“Does Anyone Here Speak Russian?” the Duke Asked — His Little Girl Pointed at the Maid Serving Coffee
Chapter 20
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Then he set the pot down on the tray, turned back to her, took her good hand, and spoke to her in Russian.It was very bad Russian. The stresses fell in all the wrong places. He muddled two of the endings, and somewhere near the middle he stopped and began a sentence over again. Only four people in that room understood him: the Count, the Countess, a little girl in a white frock, and Anna Fenwick.But every one of those four went perfectly still."Anna Robertovna," he said. "I say this badly. I will say it badly every morning for the rest of my life if you will let me. I am not asking you to stay for my daughter. I am asking you to stay for me. Will you be my wife?"Anna could not speak. She sat in the gilt chair with his handkerchief around her hand and her coffee going cold, looking up at the Duke of Ashkam in a coffee house apron, and she could not find a single word in any of her languages.It was Sonia who found one.She stood up on tiptoe beside the chair, cupped her small hand round Anna's ear, and whispered into it so fiercely that half the room heard her:"Skazhi da! Say yes!""Da," said Anna Fenwick, and began to cry.Count Arsenyev rose to his feet."Ladies and gentlemen," he said in his deep, careful English, "His Grace has just asked Miss Fenwick to marry him in the worst Russian I have heard since Napoleon left Moscow. She has said yes, and so, I believe, has his daughter." He lifted his cup. "I drink to the next Duchess of Ashkam."The Countess lifted hers.Then, after a moment that seemed to last a year, the Dowager lifted hers, too, and held it out to her son, and said in a voice that was not quite steady:"I will take my coffee now, Edmund, since you are pouring."The Thursbys left before it was cold. Felix went with them and forgot his hat.They were married in the spring in the little gray church at Ashkam, with the apple trees in flower over the churchyard wall.Martha came up from the docks in time to see it, thin and cheerful and scolding everyone in Russian. Mr. Pello sat in the front pew in a borrowed blue coat and wept into a red handkerchief from the first hymn to the last.And Sonia walked up the aisle ahead of the bride with a basket of primroses, scattering them on the old stones. And halfway along, she turned round and told the whole congregation in clear and careful English:"That is my new mama."The caricature from the print shop window hangs in the library at Ashkam to this day. The Duke bought it himself and had it framed in gold.And every morning of his life, until he was a very old man, he said good morning to his wife in Russian. And every morning he said it badly. And every morning she laughed.