Temptation of A Teacher E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Shortly after the death of her father, the Earl of Weir, the stunningly beautiful Lady Arletta is penniless, having been ousted from the family estate by her cousin, who has now inherited everything from her father. Desperate to escape the misery of her situation, she is heartened to hear that her close friend, Jane Turner, is to be married very soon to the new Bishop of Jamaica. The trouble is that at the same time she had agreed to travel to France to be the Governess to the children of the Duc de Sauterre's late brother and to teach them English. Jane is in a serious quandary as she cannot possibly let her fiancée down nor can she disappoint her new employer, the Duc. But Arletta has dreamed up a solution for them both. So that Jane is free to get married, Arletta will travel to the Duc's Dordogne Château posing as Jane! On arrival at the enchanting Château, she finds the Duc as surly and rude as he is handsome. Worse still he hates the English and she struggles to win him over while resisting the attentions of the Duc's dashing but sinister cousin, the Comte, who has a very doubtful reputation locally. And soon, despite herself, Arletta finds herself losing her heart to the haughty Frenchman who despises everything she stands for. And who, surely, can never feel anything for her but contempt?

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

When I visited France in June 1983, I motored with my son to the mountainous fertile Dordogne. Passing along a narrow roadway I saw a magnificent Medieval Château, rising above a small river, very ancient but obviously still inhabited.

We drove closer and found behind it that there was a small attractive village with a lovely twelfth century Church exactly as I have described in this story.

That night we stayed in a very old Château, which had been converted into a hotel. My circular bedroom was in the tower.

It had a beamed ceiling and small windows in a three-foot-thick wall from which there was a panoramic view of the countryside.

Beneath me I was sure that there were dark haunted dungeons!

This story was born before I fell asleep.

Arletta was the name of William the Conqueror’s mother, who came from Normandy, and his grandfather, Duke Rollo, had three sons who became Kings of England.

The Granvilles, who are one of the oldest and most famous families in England, can trace their ancestry directly back to Duke Rollo.

Chapter One ~ 1886

“I am sorry, Lady Arletta. I am afraid it gives you very little time.”

“Very little, Mr. Metcalfe.”

Lady Arletta Cherrington-Weir gave a deep sigh and her blue eyes were wistful.

Mr. Metcalfe, a precise middle-aged Solicitor, thought that, if it was in his power, he would do anything to sweep away the worried look on her young beautiful face.

He had known Lady Arletta since she was an infant in a perambulator and had watched her grow up, becoming in doing so lovelier year by year.

He thought now that it was impossible for any young woman of twenty to be more enchanting and so completely unselfconscious and unaware of her own attractions.

This, however, was not surprising considering that for the past two years Lady Arletta had been obliged to nurse her father, the Earl of Weir, who had grown month by month increasingly querulous and disagreeable.

He had refused to have anybody else attend to him and treated his daughter, as the doctors and everybody else thought, as he would not have dared to treat a professional nurse.

But nurses were exceedingly difficult to find and in the quiet Counties of England, and especially in the villages, there were no nursing facilities except for the village midwife, who was usually old and fat and reputed to keep herself awake by imbibing large tots of gin through the dark hours of the night.

Arletta therefore had been obliged to nurse her father, who was suffering not only from heart attacks, which gave him excruciating pain, but also from gout, which was entirely due to the large amount of claret and port he insisted on drinking despite the many protests of his physicians.

“If I have to die,” he would say angrily, “I may as well have the comfort of feeling drunk and I am damned if I will have the only solace for my disgusting condition taken away from me.”

Arletta had long ago given up arguing with him. She merely agreed with everything he said and he then swore at her for being dull and spiritless.

Actually in his better moods he was exceedingly fond of his only child, although it was a bitter disappointment to him that there was no son to inherit the Earldom.

It would therefore pass to his nephew, whom inevitably he disliked.

Arletta did not like Hugo either thinking him a conceited young man who had his own ideas as to how he would run the estate and refused to listen to anything his uncle or she could tell him about it.

