I couldn't sleep and wrote a thing

[dragoon811]

Dearest Ella -

Congratulations on your wedding day. I wish you nothing but the best. I thought about going, but I didn't want to cause you any distress, and I couldn't think of a way to express my regards properly. I wanted to take a moment to apologize to you. Not because you're marrying the prince, but because I need you to know how very sorry I am. I'll understand if you burn this upon receipt. God knows I would if I were you. But here's the whole story, as best as I am able.

If reading this makes you unhappy, I am sorrier than you can ever know, for it was never my intent. I've left home now, you see. I've taken up a job in an earl's household as a ladies' maid this past year, and I've never been happier. I no longer speak to my family, and there's a someone special I'm hoping will court me. They're a baker in the marketplace, and one of the sweetest people I've ever met.

Sorry – I've gotten off the subject. I'm terrible about that. You remember how often Mother snapped at me.

Back to what I've wanted to say.

I was so glad when Mother remarried. I had hoped that she would be happy, and let Jocelyn and I be. No more “proper ladies don't sit that way” and “girls, you'll never catch a rich husband looking like that”. I mean, I knew I'd have to grow up sometime, but I was only eight. Surely I had a little time to be a child?

For a while, Mother was happy. Truly. She smiled. She laughed and played with us. She took walks in Step-Father's gardens and was kind. Now I know it wasn't just Step-Father who made her happy, it was his wealth. No more worrying about darning gowns where the fixes wouldn't show. (By six, I was more adept at artful beading to hide a fix than any noblewoman's child should be.) No more pinching pennies on food to keep us thin and fashionable so that we could fit into the best dresses we could to “keep up appearances”.

My first apology is for not making friends with you when we met. I was shy. Still am, really. Always have been. And I was so glad to see Mother smile, to see the disapproval and frowns on her and Jocelyn's faces disappear, that I didn't think to make you feel like my new sister.

And then Step-Father died. I liked him, and I was sorry to see him go. Not just because he was a kind step-father and treated us well, but because it meant that Mother would be sad again. No more husband providing for us. She would be fixated on teaching me to be a proper lady, rather than letting me play in the kitchen – our old housemaid made marvelous jams, Ella, and always let me help even if I got more berries on me than in the pot. My days would no longer be walks in the rose garden under the sunshine and laughter.

If I'd befriended you, Ella, let myself know you, formed an alliance of sorts...I don't think I'd have been able to let Mother do what she did. What Jocelyn did. ...What I did.

Ella, I'm so sorry. I was so glad that you were Mother's target for her displeasure. It wasn't me anymore, and I... I'm sorry. I let her. Let them. I even joined in. I was horrible to you. I should have stood up for you, but I was so afraid it would be me instead. Echoing the insults, I watched you bend under their weight. I'm sorry. That was me, too, before your father. You're stronger than I ever have been, though. Unlike me, you didn't break. You took your punishments with a dignity I only could wish for, whereas I had broken. Sniveling and begging, promising to try harder.

I should have spoken up. But I didn't.

I did hide your mothers' things for you, moving them into the attic while you were mucking out the stables. I hope you didn't mind when you found them there after Mother forced you to live in that cold and drafty room. I didn't mean any disrespect – I thought they'd been stored properly and Mother had already been looking for things to sell off. I didn't think you'd like that, and I wasn't caught.

When Jocelyn gave you that awful nickname, I felt sick but I chimed in anyway, false smile plastered onto my face. I called you by it – it was you or me, I told myself. I tell myself that I was just a child when it all began, and that I was protecting myself. That I was too young to realize just how wrong it was and that I should have told someone, anyone, what went on behind closed doors. But those words are a hollow mantra when I'm trying to sleep at night.

I should have never hated you the day you helped me bathe after deportment lessons, but I felt so weak. I had to be better than you, I told myself, even as you carefully lathered the bruises on my back where Mother had struck me with her cane in an attempt to make me stop hunching – a habit from reading by candlelight and all those years of mending. (I did try to do some of my own mending when we'd piled so much on you. I wish I'd done more.)

You pitied me, I could see it. And selfishly, I was so ashamed that I lashed out. I called you spiteful words. I said horrible, wicked things I could never take back. I didn't mean them. I never have. That house was poisoning both of us and you were the only one immune.

