Barbara Cartland - The Lovelight of Apollo

Avila gave a little cry.

“Are you suggesting, ma’am, that I could go to Greece?” she asked. “It is something I have always longed to do ever since I was a small child.”

“I am asking you to impersonate me and go to Athens,” the Princess said, “and to see, despite the funeral Ceremony, as much of Greece as you can in the time available.”

“This is the most wonderful thing that could possibly happen to me!” Avila cried.

Mrs. Grandell seemed at last to find her voice.

“Are you really serious, ma’am?” she enquired. “I can hardly believe what Your Royal Highness is saying.”

“I am saying that I am desperate! I know that, if I go to Greece and leave Prince Holden, Her Majesty will somehow or other prevent our marriage from taking place or at least delay it in some tricky way of her own.”

She drew in her breath and then went on,

“Please, please let Avila go instead of me. We look so alike that I am quite certain no one will have the slightest idea that she is not actually me.”

Mrs. Grandell turned to look at her daughter and then back again at the Princess.

“There is indeed a definite ‒ resemblance,” she admitted slowly.

“If we were not side by side, no one would doubt for a moment that Avila is me,” the Princess said quickly. “I think that we must be related in some way, as so many Greeks are.”

To her surprise Mrs. Grandell stiffened.

“That, ma’am,” she said, “is something I would not wish to discuss. I admit that there is a resemblance, but I am sure that my husband would not allow Avila to act a lie.”

“Then you must not tell him,” the Princess said. “As a Greek, you understand what I am feeling as no woman of any other nationality could. I can only beg you and plead with you to help me because this concerns my whole happiness, now and for the future.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Grandell murmured.

She had not moved or fidgeted while the Princess was talking and now she clasped her hands together almost as if they helped her to control her feelings.

“Oh, please, Mama, please!” Avila begged her. “Let me go to Greece! You know how thrilled I have been by the stories you have told me ever since I was a baby and the books we have read and the pictures we have found together.”

She stopped for a moment before she went on,

“I never thought I would be able to see the Parthenon or any of the islands that you have told me so many stories about. Please, Mama please! Let me do what Her Royal Highness asks.”

Princess Marigold felt that the girl’s pleading was even more impressive than her own.

Then, still speaking Greek, Mrs. Grandell asked,

“Will you tell me, Your Royal Highness, how you think you can manage this deception without anyone being ‒ aware of it?”

Princess Marigold felt her heart leap.

“I will tell you what I have discussed so far with Prince Holden,” she said, “and, as he is a marvellous organiser, he will work out every detail so that there is not the slightest chance of our being discovered.”

She saw that the Mrs. Grandell was still undecided and so she went on persuadingly,

“You must tell your husband that Avila is coming to Greece with me, which is almost true. Tell him I am taking her with me because, having lived in. England for so long, I must practise my Greek and be certain that I don’t make any silly mistakes when I reach Athens.”

She thought as she spoke that Mrs. Grandell thought that this sounded at least a possible idea.

“It is quite true,” she continued, “there is nobody at Windsor Castle who I can converse with in Greek and I have in fact become rather rusty since my father and mother died. It was, of course, my father who taught me first when I was a child to speak in Greek.”

“I am sure that Papa would think it a wonderful opportunity,” Avila persisted, “for me to go to Greece and be Your Royal Highness for a while.”

“You will travel by ship,” Princess Marigold said, “and I will choose a Lady-in-Waiting to accompany you who is getting old and also rather blind.”

She stopped speaking for a moment and then resumed,

“She will, I expect, be the only other English person in the party with the exception of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whom I have never met.”

She gave a little laugh as she added,

“I am sure that they will expect me to remain in my cabin and feel sea-sick all through the Bay of Biscay and, when the ship reaches Athens, neither our Ambassador there nor any of his staff have ever met me.”

Princess Marigold coughed and then carried on,

“This is all a plot of Queen Victoria’s to try to separate us. I am certain that she is at this very moment working out in her mind how I will forget him and he will forget me. But that is something that will never ever happen!”

Now the anxious note was back in her voice.

There was something very pathetic in her eyes as she added,

“Please, please help me! There is no one else who I can turn to and only someone who is Greek can understand what I feel.”

Avila looked at her mother.

Then, as Mrs. Grandell did not speak, she put a hand over hers.

“Please, Mama, please,” she begged. “We would be very careful not to upset Papa and I promise I will do everything Her Royal Highness tells me to do.”

“You just have to smile, keep saying ‘thank you’, and wave to the crowds,” the Princess said. “I can assure you, being a Royal person requires no brains, not unless you are in a spot like me and have to try to save yourself.”

Mrs. Grandell now realised that both the Princess and her daughter were looking at her pleadingly.

In a strange tone that did not sound like her usual voice, she said,

“As I would like Avila to see Greece and because I am aware of the strange resemblance there is between her and Your Royal Highness, I will agree. But the only condition is that this is kept completely secret and my husband is not made aware of what is happening.”

“I can assure you that from my point of view,” Princess Marigold answered, “no one will know except for us three and, of course, Prince Holden.”

She smiled and then went on,

“I will rely on him to work out every single move and every tiny detail so that we are not discovered.”

Mrs. Grandell did not speak and the Princess added as an afterthought,

“Avila and I are almost the same size and all that she will require is that dismal boring black of which I have dozens and dozens of gowns! Besides, of course, the correct bonnet with a dark veil which will prevent anyone from looking too closely at her until she is aboard the Battleship.”

“And I can keep my head bent,” Avila suggested, “as if it is such a moving occasion that I must not look too happy about it.”

The Princess smiled.

“Exactly. I am sure that you will act the part very well and be much more charming and good-tempered than I would be.”

She gave a little laugh and went on,

“And I would be hating every minute of the voyage, the funeral and the people who are preventing me from being with Prince Holden.”

“While I will love every minute of it,” Avila said in a rapt voice. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Your Royal Highness, for thinking of me.”

“You should really thank Prince Holden, who happened to see you in Church,” Princess Marigold said. “But be very careful what you say to him if he is with your father.”

“So you are not to say anything at all,” Mrs. Grandell came in. “The sole reason, Your Royal Highness, that I am allowing Avila to go on what seems to me a rather dangerous and certainly unusual journey is that she has always longed to see Greece.”