Now, two weeks after her father’s death, Arletta had been told that her cousin intended to move at once into Weir House and she was to remove herself and her belongings as quickly as possible.

The trouble was, as she had informed Mr. Metcalfe, she did not know where to go.

“You must have some relative you could stay with, my Lady,” he queried, “and, of course, if you wish, you can always live in the Dower House.”

“I know that,” Arletta replied, “and it is very kind of Cousin Hugo to offer it to me. But you know as well as I do, Mr. Metcalfe, that I would not be allowed to live there alone.”

She sighed before she went on.

“And I don’t think I could bear to see my cousin turn the whole estate upside down and manage it in quite a different way from Papa’s methods.”

“I am sure you would be wise to go elsewhere,” Mr. Metcalfe advised her quietly, “but, because of your father’s illness, you were not presented at Court, as you should have been a year ago and you never had the ball, which I know you were looking forward to long before you left the schoolroom.”

Arletta smiled.

“I always imagined my ball at Weir House would be a particularly splendid one. Mama used to talk about it when I was quite small and say that it would be the best that the County had ever seen and just like the times when my grandfather was alive.”

Mr. Metcalfe was well aware that it was the third Earl who had dissipated the Weir fortune with unbridled extravagance that and plunged the estate heavily into debt.

The late Earl had done his best to develop the land, make the farms pay and ensure that they lived within their means.

But he could not bring back into the family exchequer the revenue from the streets and squares of London that had been sold for what now seemed a pittance and the money that had been squandered by speculating in ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes that never materialised.

When her father had fallen seriously ill just at the time when Arletta was emerging from the schoolroom, all ideas of entertainment had been set on one side.

As he was extremely disagreeable to those who called to commiserate with him, he and his daughter became more and more isolated in the great house, which seemed unnaturally quiet after years of being filled with guests and a great deal of activity.

Since the Earl could no longer ride, the foxhounds had been taken over by another landowner in the County, the fête, which was one of the great local events of the summer, was held elsewhere and the archery competition no longer took place on their long green lawns.

The whole estate then seemed to be enveloped in a fog of depression and anticipation as to how long the Earl would live.

It was, in point of fact, due to his daughter’s care that he had lived longer than expected, but now the end had come and Mr. Metcalfe thought optimistically that it might be a new beginning for Lady Arletta.

“Now, let’s think this over sensibly,” he said in a business-like voice. “I know all your relatives and I hope you will not think it impertinent of me if I suggest who I think would look after you best and make you happy.”

“Of course, dear Mr. Metcalfe, I would be most grateful for any suggestions you can make,” Arletta replied. “The trouble is, as you well know, I have very few close relatives living in England.”

The Earl’s youngest brother, who was actually very much younger than the Earl, was Governor of Khartoum in Sudan and, as he was unmarried, it was not likely that he would want his niece to stay with him in such an isolated and troubled part of the world for any length of time.

Her only aunt, on the other hand, was married to the Governor of the North-West Provinces in India.

As she already had three daughters of her own and found them a problem, Mr. Metcalfe was certain that she would have no wish to have Lady Arletta added to her responsibilities.

There was then a long pause before he said,

“There is, my Lady, your cousin Emily.”

Arletta gave a little cry of horror.

“I will not live with Cousin Emily, Mr. Metcalfe! That would be too unkind. You know how she is given to good works and she disapproves of everything such as dancing and singing even if people are happy. I cannot think of anything more depressing than having to live with Cousin Emily!”

Mr. Metcalfe laughed.

“I agree with you, Lady Arletta, so we must think of someone else.”

“But who?”

Arletta gave a little sigh before she added,

“I have often wished that I knew some of my grandmother’s relatives, but, because they were French, they never seemed to come to England and, although I was named after my grandmother, I have never been to France.”

“That is something I had forgotten,” Mr. Metcalfe murmured. “Of course ‘Arletta’ is a French name.”

“I have always been told that it was the name of William the Conqueror’s mother,” Arletta said, “and, because Grandmama came from Normandy, she had fair hair and blue eyes. So although I look English, I also look French.”

