Temptation of a Teacher Page 7

The gardeners made some stumps and to Arletta’s surprise Monsieur Byien produced a cricket bat and a ball that were rather ancient but still serviceable.

  After a little practice David began to handle his bat quite proficiently and hit the ball more times than he missed it.

  It was Monsieur Byien who gave up first, complaining that he was growing too old for such strenuous exercise. But he promised to make enquiries of the younger men in the villages who could practise with David the next day.

  “I would rather have you,” David said. “I think you are jolly sporting!”

  He said this in English and Arletta laughed.

  “I don’t think that you could have a greater compliment, Monsieur Byien,” she told him and he had to admit that it was true.

  When they went back to the Château Arletta felt that she had achieved a great deal in a very short space of time, but there was undoubtedly much more to do.

  It was a relief that evening when, after the heat of the day, Pauline was so tired that she had supper in the schoolroom with her Bonne and Arletta and David had dinner alone in the dining room.

  They talked in English with only occasional breaks when David wanted to say something quickly and found his English too inadequate to keep up with his mind.

  Arletta knew that she had the small boy’s friendship and that he liked being with her.

  She thought that today at any rate he had forgotten to glance surreptitiously over his shoulder and say things about his uncle that horrified her.

  There was no summons from the Duchesse and, when David went to bed, she thought with a feeling of satisfaction that she could rest her mind for an hour or two before she went to sleep.

  She undressed and saw that one of the pretty nightgowns that had belonged to her mother had been laid out for her on the bed and she put it on.

  Then she realised that she had nothing to read.

  She had meant to collect a book from the library for herself, but had forgotten to do so.

  It was disappointing, she thought, and then she remembered that at this time of night she undoubtedly had the Château to herself.

  Instead of going to her room she walked back towards the main building where the State rooms were situated.

  She knew that all the servants, except for the footmen on duty in the hall, would have moved into a part of the Château that had been built very much later where both their bedrooms and the kitchens were.

  “They like it there,” David explained, “because there are no ghosts in that part of the Château.”

  “I have not yet seen any here,” Arletta smiled.

  “I have always thought,” David replied, “that ghosts appear only to people they dislike and want to frighten.”

  “Then, if they are leaving me alone, it is a compliment I really do appreciate,” Arletta laughed.

  Now she put on the beautiful blue negligée that had also belonged to her mother and, opening her door quietly, she slipped down the twisting stairs.

  Her soft slippers made no sound and anyway there was no one to hear her.

  Now, as she walked through the long passages towards the State rooms, she thought it understandable that anybody, children or grown-ups, living here with no other distractions would use their imaginations.

  They would people the place with ghosts from the past or turn the shadows that came from the thick fortifications of the walls into something menacing.

  The sun had sunk over the horizon, but the sky was crimson and gold as Arletta entered the room that she thought was the most beautiful of all the State rooms.

  It was in the centre of the building and was known, she had been told, as the ballroom, except for the very centre of the floor, it was furnished with exquisite Louis XIV sofas and chairs and Aubusson carpets that were filled with bright colour.

  On the walls were very old tapestries, mostly in pink, and long gilt-framed mirrors between the windows reflected them and they seemed to blend with the colours in the sky.

  It was so lovely that Arletta felt as if she was a Princess visiting the Château two centuries earlier and being entertained royally by the Duc of the day.

  There was a white piano in one corner of the room inset with plaques of Sèvres china and, feeling that the scene she was visualising needed music, she sat down to play a Strauss waltz.

  It seemed to blend with the room and the light from the windows and gradually, as she played, the last rays of the sun disappeared and there was just the mystic dusk.

  It was then that she suddenly had an idea.

  She had noticed that in the corner of the ballroom, as she had entered, was a long pole with a taper on the end of it, which was used to light the candles in the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

  Then there was, in a holder below the taper, a little brass hood to extinguish them with.

  This was a scenario that Arletta had seen used at home when they lit the chandeliers in the large drawing room when her mother had entertained.

  On the piano was a small candelabrum and beside it a matchbox and there was no reason, she thought, why anybody should know about it, if she enjoyed herself as she wished to do.

  She lit the candles in the candelabrum, then lit the taper on the pole and lifted it up to carry it to the chandelier in the middle of the room.

  She could reach only the candles on the lowest tier, but she managed to light nearly a dozen of them and the whole room seemed to miraculously come to life.

  She could imagine the ladies magnificent in their high wigs and wearing huge gowns with panniers on either side.

  Then there were the men with their wigs or powdered hair caught back in a bow at the nape of the neck and the sleeves of their elaborately embroidered coats ending with fine lace falling over their hands.

  She sat down again at the piano to play music that conjured up a vision of those she could see in her mind’s eye dancing a minuet in the centre of the room.

