By the time Alice has opened her eyes, Cora is at long last holding the correct, small, three-tined utensil from among the fourteen other bits of silver.
“Good,” Alice says. Cora slumps with relief. “Identify the rest for me, andthenyou may eat.”
Lesson Twelve: French ~ November 17
“Il fait beau, n’est non?”
“N’est-ce pas.”
Béatrice’s corrections are a far sight gentler than Dagmar’s German tutorials. It’s almost enough to make Cora actually look forward to these French sessions. Nevertheless, after correctly repeating the pleasantry, she cannot help but grumble, “Am I really expected to be fluent in two other languages? German, yes, that makes sense, but French as well?”
Béatrice offers a kindly wince. She opens her mouth to answer, but Alice’s voice cuts through the sitting room.
“Any well-bred young lady of New York society, letaloneEuropean, will have learned French from a very young age.”
“What about you, then?” Cora asks. “You taught yourself perfect French back in that Poughkeepsie boardinghouse? I find that hard to swa—”
“You need only be conversational,” Alice says. “Memorize key phrases you can drop here and there, as the occasion warrants.”
Dagmar pokes her ruddy face into the salon and says something in her native language that Cora can’t even begin to sort out.
As Alice follows the cook out of the room, her German reply makes Dagmar boom with laughter.
“Say, Béa, what expletives can you teach me?” Cora asks sweetly. “I do believe the occasion warrants it.”
Lesson Twenty-Two: Whist ~ November 22
Alice, Cora, Béatrice, and Dagmar sit about the card table.
Alice has her eyes shut. “And what have we learned?”
Cora shrugs in desperation. “Never play against Dagmar?”
“Correct.” Alice sighs.
Dagmar gathers the loose coins and bills from the table. With a single swipe of her large arms, the cook strides away, whistling.
Lesson Thirty: The History and Politics of Central Europe ~ November 27
“It’s actually rather fascinating,” Cora says as she paces the perimeter of the living room rug, practicing a gliding gait as requested. “The rapid progression in the past twenty years from North German unification to the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871, then the—”
“You cannot appear too intelligent,” Alice interrupts, once again. “Andyou’re beginning to slump.”
Cora straightens with a tight, sardonic smile. “I hadn’t realized you wanted the other Cora’s views. In that case...”
She rearranges her features into a gauzily dim expression—an imitation of a sheep she was fond of back on the farm, not that Alice need know that—and recommences her gliding along the rug’s fringed edge.
“Ach, you see, eet is not unlike zees United States, excepting zat our states are ruled by kings and princes. Now imagine eef your Presseedent Arthur made an arrangement wiss Mexico, saying, yass, go ahead, you may take all the cows from Texas, thees ees fine. Zee people of Texas vould not be happy, I think?”
Alice has her fingers pressed to her mouth—whether to keep from laughing or crying, Cora can’t tell.
“Pull that accent way back, if you please, to match my own,” she finally says, her eyes sparkling. “But better.Muchbetter.”
Lesson Thirty-Six: Table Manners (Again) ~ November 29
“Asparagus tastes like roasted dirt,” Cora grumbles. “Must I actually eat it?”
“Some of it, yes.” Alice drops her a sidelong glare.