Mr. Metcalfe laughed.

“I am prepared to believe you, Lady Arletta, although I always think of Frenchwomen as having dark eyes and dark hair.”

“Not if they are Normans!” Arletta countered proudly.

Then she went on,

“Unless I am to write to Grandmama’s relatives whom I have never seen, who is there in England?”

“There is Lady Travers,” Mr. Metcalfe suggested.

Arletta made a little grimace.

Lady Travers was a cousin who in the past had occasionally visited Weir House, but only when she invited herself.

She was the type of middle-aged woman who was always suffering from some strange and unknown complaint that puzzled the doctors. Arletta had decided a long time ago that the only thing that was wrong with her cousin Alice was that she had not enough to do in her life.

She had enough money to live in great comfort, but she had no children and she therefore concentrated entirely on herself and her ailments.

She would spend months in Harrogate and then Cheltenham, until, finding that she was no better in either of these places, she would move on to Bath or just occasionally to some Continental Spa like Baden-Baden or Aix-les-Bains.

Arletta thought that, after two years of coping with one invalid in the shape of her father, it would be utter misery to start all over again with another.

Mr. Metcalfe watching her face knew just what she was thinking.

“Definitely not Lady Travers,” he said firmly. “I am trying to remember who else there is.”

“That is what I was doing too before you arrived,” Arletta admitted, “but I find it hard to believe that in such a distinguished family as ours there are so few of us left.”

“There must be somebody,” Mr. Metcalfe surmised desperately.

“I have some relatives who live in the very North of Scotland,” Arletta answered, “and I believe there is a distant branch of the family in Ireland, but I cannot imagine that they would be very pleased to see me after Papa has ignored them for so long.”

As this was palpably true, Mr. Metcalfe did not even trouble to agree with her.

He merely sat doodling on the block in front of him and seeing in his mind’s eye the impressive Family Tree that hung in the passage near the library.

Arletta suddenly jumped up from her chair.

“It’s no use worrying at the moment,” she declared. “I will move my things into the Dower House until I can think of somewhere where I can go.”

“You ought to be in London, my Lady,” Mr. Metcalfe said. “After all the Season has only just begun and there must be somebody, even though you are in mourning, who would see that you met young people of your own age.”

“You say I am in mourning,” Arletta replied, “but you will remember that in Papa’s will he said expressly that nobody was to wear black, nobody was to mourn for him and the sooner he was dead the better he would be pleased!”

Mr. Metcalfe, who had drawn up the will himself and thought that it was just the sort of thing that the Earl would say, did not reply.

At the time it had seemed rather bad taste and he felt now that spoken in Arletta’s soft musical voice it sounded almost cruel.

“No one could have worked harder than you, my Lady,” he said quietly, “to make your father happy in the last year of his life and I am well aware of what a difficult patient he was.”

“Terrible,” Arletta agreed.

Quite unexpectedly she laughed before she went on.

“The doctors could do nothing with him and neither could I. I think the only pleasure he had when he was in such pain was to defy us and do exactly the opposite of what was required of him.”

“I am afraid that the late Earl was always a rebel,” Mr. Metcalfe sighed.

“And I hope I am one too,” Arletta remarked.

Mr. Metcalfe looked at her in surprise and she explained.

“I do not intend to be crushed by what has happened to me and I mean somehow, now that I am free, to begin to live.”

She did not have to explain to Mr. Metcalfe that, looking after her father in the large, empty dismal house with nobody to talk to, had been to all intents and purposes a living death for a young girl.

“You are quite right,” he said aloud, “and somehow in some way you have to enjoy yourself. The first thing I think you should do is to buy yourself some new clothes. My wife always claims that there is nothing like a new gown to cheer herself up.”

Lady Arletta gave a spontaneous little laugh that was very attractive.

“I am sure that Mrs. Metcalfe is right,” she said, “and that is exactly what I will do. I will go up to London as soon as I have sorted matters out here and, however reprehensible it may seem, I shall buy myself some pretty gowns and, because I know that it would please Papa, they will not be black!”

