“I am sure that the Prince will want to show you Apollo’s Island himself,” the Count suggested.
Linetta gave him a sharp glance.
“Are you now telling me that the Prince is really interested in Greek mythology?” she asked. “Or are you, because I am so infatuated with Greece, bringing him in just to please me?”
“I have been very careful,” the Count answered, “to tell you only the truth. Like your father you have such a sharp mind that I feel no one could lie to you without you knowing it. It was something I felt about him when we were talking together.”
“You are quite right, Count. Papa always tells the truth and, if it is not the truth, he says so.”
She could remember when she was quite a small child her father saying,
‘If there is one thing I dislike it is lies. Tell me the truth however much you think it may upset me or make me angry, but never, never lie to me because it is something I despise and hate more than anything else.’
“I will always tell the truth,” Linetta said simply, “because I was brought up to do so. But I am afraid some other people are not so well-educated as I have been.”
The Count could not help thinking that this was due to the fact that Prince Vladimir, who was an exceedingly clever man, had few other attractions in the retreat where he and his wife had hidden themselves away for so many years.
So it was not surprising that their children must have been very advanced for their age.
‘How could I have been so fortunate,’ the Count asked himself again, ‘to find someone so beautiful and so intelligent for Samosia?’
He smiled to himself and almost said aloud,
‘If the Prince is not bowled over by her, then I will resign from my post and leave someone cleverer than I am to find him a different sort of wife.’
He was, however, certain in his own mind that the Prince would find Linetta irresistible.
The only real problem was whether she would feel the same about him.
As they travelled at a great speed past the Greek Islands and had their first glimpse of the Balkans, Linetta was silent.
The Count realised that now the moment was near when she would meet the man she must marry or leave him and his country in the hands of the Russians.
It was a very very hard decision for a young girl to make.
He only wished that he could do something to help her more than he had done already.
‘At least,’ he thought, ‘she can now speak the same language as the Prince. She can converse with any of his people from the lowest to the highest.’
But was that enough?
The question seemed to repeat itself over and over again in his mind.
*
At the ship docked at the Port and he saw a number of people waiting to meet him, he felt that the real drama in which he had so completely entangled himself was about to begin.
Linetta was as conscious as he was that ‘the curtain was going up’.
And as the principle performer in the play she must not make a mistake.
She dressed herself carefully in the simplest clothes she possessed.
She wore a plain undecorated hat over her shining golden hair.
Although she had to go ashore with the Count as there was no one else with them, she knew that she must keep in the background as she had come to Samosia only as a Governess to his children.
He realised that she was behaving as he might have expected of her.
In fact she was playing her part brilliantly and he was determined to do the same.
Having warmly greeted his friends and colleagues who were waiting on the quay for him, he now realised that Linetta was standing a little way back behind him by the luggage.
Those who had come to meet him were looking at her somewhat curiously.
“I must tell you,” he said, “that I have brought back with me an English Governess for my family. I thought it was time for all of us to speak the language of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain who, I hope and pray, will help us in the way we want her to do.”
The Comptroller of the Port from his office window looked at him sharply and then whispered into the Count’s ear,
“Has the Queen agreed?”
“I will tell you later,” the Count said. “All I want at the moment is to go home to see if my wife and family are safe and well.”
“That is what we all want,” one of the men who had come to meet him added. “The Russians are, in fact, a great deal nearer than they were when you left.”
“Tell me all about it as soon as we get back to the house,” the Count said. “As you know I will want to hear every detail of what has been happening while I have been away.”
As he spoke, he walked to a carriage and beckoned to Linetta to join him.
They had just seated themselves on the back seat when two of his junior officials jumped in the carriage to sit themselves opposite them.
The Count knew that the rest of them would bring his luggage and Linetta’s with them.
He sat back comfortably on the upholstered seat of the carriage and demanded,
“Now tell me the worst.”
“I am afraid it is the worst,” the man beside him replied.
“Why? What has happened,” the Count enquired.
“Because a Russian Regiment is now several miles nearer than when you left,” the man told him. “And their infiltration has increased enormously.”
“Has His Royal Highness done anything about it?” the Count enquired.
“What can he do?” the man answered. “We have of course enormously strengthened the number of our soldiers on duty especially at night. But I am afraid the infiltration of Russians in one disguise or another is increasing day by day.”
There was silence.
Then the other man who had not spoken previously spoke up,
“I am only hoping that you have brought us back good news, Count. It is what we are all praying for and longing to hear.”
