The Love Light of Apollo Read online

  “I swore a long time ago that I would never marry anyone until I found someone like Athene, who would feel as I feel when I come to Delos, that Apollo is here in the Light, as he had been ever since he was born.”

  He felt Avila quiver against him and then he went on,

  “I knew when I first saw you that you were the one I have been seeking all my life and thought I would never find. Yet I had to make absolutely sure that I was not mistaken.”

  He drew in his breath before he continued,

  “When we came here today and I saw and felt what you were feeling, I knew I had found the mystic love that all men seek and few are lucky enough to find.”

  He put his fingers under Avila’s chin and turned her face up to his.

  . “We shall be very happy together, my darling. How could we be anything else when Apollo has blessed us and we are both of us part of him and of Athene.”

  He kissed Avila again before he added,

  “And now, my precious, we must find our way out of this dreadful mess.”

  Because he had made her forget anything but his kisses, Avila suddenly awoke to reality with a start.

  They were locked in an obscure cave and no one might ever find them.

  The Prince was reading her thoughts.

  “Sooner or later my people will come to look for us. But it would be more dignified and certainly more pleasant if we could find our own way out of this prison now.”

  He released Avila as he spoke and picked up the lantern.

  He walked back to where they had been when the door had been slammed shut behind them and they had just been stepping into a third cave.

  As the Prince went ahead holding the lamp high, Avila could see that the ceiling here was higher than in the other caves.

  But she thought depressingly that it was merely because the hill was rising outside.

  It would not be possible to dig through it when they did not have a spade or anything to use but their own bare hands.

  The Prince was looking round.

  At the far end of the cave there was what looked like a great pile of earth that might have covered an Altar.

  It rose up halfway between the floor and the ceiling.

  “I think,” he said after a moment’s inspection, “it would be wiser to try to break our way out through the sides of the door.”

  Avila did not answer.

  She was praying to the God she had always prayed to and to Apollo as well.

  ‘Save us! Save us!’ she murmured in her heart. ‘It may be difficult or perhaps impossible for anyone to find us and we will be cold here at night and we will be hungry too.’

  It all swept through her mind.

  Equally she knew what her father would say and she herself believed that their only hope would come from a Power greater than mankind.

  The Prince had already gone back into the second cave and she then ceased praying and looked up.

  Next she was aware, now that he had taken the lantern with him, that there was a faint chink of light in the ceiling at the far end of the third cave.

  She gave a cry of excitement and the Prince turned round.

  “What is it, my darling?” he asked.

  “Look at that! Look! I was praying and, when I opened my eyes again, I could see light.”

  The Prince came back into the first cave and saw where she was pointing.

  There was, he could see, a very faint glimmer of light against the darkness of the third cave.

  He took off his jacket and put it down on the ground beside the lantern.

  Then he climbed up onto the mound of earth at the very far end of the cave and some of it crumbled as he did so.

  Then, as he stood working with his fists at the roof above his head, he made a small hole and more light came streaming in.

  He began pulling at the earth frantically to make the hole larger and still larger until the sun shone on his head and then on his face.

  Even as he did so, Avila gave another cry.

  The earth that he was standing on and which covered what she had thought might have been an Altar, was still crumbling away.

  As it crumbled, it suddenly revealed something that was white and shiny.

  Because she was so excited at what she was seeing, Avila ran forward.

  She knelt down and brushed the soil from what the Prince’s weight had just revealed.

  Even as the Prince stepped down to join her, she realised at once that she was looking at an exquisitely carved statue.

  It was cracked and one arm was missing, but it was quite impossible not to recognise that it was a statue of Apollo.

  Prince Darius knelt down and put his arm round her.

  “He has come to us when we most needed him,” he declared. “I am very grateful, my darling. But even more grateful because he has given me you.”

  Then he was kissing her again.

  Kissing her with wild and passionate kisses that were not only an expression of love.

  They also expressed his utter relief that the fear of what might have happened to them had completely dissolved.

  *

  Much later that afternoon they were moving smoothly over the still blue sea towards the mainland.

  Avila was thinking that they had passed through a most amazing and unusual experience and had been saved by the God of Delos himself.

  It was the Greeks’ firm belief that the Island was under a perpetual spell.

  They too had been spellbound as they managed to climb up out of the cave through the hole that the Prince had opened in the roof and then opened the door and collected the statue of Apollo to take back with them.

  The Prince had carried it to the yacht.

  When he had placed it safely in the Saloon, he had put his arms around Avila to say,

  “It will stand on the most beautiful Altar that has ever been built for Apollo and he will bless us so that we will never lose the happiness we have at this moment and which will be ours for all of Eternity.”

  It was only as she felt the yacht move out into the open sea that Avila had come back to reality.

  The wonder of Delos, the thrill of being kissed by the Prince and knowing that he loved her had made her completely and absolutely forget everything else.