Mr. Metcalfe picked up his papers that were on the table and put them into a leather bag.

“I think, my Lady,” he said, “that is the only sensible thing we have decided upon this afternoon. I promise you I shall think over your problem very carefully and hope eventually to come up with some sort of solution.”

He spoke with confidence.

At the same time at the back of his mind he knew that there was really no one who was congenial, understanding and kind in her family who this lovely young girl could appeal to for shelter.

When he said ‘goodbye’ and Arletta walked with him down the long passages that led to the hall, he thought that the whole house looked dismal and overwhelming and the sooner Lady Arletta was away from it the better.

She had taken on responsibilities this last year that would have seemed heavy and arduous even to a young man and, because he was very fond of her, Mr. Metcalfe wanted desperately to find some magical means by which she could be happy in the future.

‘There has to be a way,’ he ruminated as he drove away in his ancient pony cart drawn, however, by a young horse, which would make short work of the five miles that lay between Weir House and the small town where he lived and had his office.

When he had gone and Arletta saw him disappearing under the branches of the great oak trees that lined the drive, she walked back into the hall.

She was thinking, as Mr. Metcalfe had done, that the house seemed dismal and even the sunlight could not percolate through the windows to light up the portraits of the many Weir ancestors on the walls.

They needed cleaning and the stair carpet, which was almost threadbare, should have been replaced years ago.

She was well aware that the new Earl would find it all depressing and out of date.

She was quite sure that Cousin Hugo would have very strong ideas of how he could improve the house and had always thought ridiculous the sacrifices that his predecessor had made to restore what had been thrown away in the past.

“A few debts never hurt anyone!” Arletta had heard him say once.

She was sure that he had meant it as a joke.

At the same time she was certain that he did not have her father’s strict principles that had made him determined that he would never be in debt even for the smallest amount.

He had also sworn to make good any deficits that his father had left outstanding.

She was intelligent enough to realise that this was the reaction of a man who ever since he was a small boy had known that his father was spending more than he owned and that many people and small firms suffered in consequence.

And yet now it was hard to think that the ‘bad old days’ might return and she felt that she could not bear after so much pinching and saving to see her cousin Hugo being a spendthrift like her grandfather.

‘I must go away,’ she told herself firmly.

Slowly she walked back through the hall, where there were no servants, into the room where she had been sitting with Mr. Metcalfe.

It was a very pretty room because, as it faced South, there always seemed to be more sunshine in it than anywhere else and her mother had made it particularly her own.

She had accumulated in it all the furniture that was light, pretty and mostly French and pictures that were quite the opposite of the heavy portraits of the Weirs.

Winter or summer there were always flowers to fill the air with fragrance and make vivid patches of colour against the pale green panelling that had been installed in the reign of Queen Anne.

‘I shall miss this room,’ Arletta thought to herself.

Instinctively, as if she felt that she would understand, she lifted her eyes to the portrait of her mother that hung over the mantelpiece.

It was a very lovely picture of a very lovely women.

Looking at it, Arletta felt that the smile on her mother’s lips and the light in her eyes expressed not only her character and her personality but also her French blood, which made her so different from the Weirs, who could trace their ancestry back to Saxon times.

It seemed strange that her grandfather should have married a Frenchwoman and yet at the same time Arletta could understand that he was a rebel like her father.

His revolt had obviously been against the pomposity of his relations and perhaps too against the heavy atmosphere and gloom of the family house.

‘I wish I had known my grandmother,’ Arletta had often reflected.

Her mother had said to her,

“You are very like her, my dearest, and when I hear you laugh, I feel like a child again and listening to my mother who always seemed to come into the nursery laughing.”

Arletta looked at the portrait for some time and then she said aloud,

“You will have to help me, Mama, because it is going to be very difficult to know what I can do with my life now.”

Then she turned away to begin thinking once again that the first real task must be to find herself a chaperone.

She had a vague idea in her mind that there were Ladies of Quality in London who would present a young girl not only at Court but to the Social world.

