Temptation of a Teacher Read online

  “There must be a catalogue somewhere,” the Comte remarked. “I cannot believe that my most efficient and most estimable cousin would not have everything that concerns him in perfect order.”

  There was a sarcastic and rather nasty note in his voice and Arletta merely walked towards Pauline and looked down at the book that the child held in her hand.

  “Shall we take this one upstairs with us?” she asked.

  “No, it’s very dull,” Pauline pouted. “I want a book with lots of birds and flowers in it or else pictures of England.”

  The Comte laughed.

  “That is something you will certainly not find here and, if your uncle hears you asking for such a thing, he will be very angry!”

  Pauline ignored him and looked up at Arletta to say,

  “Please find me one, mademoiselle.”

  “I will do my best,” Arletta answered, “but it is rather difficult to know where to begin.”

  She tried to ignore the Comte, who was standing near her and looking at her in a way that she considered impertinent.

  Then, as if he had just made up his mind, he said,

  “I would like to have a word with you, mademoiselle. Will you come to the other end of the room?”

  Arletta hesitated.

  She wanted to say that she had nothing to talk to him about and then she thought that it would be rude and it would be a mistake not to be polite to one of the Duc’s relations.

  Reluctantly, telling David to go on looking for what they required and speaking to him in English, she walked to the end of the library, where by the huge carved fireplace there was a sofa and several chairs.

  She sat down on the sofa and then thought that she had made a mistake as the Comte sat beside her a little closer than she considered necessary.

  Lowering his voice, he then spoke to her,

  “You have made a great mistake in coming here!”

  “A mistake?” Arletta asked.

  “You will find it very boring and there are many other places in France which will amuse you and where with your very pretty face you would be a great success.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, monsieur,” Arletta said. “I came here to teach English to the children, who are the nephew and niece of my friend, Lady Langley, and that is what I intend to do.”

  “Then, if you insist, you must let me help you. It will not be easy for you to cope with the Duc and, as he has already made up his mind to hate you, you will find the Château very uncomfortable when he returns.”

  “I am sure that you mean to be kind, monsieur,” Arletta replied, “but I am quite prepared to cross my bridges when I come to them. Since the Duc is not yet here, I shall do my best until he does return.”

  “Your best is certainly good enough for me,” the Comte conceded. “As I have already told you, I will look after you, help and guide you.”

  Arletta rose to her feet.

  “Thank you for being so kind, but to be quite honest, being English, I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

  She walked away from him and he did not attempt to stop her.

  She heard him laugh softly and thought that he was undoubtedly the sort of Frenchman that Jane had warned her about.

  At the same time she did not like him and she thought that he might make things difficult instead, as he had offered, of helping her.

  To her relief, when she reached the other end of the library where the children were, she found that he had left them and, as soon as she had found several books that she thought might be useful, they went upstairs to the schoolroom.

  As soon as they were back, David volunteered,

  “I don’t like Cousin Jacques.”

  “Nor do I,” Pauline chimed in, not wishing to be left out.

  “Why?” Arletta asked.

  She noticed that David once again looked over his shoulder as if he was afraid of being overheard.

  Then he tried to explain his feelings,

  “There is something about him that makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know why.”

  He looked a little puzzled and then he went on,

  “Mama said that we should send out waves of kindness to people so that they like us, but the waves coming from Cousin Jacques are not kind.”

  That was what Arletta had thought herself, but she was surprised that such a small boy should be so perceptive.

  Then she thought that living in the Château in such strange conditions had perhaps made him different from other boys.

  She was afraid that if this was so he might find school in England even more difficult.

  “I suppose if we all behaved properly we would try to like everybody,” she said lightly. “Although it is not always possible, at least we can make the best of them.”

  David was not listening. Instead he was playing with his soldiers, which were on the table where he had arranged them the previous night.

  “They are a very fine collection,” Arletta commented. “Who gave them to you, David?”

  “Cousin Etienne. He had them made for me and I think his idea, when he did so, was not to please me but to make me interested in becoming a soldier myself in the French Army.”

  Again Arletta was aware that it was an unusual thought for a boy of eleven.

  She wondered whether it was something that she should try to encourage or suppress.

  What would Jane have done about it in her place? She knew that Jane was very down to earth. As her father would have said, she ‘has her feet planted firmly on the ground’ and, except where Simon Sutton was concerned, her head was full of facts not fantasies.

  Arletta was sure that she would have faced even the Château itself in a practical and straightforward manner.

  She knew by the end of the day that for her the Château held a secret magic that was inescapable apart from being in so many ways menacing and oppressive.

  She had found out that part of the main building was of a later date than the towers. Here the windows were high and the rooms with their many tapestries, pictures and huge crystal chandeliers were so beautiful that she felt it impossible not to feel when she entered them that she walked into a Fairytale.

