Ric Arnold - Cinderella of Love

Myriam!

Mrs. Cornavin's shrill voice startled the girl. She whisked off under a pile of linen the exciting novel she was reading, «Love's Cinderella», and tried her best to look indifferent and wholly absorbed in her embroidering.

The door flew open and Mrs. Cornavin popped in, not unlike a wicked Jack-in-the-box.

A most unprepossessing female she was… Tall, raw boned, lanky as a stale kipper. With her spectacled, sharp-edged, inquisitive nose, her small restless eyes, her wrinkled old skin and flaccid dewlaps, her shabby grey hair drawn back tight into a horse tail, Myriam thought her the very picture of a witch.

She snapped tartly:

«Well! Myriam, would you mind answering when I call you?»

Myriam looked up, wondering. She looked up as a squirrel peeps over a nut, and there was a twinkle in her golden eyes.

«Did you call my aunt?»

«Yes indeed, and you heard it. But you were daydreaming as usual. For Heaven's sake when will you stop thinking the whole world is at your knees? Don't keep forgetting you owe your relations everything you have. I picked you, a charity girl, and brought you up as my own girls and there's your thanks for it, without me you'd be in the gutter as… as…»

She sought long for the appropriate word. «As a woman of the streets». And there's your thanks for it, you should be grateful to me.

«But my aunt, she feebly protested…

«Stop it, I'm talking… First of all, have you done with your work?»

Yes my aunt, I've finished all the embroideries… How lovely, aren't they? She was showing the dainty lawns and laces, the night gowns, the flimsy petticoats, the minute pants festooned and inlaid with lace heaped in front of her.

«Yes, but that's too good for you my girl. You're not the young lady in the manor house over there, and you'll wear these some day when pigs will fly.

«Who knows? whispered Myriam.

«You conceited fool, echoed Mrs. Corn»-vin's shrill voice. Pack all these things and take them up to the manor house. Mademoiselle Ghislaine expects her father to-night and she wants to look pretty.

«She doesn't need all this to look lovely!

«Nobody asked for your opinion on this point, hurry up! said the aunt in that peevish voice she always had when addressing her ward».

Myriam laid her embroidering aside in a box and prepared to go. As she was going to the manor house she wanted to change her clothes, but her aunt stopped her:

«It's no use! Nobody will look at you poor fool. You'll take the short cut through the woods.

Myriam swallowed back her tears. She knew her aunt hated her, she knew she was her daughters' drudge, yet she couldn't get used to the humiliations she must put up with. «Some day, she would say, I'll make her rue for it, I'll pay them in their own coin, the mean cats!»

Soothed by this hope of revenge she went out under Mrs. Cornavin's wicked scowl, and made for the manor house.

— Myriam's was a strange story. Mrs. Cornavin was no more her aunt or relation than you and I.

Mrs. Cornavin, long ago widowed of an English teacher had never forgiven the deceased spouse who left her penniless.

In the end she had managed to become Lord Disney's house-keeper, picking up genteel ways that flattered her snobbishness. As many of his country men Lord Disney had bought a manor house in Burgundy, where he loved to come and stay. Mrs. Cornavin followed him every where.

In this very manor house, called «Le Chateau Vert» because of its green tiles, an event had taken place which was to turn Myriam into another Cinderella. On a fine morning Mrs. Cornavin found on the front flight of steps a wicker basket with a baby in it. There was nothing to identify it by, except a medallion engraved with unknown arms and the monogram M.

Milord when he was told this (may be he knew the clue to the riddle) desired Mrs. Cornavin would look after the child — this in a peremptory tone — and bring it up together with her two years' old twins; for which office he would grant her a handsome allowance. Sensing some mystery and a goodly income, Mrs. Cornavin obeyed Milord's wish.

Everything went on fine for some years, Myriam was on the same footing with the old house keeper's daughters, and, besides, she grew into a lovely child.

She was twelve when Milord broke his neck in a fox hunt. Contrary to Mrs. Cornavin's expectations, Myriam was left unprovided for. As he was a widower and left no issue. Lord Disney's earthly possessions were sequestered, till further enquiries should be made.

Presently Mrs. Cornavin found herself alone in the wide world, with one more child, about whom she knew nothing.

She was for crossing over to England when the manor house became the property of a stranger, whose fortune and occupations were only to be surmised at. The new owner asked her to stay, not as his own house-keeper but as a kind of overseer in charge of all hands on his estate. She was to live in a hunting box on the grounds.

Mrs. Cornavin was only too glad to accept the arrangement, she liked the place and could live honourably there with her daughters.

But Myriam ceased to be the beloved and spoiled child of a devoted house-keeper. Now she considered her a foundling, Mrs. Cornavin used to vent on Myriam every one of her numerous fits of temper. The twins, Katy and Helen had made her into a perfect little drudge, and whereas they were taught in a private institution Myriam's lot consisted of every availing unpleasantness. She was the maid of all work, an intruder, the butt of numberless sarcasms and mean jokes.

Mrs. Cornavin couldn't forgive her stealing into the family, yet she had never told her the truth on the matter. Myriam believed herself to be some of niece picked up out of kindness. She dared not ask any questions, well aware nobody would answer her. She was content with calling her aunt no end of unseemly names under her breath, «old hag» being a favourite of hers, and entertained private and strongly original views on the world in general and her surroundings in particular.

— The hunting-box was a good mile and a half from the manor-house, but Myriam knew the short cuts; the main one by the lake shortened the way a good deal.

It was by a bright June afternoon, sunbeams played through the branches. The woods were fragrant with the scent of flowers and the strong, rich smell of sap and earth. The birds called from tree to tree, and Myriam in spite of all felt happy.

She picked some flowers in the moss and pinned the bunch to her blouse, She saw daisies in the grass, laughed, plucked one and pulled out its petals slowly: He loves me, he loves me not… The conclusion was «he loves me».

I wonder who could love me, I don't know anybody-She was seventeen and knew nothing about love except what she had read in books and that wasn't much. Her innate inquisitiveness, as well as her warm young blood led her to imagine what might be the union of two beings; the images conjured up were too childish yet to touch her. Desire was to her a vague, mysterious, call of the senses and she knew not how much good or evil its fulfillment might force upon her. The words she had read: desire, possession, volupty, were linked with dim imaginings. She knew a girl was desired when she was pretty — she knew she was pretty, much prettier than Katy and Helen. Nearly as pretty as the manor house owner's daughter.

— She looked like a lovely doll with her long fair hair hanging on her back. Her skin under her tan was tenderly flushed. Her winsome, arch, squirrel face invincibly caught the eyes, and when she smiled, she showed a row of delicate pearly teeth with the tip of a rosy tongue.

The finishing touch was given by her green golden eyes, impish and innocent at once in a face that would have delighted any lover of womankind.