  Now she remembered that he had proposed to the Princess Marigold and not to Avila Grandell, the daughter of a country Vicar.

  She could hardly realise herself that she was not the Athene who the Prince believed her to be or the beautiful wife chosen for him by Apollo.

  As the mainland came into sight, the sun was sinking and the crimson in the sky was reflected on the waves.

  For a moment it seemed to Avila that it was like her own blood, bleeding from the heart that must now lose everything that mattered in life.

  “You must be tired, my lovely little Goddess,” the Prince was saying. “But I have to take you back to Athens because I promised the Ambassador that you would be there tonight so that you would be ready to leave early in the morning.”

  “How ‒ early?” Avila asked him in a voice that did not seem like her own.

  “I think about midday or perhaps an hour before,” the Prince answered. “But I promise I will be with you much earlier. We have to make plans about how soon I shall follow you to England. I suppose that you will have to ask for the permission of Queen Victoria to marry me.”

  Avila did not answer.

  The agony of what he was saying was almost unbearable.

  “You are tired,” he said gently. “We will talk about it tomorrow and, of course, when I have followed you to England.”

  He paused for a moment before he went on,

  “I think it would be a mistake for me to travel with you. Her Majesty might think that I am presuming on her hospitality. I know that she is reputed to be very difficult, but I cannot believe that she will not accept me as your husband.”

  As they drove back in the chaise to Athens after leaving the Prince’s yacht, Avila said ver
y little.

  She was only acutely aware of the Prince being beside her and her love for him welling up in her heart like a tidal wave.

  It was just impossible to think of anything but how handsome he was and how she would love him despairingly to the end of her life.

  ‘There will never, never,’ she told herself, ‘be another man like him.’

  They were late arriving at the British Embassy and by this time it was nearly dark.

  It had taken them such a long time to fight their way out of the cave.

  When they returned to the yacht, they had to walk so slowly because the statue of Apollo was so heavy.

  The British Ambassador greeted them enthusiastically.

  “I have been worrying about Your Royal Highness,” he spoke to Avila. “If you had not arrived soon, I would have had to send out a search party.”

  Avila thought to herself how this had very nearly been a necessity.

  “I must apologise for being late,” the Prince said. “But I will leave the Princess to tell you the story of the very exciting discovery we have made.”

  “Nobody would be surprised at anything that happens on Delos,” the British Ambassador remarked.

  Avila held out her hand to Prince Darius.

  “Thank you so much for a very ‒ wonderful day. It is a day ‒ I will never ever ‒ forget.”

  He took her hand in his and kissed it.

  Just for a moment they looked into each other’s eyes and it was quite impossible to look away.

  Then without speaking the Prince turned towards his chaise.

  “I have put back dinner half an hour, Your Royal Highness,” the Ambassador was now saying, “so you don’t have to hurry unduly.”

  “Thank you,” Avila managed to answer.

  She had been told before they left that there was to be a party tonight.

  She was glad in a way that the Prince was not staying for the party as it would have been difficult, in fact agonising, to have to talk to anyone else when he was there in the dining room.

  Avila could not help thinking, when he had walked away from her, that it was the last time she would ever see him. That exactly was what he had to do.

  She was halfway up the staircase when she stopped.

  “I think, Your Excellency,” she spoke to the Ambassador who was still in the hall, “we should arrange to leave early in the morning. Perhaps no later than nine o’clock. I know that Lord Cardiff is very anxious to go back to England as soon as possible.”

  “He is indeed, ma’am,” the Ambassador replied. “I know that he will be very grateful for your thoughtfulness.”

  “Then you will arrange it, Your Excellency?” the Princess asked.

  “Of course,” the Ambassador promised. “I will give orders tonight that you will leave here at eight-thirty.”

  Avila went on up to her room.

  As she did so, she knew that darkness encompassed her.

  She could no longer feel or see the Light of Apollo.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Avila stood on the deck of the British Battleship watching until Athens was out of sight.

  She knew that she was saying ‘goodbye’ not only to Greece but also to a wonderful and glorious love that she would never find again.

  At last, when she could only vaguely see the coastline, she went below.

  Her maid had already unpacked and her cabin seemed so empty and, taking off her hat and her jacket, she sat down on the bed.

  She was trying to think clearly and not to heed the agony that was in her heart.

  ‘I love ‒ him. I love ‒ him!’ she kept thinking over and over again.

  She felt again the wonder of his kisses and the rapture he had given her yesterday from the moment they had stepped onto the Island of Delos.

  As the Battleship steamed on, the sea began to grow rougher.

  One of the storms that appear suddenly in the Mediterranean made the Battleship pitch and roll.

  Avila was not upset by the sea.

  In fact it was a relief to think that now she had an excellent excuse not to go and sit in the Saloon with the Greek Ambassador and Lord Cardiff.

