After Jacks funeral Cinderella went from being a servant in her own home to a slave. Teresa Mayne Lancaster insisted Cinderella stop calling her step-mother and begin calling her Madam.
"You will address my children properly, calling them Mistress Anastasia or Mistress Drisella. You are not their sister and never have been. You are a pest. A mistake their father made a long time ago and that is all. It is your fault he is now dead, and it is your fault your mother is dead. If he had never had an affair with that woman you would never have existed. He never would have worked in the god-awful mine, and I would have had the life I deserve."
There was no respect allotted to Cinderella or the service she provided her former family. They even refused to use her name, calling her simply, "maidservant" or "freak" or nothing at all. Madam demanded Cinderella get a job to bring in money to support her and her daughters desired lifestyle.
Cinderella was now alone in the world. Unnoticed and unwanted. No one paid any attention to her once her morning chores were done. That is unless she shirked her duties of waiting on them hand and foot, day and night. She was expected to go to work, buy groceries, and prepare dinner unless there was another task assigned for the day.
Drisella liked to come up with little tasks for her that were exclusively for the purpose of mocking her.
"Oh there you are, Freak, my dolly is cold. Make the fire bigger." It had become a game to Drisella to try to burn different parts of Cinderella's body. Once her grimy smock caught on fire burning her chest. She had to slip out of it to keep it from burning her further, which left her standing in her underwear, which only gave the ladies of the house more ammunition against her.
"Oh wow, you scrawny thing, you have no figure at all, does she, Anastasia?" Madam remarked.
Cinderella lifted the filthy rag to her chest and hurried from the room.
The mistresses would sit in the parlor ringing handheld call bells they used to summon Cinderella. They were famished and in desperate need of cookies and milk. But no matter how persistently they shook the chiming instrument, Cinderella did not come. She had fallen asleep at her mothers grave from the exhaustion of working all the time. This infuriated the ladies of the house so much that Madam came up with consequences for her.
If she was ever late with dinner, dressing the ladies, cleaning the house, tending the animals, or any of her other many duties as a housemaid, she would get 3 lashings for every minute she made them wait. This was an exciting form of entertainment for the girls who should have been her sisters. They would eagerly count the minutes and not let her get away with being late for any reason. Even if it was because she was kept at work late.
In order to remember her father, she investigated the new trade he had last spoken about: glass.
At just 11 she basically held down two jobs. First, as a full-time maidservant for the Lancaster family, and second, as a Glass-works Apprentice for Mr. O'Leary. She was paid a very small amount as an apprentice, but she was able to keep working there by agreeing to spend what she did earn on the her former family's dinners. For the first five years of her apprenticeship she mostly cleaned the workshop, stocked the fire, washed the aprons, and prepared the molds. She was surprised at the weight of the tools, but didn't give up. She grew stronger over the years. By the time she turned 16, Mr. O'Leary had grown somewhat fond of Cinderella. So when he had something troublesome to tell her, he needed a good way to pad the blow.
"Here," Mr. O'Leary said, "You seem to have unusually small feet. I made these shoes for my wife, who has dainty little feet, but these were too small and narrow even for her." He said, as he gave Cinderella a tiny pair of glass slippers. Then he added, "And uh, I'm not going to be able to keep you on any longer. I'm sorry." He put his hand on her back and she squirmed away, even though she was thirsty for physical touch. This habit started around the same time the lashings did. But she barely felt the pain.
This was the only gift she had received since her mother had died. She said thank you in her quiet voice, took the shoes, and carefully placed them in her apron pockets. She was afraid to go straight home because Madam would not be happy with her losing their only source of income and she worried about the lashings she would get for such a loss. So she went straight to her mothers grave to talk and rest. And to leave the glass shoes atop the large stone that now was perfect height for her to sit on while she talked with her mother. She accidentally fell asleep and was late with dinner.
But this night, she didn't cry herself to sleep as hard, even though her back was beaten raw, because someone had given her something. Even if it had been trash to them, it was a true treasure to her.
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