“Does Anyone Here Speak Russian?” the Duke Asked — His Little Girl Pointed at the Maid Serving Coffee
Chapter 19
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At the mantelpiece, the Duke of Ashkam turned round.He had seen it. Anna understood afterwards that he had watched all of it in the long gilt mirror over the fire: the apron, the laughter, the turn of Cressida's wrist, the coffee on Anna's hand. He had seen it, and he had stood quite still with his back to the room—the way a man stands when he is deciding something that can never be undone.He crossed the drawing room. Forty people moved out of his way without knowing they had moved. He did not look at Cressida, or at his mother, or at the Marquis of Thursby.The Duke stopped in front of Anna and took her scalded hand in both of his, there in the middle of his own drawing room, in front of everyone. He turned it over gently, and then drew the folded handkerchief from his own coat and wrapped her hand in it as carefully as if it were made of glass."Your Grace," Anna whispered. "Please don't.""Hush," he said very gently. "It is my turn."Then he reached behind her and untied her apron.A sound went through the room, a soft collective intake of breath, like wind going through a wood. The Duke drew the brown apron from her waist, scorch mark and all, and shook it out.And in front of the Tsar's envoy, and the Marquis of Thursby, and half the Cabinet of England, and his own mother, he tied a coffee girl's apron round his own waist, over his black evening coat and his white waistcoat and the star of his order.Then he picked up the silver pot."Lady Cressida wishes to know," he said to the whole room in a perfectly pleasant voice, "who in this house is fit to pour. I find I should like to answer her."With his own hands, he drew a gilt chair up beside the Countess, set Anna in it, poured a cup of coffee, and put it into her good hand."Miss Fenwick first. Then my mother. Then Lady Cressida, if she still wants it." He looked at Cressida for the first time that evening. "Though I would hold the cup very still, Cressida. I'm not half as practiced as Miss Fenwick. I may spill."Cressida had gone the color of her satin. Nobody laughed now. Nobody breathed.It was one thing for a man to fall in love with a servant; men did that, and the world forgave them, provided they were quiet about it. It was quite another thing for the Duke of Ashkam to stand in his own drawing room in a coffee girl's apron before the Tsar's envoy, and serve her with his own hands as though she were the only person in the room worth serving.It cost him his dignity. It cost him the Marquis of Thursby and every vote the Marquis carried in his pocket. Every person in that room knew exactly what he was spending. And every person in that room watched him spend it without a flicker, as if it were nothing at all.