Lady Tremaine’s days were spent cleaning the entire house, scrubbing its floors, dusting, beating the rugs, doing the dishes, making the meals, polishing the silver, replacing the candles in all the sconces and chandeliers, lighting the fires, doing the laundry, and more—all under the watchful eye of Sir Richard’s first wife. She surveyed everything Lady Tremaine did from the portraits of her that hung in almost every room of the château. And Cinderella was always there to remind her that the house was still her mother’s, to complain that she missed their old furnishings or the way her mother used to keep things. Lady Tremaine felt unwelcome. She had become a servant in her own home. Thank goodness for Nanny, who saw to the girls, and for Rebecca, who did her best to help Lady Tremaine as well as she could.

Before long it was Christmas Eve, and Lady Tremaine wanted to make an evening of it. She and her girls were entitled to a bit of celebration. Rebecca was preparing a lavish meal for the family at her request. Lady Tremaine wasn’t able to buy gifts for the girls, but she had a few things of her own that she thought they would appreciate, so she had wrapped them up. She planned to put them under the tree, which Nanny had so thoughtfully agreed to decorate while the girls were napping.

Nanny had arranged a special project for the girls that week, helping them to make silver stars and golden moons out of paper, without telling them they would be used to decorate the tree. She and Lady Tremaine thought it would be a lovely surprise for the girls to see their creations displayed so prominently on the family tree. It would be one more way they all could celebrate together.

Lady Tremaine was exhausted from this long day. She had gotten up early to finish all her housework. Without the assistance of Rebecca and Nanny, she wouldn’t have had time to make herself presentable for dinner, or to arrange the gifts that she was so excited to give the girls. She just wished her husband would agree to let her hire some more staff. She hated adding to Nanny’s and Rebecca’s duties when they already had so much work of their own to do.

As she was passing Sir Richard’s study, she decided she would ask him if they couldn’t hire someone, at least in the kitchen. As it was she had been prevailing upon Rebecca too often with special meals, even though it wasn’t her job.