Pauline, she knew, was with her Bonne and would lie down for an hour before they went into the garden.
There was a smile on the Comte’s lips as she entered the room that made Arletta wary.
“I hope, monsieur,” she said, “that you don’t need me for I have some very urgent letters to write.”
“Of course I need you,” the Comte replied, “and I missed seeing you yesterday, as I hope you missed me.”
“I was far too busy,” Arletta answered him.
“You cannot pretend that the chatter of two children is enough to satisfy somebody as intelligent as you are. Besides I have so much to say to you.”
“I can only reply that it is unfortunate, as I have some letters that must catch the evening post.”
“Very well, I will not keep you long,” the Comte agreed, “so come and sit down, Miss Turner, as what I have to say is very important.”
Reluctantly, with the feeling that there was nothing else she could do without seeming rude, Arletta sat down on a chair and the Comte sat opposite her.
Then, as if he felt that they were too far away from each other, he rose to take a chair next to hers and said as he did so,
“You are very lovely! I cannot understand why you should waste your looks and your brain on anything so mundane and boring as teaching children.”
“Actually, I don’t find it at all boring,” Arletta replied firmly, “but extremely interesting. My problems are not with the children but with the grown-ups.”
If she had thought to embarrass him, she was mistaken for he threw back his head and laughed.
“You are very frank, Miss Turner, but that, of course, is such a typically English trait. Although I know that no Englishwoman can accept a compliment gracefully, let me tell you that you are very beautiful and very desirable.”
“If that is all you have to say to me, monsieur, I am going up to my bedroom to write my letters.”
She would have risen from the chair, but the Comte said hastily,
“What I have to say is most important. I want you to consider very very carefully the proposition I am making to you.”
“Proposition?” Arletta repeated.
“It is that you should allow me to take you to Paris to show you the gaieties and the amusements of what to me is the most attractive and enchanting City in the whole world.”
Arletta looked at him and then the expression in the Comte’s eyes answered the question on her lips.
“I cannot believe, monsieur,” she said quietly, “that you intend to insult me!”
“Do you really think it is an insult that I should want to make you happy, give you beautiful gowns and a great deal of jewellery, none of which will shine as brightly as your eyes?”
“You are insulting me!”
She rose rapidly to her feet as she spoke and the Comte rose as well and insisted,
“Can you be so foolish as not to understand that, if you accept my offer, you will be a sensation in Paris? Every man I introduce you to will be at your feet!”
“And what will that mean?” Arletta asked.
“Fame, success, riches, a position that most women would give the eyes out of their heads for.”
“In which case, monsieur, I suggest you offer it to them. As far as I am concerned, never in any circumstances, even if I was starving, would I agree to degrade myself by accepting such a proposition!”
“Then let me make it more attractive,” the Comte went on, “by telling you how much you excite me, how much I want you and how very happy I could make you.”
He drew closer to her as he spoke, but Arletta stepped back.
“Unfortunately, monsieur, you do not attract me. Therefore, strange though it may seem to you, I would rather be a Governess than your mistress!”
The Comte stretched out his arms, but she evaded him by slipping round the back of the chair.
Swiftly she moved to the door before he could reach her and, as she left the room, she looked back to say,
“The answer, monsieur, is definitely and decisively no!”
She did not wait for his reply, but pulled the door sharply to and hurried up the twisting stairs to her bedroom.
After locking the door in case he should follow her, she recalled exactly what he had said and thought that it was not only an insult but there was an ulterior motive in his proposition.
David had said that there was something about the Comte that did not ring true and Arletta would have been prepared to swear that she did not really attract him as much as he pretended.
In which case why was he offering to spend so much money on her?
It was a puzzle that made her stand at the window staring out for a long time at the fields and open country stretching away to the great woods.
Just below the window she was looking of was the river.
She stared down at it, thinking that in the past it had been a natural barrier against enemies who had attempted to storm the Château.
‘Now the enemies are within,’ she mused.
She wondered if the Duc had any idea of how strangely his relatives behaved or what was said about him, according to David, by everybody.
It was frightening, Arletta thought, but there was more to it than that.
She could think now more clearly of how the Duc had looked at luncheon sitting at the top of the table in his Heraldic chair.
He had seemed a Royal figure who ruled over his domain with a hand of iron and fought his enemies in battles when Arletta was certain that he always returned the victor.
Now his adversaries were using a ‘whispering campaign’ that was far more difficult to combat.
‘Can he really have murdered two women?’ Arletta asked herself incredulously.
Her instinct told her that the accusation was untrue, although she had nothing positive to go on.
It was obvious that the Duc inspired fear and that he was a dominating figure with a personality that made other people feel small and uncomfortable.
Human nature being what it was, that inevitably would make them dislike him.