  To the children it was all so familiar that they were not interested and preferred to take her to the Armoury, where ancient weapons that had been used by the Sauterres over the generations were arranged on the walls.

  In the middle of the room there was a cannon with its round iron balls piled beside it.

  They also wanted to show her the dungeons, but even David realised that it had grown too dark and it would be better if they went earlier the next day.

  Just before dinner, when the children had gone to their own rooms to change and Arletta was just going up the stone steps to her bedroom, a footman came to the door with a message,

  “Madame la Duchesse wishes to see you, m’mselle!”

  Following him Arletta felt intrigued at the idea of meeting the Duc’s grandmother.

  She wondered if in any way she would be like her own grandmother whom she could vaguely remember coming to stay with them many years ago before her father came into the title and they had moved into the family mansion.

  She had thought that her grandmother was exquisite with her white hair, her delicate features and her long thin hands.

  She had been very dignified and sat as if her back was supported by a ramrod. But her eyes had often twinkled with amusement and her laughter was soft and melodious.

  “I wish she had not died when I was so young,” Arletta had often said later.

  She thought now that Madame la Duchesse might be something like her Grandmère after whom she was named.

  The footman led her a long way, in fact to the other end of the Château, which Arletta had not yet been able to explore.

  Then they went up a rather fine staircase to the first floor, where there was an elderly maid waiting for them.

  “Good evening, m’mselle,” she said politely and then tu
rned to the footman, “You must wait, Jean, to take m’mselle back. She’ll never find her own way.”

  “No, that is true,” Arletta said. “Please wait or I shall be completely lost.”

  She then followed the maid through a beautifully painted door into a small hall out of which opened two other doors.

  In the next moment she found herself in the Duchesse’s bedroom.

  It was different from any room that she had seen before with a huge bed on a dais and curtains falling behind it from a corolla fixed to the ceiling.

  Propped up against a number of pillows was the strangest old lady that Arletta had ever seen.

  She was very old and her face, which might once have been beautiful, was wrinkled and lined just like Chinese parchment. Her hair was white but so skilfully arranged that Arletta suspected it to be a wig.

  Round her neck she wore a dozen ropes of huge pearls and glittering in her ears were diamond earrings that swung and sparkled with every movement she made.

  Her hands, which were blue-veined, were weighed down with rings and there were a half dozen bracelets on each of her wrists.

  Despite the fact that it was summer, her bed was covered with an ermine bedspread, which was growing slightly yellow in colour.

  As Arletta moved nearer to the bed, she was aware that despite the fact that she was very old, the Duchesse’s eyes had a shrewd look in them as if she took in every detail of her appearance.

  Arletta curtseyed and waited until the Duchesse quizzed her,

  “You are Jane Turner, who has come here to teach my great-grandchildren?”

  “Yes, madame, I am.”

  “I don’t believe it. You have come to the Château to see my grandson, that is your reason for being here.”

  “I assure you, madame,” Arletta replied, “that I am here because Lady Langley asked me to teach English to her niece and nephew, having been surprised when she stayed here recently to find that they neither of them could speak their own language.”

  “Their own language?” the Duchesse retorted. “You had better not let my grandson hear you say that! He hates the English and who shall blame him? If you are hoping to ‘catch’ him, I can tell you you are going the wrong way about it.”

  “You are quite mistaken, madame, if that is what you think about me,” Arletta protested. “I cannot imagine who has been telling you such stupid tales, which are quite untrue.”

  She thought as she spoke that, if Jane had been confronted with such a ridiculous assertion, she would have been upset and embarrassed.

  Then she remembered that poor plain Jane would never have been suspected of trying to ‘catch’ anyone, least of all the Duc de Sauterre.

  The Duchesse looked her up and down and then commented,

  “You are very pretty, I admit that, but this is not the right place to flaunt your looks. The sooner you go back to where you came from the better for you and everybody else. I assure you that my grandson has no time for Governesses.”

  “And I assure you, madame,” Arletta said slowly and clearly, “I am not interested in your grandson, whom I have not yet met, but only with the children whom I have come to teach.”

  She curtseyed, turned away from the bed and walked towards the door.

  As she reached it, the Duchesse screamed,

  “Attendez! How dare you walk away before I have finished talking to you? Come back here immediately!”

  Arletta turned round, but she made no effort to return to where she had been standing. Instead she just looked at the Duchesse, holding her head high.

  Unexpectedly the old woman chuckled.

  “At least, whoever you are, you have spirit! Most people are frightened of me.”

  Arletta did not speak and after a moment the old woman went on.

  “Come here. I want to look at you.”

  Slowly, as if she was reluctant to do so, Arletta walked back to stand again beside the bed.

  “You are very pretty and you are a lady,” the Duchesse said in a low voice, as if she was speaking to herself. “I wonder why Jacques is so eager to be rid of you?”

  Arletta wondered too, but there was little point in saying so.