She had no idea how one began to find one and instinctively, because she was very sensitive, she shied away from pushing herself forward or saying in so many words that she wanted to be noticed.

She also had the uncomfortable feeling that such a plan would suggest that she had the possibility of marriage in mind.

But was she likely to find a husband here in the country where she had lived for so long and where there never seemed to be any eligible bachelors, or if there were, she had never met them.

‘I don’t want to marry,’ she told herself. ‘I want to live!’

Yet she was aware that in that day and age the two terms were synonymous.

Young women were brought up to get married as quickly as possible after they left the schoolroom.

Nothing else was open to them, the only alternative being to become an old maid, caring for some ill or tiresome parent, as she had done, and then to become a useful aunt to her nephews and nieces.

As she had none, that position was obviously not open to her.

Once again she was back to asking herself the same question.

‘What can I do? What can I do?’

Then, as she asked it, and it seemed as if even the pictures on the walls were saying the same, the door opened and somebody looked in.

Arletta turned round, stared and then gave an exclamation of astonishment.

“Jane! Is it really you?”

The newcomer, who had just put her head round the door, then came into the room.

“I rang the bell, but nobody answered,” she explained. “But I thought perhaps I would find you here.”

Arletta ran towards her and kissed her.

“Dear Jane, this is such a surprise!” she enthused. “I had no idea you were at home.”

“I arrived only this afternoon,” Jane Turner replied, “and, when I heard that your father had died, I came at once to see you.”

“That is very kind of you.”

“I am so sorry,” Jane Turner remarked.

“It was the best thing that could happen,” Arletta replied. “His heart attacks grew more frequent and he was in constant terrible pain from his gout. It was only because he was so exceptionally strong that he survived as long as he did.”

“Papa told me how well you looked after him,” Jane said. “Oh, poor Arletta! It must have been dreadful. I often thought of you.”

“It was rather ghastly,” Arletta admitted, “but I am so thrilled to see you again, Jane. Why have you come home?”

A smile appeared on the rather plain face of the woman she was talking to, which for the moment made her look almost pretty.

Arletta stared at her and then gave a little cry.

“Something has happened – I know it has! Jane, what is it?”

Jane Turner drew in her breath.

“You will hardly believe it, Arletta, but I am to be married!”

“How wonderful!” Arletta exclaimed. “And to whom?”

“You will never guess,” Jane Turner replied. “It is to Simon Sutton!”

For a moment Arletta looked blank.

Then she said,

“You don’t mean – it cannot be – ?”

“Yes, it is. You remember him when he was Papa’s Curate. You know he went out to Jamaica and in eight years he has risen and risen and, because they appreciate him so much out there, he is to become a Bishop!”

“And you are to marry him!” Arletta cried. “Oh, Jane, how really wonderful!”

“I never thought – I never dreamt,” Jane went on, “that he loved me and yet, because he wrote to me almost every week and kept saying how much he missed me, I have, of course, thought about him.”

The colour came into her cheeks and she looked down shyly and Arletta put out her hand.

“Oh, Jane, it’s like a Fairy story. And he has loved you all this time.”

“Ever since he was here in Little Meldon,” Jane replied. “I knew in a way that he was unhappy when he left, but I did not dare to think that it was because of me.”

“But it was,” Arletta insisted.

“Yes. He arrived in England two days ago and told me that now he could afford to be a married man and he wants me to go back with him immediately to Jamaica and to be there when he is consecrated.”

Arletta clasped her hands together.

“It’s the most exciting thing I have ever heard. Oh, Jane, I am so happy for you and I suppose that you have now come home to be married?”

“Of course. Papa has to marry us,” Jane answered, “and, as Simon has something to do in London, he arrives tomorrow evening.”

“Dear Jane, I am so very glad that I shall be able to be at your Wedding.”

“There is no time to ask many other people,” Jane replied, “and, of course, I want you.”

She looked a little shy as she asked,

“Will you be my only bridesmaid?”

“Of course I will, Jane, and I should have been very hurt if you had not asked me.”

