Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The problem with archdukes was that one was not allowed to talk back at them. Servants weren’t allowed to speak with them at all.
That was Pippa’s biggest trial. Klemens knew it and exploited the situation mercilessly.
It wasn’t even evening yet, and Pippa was exhausted.
More than exhausted.
She’d spent the entire day dusting, cleaning, polishing, fetching, running errands, and generally being at the Archduke’s beck and call.
He’d positioned himself in an armchair in the middle of the sitting room and pointed with his walking stick at what she had to clean.
“There’s a speck of dust.” He pointed with his stick at an imaginary fluff of dust on the dresser. “Clean it.”
When she did, he’d insist that she’d missed a part and had to redo everything over again, including waxing the entire dresser with lemon oil.
“There is a fingerprint on the mirror; polish it.” He pointed at the mirror over the dresser. She polished it.
“Is that what you call cleaning?” He pointed at a nonexistent speck. “Do it again.”
She gritted her teeth and mentally recounted the Fibonacci numbers to keep herself from snapping back.
He made her re-polish an entire cabinet of crystal glasses and goblets, wash all the windows twice, sweep the floors, wipe off all the furniture—without as much as a sound of complaint.
She’d rattled off the squares table five times in the meantime.
Klemens sat in an armchair, reading the paper, as he supervised her cleaning.
“Polish the chandelier now.” He turned the page without looking up.
Pippa looked at him, aghast. The chandelier! It was a massive, opulent monster hanging from the ceiling of the drawing room, consisting of finely cut glass prisms and dangling crystals. A quick estimate made her conclude that the number of crystal pieces must be around two-hundred.
It was lowered once a day for the candles to be lit, and it took three servants to clean the wretched thing.
For that purpose, it needed to be disassembled, then after cleaning, correctly reassembled, like an elaborate puzzle designed by a madman.
Even if one disregarded the intensive effort it would take to lower and disassemble it, the cleaning alone would devour an entire day.
One had to dip each crystal piece carefully into hot water, scrape off the wax remnants with infinite patience, remove the grime and tarnishing with soap, and then dry each piece before reassembling the entire thing.
Since it was such a time-intensive and elaborate activity, the cleaning of the chandeliers was usually done when the imperial family was not in residence and had moved to the summer palace Schonbrunn over the summer months.
Not to mention that it was madness for a single person to even attempt.
She wrung her hands in her apron.
Klemens looked up from his newspaper and lifted an eyebrow. “Well?”
“The chandelier needs to be lowered before it can be cleaned. I need the help of two others to lower it.” She paused, then added hastily, “Your Imperial Highness.”
A small frown between his brows expressed his disappointment at her insistence on maintaining the protocol.
“You are a resourceful young woman, are you not? Anna Braun.” There was a devilish glint in his eyes. “I’m certain you can manage to accomplish the feat without lowering the entire contraption. Alone.”
Pippa’s throat felt suddenly dry. “Very well, Your Imp-ish Highness.” She coughed.
Klemens’ head snapped up. “What did you just say?”
“Your ImPERial Highness.” She made sure to over-enunciate each letter.
“I thought I heard something else.” He shrugged, then settled backward into his cushioned chair. “Before you begin your task, fetch me a cup of tea.”
Pippa gritted her teeth, curtsied, and did as he requested.
It took a while, because he changed his mind about the tea (the first pot was too strong, the second too weak, then he decided he preferred coffee, after all), and with a plate of biscuits—no, wait, he suddenly had a strong desire for apfelstrudel.
Pippa ran and did as he bid, with an angelic mien, as if nothing in the world could ruffle her demeanour.
But that merely resulted in infuriating him more.
Pippa knew Klemens. She knew what he wanted to accomplish by tormenting her thus. He wanted to break her composure by taunting and provoking her into an explosion of her temper. But he would not succeed.
After she’d fetched him a footstool—lifting his feet on it, for suddenly he seemed quite incapable of lifting them himself—covered him with a blanket as if he were an ailing old man, tucked a pillow behind his back and fetched him three different newspapers, arranged in a certain angle his lap, he was finally ready.
He lifted an imperial hand, announcing pompously as if he were opening a spectacle at the Burgtheater, “You may begin.”
Pippa had brought a bowl with hot soapy water and rags, and eyed the chandelier with misgiving.
To reach it, she’d need a ladder, but His Imperial Highness had not given her leave to fetch one.
Therefore, she had no other choice but to use a chair.
The problem with the chairs was that they were draped in expensive velvet cushions, exquisitely embroidered with silk and golden thread by the court ladies of his grandmother, Empress Maria Theresia.
Their needlepoint skills were highly accomplished, and it was said that the empress, even, had not only encouraged that activity but also passionately participated in embroidering some of those chairs herself.
To step on their artwork with her grimy servants’ boots was sacrilege.
With a sigh, she sat on the floor to loosen the strings of her boots.
Klemens promptly lowered the newspaper.
She pulled off one boot, then another, rattling off, in her mind, an entire litany of the worst curses she could think of.
Of course he would stare with evident fascination at her every move, and of course there was a big hole in her sock, through which her big toe peeped like some offending rodent emerging from its burrow. Could anything be more humiliating?
Judging from the way his lips quirked, he was excellently entertained.
It couldn’t be helped.
She stepped onto the chair in stockinged feet, finding the thick cushion on the chair was designed less for stability than for comfort. Stretching up, she could barely reach the bottom tier of the chandelier. She dipped her rag into the hot water and cleaned the first row of crystals.
The chandelier had two tiers, each bearing about twelve arms, and then, like a tree, branching off into smaller arms from which the crystals dangled like clusters of grapes, twenty-four drops each, with twelve additional glass beads on the side.
She paused, recalculating. Her initial estimate had been inaccurate.
The exact figure was not two-hundred, but around six-hundred.
If she cleaned each piece thoroughly, say, a minute apiece, it would take her ten hours to clean the entire chandelier.
If, however, she could clean even faster, she might reduce the time to maybe a mere seven hours.
She’d only cleaned three crystals, and already her arms were aching, a muscle in her left leg cramped, the hot water was dripping down her sleeve and onto her face, and she was sweating and out of breath.
Not to mention the infernal chair, which wobbled with every move she made.
In an attempt to ease the cramp, she lifted a foot and as she set it back down; it sank deeper into the cushion than she anticipated.
She dropped the rag, and her arms circled hectically in the air in an attempt to regain her balance, and according to the universal law that stated what can happen will happen, as it was foreordained, with impending doom, Pippa fell.