"Translate for Her, She's Only the Nursemaid," the Countess Said — The Ambassador Bowed to Her
Chapter 6
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Lady Honoria, who had come up the stairs behind him in a new blue morning dress for no reason she would have admitted, saw only that he had come into the nursery and come out again, and that the nursemaid had been there."It is unwholesome," she told her mother. "Marlow encourages it—all that jabber. Papa's guests will think we have hired a Cossack.""After tonight," said the Countess, "we shall see about Marlow."At 4:00, Frances wanted a book. Frances always wanted a book. It was the Earl's rule that she might have any book from the library provided a grown person fetched it, because of the candle incident. So Theodora went down, as she had gone down a hundred times, and opened the library door and found the Duke of Calderwood sitting in the window with a dispatch box open on his knee.She stopped. He stood up."Forgive me, Your Grace. Lady Frances wants the second volume of Miss Edgeworth.""Then Lady Frances shall have it." He found it himself, because he had evidently been in that library before, and held it out. He did not let go of it at once. "Vous parlez français, mademoiselle?" he said. It was not a question."Comme tout le monde, monsieur le duc.""Everybody does not speak it like that." He let the book go. "You speak Russian like a Petersburg nurse and French like a Paris governess. I have been wondering since last night which of them raised you.""Both, Your Grace, in a manner of speaking."He switched then to Russian—slow and careful, the Russian of a man who had learned it at thirty in a hurry. "Where did you learn the lullaby?"She answered without thinking, because he had asked in the language of her childhood and it had been two years since anyone had. "From my nurse, Avdotya Ivanovna, on the English Embankment. She said it would keep the house spirits quiet. It kept me quiet, which I think was the object."The Duke laughed. It changed his whole face. "The English Embankment? Then you were born there."She had said too much. She felt it like cold water. "Your Grace, I am the nursemaid here. Lady Frances is waiting.""I know what you are here," he said, in English again. "I am asking what you were before." And then, more gently: "I will not ask again if you do not wish it. But I will say this: Mr. Pomfret told Lady Stanwick this morning that the Count's child asked for milk. I was on the landing. I have enough Russian to know the word for mother."