Lord Cardiff and the Ambassador would expect her to be carried away immediately to Windsor Castle in a smart carriage.
She need not have worried.
When she looked down at the quay, she could see that Prince Holden with the Harbour Master were waiting to welcome her.
There were a number of carriages which were to take the different members of the party from the Battleship to where they wished to go.
Prince Holden came aboard.
He cordially greeted the Captain and then the Greek Ambassador and Lord Cardiff, who quickly made their farewells and then hurried down the gangway to the carriage which was waiting to take him back to Whitehall.
Once again he congratulated Avila profusely on the success of her visit to Greece.
He repeated that he knew Queen Victoria would be delighted with the report he intended to give her.
When he had gone, the Greek Ambassador made no move to follow him.
Prince Holden, who had already greeted Avila effusively, now said to her,
“I think now we should be leaving.”
“Yes, of course,” she answered.
She shook hands with the Captain and the other Officers and thanked them for a pleasant voyage despite the Bay of Biscay.
The Captain responded by saying what a privilege it had been to have her on board the Battleship.
Avila was escorted down the gangway by Prince Holden with the Greek Ambassador following behind them.
Avila then climbed into the chaise and Prince Holden deliberately waited until the Greek Ambassador went ahead of them.
Avila knew that he would undoubtedly think it strange if, having come straight from the ship, he saw them stop at The Traveller’s Rest.
Finally, as his carriage disappeared out of sight, they then started to drive slowly along the quay.
Lady Bedstone was in a closed carriage behind them and, although she might think it odd for them to stop at the hotel, she would, Avila reckoned, not make any fuss about it.
As soon as Prince Holden had driven the chaise a short distance from the ship, he asked,
“Was everything all right?”
“Everything!” Avila replied.
“No one was suspicious that you were not the Princess?”
“No, not at all, and Lord Cardiff was very complimentary, as you heard just now.”
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you,” Prince Holden said. “But, of course, we must be very careful that no one has the slightest suspicion of what has occurred.”
“No one in Athens queried for a moment that I was not who I was ‒ supposed to be,” Avila assured him.
Try as she would, she could not help there being just the suspicion of a sob in her voice.
She hoped, however, that Prince Holden would not notice it.
“You have obviously been absolutely splendid.” he was saying. “I know that Her Royal Highness has a special present for you to express her gratitude to you and I thought, as you live in the country, you might like me to give you a horse.”
“A horse?” Avila exclaimed. “Of course I would love one and it is very very kind of you to think of it, but there is no need for you to give me anything.”
“There is every need,” he replied. “You have given me happiness and that is something that cannot be bought over the counter.”
Avila laughed.
“That is true and I have been fortunate enough to see some of the beauty of Greece.”
She wanted to add, ‘and unfortunate enough to lose my heart!’
But that was something that no one must ever know.
Prince Holden then drew up his horses outside The Traveller’s Rest.
“You will find your mother in the same bedroom that you used before you left,” he said, “and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so brave.”
Avila managed to smile at him.
Then she stepped out of the chaise and hurried into the hotel.
She pulled the veil over her face and knew that the Proprietor, who was waiting to escort her to the stairs, could not see her clearly.
It was not likely, she thought, that he would notice any difference anyway. Except that she knew she was very different from the carefree girl who had left The Traveller’s Rest such a short time ago.
She had started out then on what she had thought would be a really exciting adventure.
It had been and so much more and she recognised now that she would never be the same again.
In a way she had grown up.
She was no longer a girl but a woman.
As a woman, she had learnt the wonder and the glory of love and inevitably all the agony and despair of losing it.
The same maid in a mob cap guided her up the stairs.
“There be a lady waitin’ for Your Royal Highness,” she said.
She knocked on a bedroom door, opened it and bobbed a curtsey as Avila went inside.
She saw her mother standing by the dressing table.
She ran towards her and was then suddenly aware that Princess Marigold was more or less concealed on the other side of the bed.
“Avila, dearest! You are all right?” Mrs. Grandell asked.
“Yes, perfectly, Mama,” Avila replied.
She threw back her veil so that she could kiss her mother.
Then turning to the Princess she curtseyed.
“Everything went off perfectly, Your Royal Highness.”
“I am extremely grateful to you,” Princess Marigold replied.
She was wearing a white summer dress, not unlike the one that Avila had worn when she had arrived at the hotel from the country.
Now she started to change into the black gown that she had brought with her.
It was unpacked and lying on the bed.
“I shall need my bonnet,” Princess Marigold said. “I am sure you found the veil useful in case people stared at you too closely.”
“Yes, indeed,” Avila answered, “and thank you very much, ma’am, for the lovely gowns you put in the trunk. I am sure that His Royal Highness will arrange to have it collected from my home.”