  They would expect her to be suffering from sea-sickness and, like Lady Bedstone, had taken to her bed.

  All she really wanted was to be alone with herself.

  To think over what had happened and to remember every word that the Prince had said to her.

  Gradually the agitation she had felt in getting away from the British Embassy before he arrived had subsided.

  She then began to think more sensibly about the future.

  If he followed her, as he intended to do, he would find on arrival in England that Princess Marigold was married to Prince Holden.

  The question then was whether he would return straight back to Greece or whether he would visit Windsor Castle and ask for an audience with the Queen.

  And Avila knew that it was extremely important that he should not go to Windsor Castle.

  If he asked questions, the Queen might suspect what had actually happened.

  Avila wondered what on earth she could do to prevent there being any possibility of this happening.

  It was then she remembered with a sense of relief that Prince Holden would be meeting her when she arrived at Tilbury.

  Her mother would also be waiting for her, as they had arranged, at The Traveller’s Rest.

  She would then go back to the country with her, never to be heard of again.

  ‘I am grateful, of course, I am very grateful for having seen some of the unique glory of Greece,’ she told herself, ‘but I know that I will never feel the same again and there will be emptiness in the future that can never be filled.’

  That night when she went to bed, the Battleship was still pitching and rolling even more strongly.

  However all she could think of was the Prince and she cried herself to a restless sleep.

  It was something that she was to do every single night of the voyage.

  Because it was so rough in the Bay of Biscay, she was able to stay in her cabin all the time without it causing any comment.

  Lady Bedstone sent her messages which she replied to, but otherwise she was alone with her thoughts and her memories.

  As they left the Bay of Biscay and drew nearer to England, Avila knew that she must make an effort to join the Ambassador and Lord Cardiff.

  The coastline was actually in sight when, dressed in the black gown that she had worn when she came on board, she joined the two gentlemen for luncheon.

  They appeared to be delighted to see her.

  “We have been very worried about you, ma’am,” Lord Cardiff said. “The Captain says he had never known the sea to be so rough, but as you know, this can happen in the spring.”

  He paused a moment and then continued,

  “I have congratulated the Captain on not having lost any time despite the awful weather.”

  Avila sat down with them and tried to eat a sensible meal.

  While she was all alone in her cabin, she had had no wish to eat anything at all.

  She only pecked at the food that her Greek maid conscientiously brought to her every mealtime.

  Now she told herself that she had to return to ordinary life and behave in an ordinary way.

  “I have just been telling Lord Cardiff” the Greek Ambassador was saying, “how much I have enjoyed the visit to my own country, even though it was for the sombre occasion of a funeral.”

  “I know Your Royal Highness enjoyed it too,” Lord Cardiff said, “and I am certain that what Prince Darius showed you of the Greek Islands was extremely interesting and unusual.”

  “Very ‒ interesting,” Avila managed to reply.

  “I consider him to be just the right person to be the Guardian of some of the Islands,” the Greek Ambassador remarked. “He has always been most knowledgeable about our history and I am quite certain if there are any treasures left on Delos or the other Islands he will find them.”
>
  Lord Cardiff laughed.

  “I think you are being optimistic. The Islands have been stripped in every century and the French have been the busiest in this plundering.”

  “That is indeed true,” the Greek Ambassador remarked, “and I am so furious at hearing what they have taken from Delphi.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Lord Cardiff said. “At the same time, because the statues of Greece are so perfect, they must belong to the world.”

  The two men then began a somewhat heated argument as to whether the treasures from one country should be taken to another to be displayed in Museums and Art Galleries.

  The Greek Ambassador made a special point of claiming in no uncertain terms that the Elgin Marbles should be returned to where they belonged in Athens.

  Avila decided that she would stop listening to them.

  She was thinking of the unearthly beauty of the statue that she and the Prince had found in the cave.

  And she wondered if there were any more under the pile of earth where Prince Darius had stood.

  If indeed there were, she knew that she would never see them.

  Again she felt the agony of loss, almost as if the statues were her own children.

  *

  It was in the early afternoon that they finally reached the Port of Tilbury.

  As they did so, Lord Cardiff made a flattering speech to Avila.

  He told her how much he had enjoyed her company and how splendidly he thought that she had carried out her duties at the funeral of Prince Eumenus.

  “I shall tell Her Majesty she could not have sent anyone who would have represented Great Britain better,” he said.

  “Thank you, my Lord,” Avila answered him.

  “That is certainly true,” the Ambassador chipped in, “and you will not forget, ma’am, that I shall be asking you to honour our Embassy with a visit. I will keep you notified of all the entertainments and parties that take place there.”

  “I shall look forward to hearing from you,” Avila sort of smiled.

  As H.M.S. Heroic moved slowly into the quay, she went up on deck.

  She could not remember what time Prince Holden told her that he would be expecting her and she wondered what she should do if by any chance he was late.