“I think it is only correct,” the Count replied, “for me to speak to His Royal Highness first.”
The two men laughed.
“We had a small bet that was what you would say. Although we came to meet you, we knew that we would not learn any more than if we had stayed at home.”
The Count laughed too.
“Well, that’s the way it goes,” he replied. “As you know, I try to keep my feet firmly on the ground and not raise people’s hopes unnecessarily.”
The two men gave a sharp glance to each other at his reply.
At the same time they felt, as Linetta was present, that they could not press him as they would have done if they had been alone with him.
Instead they told him more of what was happening in the City and that the Prince had bought several more horses that were the admiration of everyone who came to see them.
“I would be a great deal happier,” one man said, “if the money had been spent on larger guns. But, if you ask me, His Royal Highness is expecting you to bring back good news. He could not bear to lose these horses that went up for sale when their owner died.”
“We will soon have to be building new stables, I can see that,” the Count joked.
The two men agreed with him.
The drive did not take long as the City of Samosia was only ten miles from the sea.
Gazing out of the window, Linetta thought that the olive trees and the wide expanse of fertile open land were very beautiful.
When she then had her first sight of the City in the distance, she was impressed by the great number of towers there were, besides the spires that she knew must belong to Churches.
The Count informed her that the City was no less than the Capital of Samosia.
When they drove nearer still, she had her first sight of a huge Cathedral and she felt that The Palace itself could not be too far away.
It was on the outskirts of the City and had been apparently built on top of ground that rose at the far end
of open land where there were no other buildings.
Then their carriage turned round a sharp corner and there, dominating the skyline, she saw a magnificent and very beautiful Palace.
There was no need for Linetta to ask the Count if she was right that it was where His Royal Highness Prince Ivor lived.
She then had her first glimpse of the flags flying on the roof and numerous sentries in colourful uniforms at the gates.
These they passed and then a little further on they came to a gate where there were no sentries.
They led, she could see, to a grand house that was also raised from the ground to almost the same height as The Palace.
To her surprise, as the gate opened up, the horses pulling their carriage passed in and walked up the winding drive to what she realised was a large and fine-looking house.
“We left our carriages in your drive,” one of the men said to the Count. “But we will not worry you now to tell us what we are longing to hear because we know that you will be wanting to talk to your wife. Will it worry you if we come back in say an hour or two?”
“It depends if I have seen His Royal Highness in that time or not,” the Count replied. “As I have said I must tell him first what has happened. I only hope that he will be at The Palace this evening.”
The two men looked at each other.
“I think,” one of them said, “His Royal Highness was going South to see various people who he thinks might help us with the Russian menace. It is getting worse day by day and he thought that he had friends who might assist him in some way or another.”
“Then I hope he will not be away long,” the Count replied. “I promise you the moment I have spoken to him, I will be free to talk to you.”
“I suppose that we have to be thankful for small mercies,” one man said. “But, as you can imagine, we are all extremely curious and that includes our wives and our sweethearts for that matter.”
They all laughed at this.
The two men did not then enter the house when the carriage stopped outside it, but walked off to the stables that were close by.
The Count led the way into what Linetta thought was a very impressive and charming house.
She could not help commenting as they pulled up in front of it,
“Surely, Count, you are most fortunate to have a house as grand as this next to The Palace itself.”
“I was offered it when it became empty after His Royal Highness’s mother died,” the Count told her. “The people thought, perhaps in an over-exaggerated way, that, as I was the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I might somehow be more of a protection to the Prince if I was living close to him than if I was at the other end of the City.”
Linetta thought, although she did not say so, that it must be terrifying to have the Russians so near, menacing not only the City itself but the Ruler of the country.
There was no time for her to respond to anything that the Count was saying before there was a loud cry of delight.
A very attractive woman followed by three children came running rapidly from one of the rooms towards the Count.
“You are back! You are back!” the woman cried, as she flung her arms round him. “I have been so worried while you have been away and it is so wonderful that you are here again.”
“It is exactly where I always want to be and that is the truth,” the Count said as he kissed his wife.
Then he kissed his three enchanting children.
The little girls were both very pretty with long hair hanging almost to their waists.
The boy looked very strong and athletic.
Linetta was sure that he would end up being as tall as his father.
She had been impressed by the fact that the Count was nearly as tall as her father who dwarfed quite a number of men who called on them.
She thought it might be amusing if she did marry the Prince to live in a City or a town and not have to be isolated, as she had been ever since she had been born in Devon.
