The Godmother
(A Children's Fairy Story from an Adult Perspective)
I don't know how I got landed with it all. I mean to say, her physical well-being was never my responsibility at all, I just felt sorry for her. I don't know, perhaps I did feel responsible in a general way as well, considering her position. And all that business with the shoe, I must say that was just plain stupid, the whole idea, and did it cause me some trouble. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
Actually, I do know how I got landed with it, I just forgot for a minute. Her mother was a friend of mine. Such a nice woman. My friend's mother was the king's younger sister, so my friend was the king's niece and, like I said, ever such a nice person. Very kind and very polite.
Anyway, my friend married a nice young nobleman. A bit lower rank than her, only a baron I think. Of course, married to the king's niece he did quite well for himself, though I'm not saying he didn't work hard too. They had a daughter, this friend of mine and the baron. Lovely child she was as well, with silky blonde hair and blue eyes. She's still a beauty, of course. Yes, she has definitely grown up to be a real beauty, with elegance and poise as well as good looks to go with a nice nature. She was always quiet and well behaved as a very young child and so considerate when she got a bit older. My friend asked me to be her Godmother and I agreed. I was only too happy to help, but that's how it all started.
Then, when the daughter was about seven or eight, my friend up and dies. Oh I don't mean that she did it on purpose or even that suddenly, like. I didn't hear about it right off, because I was out of the country for more than two years, but the way it was told to me afterwards, it happened something like this: She was out riding one day and a low branch knocked her off the horse - a pure accident, it could have happened to anybody. She was concussed and she broke a few bones as well. She just lay there on the grass amongst the trees and it began to rain. The baron was up at court and it seems none of the servants missed her until the horse arrived back at the castle without her. She'd gone out alone and nobody knew exactly where she was, so it was hours before any help arrived.
The first thing was that some of the broken bones didn't knit properly and a cut was infected too. The next thing she'd caught a nasty chill. She was bedridden for months, getting steadily worse. It wasn't the baron's fault and it certainly wasn't the daughter's fault either, poor little mite. All the same, the king was not pleased about his niece's accident and a lot of the baron's wealth and fortune slipped away, along of the king's favour. Up to that point it was nobody's fault - from there on the baron did some quite inexplicable and really rather stupid things. Well, it seems like they're stupid to me anyway.
First off, the baron began to be very careful with money and began to trade. He drove some very hard bargains and made a lot of cash but lost a lot of friends. Money and real friends don't appear to go together, and a grasping nature doesn't cultivate affection, as several famous writers have pointed out over the years. He became very well off, though you wouldn't think it to see him or his castle. There were hardly any servants. There was not a lot to eat: enough food but nothing fancy, and he was away a lot as well. Then he got married again. Now I suppose a body shouldn't be that surprised at that, and maybe I'm prejudiced, because I was a close friend of the first wife but ... well, what a choice!
It wasn't that she was a lot older than him or that she had two daughters by an earlier marriage, though she was and she did, but she was a crabby old witch to start with - and he made her worse. For a start he never gave her enough money. She had a bit of money of her own and she had to spend it on her two girls. He didn't have anything like enough servants to run the house and the money he gave her for housekeeping was nothing like enough. She wasn't that bad looking, I suppose, but he didn't seem to look at her much, because he was hardly ever home, and when he was he hadn't a good word for her. She did tend to take it out on his daughter a bit and treat her rather like one of the servants, but he did provoke her something shocking.
That was when they got this invitation that really started the trouble. The king's son came of age and they were having this huge party to celebrate. Now she was related to the boy, sort of second cousin or something, and she was invited. So were the two stepsisters. Her father felt the king had abandoned him and refused to go to the ball himself. He even refused to buy the girl any clothes for the party. The stepmother didn't see why she should spend her money on his daughter when he never spent anything on her kids. There she was, right in the middle of their quarrel and no chance of going to the party.
Well, I did feel sorry for her, poor little thing. She was left with the servants while the stepmother and the stepsisters went to the party. I'm always reluctant to resort to magic for humans, because they never seem to appreciate it, but I decided to make an exception this time. A lot of work it caused me, too.
I had her running around collecting various things like mice, lizards, a pumpkin and so on. I didn't really need them, but it keeps up the air of mystery that mortals seem to need to cope with the supernatural. Then I sent her off to the party, on condition she left before midnight. Well, I was her godmother wasn't I, and godmothers are responsible for moral upbringing!
Being such a beauty it's no surprise that she made a quite hit with the prince, nor that not having been to formal parties or balls much, she nearly forgot the time. In her rush to leave, she lost one of her shoes. Now that was what led to the trouble. The prince wanted to find her again. She was coy and he had the shoe. He came up with this mad idea that he'd marry whoever the shoe fitted. I ask you, have you ever heard anything so crazy?
He knew this girl was between 14 and 24. Now, there were thousands of girls between 14 a 24 in the country. Nobody had bothered to keep a list of guests at the party, so almost any of them might have been there, either as a guest or a gatecrasher. About one in six or one in eight of the girls and young women would have had feet that would have fitted reasonably into the shoe. He was going to start in the capital and work his way outwards and he was promising to marry the first girl the shoe fitted. I told you magic always causes problems with mortals, but I don't mind telling you that this was one problem I hadn't foreseen when I did that bit of fancy stuff with a pumpkin. There was no help for it, I had to sort this one out.
First I had to make myself invisible then, for five whole days I stayed with that stupid boy. Everywhere he went I made the shoe a bit larger or a bit smaller so it didn't fit anyone, and then she almost didn't try it. Mind you, that wasn't her fault. She didn't know about the Prince's visit and the stepsisters never told her because they never knew she'd been to the party. I had to plant the idea in the Prince's mind that there was some one else in the castle.
Anyway, I'm pleased to say that she tried the shoe and it fitted, of course. The Prince married her. She had a bit of money to help the stepmother and stepsisters. The baron was back in favour with the king. He was a bit nicer to his wife and the girls than before and a bit less miserly with the readies. I won't say everybody lived happily ever after - humans are too bloody stupid for that - but things weren't too bad.