“It seems wrong for me to have one when I am so old. Do you realise I shall be twenty-eight in a month’s time?”

“I am sure you are just the right age to be a Bishop’s wife,” Arletta laughed.

As if she could not help it, Jane laughed as well.

Arletta had known Jane ever since she was a child. Because Jane was the Vicar’s daughter, she had not only come to play with Arletta in the Big House, but the Earl had persuaded the Vicar to teach his daughter many of the subjects that were beyond the scope of her Governess.

The Reverend Adolphus Turner was a Classics scholar and Arletta had studied history and literature with him, while the Governess kept to the more mundane subjects.

She was taught music by one teacher and art by another, who both came to their home.

Actually it was Jane, for whom it was planned that she would be a Governess who helped her with a great many other lessons.

Although there was such a difference in their ages, they had become very close friends and, if Arletta loved anyone outside her family, it was Jane.

She was happier now than she could possibly say that Jane was to be married to the man she loved.

It had always seemed to her such a waste that anyone so sweet, kind and understanding could not, because she was not particularly pretty, attract the few local young men who might have been interested in her.

That she was now to be the wife of the Anglican Bishop of Jamaica exceeded all Arletta’s hopes and excitedly she made Jane tell her exactly what had happened and what her plans were for the future.

Then Jane commented,

“It seems strange that everything always happens at once.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I have just been offered what seemed at the time to be a wonderful opportunity and actually I had accepted it.”

“What was it?” Arletta asked.

“You remember Lady Langley, who your mother introduced me to when she wanted somebody to teach her children?”

“Yes, of course, I remember.”

“Well, I had just finished teaching the last one, who is going to school next term,” Jane explained, “when Lady Langley begged me to go to France.”

“To France,” Arletta exclaimed in surprise.

“It’s a very strange story, but Lady Langley’s brother married a French girl, the sister of the Duc de Sauterre. Apparently she died four years ago and, although Lady Langley offered to bring up the two children, the Duc insisted that their place was in France.”

Arletta was listening intently as Jane continued,

“Because she felt rather remiss at never having visited her niece and nephew, Lady Langley went to the Duc’s Château a few weeks ago.”

The way Jane spoke made Arletta ask,

“What happened? What was wrong?”

“Well, quite naturally Lady Langley was horrified,” Jane said, “because, although David, that is her nephew, is down for Eton and will be going there in a year’s time, he cannot speak English!”

“He will have a terrible time, if that is true,” Arletta remarked.

“That is what Lady Langley thinks. The little girl, who is younger, is, of course, in the same position, but in her case it is not so urgent.”

“So you were going there to teach them?” Arletta said.

“That is what Lady Langley had arranged, and I had promised her that I would leave in what is four days from now.”

“Is she very upset that you cannot go?”

“She does not know,” Jane answered. “She arranged everything and then she went off with Lord Langley for a cruise in the Mediterranean. It is impossible for me to get in touch with her and I feel dreadful, I do really, Arletta, at letting her down. Equally I can hardly refuse Simon, can I?”

“No, of course not!” Arletta agreed, “but I feel very sorry for the little boy – ”

She stopped suddenly.

“Jane!” she said in a strange voice.

“What is it?”

“I think I have found a solution both to your problem and to mine.”

Jane just looked at her and after a moment Arletta went on,

“I will go to France in your place! It is what I have always wanted to do and it seems as if Mama has sent you in answer to my prayers!”

Jane stared at her in sheer amazement.

“You cannot do that!”

“Of course I can. Just before you came I had Mr. Metcalfe here and I was worrying myself sick about where I could go and who I could stay with, because Cousin Hugo, whom you will remember, has said that he wants to move in as soon as possible and I am to leave Weir House.”

“Oh, Arletta, I am so sorry,” Jane said. “It’s unkind of him to turn you out of your home, although I suppose you would not really want to stay now.”

“No, of course not,” Arletta nodded. “But then I cannot live alone in the Dower House nor can I think of any relation who would be pleased to have me to stay.”