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“I’m not going to repeat what you say,” Monk assured her. “What about the Princess Gisela? Was she as gracious?”
“Oh, yes … well …” She looked cautiously at him.
“Well?” he prompted. “The truth, please, Nell.”
“No, she weren’t. Actual, she were a right cow. Oh!” She looked mortified. “I shouldn’t ’a said that … the poor lady being bereaved, an’ all. I’m terrible sorry, sir. I did’n’ mean it.”
“Yes you did. In what way was she a cow?”
“Please, sir, I shouldn’t never ’ave said that!” she begged. “I daresay where she come from folks are different. An’ she is a royal princess, an’ all, an’ them people in’t like us.”
“Yes they are,” he said angrily. “She’s born just the same way you are, naked and screaming for breath—”
“Oh, sir.” She gasped. “You shouldn’t ought to say things like that about them as is quality, let alone royal!”
“She’s only royal because a petty European prince married her,” he said. “And gave up his crown and his duty to do it. What has she ever done in her life that was of use to anyone? What has she made or built? Who has she helped?”
“I dunno what yer mean, sir.” She was genuinely confused. “She’s a lady.”
That, apparently, was sufficient explanation to her. Ladies did not work. They were not expected to do anything except enjoy themselves as they saw fit. It was not only improper, it was meaningless to question that.
“Did the other servants like her?” he asked, changing his approach.
“In’t up to us to like nor dislike houseguests, sir. But she weren’t no favorite, if that’s what you mean.”
It seemed a moot point. He did not quibble.
“What about the Countess Rostova?” he asked instead.
“Oh, she were fun, sir. Got a tongue on ’er like a navvy what mends the railways, she ’as, but fair. Always fair, she were.”
“Did she like the Princess?”
“I should say not.” The idea seemed to amuse her. “Look daggers at each other, them two. Not
but what the Princess usually got the best of it, one way or another. Made people laugh, she did. Got a wicked way wi’ mocking people. Knew what their weaknesses was and made fun o’ them.”
“What was the Countess’s weakness?”
She did not hesitate. “Oh, ’er fondness for the young Italian gentleman—Barber something.”
“Florent Barberini?”
“Yes, that’s right. Terrible ’andsome, ’e were, but taken with the Princess, like ’e thought she were something out of a fairy story … which I suppose she were.” For a moment her eyes softened. “Must be wonderful to fall in love like that. I suppose the Prince and Princess’ll be remembered through all ’istory—like Lord Nelson and Lady ’Amilton, or Romeo and Juliet—tragic lovers what gave up the world for each other.”
* * *
“Stuff and nonsense,” Lady Wellborough’s maid said briskly. “She’s bin reading them penny books again. I dunno why the mistress lets ’em into the house. Fill young girls’ heads with a lot of silliness. Bein’ married in’t all gin an’ gaspers, like my mother used to say. There’s the good an’ the bad. Men is real, just like women is. They get sick an’ ’ave ter be looked after.” She sniffed. “They get tired and bad tempered, they get frightened, they’re mortal untidy, half o’ them snore enough to wake the dead. And once you’re in marriage there in’t no getting out of it—no matter what. Them daft young girls wants to think a bit before they go chasin’ dreams because they read a silly book. Don’t do to teach some o’ them reading.”
“But surely the Prince and Princess were ideally happy?” Monk pressed, not hoping for a reply of any value, just being argumentative.
They were standing at the stairhead, and below them in the hall a parlormaid giggled and a footman said something under his breath. There was a sound of rapid footsteps.
“I expect so, but they ’ad their quarrels like anyone else,” the lady’s maid said briskly. “Leastways, she did. Ordered ’im about something chronic when they were alone, an’ even sometimes when they wasn’t. Not that ’e seemed to mind, though,” she added. “ ’E’d rather ’ave been sworn at by ’er than treated to sweetness by someone else. I s’pose that’s what bein’ in love does to you.” She shook her head. “For me, I’d ’ave given a piece o’ my mind to anyone who spoke to me like that. An’ maybe paid the consequences for it.” She smiled ruefully. “Maybe as well fallin’ in love in’t for the likes o’ me.”
It was the first Monk had heard of any quarrels, apart from the brief episode of the Verdi performance in Venice, which seemed to have been over almost before it began—with unqualified victory to Gisela, and apparently without rancor on either side.
“What did they quarrel about?” He was unashamedly direct. “Was it to do with returning to Felzburg?”