Now that she understood why her father was there and why he had not wished for anyone to know his real name, she could understand that he had been very clever in finding a place where no one would be particularly curious about him and where those who were curious were unable to find him.
The Count introduced Linetta to his wife and three children.
He told them that she had been so anxious to visit Samosia and he had asked her to stay with them and to teach the children piano at which she was undoubtedly one of the best players he had ever heard.
Linetta saw the Countess look rather sceptical as if she thought that, because she was so young, this must be an exaggeration.
At the same time the children were delighted.
“I love music,” the elder girl enthused. “Although I have had lessons, I always thought that our teachers were not particularly brilliant and I have asked Papa if, when I am a little older, I could go to school in Paris.”
She smiled before she went on,
“I believe that there are a great number of brilliant performers who, in their spare time, teach pupils from the Universities and schools.”
“When you have listened to Miss Lane,” the Count said, “you will know that there is no need for you to go to France!”
It was not the first time that Linetta had heard him use the name they had called her aboard ship. But somehow when the Countess and the children called her ‘Miss Lane’ it made her want to laugh.
It was her father who had suggested that it was the nearest to her real name he could think of.
And it was one she would find easy to remember.
That was indeed true.
Equally Linetta found herself almost starting a little at her new name and finding it difficult to reply instantly when someone addressed her as ‘Miss Lane’.
She was then shown into her bedroom which she was aware was quite a bit larger than was usually occupied by a Governess.
It overlooked the garden and the fields that sloped down to the wide open land they had driven through from the sea.
When later she went out into the garden because the children wanted to show her a small artificial lake where they were able to bathe, it was then that she had a better glimpse of The Palace.
She thought, as she had when she had first seen it from the carriage, that it was magnificent.
She wondered if she would see the Prince, but there was no sign of anyone in The Palace garden.
Linetta learnt later at dinner that the Prince was not at home but visiting friends, as the Count had been told, because he was eliciting their help.
“If you are to ask me,” the Countess said, “we want someone of greater status to help us than those His Royal Highness is visiting.”
There was silence for the moment.
“Every day I am told stories by the staff,” she went on, “of how the Russians are making trouble in the City and creating quite an uproar amongst some of the men who should know better than to side with our enemies however badly they think they might have been treated by us.”
She spoke sharply and the Count replied,
“I would hope when I talk to His Royal Highness that things will be better than they are at the moment.”
“They are getting worse and worse,” his wife said, “and quite frankly, darling, I am really afraid.”
She drew in her breath before she added,
“I think that it would be wise for you to take us to somewhere safe. You know that our friends in Vienna are always asking us to visit them.”
“We may be able to do that a little later on,” the Count said.
“If we wait too long, it may be impossible for us to leave. In fact we could all be in prison,” the Countess replied.
The Count put his fingers to his lips as if to warn her not to say too much in front of the servants.
But the Countess carried on regardless,
“I am just incredibly frightened! Frightened for the children’s sake as well as our
own. I have been praying as everyone else has in the City that you would bring us some good news from Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”
“I have to say to you exactly the same as I have told everyone else,” the Count said, “that I must speak to the Prince before I can tell you what happened while I was in England.”
He sighed before he continued,
“At the same time, my dearest, I don’t want you to be depressed or intimidated.”
“So how could we be anything else?” the Countess asked. “The Russians are reinforcing their Regiments only a few miles from here. I am told that the trouble they are causing in the City itself is appalling.”
“I know! I do know!” he replied. “I have heard it already. But I think that is the job of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and not mine!”
“It is your job to protect us and the children,” his wife asserted.
“If you go on talking like this you will scare them,” the Count answered.
The children had not come down to dinner, but had eaten their supper in the schoolroom which was actually an extremely attractive room with French windows opening onto the garden.
When Linetta had been shown it by the Countess, she had exclaimed at its comfort and attractiveness.
“I expect my husband has told you,” the Countess said, “that we were given this house because he would be a better protection for the Prince than if we stayed in what had always been the house for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”
“This is delightful!” Linetta exclaimed.
“Yes, I know,” the Countess agreed. “The house we should have had was small and rather dark. Although it was nearer to the Houses of Parliament, it was certainly not particularly attractive.”
She smiled as she said,
“You can easily understand how pleased I was to have this house which belonged to His Royal Highness’s mother. The children love the garden as I am sure that you will too.”
“It is so beautiful,” Linetta replied.
Later she was even more delighted when she found that there was a music room in the house and it was far better equipped than she had expected.
There was a large up to date piano besides other instruments like a violin, a harp and a trumpet.
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