“My grandmother will have her luncheon at about one o’clock,” she said. “By a quarter-to-two she will be – asleep.”
“Then from a quarter-to-two I will be waiting on the other side of the square,” the Prince said. “I have discovered that there are two gates to the garden, so you can let yourself into the one on this side and out by the one on the other.”
“Did you – plan this before you came – here this – morning?” Angelina enquired.
The Prince did not answer for a moment and, because she was conscious that he was looking at her in a very searching manner, she dropped her eyes so that her long curled-back eyelashes were dark against the whiteness of her skin.
“When I saw you yesterday, I was determined to see you again,” the Prince said in a low voice. “My Minister informed me that your grandmother had not called on him as the other residents in the square had done because, he understood, she was so ill.”
“Grandmama has been bedridden for over a year.”
“That is what I was told,” the Prince said, “and I was wondering how on earth I could get to know you, until I learnt that you brought Twi-Twi every day into the garden.”
He smiled as he added,
“If you had not come, I should have had to flourish Kruger in front of your house to lure him into the Ministry.”
“Twi-Twi was obviously quite right in deciding from the very first moment he arrived that Kruger was an enemy,” Angelina countered.
“Which is something we could never be,” the Prince replied.
She looked away from him towards the geraniums.
“I could never,” she said passionately, “think of anyone who was Greek as an enemy.”
“One day you must come to my country,” the Prince said, “and I would particularly like to show you Cephalonia.”
“I am sure it is very beautiful.”
“Very beautiful,” he answered. “It is, in fact, a small mountainous Paradise.”
Now Angelina’s eyes were on his and, because he knew that she was listening intently, he went on,
“From every peak of the mountains there can be seen the magical Ionian waves and there are deep green valleys of arbutus, olive, orange and lemon trees.”
Angelina gave an ecstatic little sigh.
“Go on,” she said. “Now I can see it. Tell me more!”
“The island has a sparkling girdle of deep-water caves and high above is a bare indigo and umber plateau of volcanic rock, known as ‘The Black Mountain’.”
Angelina did not speak, but she clasped her small hands together.
“It is crowned by the Venetian Castle of St. George, which was the Capital of the island until 1757.”
“It sounds so beautiful! So very very beautiful!” Angelina cried.
“It is a background for Goddesses like yourself,” the Prince said, “and the people of Cephalonia are as handsome as the country.”
“I wish I could see – them.”
There was silence and she suddenly thought that perhaps the Prince would think she was asking for an invitation to the island and the colour crept into her cheeks.
She rose to her feet.
“I must go back, Your Royal Highness. Grandmama will not expect me to be out for very long and will want me to read to her.”
“You will come this afternoon?” the Prince asked.
“Do you really want me to – do so?”
It was the question of a child who was unsure, uncertain and perhaps a little afraid.
“I want it more than I have wanted anything for a very long time,” the Prince said in a deep voice.
As if she felt that she dared not listen to him, Angelina moved a few steps to pick up Twi-Twi.
He had been sitting on the grass near them playing with a leaf that had fallen from a tree, just patting it gently with his feathery paws.
“I-I must – go.”
Angelina’s voice was soft and breathless.
“I will be waiting,” the Prince said. “If you fail me, I shall myself come down into Hades and fetch you from the bowels of the earth and back into the sunshine.”
She flashed him a smile and then with Twi-Twi in her arms she was hurrying across the green grass towards the gate.
The Prince watched her go.
Then with a sigh he picked up his top hat, which he had put down on the ground beside the seat where they had been sitting.
There was a serious expression in his dark eyes as he walked slowly, very slowly towards the Ministry.
*
Angelina read to her grandmother, but afterwards she realised that not one word of what she had spoken had penetrated her own mind.
All the time that she was reading about the preparations for the Coronation which was to take place in two days time, the parties that were being given in every great house in London and every Embassy, she was asking herself how she dare do anything so outrageous as to drive alone with the Prince, even if it was only to the peace and quiet of the Serpentine.
She was well aware that it would be unprecedented behaviour by any girl, especially one who had not been presented at Court and therefore could take no official part in Society.
It had been laid down very clearly that the first stage in the life of a debutante was to be acknowledged as a social figure because she had been presented.
Until that had happened she could not enter the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, be entertained at any British Embassy anywhere in the world or expect to be the guest of any of the acknowledged hostesses.
Angelina was certain that the Minister at the Cephalonian Ministry would not include her on his guest list unless she could be vouched for as someone who had been accepted at Buckingham Palace.
But now, astonishingly, exactly like a fairy story, she told herself, Prince Xenos had given her an invitation that she found impossible to refuse.
Inexperienced though she was, she was aware that it was not an invitation that he would have dared to extend to the Duchess of Devonshire’s daughter or the Marchioness of Ripon’s.
She had a feeling that she ought to consider it an insult. Then she asked herself what was the point of giving herself airs?
