Chapter 3 - Hope Was Temporary

Ursula's foreboding proved to be right. Unfortunately, in many ways and in a short time.

Cinderella looked like an overly friendly child, so she wasn't intimidated by the good manners of her new family members, and soon she grabbed her new mother's legs and wanted to play with the girls. Daphne and Cordelia were tempted to behave like their new sister, but their mother's gaze showed that they should remain placid, as usual.

Cinderella didn't bother with their refusal and coolness. On the contrary, she was fascinated by they good manners and elegance. For the next few days, every time she caught a servant cursing them, she would reply that they were refined ladies, and that she could never be like any of them. And she thanked her father for giving her such an elegant family, and now she could be a lady in the future. An elegant, refined, immaculate noble lady... And also breathtaking!

And all this only resulted in the discord among servants against Ursula and her daughters. A lot of them saw Cinderella born and grow up, and considered her the best of the girls, unparalleled. They were accustomed to her liveliness and spontaneity, which they thought were threatened with their new mother. They believed that being the woman who raised two children to be like two soulless little women, she would only detract and mistreat Cinderella. In addition, since they had freely administered the mansion and the lands since the death of the Viscount's first wife, having a new lady in the house was a nuisance for all.

As expected, Ursula couldn't refine Cinderella, nor could she let her daughters leave their education aside. So they had two kinds of children being raised in that mansion, having two completely different types of education. As Cinderella ran through the corridors and climbed the trees, Daphne and Cordelia walked slowly and began to learn how to embroider. The best they did together was playing with dolls, but the play itself was different from one another. But since the girl didn't mind being so different from her new sisters, she was happy. The daughter was happy, so the Viscount was happy with the marriage.

Ursula didn't have a short vision, but many plans for the future. She would never allow her daughters to abandon what has been taught to them just to please their new father and new sister. More than anything, she knew what a good reputation meant for a woman, and she would not let her own daughters have the reputation of being indomitable in a place where they had just arrived, and moreover, near the capital! If this fame spread, or if the mother's teachings were lost, they could have problems in the future to achieve marriages and to have a respectable place in society.

Since she wasn't her birth mother, she was actually relieved by Cinderella's crude and simple manner. She heard from her husband that she was beautiful, but she only assumed that it was a father talking about her daughter, and that she was just a little pretty. But she was, and by her features, the girl would be prettier when she became a woman. Having such a beautiful girl to rival Daphne and Cordelia, Ursula would have to create a way that her own daughters won't have any disadvantage in the future. If she neglected her education and blamed her genius, if she didn't mistreat the girl and just seemed like Cinderella if she is too rebellious to behave like a lady, at least that would satisfy her husband. She would be the wife who managed to raise two daughters very well, but one was a lost case. Since the servants didn't seem to want to serve her well, she could even blame them, if she has a huge problem with them in the future. For having spoiled the girl in her childhood, causing her to have a bad temper.

And Cinderella cooperated. The new lady has already tried to make her straighten her behavior, tried to make her have good manners lessons with her daughters, even those even literacy lessons, which they had to hire a tutor to stay in the mansion. None of this seemed to interest the girl, even if she still said she wanted to be a lady in the future. Of course Ursula didn't try hard to persuade her..

A girl behaving like that might even be cute, but when she grew up... People expect noble women to be ladies, not this!

And when the time comes for them to marry, only fools would search for a pretty wife, making Cinderella a barrier to block bad suitors for Daphne and Cordelia.

Those with the small head who would love their wives for a day and soon would find a more attractive lover, those ones would ask for the Cinderella's hand. Those who would seek a good wife to be honored and respected would ask for the hands of Daphne and Cordelia.

And in the few days that passed, that arrangement worked. The Viscount was glad his daughter was still running happily around the palace, and the new mother seemed to care about her, as if she was her own. No one suspected she was sabotaging that girl's future.

Ursula didn't regret it at all. If there was anything that the death of her first husband taught her, it was that she had her two daughters in her life, no one else. The family of his parents didn't want to welcome them, for fear of infuriating the new Baron. His former loyal servants had owners who should obey. The new Baron's family took care of itself. The new husband loved his daughter more than anything. In the end, it was only three in the world, alone.

But something still bothered Ursula. An impression she had of the birds of that day, and little things, that she wouldn't even know what it was, that happened. Just imagined there was something wrong. But as she worried about Cinderella's dazzling appearance, she thought that was it. Someone who might steal a good match for her two legitimate daughters.

Until that happened.

After a few months of marriage, the Viscount dies during a trip he made to the capital. An accident, by any angle seen. Subsequently, the discovery of her pregnancy a few days after that event, which even became a reason to celebrate because of the real catastrophe that came before.

Yes, Aldo was a boy, became the heir to the title of Viscount, which allowed that their fate wasn't the same as the one they had when they lost the son of the Baron. Thanks to this boy they were able to continue in that mansion, being the owners of those lands. Ursula would no longer be a Viscountess, that will be the title of Aldo's wife, but still, she was responsible for him and for all his obligations to adulthood.

The great difficulty was that this lady was supposed to be barren. Having problems getting pregnant and carrying a child in the womb, due to the complications of her last childbirth. What made her pregnancy dangerous, the delivery even more. And her son didn't escape unharmed: he has several health problems, always being bedridden and not being a common figure in the family daily life. Many even know of its existence.

Still, he was a direct descendant of the old generation, a real Viscount.

However, what caused the most disturbances in her pregnancy, which consequently forced her to remove a good part of the servants and also the tutor from within the mansion, to reduce her social life, to trap herself and the daughters in her own house, wasn't the Aldo's health. It was Cinderella's reaction when she learned of her father's death.

What happened to all the rats and birds in the house...

They all ran and flew from where they were and surrounded Cinderella as if consoling her, crying as she cried.

Those birds that ran around her when they met her might mean nothing. It might just be a coincidence, they might have been attracted by its beauty, or a better explanation, by some smell. But that mourning that the birds and rats lived beside her, there was no fragrance that would explain that behavior.

There was only one explanation.

Cinderella was a witch.