But murder was a very different matter and thinking of him, the way he looked and the way he talked and moved, Arletta could not imagine him intriguing to kill and then covering up his crime with an air of aristocratic innocence.
It was something that seemed alien to such a man, although why she should think so, she had no idea.
‘There must be some other explanation,’ she thought and wished that she could talk to someone other than David about it.
On an impulse which, because she felt perturbed and upset not only by the Duc but by the Comte’s suggestion, she thought that she would visit the small Church that she had seen on her arrival just outside the gates of the Château.
She put on a wide-brimmed hat because the sun was hot and went down the stairs cautiously hoping that by this time the Comte would have left the schoolroom.
The door was open and there was no one there.
With a sigh of relief Arletta went on down the passage, which brought her to a side door where there were no footmen in attendance.
She saw no one and let herself out into the courtyard.
Walking quickly just in case she was noticed by the Comte, she passed through the huge gates and out into the small village outside them.
The Church was less than fifty yards away and, when she entered it, she realised how old it was and how beautiful.
The rounded pillars rose up to an arched ceiling and the walls were enormously thick, while the nave was so small that the congregation was obviously quite limited.
Yet because it was so old there was an air of sanctity and faith that Arletta recognised at once.
She knelt down on a pew at the back of the Church and gazed at the altar.
It was very quiet and, because the windows were small and the glass in them very old, there was little light except in the Sanctuary where a few flickering candles had been lit in front of a statue.
&nb
sp; Arletta found herself praying that she would be able to help the children and perhaps, although it seemed an extraordinary request, move the shadow of fear from the Château itself.
‘It is so beautiful, God, at the Château’ she prayed, ‘and beauty should mean love and not hatred.’
When she rose from her knees, she had a sudden wish to light a candle, knowing that Roman Catholics believed that, as long as the candle was burning, the prayers they had said would soar upward to Heaven.
She felt in the pocket of her gown and found to her surprise that there was a small coin there.
It was in fact a shilling that she had intended to put on the offertory plate on the last Sunday she went to Church at home, but for some reason she had taken the money instead from her handbag, forgetting what she had in her pocket.
She was sure that the Priest would find a way of changing English coinage into francs.
She put it now in the small iron box and, taking a candle from where they lay at the foot of the statue, she lit it.
‘Please listen to my prayers,’ she whispered to God as she did so.
She looked up to find that the Saint who she was praying to was Joan of Arc.
She gave a little smile to herself, thinking how inappropriate it was when the Duc was condemning the English for burning her at the stake.
Although she thought now that, wherever she might be, the Saint would be working for friendship between the English and the French to prevent there being any more wars between the two countries.
St. Joan’s voices would tell her that they must learn to love each other even though they were so different in so many ways.
‘Grandmère would understand that,’ Arletta thought.
For the first time since she had arrived at the Château she prayed to her French grandmother to help her to understand and help her countrymen.
“They are partly mine too, Grandmère,” Arletta said and felt almost as if she could see her grandmother’s lovely face and white hair as she smiled at her as if in approval.
Having genuflected to the altar, she then left the Church and walked out into the warm sunshine.
As she did so, she saw coming from the Château gates and dressed in his ordinary clothes since he was off duty, the footman Jean who had escorted her to the Duchesse’s room.
“You’re here, m’mselle!” he exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, I am here, Jean.”
“I see you’ve been to the Church,” Jean remarked. “And now you’re in the village, you must come with me to see the witch.”
“Oh, no, I cannot!” Arletta replied quickly.
“Why not?” he asked. “No other village has a witch as clever at seein’ into the future as ours! Come on. I’ll take you to her. I’ve known her all my life. I’m sure she’ll be ever so curious about you.”
“I – don’t think – ” Arletta began.
Suddenly she thought that it could be very interesting. She had never met a witch before and, although she recognised that witchcraft and witches had always played a part in French history, she had never imagined that she would have the chance to actually speak to one.
Quite suddenly her hesitation seemed rather foolish and so she agreed,
“All right, Jean, I will come with you, but you will have to lend me some money to give her, for I have nothing with me.”
“That’s all right,” Jean nodded. “I’ll pay for you and you can pay me back when you are paid your wages.”
“I will pay you back before that, I don’t like to be in debt.”
Jean laughed.
“Proud, are you, m’mselle? I’d always heard you English give yourselves airs!”
He was teasing her and Arletta merely smiled.
She knew that he was not being impertinent, but just friendly and she thought in some unaccountable that way he, like the Château, was very different from what she had expected.
‘I might as well be prepared to accept everything,’ she told herself, ‘even witches!’
Chapter Five
The cottage that Jean took her to was very small with a low doorway that he had to bend his head under.
Inside it seemed dark, until, as Arletta’s eyes adjusted themselves, she saw sitting in front of the fire, although it was a warm day, a very old woman.