What would she gain by saying that she was too much of a lady to move anywhere without an attendant chaperone?
And if she insisted on one, where would she find her?
She could hardly ask old Hannah to come with her in the Prince’s carriage or Emily the housemaid, who was deaf and had very badly fitting false teeth.
Most of her grandmother’s friends – and there were still a few who called to enquire after her – would, Angelina was sure, be scandalised at the idea of the Prince’s invitation and horrified that she should even consider accepting it.
It would be an adventure, Angelina told herself, and, when the Coronation was over, he would go away and she would never see him again.
It would be something to remember – something precious that she could think about when she felt lonely and something that would be like the jewels that her grandmother locked away in the safe.
The only difference would be that the place where she would keep her memories would be in her heart.
Her grandmother had her luncheon taken upstairs on a tray, but to save the servants trouble Angelina had hers in the dining room.
She often felt very small at the head of the big table covered with a spotless white linen cloth.
Round the walls stood a dozen heavily carved mahogany chairs, which were never moved because they never entertained and there was no one to sit on them.
The cook had been with Lady Medwin for as long as the rest of the servants. Forty-eight years, Angelina thought it was.
Although she was an excellent ‘plain’ cook, she never troubled to try any new recipes, but adhered to a menu that her grandmother and grandfather had enjoyed when they were first married.
There was always a large joint of roast beef on Sundays, which usually meant that they had it cold on Mond
ay and made into a shepherd’s pie on Tuesday.
On Wednesday there would be a leg of lamb. Two days finished that and on Saturday there would be liver and bacon, which Angelina detested but which both cook and Ruston declared was good for her.
“It makes red blood,” they said in a tone that made Angelina feel that she was either deficient or else her blood was slowly turning white.
The puddings too were always the same – caramel, bread-and-butter, spotted dick and cabinet pudding, which, from the size that came into the dining room, she gathered was appreciated in the servants’ hall.
It was all very monotonous and she longed to have a party where, as cook had informed her,
“The ladies and gentlemen always appreciated my vol-au-vents and the special way I have of cookin’ salmon.”
Angelina could hardly expect a salmon all to herself and, although she longed for a little variety, she was too tactful to insist upon it.
Now into the monotony of her life had come the Prince and she felt as if she was dreaming a very exciting dream and was terrified of having to wake up.
‘This can not really be happening,’ she thought, as she slipped upstairs after luncheon to change into what she thought of as her prettiest gown.
She had to go with it a small but very attractive straw hat trimmed with blue ribbons that matched her eyes and a cluster of small moss roses on the back of it.
Her grandmother was always very generous about her clothes.
Dressmakers came to Belgrave Square to show Lady Medwin their newest materials and sketches of how the gowns could be made up to suit Angelina.
The one she put on now was her best and she hoped that no one would think it strange for her to be wearing, for no apparent reason on an ordinary day of the week, a gown that she usually wore on Sundays.
Then she told herself it was unlikely that Ruston’s old eyes would notice that she looked any different and she was certain by the time she peeped into her grandmother’s room that she would be asleep.
She was right in that assumption and she saw by her grandmother’s bed an empty medicine glass that told her, as she had expected, that Sir William had prescribed a sleeping draught to ensure that her grandmother had a good rest.
She closed the door very quietly and tiptoed down the stairs followed by Twi-Twi.
As usual Ruston was waiting in the hall.
“Are you going out, Miss Angelina?” he asked.
“Yes, Ruston,” Angelina replied, “and, as her Ladyship is fast asleep, I shall stay in the garden while it is so sunny.”
“You do that, Miss Angelina,” the old man replied. “It’ll do you good to get the air.”
He opened the front door and carrying Twi-Twi Angelina sped across the road towards the gate.
She let herself into the garden, locked the gate behind her and without putting Twi-Twi down hurried across the lawn to the opposite side of the square.
Only as she unlocked the other gate did she wonder a little apprehensively if the Prince would really be waiting for her.
Supposing she had imagined the whole idea from beginning to end?
Sometimes Angelina’s imagination, or half-dreams, was so real that she would often ask herself if they was true.
This might be exactly that sort of dream – a fantasy of her mind in which she had made herself and the Prince the leading characters.
Apprehensively, as she stepped out on the other side of the square, she looked down the road.
The carriage was there!
As she appeared, the Prince climbed out of it and came towards her.
Hastily Angelina locked the gate and, by the time she had done so, he was beside her.
“You have come!” he cried. “You have really come!”
“You wanted – me to?”
“I was afraid, desperately afraid, that you would not be brave enough at the very last moment.”
She was about to protest and he laughed gently.
“I am only teasing,” he said. “I know you are as brave as that redoubtable lion-dog you hold in your arms.”
She grinned at him but somehow she could not find anything to say.
They walked to the carriage and he helped her into it.