  Then inevitably she came back to herself and now in the next century she was dressed in the full skirts of a crinoline and the music was once again the exquisite melodies of Strauss.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard until she could not stop her fantasy and she rose and, stepping onto the polished floor, began to dance.

  Her negligée was too narrow and she pulled it off and threw it on a chair.

  Now she was attired only in her nightgown of transparently thin lawn inset with row upon row of lace and frothing out with a wide hem of the same.

  There were little puff sleeves of lace and her neckline was cut low and also edged with lace.

  She knew, however, without being told that with her fair hair and blue eyes she looked like the Princess out of a picture book.

  Now she was part of her own imagination and she swung round humming the music that she had been playing beneath her breath.

  She felt as if she was partnered by the tall dark handsome man who had always been in her dreams.

  Suddenly, as she swung with her arms outstretched gracefully beneath the chandelier, she opened her eyes and saw him standing just inside the door of the ballroom.

  But instead of looking at her with admiration or perhaps love, there was a look of incredulity and anger on his face.

  Her feet came to a standstill and Arletta stiffened as she stared at the man who was real and not a figment of her imagination.

  Then, as she looked at him, there was no need for anybody to tell her that this was the Duc!

  Chapter Four

  Arletta felt as if she was frozen into immobility.

  At the same time she was embarrassingly aware that her hair was falling over her shoulders, that she was wearing nothing but a nightgown and that for the first time she was facing her employer in a very humiliating position.

  He was still looking at her as if he could not believe what he saw and she realised that he was quite different from what she had expected.

  Because everybody had said such extraordinary things about him, she had imagin
ed him to be dark and sinister, perhaps round-shouldered like the wicked Duke of Gloucester who had murdered the two little Princes in the Tower of London.

  Instead the Duc was taller than the average Frenchman and, although his hair was dark, he had a fresh complexion. His features were clear-cut and he was, in fact, very handsome.

  What, however, made him frightening, Arletta thought, was the expression in his eyes and his eyelids seemed to droop a little over them.

  There were deep cynical lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth, which was set at the moment in a sharp line.

  Then in a voice that seemed to vibrate on the air, he asked,

  “Who are you? What is your name?”

  “Arletta – Jane Turner!”

  There was a perceivable pause between the first two words because, bemused by the Duc’s sudden appearance, Arletta had for the moment forgotten the part that she was playing and her own name came automatically to her lips.

  As she spoke, she made a great effort and forced herself to pick up her negligée from the chair and put it on.

  “Are you saying that you are the English Governess who has been sent here by Lady Langley?” the Duc asked.

  “Yes – that is right,” Arletta agreed, “and – I apologise – but no one was – expecting you to – return tonight.”

  The words came in frightened gasps.

  The Duc was still staring at her from under his drooping eyelids in a way that she found uncomfortably intimidating, but now that she was more decently dressed and she could get her breath back, her voice sounded a little more normal as she repeated,

  “I can only – apologise, monsieur le Duc. I was – carried away by the – beauty of the house into and – stepping back into the – past.”

  “And you lit the candles on the chandeliers as well as removing some of your clothing to create the illusion?”

  The way the Duc spoke made it sound as if she had committed an act of indecency if not a crime.

  Arletta blushed before she faltered,

  “There is – nothing I can do but – apologise, and I hope, monsieur, you will accept my – assurance that such a – thing will not – happen again.”

  There was silence before the Duc said,

  “You are really the English Governess I was expecting?”

  “Y-yes.”

  Somehow it was difficult to lie and Arletta thought even to herself that her voice sounded unsure and unsteady.

  With another effort she walked across the dance floor and moving to the piano closed the lid.

  As she did so, she was vividly conscious that the Duc was watching her and once again she was aware how incompetent she must look.

  ‘How could I have been so foolish?’ she asked herself desperately.

  Suddenly she was surprised to find that the Duc had moved and was much nearer to her than he had been a moment ago and she asked him,

  “Shall I – extinguish the – candles?”

  “A servant can do that. I think tomorrow, Miss Turner, when you are dressed more suitably for the part you are employed for, I should have a talk with you.”

  “Of course – monsieur.”

  She dropped him a small curtsey and, without looking at him again, walked out of the ballroom into the passage.

  She moved slowly and with what she hoped was some dignity until, as if she could bear it no longer, she suddenly started to run and speeding along the passages reached the staircase that led to the tower.

  Only when she was in her own room did she feel as if she had encountered one of the dragons that she had always imagined lived in the forest and was not certain whether she had been annihilated by it or was actually unscathed.

  ‘How could I have known, how could I have guessed,’ she asked herself, ‘that the Duc would return to the Château in such an unexpected way?’

  It was a long time before she could fall sleep.

  When she awoke, it was with a feeling of heaviness and apprehension in her heart in case the Duc would decide that she was unsuitable and sent her back to England immediately.