She was wrapped in a dark shawl and her thin hair, which was grey streaked with white, was pinned back at the nape of her withered old neck.
She had strong features with a hooked nose, which made Arletta think that perhaps it was the way she looked more than anything else that had made her a witch.
“I’ve brought a client for you, Granny,” Jean started and the old woman looked up at him quizzically.
“Who is it?” she asked.
Arletta drew nearer and saw that the witch had cataracts over both her eyes, which must make her completely blind.
“I am new to the village,” Arletta told her quietly, “and Jean thought that I should meet you, the most important inhabitant here.”
The witch chuckled.
“Is that what he said? Well, some people find me important and some are frightened of me.”
“I am not frightened.”
Jean opened the old witch’s hand and put a silver coin into it, saying as he did so,
“You tell the lady all about herself, Granny. I expect, as she’s very pretty, you’ll find something excitin’ for her in the future.”
Having spoken, he grinned at Arletta and then went out of the cottage, shutting the door behind him.
There seemed when he had gone to be a strange silence almost, Arletta thought, as if the old woman in front of her had moved into another world.
Arletta sat down opposite her and did not speak and after a few minutes the witch began,
“You’re from overseas and you’re hidin’ somethin’ about yourself.”
Nervously Arletta looked back just to be certain that Jean was not listening to what was being said.
The door was, however, fast shut and the witch went on.
“I see you puzzling, worrying and afraid. There’s danger, real danger! I see blood!”
Arletta drew in her breath.
Still she did not speak and after a moment the old witch continued,
“Beware, be ready and protect yourself. When the trouble that will happen to you comes, you must rely on yourself. Remember that – I told you so.”
Her voice seemed to die away and, as she apparently had no more to say, Arletta said gently,
“I will remember what you have told me, but it sounds rather a dismal picture.”
“Some people are winners,” the witch observed after a moment, “and you are one.”
“Thank you,” Arletta replied, “but I am not certain what race I want to win.”
The old woman chortled.
“The race of life, my dear, and we’re all competin’ in that!”
“You really think I am a winner?”
“You will win,” the witch emphasised.
Then, as if she wanted Arletta to be sure that she had finished, she lay back in her chair and closed her eyes.
Arletta looked at her for a moment, longing to know more and wondering if she dared ask her about the Duc, but realised that this was impossible.
Then she said once again,
“Thank you,” and rose to her feet.
The old witch did not reply and Arletta went out of the cottage to find Jean leaning against a tree and waiting for her.
“Was she any good?” he asked. “What did she tell you?”
“It was rather gloomy,” Arletta answered. “She said that there would be trouble, but she did say that I was a winner.”
“I’m sure that’s true and you’ve cheered us all up, m’mselle, in the Château just because we can look at you.”
Arletta gave a little laugh, but she did not reply.
She thought that it would be a mistake to be too familiar about herself to Jean, who she was quite ce
rtain was a Don Juan in the village.
She therefore held out her hand, saying,
“Thank you very much, Jean, for being so kind to me. I will give you back the money that you lent me the next time you come to the schoolroom.”
“That’s all right,” Jean smiled.
He realised that Arletta did not wish him to accompany her any further and he therefore touched his cap and walked away down the narrow street while Arletta went back to the Château.
She had just walked into the hall and was about to go up the stairs when Comte Jacques appeared.
“Miss Turner!” he called out. “I want to speak to you.”
“I am going to the schoolroom.”
“Very well, I will come with you.”
There was nothing she could do to stop him and they walked in silence along the corridor that led to the tower.
When they entered the schoolroom, Arletta hoped that Pauline would be there, having finished her rest.
But the room was empty.
She took off her hat and started to tidy some books that had been strewn on the table in the middle of the room.
The Comte closed the door and stood looking at her before he asked,
“Have you considered the suggestion I put to you yesterday?”
“I gave you my answer at the time,” Arletta replied coldly, “and it is still ‘no’!”
“Women invariably change their minds.”
“That may be true of some women, but I have no intention of changing mine. Quite frankly, monsieur, as I consider what you said to me to be insulting, I do not wish you to refer to it again.”
“Can you really be so foolish?” he asked. “You know that you would enjoy Paris and all the amusing things that I can show you, apart from the fact that I will teach you about love.”
There was a note in his voice that Arletta realised was dangerous and she replied quickly,
“It is time for me to give Pauline her lesson in English, so if you have nothing sensible to say, monsieur, I must ask you to leave.”
The Comte laughed softly and came towards her.
He moved swiftly and had his arms around her before she had a chance to realise what had happened.
She gave a cry of protest and then struggled against him. As he drew her closer in spite of her efforts, she felt how strong he was and that he intended to kiss her.
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