She thought that he would do when he sent her the horse that he had so kindly promised her.
“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Princess Marigold smiled. “If they are of any use to you, do keep them. I hate black and I have enough of it to last for a thousand funerals!”
Mrs. Grandell laughed.
“I am sure, Your Royal Highness, you have been told over and over again that black is very becoming to your fair hair. But thank you for your generosity to my daughter.”
“So I shall always be deeply in her debt,” Princess Marigold said, “and, although we are unlikely to see each other again, I shall always remember how you helped me at a time when I most needed it.”
Mrs. Grandell was doing up the back of her gown as she spoke.
Avila had taken from her head the bonnet with its dark veil and laid it out on the bed and then Princess Marigold sat down at the dressing table to put it on.
As she did so, she declared,
“I know you will be interested to hear that tomorrow my engagement to Prince Holden is being officially announced and we are actually being married in two weeks’ time.”
“Then, of course, Avila and I want to wish Your Royal Highness every happiness,” Mrs. Grandell smiled.
“I would expect that Her Majesty is furious that everything is being done in such haste,” Princess Marigold went on lightly, “but I am so afraid that somebody else may die and we are plunged into mourning again that we are taking no chances!”
“I think that is very wise of you, ma’am,” Mrs. Grandell said, “and, of course, you have all of our very best good wishes.”
“I shall be very happy,” Princess Marigold said firmly. “Although Her Majesty may not approve, I am content to have what must be a small Wedding before I leave for my husband’s country.”
“You will be married, I imagine, at Windsor
Castle?” Mrs. Grandell enquired.
“I am afraid so,” Princess Marigold replied, “and my bridesmaids will have to hurry to have their gowns made as I shall have to hurry to buy my trousseau.”
She was speaking as if the whole thing was rather a joke, which Avila found surprising.
She next rose from the dressing table saying,
“Thank you again, Avila. But you have not yet told me if Greece is as beautiful as you expected it to be.”
“It was very very wonderful, ma’am,” Avila responded in a low voice.
“Then we have both had very satisfactory holidays,” the Princess grinned.
She put out her hand to Mrs. Grandell.
“Thank you for all your help. I most sincerely hope that one day your daughter will be as happy as I am.”
She smiled at them both and, as they both curtseyed, she walked towards the door.
When she reached it, she pulled the veil over her face and then slipped out.
Avila knew that Prince Holden would be waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.
No one would suspect for a single moment that she was not the same person who had just walked up to them.
“Now you must change your gown,” Mrs. Grandell said to Avila. “And then we can go home.”
Her daughter turned round so that her mother could undo the buttons at the back.
As she did so, Mrs. Grandell said,
“I have missed you, my dearest. Tell me what you thought of Greece.”
“It was even more ‒ wonderful than I ever expected it ‒ to be.”
“I want to hear everything from the moment you left me here,” Mrs. Granclell said, “and, of course, which places you visited in Athens.”
For a moment Avila thought that it would be impossible for her to speak of what she had seen and felt when she had been with Prince Darius.
She could remember all too vividly the compliments he had paid her as she gazed at the marble maidens supporting the portico of the Erechtheion.
She could remember every world that he had said the next day when he compared her to Athene and asked her to be his wife.
It was easy to say very little while her mother was helping her to change her clothes.
But it was more difficult when they were driving back home in the closed chaise which Prince Holden had hired for them.
Only by pretending that she was very tired and closing her eyes as if she wanted to sleep did Avila manage to say very little.
She did, however, describe the funeral and the Reception at the British Embassy to her mother in some detail.
“I am disappointed that you could not have stayed in The Palace,” Mrs. Grandell said. “It is very beautiful inside and some of the statues it contains are really breathtaking.”
“I did not know that you had been in The Palace, Mama,” Avila queried in surprise.
“I did not mention it because I thought it was unlikely that you would ever have a chance of seeing it,” Mrs. Grandell replied quickly. “Now tell me about the Parthenon.”
Avila stammered out a few sentences of praise.
Then, as she recalled the Prince’s voice and the nearness of him, she closed her eyes.
The cross-examination was becoming more and more agonising and she could only pray that her mother would never guess how much she was suffering.
Her father was waiting to greet her when she eventually arrived home.
“I hope you have enjoyed your holiday,” he said. “Your mother has been worrying about you all the time you were away, but I really cannot think why.”
“It was all very exciting, Papa, and it was interesting to see places which Mama has told me about. I know you will be pleased to hear that everyone thought that my Greek was very good.”
“How can it be anything else when you have a Greek mother?” the Vicar asked. “Now, thank goodness, you are back. Your mother has been behaving as if you had disappeared to another Planet and we would never see you again!”
