Read Online 108. An Archangel Called Ivan by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online

am to teach. But, as I can see how sensible and wise you both are, I am sure you will understand that, while a Nanny expects one thing, a Governess expects something quite different.”
    “It will certainly be easier for Mrs. Briggs to hurry up with luncheon if it was served downstairs,” Evans said, as if the idea was still moving in his brain.
    “If they are not allowed in the dining room,” Arliva suggested, “put the food in another room and there must be plenty of suitable rooms in this big house. Then we will come down as soon as it is one o’clock.”
    She glanced at her wristwatch as she spoke.
    “That will be in about twenty minutes and please tell your cook that I am very hungry.”
    “I’ll tell her and I thinks what you says will save us a lot of trouble,” the housekeeper said. “I’ve complained over and over again that these stairs’ll be the death of me.”
    “Just think what a trouble that would be,” Arliva remarked. “Surely his Lordship entertains a great deal and there must be rooms on the floor below where the children would realise that they have grown out of the nursery and into the schoolroom. We would be far more comfortable than if we had to keep climbing a mountain every time we came in through the front door.”
    “She’s right!” Evans agreed. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. There be all those rooms in the West wing that you were saying yourself was rotting away because no one ever uses them.”
    “That be true enough,” Mrs. Lewis agreed, “and it’d certainly save the housemaids who are beginnin’ to hate the stairs as much as I do.”
    “Well, let’s move later on,” Arliva proposed. “I hate long flights of stairs and I feel depressed in a nursery. Please be kind and give us a schoolroom and bedrooms on a floor where, if the children make a noise, they will not disturb anyone.”
    Arliva paused before she went on,
    “Now I must go and meet them and I feel sure that you will help me in every way you can.”
    She then went through the nursery door, leaving the butler and the housekeeper staring blankly at each other.
    The children were where she had last seen them and she sat down in a chair on the other side of the fireplace to where the two girls were sitting.
    “I am so hungry after my long journey,” she said. “When we have had luncheon, which I hope will be very soon, I want you to take me to see the horses. I understand that your grandfather has some fine thoroughbreds and I love horses.”
    The little boy looked up in amazement.
    “You want to see the horses!” he exclaimed. “But the last Governess we had, and the one before her, used to try in every way to stop me riding because she said it was dangerous.”
    “I rode very fast and big horses when I was your age,” Arliva replied. “I want to ride again and the first lesson you all have to learn is to ride well and then to jump well.”
    “We have never been allowed to jump,” one of the girls piped up. “They told us that it was risky and we were forbidden even to go over the small jumps.”
    “Well, I am a jumping Governess!” she answered. “I want to ride and I want you to ride with me. How can we go all round the estate except on a horse?”
    All three children gave a whoop of delight and ran to her side.
    “Do you really mean we can go riding every day?” the boy asked.
    “If there are horses, of course we can,” Arliva said. “I like riding very fast, so you will have to keep up with me.”
    The children looked at each other and gave a gasp.
    The girls no longer seemed interested in their dolls and the boy pushed his soldiers to one side with his foot.
    “Then have you ridden lots and lots of horses?” he asked.
    “As soon as I learnt to walk, I learnt to ride,” Arliva told them. “As I love horses, one of our lessons will have to be to look for pictures of horses many of which are now very valuable.”
    “There are some pictures in the library,” the