After that... I bounced between guilt over mistreating you and anger, resentment, over feeling guilty. I told myself every day that I should speak down to you, that you were beneath me and that you should learn your place if you couldn't speak up for yourself. And every night I cried myself to sleep, sick with guilt.

Ella, you were so strong. So good. So pretty. How often Mother mocked my uneven teeth! How often I was slapped for squinting, while you, “the serving girl” had a beautiful smile and clear, wide blue eyes. I sat for hours with curling papers, trying to get my hair to do more than hang in limp mouse-brown strands while your blonde curls bounced when you took off that silly kerchief. I tried lotions and obscure remedies (and then yelled at you from my “lazy” perch behind my bedcurtains because I was too ashamed at the rashes as a result) in order to achieve even half as much radiance as your skin.

I wished that I was even half the girl you were and I hated myself for it.

And because I hated myself, I had to hate you, too. You were beautiful, graceful, everything I wished I could be. Everything I wanted. And I hated you for making me feel the way you did. It wasn't your fault, though. I've known that for ages. And I have no defense. No words to apologize. As we grew older, everything grew worse. Mother was all about finding us husbands, and I could only compare myself to you.

Jocelyn called me awful names as we practiced curtsies and flirting. I was too slow. I could never get it right. I sing off-key – you know. I saw you wincing. I can't play an instrument to save my life. Mother and Jocelyn made me their punching bag behind closed doors. I was different, too. I didn't care about catching a husband or making simpering noises behind a fan. I just didn't have it in me to bat my eyes at a man and be coy.

My hunched shoulders kept me from fitting properly into gowns. Mother ordered them in what she wanted my size to be and they sat in my wardrobe until I talked myself into hating you enough to bully you into modifying them for me. I yelled and cursed you as you helped me get my modest bulk into corsets designed to make me as slim as you.

You took each word with such gentleness, such understanding, and I hated you so much more. You were so true to yourself, even trapped under our roof, and I envied you. It was a sickness in me, Ella. And it wasn't your fault.

Please don't think that anything I did or said was your fault, or that you deserved it. You never did. It was all my fault. Every word, every intentional bump to make you drop the wash back in the dirt...it was all me. A me I hope to never be again, you understand, but it was still me.

I know now that I thought I was ugly because I was ugly inside. I let everything fester in me until it oozed from my lips. I was a vile creature.

When the prince – I suppose you call him Daniel now – returned from war, Mother stepped up the lessons. Her spending grew extravagant as she bought us jewels and shoes and gowns. She was determined that one of us girls would marry His Royal Highness and found items from lands near and far. I doubt you ever realized how much we unpacked from shops and crammed into our rooms.

I was terrified to meet the prince. I would disgrace myself in front of Mother and Jocelyn – surely, I would trip like I did in lessons. I would faint from lack of air allowed by my corset. I would shame us all. Jocelyn, with her massive feet, was perfectly stable in a curtsy. She could flirt, as long as you couldn't see her teeth (even but yellow, as you know) or smell her breath from those “beauty potions” she bought from so-called hedge witches. And of course she was so thin that all a corset could do was provide her with a semblance of breasts. (She hated me for having more than her, did you know? She often tossed hot coals down my bodice when I started daydreaming in lessons.)

So what changed, you ask – if you've made it this far into the letter, of course.

I saw your face when we mocked your desire to go to the ball. That's it. That's the big reveal of my “change of heart”. Some long-forgotten emotion in me reared its head and said to me, “why shouldn't she go? It does say 'all eligible women'”. It took hours of begging Mother to get her to relent. I told her my grand plans to humiliate you in public. Oh, I told her you'd never get as far as the ballroom. I laughed and outlined how we could dress you in rags. Trip you. Have you sit in the footman's box on one of our carriages so you'd arrived splattered with mud.

Finally, she said you could go. I felt like I'd won some minor victory when I saw your smile. Such a beautiful smile! A smile I hadn't seen since Step-Father walked those halls. I knew I'd done the right thing... right until you came downstairs that night in one of your mother's old dresses. You're so talented with needle and thread: it was a masterpiece.

