Most days were like this.
Oh, but how I loved my special time with Mama. An hour a day every day, for as long as I could remember. An hour devoted entirely to me. It was the highlight of my day. A memory I hold on to now in the darkness.
My time with Mama.
Beautiful Mama in her fur coats, glittering jewels, and fancy frocks. Beautiful Mama dashing off to exciting locations. She was tall, thin, and lanky, with striking black hair and eyes so dark brown that they, too, almost looked black. She had high cheekbones, with angular features any model or actress would die for. She was always dripping with diamonds and draped in glittering dresses, and, of course, her fur coats. I can see her now when I close my eyes. Shining in the darkness, like a shimmering star.
After my blissful hour with Mama in the morning room, Miss Pricket escorted me down to the kitchen to thank our cook, Mrs. Baddeley, for the jelly. She didn’t always send a jelly, but when she did, Mama insisted that I be polite.
I have to be honest: Mrs. Baddeley was insufferable. She was a squat, red-faced woman with eyes that always seemed to be smiling. She was often covered in flour, and strands of hair would fall from the bun that was piled high on her head. Each time she brushed the hair out of her face, she would get more flour all over herself. She was fond of cooing at me like I was still a little girl and not a young lady, and asking me questions that were quite frankly none of her business. Why should she care what I was learning in school? Mama didn’t needle me on which subjects I was taking, so why should our cook?
On my way downstairs I closed my eyes tightly, willing myself to be kind to her and bracing myself for her squealing litany of rapid-fire questions.
“Oh, Cruella! How are you doing, my girl?” she asked as soon as she heard my shoes clicking down the stairs. For an older woman, she had the keenest hearing. I swear she could hear me coming all the way from the third floor, and she’d have a jelly made and ready for me by the time I reached the basement.
“I’m very well, Mrs. Baddeley,” I recited. “Thank you for the jelly, it was beautiful.” Her laugh was slightly raspy, unrefined and loud. It matched her appearance all too perfectly.
“Oh, my girl, it tastes even better than it looks! Here you go,” she said as she set a heaping portion on the island across from where she was rolling some dough. “Sit down, my dear. I know jellies are your favorite.”
The fact was I hated jellies, but somehow she had got it into her head I loved them, and so it seemed that I would be besieged by Mrs. Baddeley’s jellies for the rest of my childhood.
I sat at the stool across from her and forced down my jelly as I watched her roll the dough, a big smile on her face as she asked me her insipid questions.
“Would you like to invite some friends over for tea? How about that dear sweet girl Anita? We can make a party of it! I can make all your favorites. Doesn’t Anita like lemon tarts?”
“She does, thank you,” I said between delicate bites. Mama had warned me not to eat too much, after all.
“I simply can’t believe how old you’re getting. Why, you will be turning twelve soon, Miss Cruella! I shall make you something special, you can be sure of that.” Honestly, she wouldn’t stop talking. “And it won’t be long now until you’re off to finishing school. Just a couple of years. Are you excited? Nervous? Oh, Cruella, you will love school, all those new friends and adventures …” And it went on like that for what seemed like an eternity. How impertinent. As if she knew what I would and would not love. She was always feigning an interest in me, Mrs. Baddeley was. It drove me to distraction. My mother didn’t even ask me those questions. What made a cook think she could? But isn’t that always the way with cooks, chumming it up with the children of the house? Mama told me stories about her family’s cooks, how they passed her sweets and were always striking up inappropriate conversations. I know Anita adored her guardian’s cook—she practically looked to her as a second mother. But that was something I never understood. I had a mother. A marvelous mother. What would I want with a flour-dusted woman who fussed over me almost constantly? I was polite to her, of course. I answered her questions. And I was sweet about it. (Not quite as sweet as Mrs. Baddeley’s noxious jellies, but sweet nevertheless.) That’s how a young lady is expected to conduct herself, so that is how I acted when I did my duty and went down to the kitchen to thank the annoying woman.
On occasion, my mother, too, would go down and speak with the cook, to remark on an exceptional meal or to thank her for impressing our guests. I think it was because she was afraid we would lose her to another house if she didn’t make a fuss over her from time to time. So many of our guests remarked on Mrs. Baddeley’s cooking that my mother was sure someone would snap her up. “It’s not like the old days,” Mama would say, “when servants were bound to a household their entire lives. They have other opportunities now. Some of them even know how to read and write. We must do our part to keep them loyal.” So she would descend the stairs in her glittering gowns, looking quite out of place, to flash a thankful smile at Mrs. Baddeley and praise her like one might praise a needy little puppy.
Ah, puppies. But we’ll get to that part of the story soon enough.
So I took a page from my mother’s book and went down to the kitchen to thank Mrs. Baddeley when she sent me a jelly. I made sure to say that I loved the raspberry most of all. I cooed over the shape of the jelly and asked if I could see the mold in which she’d made it. This all made Mrs. Baddeley chuckle with delight. She looked like a jelly herself, jiggling and wobbling as she did so. She pulled the mold down from the high shelf and showed it to me. I pretended to find it fascinating.
“Thank you, Mrs. Baddeley. Could you perhaps use the round Bundt mold next time? The one with the little trees. I love that one.”
Honestly, I didn’t care in which shape my jelly was made; whatever the shape, I’d still have to choke it down. But the request made her laugh, seeming to fill her simple little heart with glee, and she believed me, the fool that she was. “I will, Miss Cruella! And it will be another raspberry to be sure!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Baddeley,” I said.
You’re a fool, I thought.
“And how was your visit with your mother today?” she asked, looking a little sad when she did. For some reason she looked to Miss Pricket for the answer.
“She was as beautiful as ever,” I said loudly, making sure she knew the answer came from me and not my governess.
“I’m sure she would spend more time with you if she could, Miss Cruella,” said the cook, her hands covered in flour as she rolled the dough for the savory pie she was preparing for the servants’ dinner. She had made a point of telling me that rabbit pie was Jackson’s favorite. I tried not to wrinkle my nose. The last time I was down there she’d been making something called a cottage pie. I supposed the lower classes loved pies.
“We had a lovely hour together,” I said, smiling through my teeth. Mrs. Baddeley and Miss Pricket shared another look.
It was so odd the way they’d look at each other when we talked about my mama. I decided it was because they were jealous. I mean, how could they not be? Why else would they be casting strange looks between them? My mother was a lady, and they, after all, were just servants.