If the shoe fits

Checkmate. Nice game. Now let’s put this away. I have a story to tell you.

As you know, I was a young cobbler in the days before what we call “Happily Ever After” in this small kingdom. Before you were born, when our current King was a young buck and a prince. Prince Charming, they called him, for there wasn’t a girl in the kingdom who didn’t dream of being his bride.

Please, daughter, don’t roll your eyes. Yes, I know what Mrs. Eversham says about such fairy tales. Indulge me. I am an old man, older than most fathers are when they see their firstborn married. So let’s have a little mead. No, whiskey! Would you put a log on the fire, please, while I pour?

Mrs. Eversham knows what I plan to tell you tonight, the last night before I walk you down the aisle of our modest wooden chapel.

Ha!! No, not that! I trust good Mrs. Eversham has already given you an education and a good one at that? Yea, when your mother died, I asked her to take care of the things that a father couldn’t talk about.

Ha ha!! Yes, I put her up to that and a bit more besides. You’re blushing! Don’t blame the whiskey so soon!

I want to tell you about this one girl, an odd girl, who lived at the edge of the kingdom near the forest.

Oh, you’ve heard this story before? “She was more beautiful than most… enchanted the birds and woodland creatures to do her bidding… her stepsisters worked her to the bone?” Ha! That is not the true story. Not the half of it. Listen, my daughter: I’ve never told anyone, but I’ll tell you, the true story of our Queen Ella.

Ella lived at the edge of the kingdom near the forest. She was an odd girl, always dreaming and always inventing things. She built a small water-powered mill to pound the laundry, and when it was done she contrived a rotating clothesline so she could hang the linens without walking to and fro in the yard.

That thing about the animals? Ha! If she enchanted the fauna I know nothing of it. Her homemade pulleys squeaked like a bewitched squirrel, I suppose, and the birds alighted on the line and were pulled along by its motion. Not magic. She did the washing up by putting the plates in an openwork rack that she plunged through the wash water, and then she suspended the rack over the basin to drip-dry. As soon as she had devised some machine for one task, she asked her stepsisters for another chore to master.

One day, she devised a system to perform that most tedious of tasks, sweeping the hearth. She pushed a small cart into the far corners of the fireplace and turned a crank in its long handle. A gear-driven mechanism turned a wheel of small brushes that kicked the cinders into a collecting-pan. It was a sight to behold: the day that she tested this and a wayward gust of wind came down the chimney and blew all of the ash out of the collecting-pan and into her face! Ha! That is how her stepsisters found her. Her soot-blackened face was joyful with the thrill of inventing, and she was already devising a dust-screen to solve the problem at hand. However, her stepsisters were jealous to have such a clever little sister, even if her inventions gave them all time for leisure. They teased her and called her Cinder-Ella.

Was she beautiful? No. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was about this time that Prince Charming met her. One day he was riding the perimeter of his kingdom, near the edge of the forest, when he came across the strange sight of a young girl with carpenter’s tools in a clearing. You see, this was her secret workshop.

What about The Ball? He met her at The Ball and the nonsense with the glass slipper? I’m getting to it. Just as Mrs. Eversham says: These are the lies we tell ourselves. The myths of our kingdom, the story. And I’ve never told anyone, but I’m telling you now: the truth.

The prince was intrigued that a girl could be so clever and dream so big that she would work alone in a secret clearing with purloined tools. He saw that a mind like that could be like riches for his poor kingdom. After all, he had seen how hard the farmers toiled in poor and rocky soil, and he had seen how even young women were bent and sore from the labors of the home. He imagined her inventions freeing his subjects to prosper and dream. As for the girl, she did not care that he was a prince. She talked to him plainly, regardless of title. In fact, she was more than a little impertinent as she explained her craft to him as though he were a small child. The prince might have taken offense, but he did not. As he talked to her, he felt miles away from the usual palace chatter. His mind felt clear and sharp. He was falling in love.

Now you are rolling your eyes. Ha! You never could control your face. Why should a girl with carpenter’s tools be so unusual, you ask? You’re thinking of Mary, the carpenter’s apprentice who rebuilt our cobbler’s bench after the fire two years ago. You’re thinking of the Dorset twins who forged the beautiful iron gates to the palace: two petite blond women in their leather aprons. They can barely lift a draft-horse’s foot but are famous for their mastery of the blacksmith’s art. You’re thinking of yourself, as skilled a cobbler as I am and one who will still work when you have a babe-in-arms, as much as I did when left to rear you on my own. Maybe you’re thinking of Mark Horner and the beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs he sells in the market? Ha! You see, before Happily Ever After, these things just didn’t happen. Men worked in some professions, and women only in others. I married late and you were born after all that so you don’t know what it was like. Let me get back to Ella and the prince.