As he did so, he touched her arm and she felt as if a little shaft of lightning ran through her.
She sat down on the back seat and bent forward to put Twi-Twi on the seat opposite.
The Prince joined her and as he shut the door of the carriage, she looked up in surprise to see that there was no footman on the box. Instead there was only the coachman.
The Prince explained without her having to ask the question,
“I thought the fewer people who knew what we were doing the better,” he said. “Alexis is a Greek and knew me when I was a little boy. He would never betray me, whatever I did!”
He smiled and then he went on,
“He is also an incurable romantic and, when I told him I wanted to drive alone with a very lovely lady, he had the carriage ready and I sneaked out of the back door without anyone being aware of it.”
“Will there be a hue and cry when they find out you have gone?” Angelina asked.
“I left a note on my desk addressed to one of my aides-de-camp telling him that I had a business appointment and not to worry if I did not return for several hours.”
“You sound as if you are escaping from the nursery or from a rather severe Schoolmaster!”
“That is exactly what I am doing,” the Prince laughed. “They hedge me about and they cosset me. In fact, if you want the truth, they make my life a misery!”
He twisted round a little in his seat so that he could look at her.
“That is why,” he went on, “if you are escaping this afternoon, so am I, and may I tell you, I find it a very exciting thing to do.”
“It is very – exciting for me too,” Angelina said rather coyly.
“That,” he replied, “is because we both know it is forbidden fruit!”
“It is not as difficult for you, sir, as it is for me,” Angelina said.
“That is where you are wrong,” the Prince answered. “There are a number of reasons why I should not be with you this afternoon, but none of them, may I add, are of the slightest consequence, beside the fact that I am with you.”
The carriage had driven up Grosvenor Crescent and reached Hyde Park Corner.
As they passed through the gates, Angelina exclaimed with delight,
“Oh, they are decorated!”
There were flags and bunting and the Royal Coat-of-Arms surmounting the pillared gateway and she gazed at it almost rapturously while the Prince looked at her.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I will tell you about it later.”
“Tell me – now,” Angelina pleaded, but he shook his head.
“I have a feeling if I do so, you will be thinking about it all the time we are together and quite frankly I would prefer you to think of me.”
‘It would be – difficult to do anything – else,’ Angelina thought.
She knew, as they drove along towards the Serpentine, that she was vividly conscious of the man beside her.
It was not only that he was so handsome. There was, she thought, something very different about him from the other men she had met.
Not that she had met many men since she had been grown up, but her father’s friends had come to stay or called upon them when they lived in the country.
Some of them had been young and dashing and said extremely complimentary things to her mother, who had laughingly protested that they were flattering her.
Angelina had hoped at the time that the day would come when such elegant gentlemen would say flattering and perhaps flirtatious things to her.
But the way the Prince spoke was somehow quite different from the light-hearted frivolous remarks that she had heard in the past.
Perhaps it was that his voice was very deep or that he was speaking a little more formally in English inst
ead of his own language, but there was a sincerity about him.
There was something else too – something magnetic – something that seemed to charge him with a life force to which she felt that she responded in a manner that made her a little fearful.
It was as if he was taking possession of her, as if in some subtle, inexplicable way, she was losing control of her own individuality and becoming a part of him.
Of course, such an idea was nonsense.
Angelina told herself it was because she was so inexperienced and unsophisticated that the presence of the Prince should give her such peculiar ideas.
And yet they were there and, because she wanted to talk in a natural manner, she said,
“Do look at Twi-Twi, sir! He is behaving as if the carriage was especially made to carry him wherever he wished to go.”
“And why not?” the Prince asked. “After all, he is Royal and in consequence, entitled to all the privileges that should be accorded him.”
“How do you know so much about him?” Angelina asked.
“I told you that I had read about Pekingeses, although actually I had never seen one,” the Prince answered. “But last night at a dinner party I asked the guests to tell me all they knew about Pekingese dogs and received quite a lot of extremely interesting information.”
“How did they know so much?”
“Well, one of the guests was the Chinese Ambassador,” the Prince replied, “and another was a gentleman who had studied the breeding of all dogs as a hobby.”
“Oh, I wish I had been there!” Angelina exclaimed.
“I wish you had,” the Prince answered. “At the same time, because you actually own a Pekingese, I feel that you know more about them than all the books and all the authorities could tell me”
“I only know about Twi-Twi,” Angelina corrected him, “and he is a very special Pekingese to me.”
“And, of course, you are very special to him,” the Prince said. “So he is, in fact, the most fortunate Pekingese in the whole world.”
Again Angelina’s eyelashes brushed her cheek, but she was saved from a reply for at that moment they arrived at the Serpentine.
The water reflected the blue of the sky and, when they stepped out of the carriage, Twi-Twi ran ahead of them, his white tail held high.
Princes and Princesses Page 4
