"Translate for Her, She's Only the Nursemaid," the Countess Said — The Ambassador Bowed to Her
Chapter 9
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It was a good toast. The Duke of Calderwood, across the table, let out his breath.Mr. Pomfret stood up, flushed with claret and importance, and gave it in Russian.Theodora, behind the children, heard it and felt the floor go out from under her. He had the words of a Riga counting house and the grammar of a dictionary. Where the Earl had said the Russians gave their capital to the flames rather than yield it, Mr. Pomfret said that the Russians had not been able to hold their capital and had left it to burn. Where the Earl had praised a sovereign who never made peace, Mr. Pomfret's verb came out as a sovereign who was slow to make peace. And the Countess Zabelina, who had carried a child through fire, came out of Mr. Pomfret's mouth as a woman who had fled from Moscow with a child because she could not be got out.The Count's face did not move. That was the worst of it. It simply stopped, the way a clock stops. He set down his glass without having raised it.The Countess, who had understood nothing, beamed."To Russia," said the table, and drank.Count Zabelin said in French, very quietly, "I thank Lord Stanwick for his candor." And sat down.The temperature of the room fell by ten degrees, and the only people who knew why were the Duke, who had caught perhaps one word in four, and the nursemaid, who had caught every one.She had told Natasha that nursemaids do not talk at dinner.She shifted Perry to her other shoulder. She stepped forward between Rupert and Louisa so that she stood at the Count's elbow, and she said in the clear, low Russian of the English Embankment, "Your Excellency, forgive me. That is not what Lord Stanwick said."The table did not hear her. The table heard a servant speaking out of turn, and the Countess half-rose with "Marlow!" on her lips. But the Count had turned in his chair.Theodora gave him the toast. She gave it in Russian as the Earl had meant it, sentence by sentence: the capital given to the flames with their own hands, the Emperor who never once made peace, and the Countess Zabelina who had carried a child through the fire and lived to see her safe. She did not raise her voice; she did not need to. She was six inches from his ear.