The prince was in love; Ella not so much. She would have preferred to stay in her workshop-in-the-clearing and work on her inventions. However, she was of an age where a girl starts to become a woman: her blood grows hot and she starts to yearn for a special friend… I guess you would know more about that now than I do. Ha! The prince did not try to woo her in the usual way. He brought her tools and material. He brought her delicately cleaved mica for her windproof lanterns and strong Asian silk for her myriad cords and ropes. He held the tiny bowls when she boiled sap and poured it, drop by drop, to glue her fantastic machines together. He learned from her and when he had an idea, he offered it to her with no expectation. She grew to consider him a friend.

One day, as they sat in the clearing listening to the rush of the water and the rattle of Ella’s water wheel, the prince told her about a problem in the kingdom. The fertile low-lying newlands were producing more grain, and they would become prosperous, but the mill by the big falls could not keep up with demand. Also, the farmers could ill afford the time to haul their grain to the mill at the edge of the mountains.

“We need a mill in the newlands, but there are no falls there,” said the prince. “You have such a lovely water-wheel here, on this tiny ripple, fine for laundry, but it would take half a day to grind a bushel of grain.”

“Hmmm…” said Ella. Then they moved on to talk about other things.

That week, when Ella went with her stepsisters to the big fair at the mill, she paid no special attention to the way the water-wheel worked.

That’s right, ha! No special attention. Something else caught her eye as she wandered through the crowded, noisy festival. Oh, what was the festival for? Nothing special. Just that it took half a day to drive a wagonload of grain from the newlands to the mill, and then who knew how long you might wait, so the farmers brought their wives and children and chickens and whatnot and it was always a big day. Of course, you don’t remember those times.

The fair was set up on the big muddy grounds, where the factory is now. There were amusements for the children: for a coin, two children could sit in a big swing. A strong young man would turn it round and round twisting the cords. When it couldn’t take another twist, the man would step away and let the swing fly downwards, spinning wildly, until the delighted and dizzy children spilled out and begged their parents for another coin for another ride. Except for the greedy and foolish children who’d eaten too many sweets and came off the swing green-faced and ill. Ha! Ella was a little too old for such amusement but she spent her last coin on a ride. Her stepsisters laughed at her and made her ride home in the back of the cart like a child, which suited her fine as it left her mind free to memorize every detail of the slow wind-up and thrilling flight back to earth.

When the prince found her at the clearing again, she gave him a roll of parchment with the plans for the very first ripple-mill. “Don’t use this,” she warned, “unless you do it exactly as I have written.”

The prince saw the dark smudges beneath Ella’s bright eyes, a sure sign that she had been up late, laboring over detailed calculations by the light of the very first reflecting lantern. Yes, just like the one we installed in our shop. Ella invented that, too! Ha! It was something that she invented after seeing how her stepsisters bent to the candlelight to do their sewing in the evening. They found the heavy lens ugly, and preferred to keep their candles and their tired eyes and their sore necks. So the reflecting lantern was relegated to Ella’s study in the attic.

Anyway, the prince knew that Ella had carefully labored over every detail of the plans she now gave him. This ripple mill was bigger than anything she could build herself. He needed the resources of the kingdom to have it built. He got down on one knee, laid the parchment on his thigh like a sword, and gave her his solemn word that he would build it as written, to the very last nail.

The prince invited Ella to see the ripple-mill when it was ready to mill grain for the first time. He brought a spare pony, a gentle mare that could accommodate someone not used to riding. He packed a picnic of fine wine and sumptuous food from the palace. Together, they rode the perimeter of the kingdom. They entered the mill-tower and saw the heavy stone at the top of the screw, ready to be let down and start the grindstones spinning. The royal miller waited for them there. At a signal from the prince, he pulled back the lever that started everything in motion.

The stone crashed to the ground! Ha! It missed the prince by a scant inch. The great screw splintered and might have impaled Ella had the prince not pushed her aside at the last moment. Everyone ran for cover as the tower seemed about to tumble down on top of them. But it didn’t, not quite. Before the dust had settled, Ella was crawling through the ruins of the ripple-mill. “Hmmm…” she said. The miller emerged from the corner where he’d been hiding and, along with the prince, surveyed the damage.

Ella pulled a large wooden cogwheel from behind the miller. “This wasn’t installed?”

“It was an extra piece.” The miller looked at his feet and addressed the prince, as though Ella’s voice had issued from his mouth.

“It is the resistor-wheel,” said Ella. “It controls the energy, so the mill will work. Instead, well, you almost killed us all!”

Ella surprised herself with a sudden surge of anger, and tears sprang from her eyes. She realized in that moment of danger that she did, in fact, love the prince: the thought of nearly losing him was devastating.

