Page 7 of Disenchanted
“Me too,” Netta added.
“And what about the fuel we will need when the snow flies?”
“We could close off some of the chambers. The chimney already isn’t working in the library. Who cares about that pokey old room anyway?”
“No one of any importance,” I said tartly. “Only me.”
“But you could read in the parlor, Ella,” Netta pleaded. “Amy and I would be ever so quiet and not disturb you.”
“Maybe for about five minutes,” I began but Amy interrupted me eagerly.
“I have an idea. We could sell something.”
“Such as?”
The girls looked around the parlor as though in search of some overlooked treasures. There were only blank spaces on the walls where the sylvan paintings done by the famous fey artist Peccano had once been. They were the last things we had owned of any real value and had been sold off last year, so we did not fall into arrears with taxes.
Netta wandered over to the harp, running her fingers lovingly over the curve of the golden wood frame. Awkward and ungainly in so many other pursuits, when Netta sat down at the harp to play, she became grace personified, her nimble fingers coaxing the strings to sing the most plaintive and lovely melodies.
The notes she plucked out now sounded as mournful as her voice as she said, “We could sell the harp.”
“No, dearest,” I protested. “It would break your heart and to no purpose. No one would give us enough for a secondhand instrument to purchase even one ticket.”
I heard Amy swallow hard before saying, “What if we sold the ponies as well?”
“You would be willing to part with your old friends?”
Amy’s lip quivered but she bit down to still it. “They are like me. They are fat and they eat too much.”
“Oh, Amy,” I groaned. “My dears, can’t you see? Even if we sold the harp and the ponies, it still would not be enough. This ball is simply not worth sacrificing your treasures.”
Amy cast me a look, half-defiant, half-guilty. “What if we sold these?” She swept back her dusky curls, exposing the emeralds glittering in her earlobes.
I gave a gasp of outrage. “Amy, those are my earrings. You have been in my room again and borrowing things without my permission.”
“I am sure I am always willing to share my things. I do not know why you must be so selfish with yours.”
“I am not being selfish. I wouldn’t mind if you ever bothered to ask me or were not so careless, forever losing things or soiling them. I still haven’t been able to get the stain out of my muslin shawl.”
“It’s an ugly shawl and doesn’t become you at all,” Amy muttered as she plucked the emeralds from her ears. “And it is not as if you ever wear these earrings anyway. They just sit there in your little treasure chest, gathering dust. But if we were to sell them, I bet—”
“No! Never,” I said, snatching the earrings from her grasp. “These emeralds belonged to my mother and are all I have to remember her by.”
“That isn’t true. You have that flowered handkerchief with her initials. And if it meant you could go to the ball, I am sure your mother would want you to sell the earrings.”
“I can hardly ask her, can I? Because she is dead and has been for the past eighteen years!”
In my agitation at Amy’s callous suggestion, I realized I was close to shouting. When I saw Netta flinch, I took a deep breath. Shoving the emeralds into my apron pocket, I tried to stem my anger. But when Amy opened her mouth to continue the argument, I snapped, “Enough. I have already made it clear we cannot afford to go to the ball and that is the end of the matter. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
Amy flushed, her blue eyes taking on a stormy hue, but worse than that, Netta began to cry.
“Oh, Netta, please don’t,” I begged, my frustration with this whole situation dissolving at the sight of the large silent tears trickling down her cheeks. My normal instinct would have been to comfort her with a hug, but if I soiled her dress that would only make everything that much worse.
“Listen, my dears. What about this idea?” I said. “The night of the ball we can have a party in the garden like you have always wanted to do. We’ll string up paper lanterns and move the tea table out there, drape it with our finest cloth. I will get my friend Mal to obtain some inexpensive champagne from the smugglers’ market and I am sure he will bring his fiddle and play for us. We can dance in the moonlight, and we will still be able to see the fireworks from the palace and you can invite all your friends.”
My hopeful suggestion only produced a dolorous sniff from Netta and a stony glare from Amy.
“All of our friends will be up at the palace attending the ball,” she said.