  There was no doubt that she had astonished him and she supposed that, if he had disliked the idea of having an Englishwoman in the house in the first place, his prejudice would certainly have been intensified by the scene that he had found in the ballroom.

  Therefore there was every likelihood of her being told to leave.

  As she dressed, she found herself praying that this would not happen.

  She wanted to stay and she knew if she was sent away now that the Château would always haunt her.

  It would be infuriating never to know the reasons for so much that puzzled her and that she could find no sensible explanation for.

  The first thing, however, unless she was to be dismissed ignominiously without even the opportunity of giving an explanation, was to make herself look the respectable English Governess that the Duc was obviously expecting.

  She pulled back her hair and used a dozen hairpins to hold it tightly in place, wishing as she did so that she had not allowed it to fall free last night.

  What would any man think of a woman who danced in such an abandoned manner and in her nightgown?

  Such behaviour on the part of a Governess was most certainly indefensible.

  ‘How could I have done anything so immodest?’ she asked her reflection in the mirror over and over again.

  She tried to tell herself defiantly that it was the Duc’s fault for surreptitiously entering his own Château without notifying anybody of his imminent arrival.

  She was quite sure that it was an unexpected visit because the servants had not talked about him and this was confirmed when the children came from their rooms dressed and ready for breakfast to say,

  “Have you heard, mademoiselle, that Uncle Etienne has come home?”

  “When did he arrive?” Arletta asked evasively.

  “He came back after we had gone to bed,” David replied.

  “Now that Uncle Etienne is back he will spoil everything,” Pauline answered Arletta. “He will be cross and, when he is angry, he gives me pains in my tummy.”

  As she put her small hand to her body, Arletta knew exactly what the child meant and thought that what she had just said might well describe what she herself was feeling at this moment.

  Now, wearing her most businesslike and what she thought an unattractive gown and her hair pinned back severely, she took the children down to the breakfast room only to find that the Duc was not there.

  “Where is Uncle Etienne?” David asked one of the footmen waiting on them.

  “Monsieur le Duc has already had his breakfast,” he replied.

  “Good!” David remarked irrepressibly.

  He sat down and began to eat heartily the hot croissants on which he spread a generous helping of the yellow butter that came from the Duc’s own herd of cows and honey that came from the hives that Arletta had seen not only in the garden but almost everywhere on the estate.

  She felt actually that it would be better for the children to start the day with eggs or some other sensible dish rather than with so much bread however delicious it might be.

  But she knew that to suggest such a thing would be to be told that English customs were not tolerated in the Château and the Duc would never entertain them.

  She herself found that she was feeling too apprehensive to be hungry.

  Then, just as the children had finished breakfast and she was going to the schoolroom to start David on his English lessons, there came the summons from a footman that she was expecting.

  “Monsieur le Duc wants to see you, m’mselle, in the study.”

  It was a command!

  Feeling rather as if the tumbrils were waiting to take her to the guillotine, she walked along the corridor to the Duc’s study, which she had discovered was close to the library.

  This was one room that she had not yet seen because the children had informed her,

  “That is Uncle Etienne’s room
,” and hurried past as if they were afraid that he might pounce out at them.

  There was a footman outside the door who opened it for Arletta and she walked in aware as she did so that the Duc was standing at the window, gazing out on the formal garden.

  He was silhouetted against the sunlight and she could see that far from being bent or deformed as she had imagined him to be, he was athletically slender and his clothes fitted him as if they had been made in Savile Row.

  She could not help feeling that he would be infuriated if he knew what she was thinking, but she had heard her father say,

  “All the smartest gentlemen in France have their clothes made in Savile Row in London, while the smartest Englishwomen go to Paris for their gowns!”

  She stood just inside the door and she thought the Duc was well aware that she was present.

  But he deliberately delayed turning towards her, as if by doing so he asserted his authority and made her feel small and humble,

  The footman closed the door behind him, but still the Duc did not turn.

  Quite suddenly Arletta stopped feeling apprehensive and afraid.

  Instead the pride of the Weirs, which was very much a part of their character, rose so that she felt there was no reason for her to be insulted by anybody, even if he was a Duc.

  “You sent for me, monsieur?” she said in a quiet clear voice.

  She knew, as he turned round, that he was surprised that she should have the audacity to speak first.

  She felt that he looked at her deliberately up and down, as if he not only found it hard to believe what she pretended to be but also was looking for something that would enable him to find fault with her.

  Slowly, her back very straight, Arletta advanced a little further into the room.

  Because the Duc had also begun to move towards her, they met in the middle.

  They faced each other and Arletta made a small but graceful curtsey and then informed him,

  “I was just about to start David’s lesson, monsieur, which we do immediately after breakfast until noon.”

  “Teaching him English!”

  The way he spoke made it sound a very reprehensible activity and Arletta replied,

  “That, monsieur, is my reason for being here.”