“You heard her,” said the prince to the miller. “Now fix it.”

“Fix it? Is this the commoner who made these ridiculous plans? You never told me she was… it was…” The miller stammered with disgust. “Who is she to tell me…”

“Fix it! Exactly, I mean exactly, as she says. Or I’ll send you to the tower.” The prince did not invoke the threat of the tower often. Having fought more than a few battles, he was not particularly shaken by his close call. However, he realized in that moment that his subjects’ disrespect for Ella’s plans had put her in danger. He realized now, more strongly than before, that he loved her and could not be without her.

It took another month to rebuild the ripple-mill, and when they did, it worked perfectly. Now we see ripple-mills all across the newlands, the ones that slowly raise a stone up a screw during the week and are only used on Friday afternoons. That is how the little Friday-fairs replaced the big and dirty non-stop festival at the mill. The traveling troupes have gone away, and we have our own talented musicians at each Friday fair, and our own children inventing their own games and saving their coin or spending it on the pretty art where artists never thrived before. The factory was built by the old mill, and a new era of invention began. You see, the Friday fairs were the beginning, I say, of Happily Ever After.

Yes, that is how they met and fell in love and intended to wed well before The Ball. I know it because they came to my back doorstep one night, disguised as commoners, and asked for my help.

Like I said, she was not beautiful. Or, to be more accurate, she took no particular care to make herself beautiful. Her eyebrows were bushy and her hair was pulled back into a practical knot, except for a wet lock plastered awkwardly across her face. It was a rainy night. I think they chose the cover of the storm to further their disguise. Her smile was radiant, but it revealed a row of crooked commoner’s teeth. Her eyes shone with an unusual intelligence, but they were also defensive from a lifetime of being misunderstood.

Ella and the prince stated their business simply: they wished to be wed, and they needed to do it in a way that would not bring scandal to the kingdom. How could the prince marry a plain, awkward peasant without making a thousand jealous tongues wag? His bride-choice must seem pre-ordained and inevitable. The kingdom was known for being superstitious and eager for romantic stories: Ella conceived a plan to co-opt this tendency and create the illusion of a perfectly magical coupling.

I’m pretty sure you know the story from here. There was to be a ball, and Ella couldn’t or wouldn’t go except that she did go when the fairy godmother made her gown, and then she had a curfew, and running away at the stroke of midnight she dropped her ass slipper.

Sure. Glass slipper. Ha! In all your years at the cobbler’s bench have you ever seen a shoe of glass? I thought not.

Well, the palace seamstress, sworn to secrecy, was working on the enchanted gown. The palace livery, facing severe punishment if they should talk, were working on the enchanted carriage. A trusted maid from the palace was smuggled to Ella’s clearing to manage her unruly hair and paint rouge on her cheeks as was the fashion at the time. In effect, to make her beautiful in the way that the court defined beauty. I was requested to make the slippers.

Yes, the ass slippers. I didn’t have much time to order material fit for a royal. I had some donkeyhide that I had been using for gloves. It was the most supple leather I had on hand. Ella requested a pair for herself, as ornate and unique as has ever been seen in the kingdom. She also bade me make two extra identical left slippers, one size up and one size down. I made the most perfect, beautiful slippers that I could for her broad farmgirl’s feet and the two extras as ordered.

I took them all over to Mrs. Eversham, the milliner, to decorate them ornately in embroidery and beads. There’s something about keeping a secret with someone that makes you closer to them. Yea, that was the start of our long friendship, one that I came to value even more after your mother died.

So you see how it happened now. You know the rest. The prince pretended to meet his enchanted bride at The Ball. As he scoured the kingdom to “find” her with the lost slipper, his servants measured the maidens’ feet and chose the decoys so that no-one except for Ella could fit the shoe. In the retelling, to add to the myth, it became a “glass” slipper. Ha!

And now we live in the Happily Ever After. Prosperity has come to the kingdom. Machines free people from the drudgery of toil. Children are sent to school. Girls and boys can take the trade of their choice. The King and Queen Ella see to all of that.

As for my part in it, I’ve always intended to tell you my secret on the eve of your wedding. You see, what Mrs. Eversham has told you about the wedding night isn’t the half of what you need to know. You will keep your marriage strong with your knowledge and your skill and your communication. And sometimes, you need to invent a little magic to keep it going.

I think you’ve chosen well. You have my blessing. Now go get some sleep.

Oh wait, I have one more thing for you – open it. I know they are your size. I made these out of the soft leather left over from last month’s glove order, and Mrs. Eversham was only too happy to embroider them for you. Go forth: tomorrow you will marry your own Prince Charming in your very own ass slippers.