I'd planned to leave in my carriage last (can you believe Mother's extravagance?one carriage each?) to hide the carriage I'd hired for you from Mother so you would be clean and beautiful when you arrived at the ball, too. I saw too late the look on Mother's face as she saw what I saw – that you were happy and radiant and so much more than either Jocelyn or I could ever be.

To my shame, my bitterness, I joined them in the name-calling, in destroying a dress I'd saved and you'd worked so hard on. I repeated “I will make it right” over and over to myself as you ran, sobbing, for the garden.

I left you in tears, my heart ripped to shreds, as I flounced out that door and into my carriage. I rode five minutes before ordering the coachman to feign a thrown shoe, screeching loud enough for Mother to hear that I would be late because of those nasty nags, and turning back home. (I did apologize to the horses, raiding sugar cubes from the kitchen.)

I didn't want you to see me. I could hear your sobs wrenching at my heart as I ran for my rooms, pulling clothing and jewels from the wardrobe, and I thought I was so clever as I threw on a ragged blanket like a cloak. The garden was dark and since I was hunched and breathy-voiced, you didn't know me.

In the glow of the stars it must have seemed like magic as I pulled one of the dresses I hadn't had you modify yet from behind the bushes. I helped you into it, almost afraid to touch your soft skin for fear you would recognize me. I gave you jewels I thought would suit you, and shoes from a strange Turkish shop that looked like nothing more than spun glass despite having the integrity of iron. I'd bought them because they were beautiful and unique despite being a touch too small, thinking I could display them, but they were perfect for you.

Hidden in the shadows, you looked at me with such gratitude, such love. I've never had that before, from anyone. I couldn't ruin that for you, reveal myself to be me! You'd never accept these things from me, so I called myself a fairy godmother, my mouth twisting into a pained smile, and bade you look in back courtyard for a carriage. I warned you to be home by midnight so as not to get caught – and I knew you would listen.

I ran for my own carriage out front without waiting to see you off – I knew you'd find it once you got used to walking in heels. I pretended that I could hear you laughing with delight over the thundering of horses' hooves. The hearing things may have come from being so short of breath from the corset, but I had to get there before you.

And when you arrived, Ella!

That was the moment I decided to cleanse myself of poison. You were so amazing. You walked into that ballroom so shyly, hardly believing it was so. You were unrecognizable to all but me, for I knew the gown I'd ordered and I'd laced up the back for you. In that moment when the prince took your hand, you were radiant. You were so beautiful I could burst. I wanted to, you know, burn away the years of mistreatment in that single smile.

This was the Ella you should have always been. This was the Ella I'd tried to extinguish, and I was so glad you were still there. I watched you dance as I sat by myself next to the girls without escorts, hiding my avid gaze with their skirts. They all wondered about you, marveled. And they were right to.

I couldn't care about Mother and Jocelyn's hissed comments, my heart was so light. I danced in my mind, humming the music all the way home. I'd finally done right by you, Ella, and I wish you'd seen my face when the prince came by the house with that shoe! I was so sickened by the thought of you not allowed a chance to find love, to escape, that I somehow overcame my own self-loathing long enough to do something else that was good for once.

Jocelyn couldn't fit, despite Mother's best attempts. And when the footman knelt for me, I may have bent down and whispered that you were upstairs. At least I did that much, and I made a great show of trying to fit the shoe on my foot.

When you were demanded to come down, and the shoe fit and the prince realized it was you, I was so happy. Ella, the sister I should have had, the sister I did love, albeit in a twisted and wrong way: I am happy for you.

You deserve all the happiness in your life – I'm so sorry that I had a hand in keeping it from you. If you've read all of this, I really am sorry. I was an awful person. I was ugly to you by word and by deed. One or two acts of rebellion on my part do not make me deserving of your forgiveness, but I am sorry. I think about it each night, my misdeeds. I am trying to be a better person. You inspire me to be better, to love myself for who I am.

And now, I shan't bother you again unless you wish it. I've said what I needed to. My back is aching from hunching over my small writing desk, and it's nearly two and I've arranged to meet Corrine – the baker I spoke of – by the fountain. I'm taking her some daisies I picked this morning, and I hope she likes them. Her smile is as beautiful as yours.

Love your wicked step-sister,
Harriet