Cinderella said, at once and with a little hurt in her voice that Angelique would suggest it. "No, of course not, I love him."

"Then if that's true and you don't actually dislike him calling you mother I don't see what you have to worry about," Angelique said. "He's not calling you that because he's putting a lot of thought into it and how his late grandmother, god rest her soul, fits into it. He calls you mother because you are his mother, because he can see that plain as day; I think that deep down you can see it too. And if his highness can't see it… no offence but perhaps he needs to look harder.

"But… if you don't want him to you then can always tell him to stop."

"Yes," Cinderella murmured. Yes, she could do that. She could remind him that she was only his stepmother and he was only her stepson and Isabelle and Annabelle were only his half-sisters, but what would that do to him? Cinderella had never loved Lady Tremaine, but it had still hurt her to be rebuffed, to be so forcefully reminded that the woman was not and had no intention of being her mother, especially after her father died when it was made clear to her that her only family was gone and she was not welcome in the 'family' that remained to her.

She couldn't do that to Philippe. She wouldn't. Not now that she was his family. No, it would be too cruel.

"I could tell him to stop," Cinderella said. "But I won't."

Angelique smiled. "I never really thought you would."

Cinderella would just have to hope that Eugene understood that it was as Angelique had said: she was Philippe's mother now.

Author's Note: Cinderella's indecision about who to appoint as the governess mirrors my own; all of the candidates have merits and I can't really make up my mind between them.

On Philippe calling Cinderella 'mother' and whether she should allow it, after I had the idea I looked on some mothering websites to see what the consensus was and found opinions mixed on whether to allow it. I take comfort in knowing that I'm not 'wrong' even if I'm not 100% right.

Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management recommended that 'the children's hour' should be an institution in every home, and that mothers should breastfeed their own children wherever possible. Cinderella's position means that she won't always have time (or, indeed, energy) but it felt in character for her to at least do some of it.

Readers who were here for the first go around of this story will have noticed that this chapter appeared considerably later the first time around. As part of the rewrite we're shifting some things round a bit and starting with Cinderella rather than belle. That's because I want to establish a bit of the situation in Armorique with the refugees and such, and how the war is affecting Armorique – and Normandie, through Frederica – before going to Belle and their offer from the Imperial sisters.