  There was silence and then after a moment Arletta said,

  “Excuse me, madame, but, if I don’t go now, I shall be late for dinner and I am sure that is a crime in this very punctual well organised household.”

  The Duchesse smiled.

  “You are right about that. But I want to see you again – do you understand? I will send for you tomorrow and you can tell me all about yourself.”

  “Thank you, madame, good night.”

  Arletta curtseyed again and walked towards the door, this time not looking back.

  The footman, Jean, was waiting for her outside in the passage and he led her back by a complicated route to the foot of the staircase of the tower.

  When they reached it, Arletta said,

  “Thank you,” and the man remarked,

  “Strange old lady, isn’t she? People think she’s a witch! But there’s a real one in the village and if you wants your fortune told, there be no one better.”

  Arletta realised that he was not being impertinent, only friendly, and so she answered,

  “I think it would be disappointing to know the future before it happens. What makes you think that the woman in the village is a witch?”

  “She’s one all right!” the footman answered. “You’ll have to be careful not to offend her.”

  “I will not do so,” Arletta replied, “and thank you once again.”

  She ran up the twisting stone staircase, thinking that everything in the Château grew stranger and stranger.

  She had never met anybody quite so fantastic as the Duc’s grandmother.

  But everybody seemed to be warning her against staying and it made her all the more determined to find out what was wrong and why they wished to be rid of her.

  She had also not forgotten that David had told her that his uncle was a murderer.

  “How can it be possible?” she asked aloud and changed into her gown, regretting that she had forgotten to tell the maid to bring her a bath.

  ‘I must make her understand that I want one every evening,’ she told herself.

  There were enough servants for it not to be a very arduous duty with so few residents at the Château.

  At the same time there were now two more than she had seen last night and she wondered how many more lived here.

  The Comte had dinner with them and monopolised Arletta so that David and Pauline hardly spoke a word.

  It was something she thought should not happen, but she found it difficult to know how she could prevent the Comte from talking to her and paying her compliments that she found embarrassing and unnerving.

  Also she had the feeling that they were not in any way sincere.

  When dinner was over, she insisted, when he tried to inveigle her into going with him into one of the State rooms, that she must take the children upstairs to the schoolroom.

  Pauline’s Bonne was waiting for her to put her to bed and Arletta was then alone with David.

  “I can see you don’t like Cousin Jacques,” he remarked when the door had closed behind them.

  “I have not said so,” Arletta retorted.

  “I told you there was something about him that is not nice,” David continued.

  “You know quite well I must not criticise anybody here,” Arletta scolded him.

  “I will not repeat to anybody what you say to me,” David assured her, “but you have to be careful in case somebody is listening.”

  “Who would want to do that?”

  David shrugged his shoulders.

  “The maids listen and tell Great-grandmama and the men spy for Uncle Etienne.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Arletta exclaimed. “What is there to spy about?”

  Again David shrugged his shoulders.

  “I think you are all too isolated here,” Arletta carried on.
“I am sure that you and Pauline should have friends of your own age. There must be some children who live in the vicinity.”

  “If there are, Uncle Etienne will not let us near them. But Cousin Jacques has friends.”

  Arletta wanted to ask who they were, but then thought that it would be a mistake.

  When she climbed into bed, she recalled in her mind everything that had been said and had happened and thought that it was all so extraordinary that she really ought to write it down for Jane and send it to her out in Jamaica.

  ‘If I was clever, I could write a novel about it,’ she mused, ‘although at the moment, if I am the heroine, there is certainly the lack of a hero!’

  *

  The following day it was a relief to learn when the Comte did not appear that he had gone away to stay with friends.

  “It will be much nicer without him,” David said darkly. “He says one thing, but his eyes say another.”

  “You are too fanciful,” Arletta argued, although she knew that he was right. “Boys of your age should be thinking of cricket, riding, shooting and, of course, lessons.”

  “I think of all those things,” David replied, “except for cricket, which Uncle Etienne says is a very English game. But I am going to play it when I go to Eton, because Papa was in the First Eleven.”

  “My father was too,” Arletta said, “and, although I am only a woman, I can show you how the game is played and perhaps we can ask one of the servants to bowl for us.”

  David thought that this was an excellent idea and Arletta went to find Monsieur Byien.

  She thought it rather strange that, while she, as a Governess, was allowed to have meals in the dining room, Monsieur Byien apparently ate alone.

  She found him in his office and when she explained what she wanted, he looked more worried than ever.

  “I think you will have to wait and ask the Duc about this,” he cautioned.

  “He might not come back for ages,” Arletta replied. “I think it is important that David should have some idea of how the game is played and, as he is so enthusiastic, it’s a mistake for him to be put off with promises.”

  Monsieur Byien laughed.

  “Very well, mademoiselle, you win. And, as I played cricket as a boy, I will try first to see how rusty I am when it comes to bowling.”