...of loyalty

Netty knew about Deptford; she knew about the people down by the crick; she knew about what happened on Abdication Christmas. But it was not for lesser folk to know these things.

Did all these things make Netty dear to us? No, it made her a holy terror. People who prate about loyal old servants rarely know the hard-won coin of the spirit in which their real wages are paid. Netty's terrible silences about things that were foremost in our minds oppressed Caroline and me and were a great part of what seemed to us to be the darkness that was falling over our home.

[The Manticore, Davies, R.]