"Translate for Her, She's Only the Nursemaid," the Countess Said — The Ambassador Bowed to Her
Chapter 5
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
Wednesday was the day of the dinner, and the house woke up already shouting. The Countess of Stanwick had thirty-one covers and one object. The object was to send her husband to a northern court as minister, with herself as the minister's lady. The Foreign Office had not decided. Count Zabelin, whose good word would travel straight back to the Tsar, would decide them. Everything, therefore, depended on the Count being pleased."He has written," the Countess said at breakfast, waving the letter, "that as the Emperor's envoy, he will make his formal address in Russian, in honor of his sovereign. One can hardly object. That is why we have Mr. Pomfret. Mr. Pomfret has Russian.""Mr. Pomfret has French," said the Earl, "which is to say, Mr. Pomfret has what every gentleman has. Are you sure of his Russian?""He was a year in Riga."The Earl, who was not a fool, but was a tired man with five children and a wife who was never tired, let it go.Mr. Pomfret, for his part, was in high spirits. He had come to the nursery that morning to try his Russian on the Count's daughter, since the Count had asked particularly that she be understood, and he reported downstairs that the child had asked for milk and been given it.She had not asked for milk. She had asked whether her mother was in England.Theodora had heard it from the window seat and had said to Mr. Pomfret, in her mildest English, "I think she might like milk, sir, if you would ask Cook." And had let him go down pleased with himself, and had then sat on the sixth bed and told Natasha, in Russian, that her mother was not in England, that her mother was in heaven, as her papa had surely told her, and that Theodora's own mother was there, too, and that it was a comfort to think of them together having tea.Natasha had considered this and said, "In heaven, they have samovars." And Theodora had said that she was sure of it.The Duke of Calderwood had been standing on the landing when Mr. Pomfret came out. He had come up, he explained to Mrs. Bragg, the nurse, to give the Count's daughter a message from her father. Mrs. Bragg, who was deaf in the left ear, turned her right ear to him and said that the child was with Marlow, and Marlow seemed to manage her—nobody knew how."No," said the Duke, "nobody knows how."He stood in the nursery doorway long enough to see the window seat, the gray dress, the little girl talking Russian nineteen to the dozen, and the nursemaid answering her without looking up. And then he gave the message in French, to be translated by whoever cared to translate it, and went down to the Foreign Office with a line between his brows.