Cinder and Blood

3

For the next couple of days, Lady Octavia made sure Elle was treated moderately better. She was allowed to have two extra helpings of rice in the evenings for dinner, Lucinda gave her an old bar of scented soap to wash with before bed, and Igraine let her have a bottle of perfume she didn't particularly like.

In that time, Elle was falling behind on her chores. Lady Octavia feared it would blister her hands and thin out her nails. Hands are a dead giveaway to a lady's position in life. The chores could wait until after the ball, she could overlook the dust on the wooden furniture a little longer, as long as it keeps her daughters away from the castle and the king that resides in it.

When Friday finally came, Elle had some colour in her cheeks and no longer smelled like cleaning soap. But she still smelled of the murky attic, and her cheeks were still sunken considerably. She looked like a peasant now rather than a maid. A tad better than before, but not good enough to convince the guests at the ball of her 'noble' descent.

So, early Friday morning, Lady Octavia began her preparations.

The older woman scrubbed her down with every scented bar of soap in the house. Her hair was washed with special lathers to restore its natural shine, her nails scrubbed raw to clean it of dirt, and her whole body shaved to represent the softness of a newborn babe.

"She still looks like a peasant, mother," says Igraine when Elle stands before them, hair and body dripping wet.

Lady Octavia circles the girl critically, disgusted that a week of feeding and nurturing her only brought her this. Only now, does she see the holes in her plan. Elle is too thin, her ribs too visible under her skin, her chest too flat, and her collarbone too evident.

"Quick," she says to Igraine when checking the time, "the dress."

The eldest sister brings the crimson dress and shoves it against Elle's chest, a silent order to put it on.

Lady Octavia watch in silent dread as the gown sags around the girl's frame. In desperate frustration, she even pulls the corset tighter than it can go, but still, there is a considerable gap between the bodice and Elle's chest. That is as small as dress sizes go, any smaller than that and they might just go out to buy a children's gown.

No, the lady of the house would not give in that easily.

"Lucinda, bring me your oldest corset, the one you wore when you were fifteen," she commands to her youngest. To her eldest, she says, "Igraine, bring me your stockings – all of them. Quick, quick!"

The stepsisters run off to bring their mother what she ordered. After having Elle put on a corset a few sizes too small, and filling her bodice up with stockings, the dress miraculously stays. Next, Lady Octavia starts on the girl's hair and face.

Elle watches herself take another shape through the mirror on her stepmother's dresser. Her face is patted white with a flour-base powder, her cheeks brushed with mercury to give them a natural blush, and her lips lightly painted with dusky red vermilion. Lady Octavia braids a piece of her hair and twists it around her head, pinning it in place with some of the pins Lucinda doesn't use anymore.

Once she is satisfied, Elle is allowed to see the end result in the full-length mirror. She momentarily forgets how to breathe upon seeing the girl staring back at her. She is...beautiful. Although still too frail and thin to be considered fit for bearing children, this girl looks the opposite of a maid. Her hair shines in the late afternoon sun leaking through the window, her skin appears as flawless as porcelain, and the dress...

She knows it's not as expensive as the ones the other women buy for themselves, but it looks beautiful, nonetheless.

She looks beautiful.