Avila managed to laugh.
“I am back,” she cried, “and now it will ‒ all seem like a ‒ dream.”
This was the truest thing, she now thought, that she had ever said.
Of course it was a dream, a dream so beautiful and so perfect, that it could never come true.
When she was alone in her bedroom, all she could see was the anemones covering the ground in front of her.
All she could feel was the Prince’s hand holding hers.
She was vitally aware of the strange Light.
It was different from the light in any place she had been to before.
She wondered too if she would ever know again the mysterious quivering, the beating of silver wings and the whirring of silver wheels.
They belonged to Delos and she would never see Delos again or Prince Darius!
Then the wonder of all those moments would gradually fade away until she doubted to herself if she had ever really been aware of them.
‘How can I bear it? How can I go on living?’ she asked herself again and again that night.
She threw open the window and looked up at the stars overhead.
They were the same stars that had twinkled above her when she was in Greece, but now they seemed far away and some of their enchantment had gone.
How was it possible that she had been transported to know the ecstasy of the Gods?
And now to be thrown into the dark emptiness of being human?
Suddenly Avila felt the tears running down her cheeks.
‘I have ‒ lost him! I have lost ‒ him!’ she sobbed into her pillows.
She knew that she had lost not only the Prince but somehow Apollo as well.
She had also lost her soul or perhaps she had left it behind on the island of Delos.
*
Having cried herself to sleep, she woke in the morning feeling that everything was a huge effort.
She just wanted to stay where she was and not have to speak to anyone.
Then she told herself that it would be a great mistake for her father or mother to think that her visit to Greece had not been just a normal holiday.
Having acted the part, she must go on acting now as herself.
She dressed and went downstairs before anyone else was about.
Leaving the house, she walked to the stables.
She could not help hoping that Prince Holden would remember to send her the horse that he had promised.
It was then she recalled somewhat belatedly that the Princess had given her a present just before she left the bedroom.
Because her mother was in a hurry to leave, Avila had not opened it at the time.
She had put it into her handbag and never gave it another thought. It was upstairs in the chest of drawers where she always kept her bag and her gloves.
The horses seemed glad to see her and nuzzled against her demanding affection.
She told herself that when she had had breakfast she would go riding.
That at least she would be able to do alone.
She had always had permission to ride in the Park that belonged to the Duke of Ilchester and it occurred to her then that she had never seen Prince Darius on horseback.
She just knew, however, from the way he drove the chaise and controlled the horses that he would be an outstanding rider.
His horses would instinctively respond to anything he asked of them.
‘How can he be so different from any other man?’ she wanted to know.
She knew the answer anyway.
He had told her what it was when he said that they had known each other for a million years already.
For the first time she wondered if he would feel incomplete without her.
Then she was sure that it was far too much to ask.
He might seem like a God, but he was also very much a man of the world.
He travelled extensively and held an important post in his own country and owned great possessions.
Moreover he believe
d that it was Princess Marigold who had visited Athens for Prince Eumenus’s funeral.
The Greek newspapers would be sure to carry the story of her engagement and later of her marriage.
When he read the stories, Prince Darius would know that it was impossible for him, as he had wanted, to marry Princess Marigold.
He would doubtless be hurt and offended that she had not told him of her engagement.
The result would be, Avila reasoned to herself, that he would not come to London as he had intended.
He would remain in his own country and doubtless in time would find another woman he would take to Delos. And she too would seem to him like Athene.
Avila wanted to cry out because it hurt her so much to think about it and she continued torturing herself every day and night.
And yet she knew she was being sensible and that was exactly what would happen.
The sooner she accepted the inevitable the better it would be for her.
She left the stables and walked out into the garden.
It seemed to her very small and insignificant.
Although the flowers were brilliant in the sun, they could in no way compare with the masses of anemones that covered the Island of Delos.
“It is over! It is over! It is over!”
She forced herself to repeat these words until she was quite sure that they would go on repeating themselves in her subconscious mind even when she was asleep.
It had been a glorious and magnificent interlude in her rather dull and conventional life.
Now she knew that Prince Darius would not even think of her as a woman he had loved.
She had deliberately kept from him the knowledge that she was engaged to be married to another man.
He would believe that she had been deceitful and that she had lied to him.
That was something she knew that he could never forgive or forget.
Now the pain in Avila’s heart was even worse than it had been before.
There was nothing she could do ‒ nothing!
She heard her mother calling for her, which meant that breakfast was ready.
As she walked back to the house, she was saying over and over again in her mind and her heart,
“It is over! It is over! It is over!”
*
The next two days passed slowly, so slowly that it seemed to Avila as if each hour was a century of time.
The Love Light of Apollo Page 10