No Time For Love (Bantam Series No. 40) by Barbara Cartland Page B
Authors: Barbara Cartland
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should have the same impediment.
However her curiosity in that respect was quickly swept away by her excitement over the Villa and its garden.
The garden particularly had been unlike anything else she had ever seen or imagined.
It was easy here to imagine Apollo as she had never been able to imagine him before, and she longed impatiently to talk about him to Elvin.
She was certain he would know more than she did about the ‘far-shining one’, ‘the friend of Zeus’, ‘the giver of music and song’.
Nothing the Greeks ever created, Larina told herself, could have been more magnificent than this god who tore the darkness from the human soul and lit it with divine light.
Her first evening at the Villa she had on the servants’ suggestion gone up to the Temple to see the sunset.
Watching the glory of it she had almost believed that she saw Apollo in the dazzling light which turned the sea to gold and touched every mountain and beach with a light that was indescribable.
Then, as gradually the sun vanished and the darkness was encroaching, she felt there was a strange glitter high in the air, a mysterious quivering, the beating of silver wings and the whirring of silver wheels.
That, she told herself, was how the Greeks had known Apollo was near and she was certain at that moment he was close to her.
It was not the same ecstasy that she had felt at the Serpentine when she had been aware of life; it was something outside herself, and it was so perfect, so exquisite, that she wanted to catch it and make it hers.
Then with the coming of darkness Apollo had gone, but she could think of nothing else.
She had not felt lonely the next day. She had been waited on by the warm-hearted smiling Italians who had looked at her with dark, liquid eyes and tried in their own way to make her happy.
She thought as she walked about the garden that a strange music accompanied her, not only from the buzz of the bees and the song of the birds, but also as if she heard some celestial song on the air itself.
All that evening she had dreamt of Apollo.
She found books in the Villa which were written about the myths and legends of the Greeks a nd Romans in which there were references to him.
But they were only words, and she had but to go into the garden to feel that his very presence overshadowed everything.
She began to be aware of an expectant quietness like the presence of an unexplained mystery which would shortly be revealed.
In one of the books she had read some verses translated from Sophocles and she found herself repeating some words of it as she walked alone:
“He who has won some new splendour
Rides on the air,
Borne upwards on the winds of his human vigour
‘Only Apollo,’ she thought, ‘would ride on the air.’
She felt as if she could speak to him as the evening breeze from the sea moved her hair and touched the softness of her cheeks.
Because she did not wish to miss a moment of the sunset or the first shimmering stars that followed it, she had changed for dinner early, putting on her white gown because she had worn her pink one the night before.
Throwing the long chiffon scarf over one shoulder in an unconscious imitation of the Greeks, she walked up to the Temple to stand waiting; almost as one would wait for the curtain to rise in a theatre.
Tonight the sunset was even lovelier than it had been before: the gold was more gold, the crimson more crimson, the blue more blue; and the shining glory of it seemed to blaze as the legends said the whole island of Delos had done when the goddess Leto gave birth to her son Apollo.
Larina felt herself caught up in the ecstasy of it and the music she had heard all day was beating in her ears.
She heard a step behind her and turned her head.
Her eyes were still dazzled from the setting sun, and yet under the shadows of the Temple she could see someone standing. The light from the sky touched his face and as it did so she thought with a sudden leap of her heart that
However her curiosity in that respect was quickly swept away by her excitement over the Villa and its garden.
The garden particularly had been unlike anything else she had ever seen or imagined.
It was easy here to imagine Apollo as she had never been able to imagine him before, and she longed impatiently to talk about him to Elvin.
She was certain he would know more than she did about the ‘far-shining one’, ‘the friend of Zeus’, ‘the giver of music and song’.
Nothing the Greeks ever created, Larina told herself, could have been more magnificent than this god who tore the darkness from the human soul and lit it with divine light.
Her first evening at the Villa she had on the servants’ suggestion gone up to the Temple to see the sunset.
Watching the glory of it she had almost believed that she saw Apollo in the dazzling light which turned the sea to gold and touched every mountain and beach with a light that was indescribable.
Then, as gradually the sun vanished and the darkness was encroaching, she felt there was a strange glitter high in the air, a mysterious quivering, the beating of silver wings and the whirring of silver wheels.
That, she told herself, was how the Greeks had known Apollo was near and she was certain at that moment he was close to her.
It was not the same ecstasy that she had felt at the Serpentine when she had been aware of life; it was something outside herself, and it was so perfect, so exquisite, that she wanted to catch it and make it hers.
Then with the coming of darkness Apollo had gone, but she could think of nothing else.
She had not felt lonely the next day. She had been waited on by the warm-hearted smiling Italians who had looked at her with dark, liquid eyes and tried in their own way to make her happy.
She thought as she walked about the garden that a strange music accompanied her, not only from the buzz of the bees and the song of the birds, but also as if she heard some celestial song on the air itself.
All that evening she had dreamt of Apollo.
She found books in the Villa which were written about the myths and legends of the Greeks a nd Romans in which there were references to him.
But they were only words, and she had but to go into the garden to feel that his very presence overshadowed everything.
She began to be aware of an expectant quietness like the presence of an unexplained mystery which would shortly be revealed.
In one of the books she had read some verses translated from Sophocles and she found herself repeating some words of it as she walked alone:
“He who has won some new splendour
Rides on the air,
Borne upwards on the winds of his human vigour
‘Only Apollo,’ she thought, ‘would ride on the air.’
She felt as if she could speak to him as the evening breeze from the sea moved her hair and touched the softness of her cheeks.
Because she did not wish to miss a moment of the sunset or the first shimmering stars that followed it, she had changed for dinner early, putting on her white gown because she had worn her pink one the night before.
Throwing the long chiffon scarf over one shoulder in an unconscious imitation of the Greeks, she walked up to the Temple to stand waiting; almost as one would wait for the curtain to rise in a theatre.
Tonight the sunset was even lovelier than it had been before: the gold was more gold, the crimson more crimson, the blue more blue; and the shining glory of it seemed to blaze as the legends said the whole island of Delos had done when the goddess Leto gave birth to her son Apollo.
Larina felt herself caught up in the ecstasy of it and the music she had heard all day was beating in her ears.
She heard a step behind her and turned her head.
Her eyes were still dazzled from the setting sun, and yet under the shadows of the Temple she could see someone standing. The light from the sky touched his face and as it did so she thought with a sudden leap of her heart that
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