Double the Love

CHAPTER ONE 1871-1

CHAPTER ONE 1871Konstantin Bardici raised an eyebrow as his niece approached the breakfast table.

“You are late, Ariana.”

Ariana looked quickly at the blue ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. Breakfast was at eight o’clock sharp and it was now four minutes past.

“I am sorry, Uncle Konstantin,” she said.

If she had arrived only five minutes early, he would probably have complained that she was intruding upon his few minutes’ privacy before the affairs of the day began.

She glanced at the large pile of letters on the silver salver by his elbow.

She wondered at the small square box sitting amid the envelopes. Had that arrived this morning too?

Her uncle’s voice roused her from her thoughts.

“Since you finished with your schooling you have become somewhat idle in your habits.”

Ariana sighed.

“I would not be idle, Uncle, if I had actually been educated to do something.”

“I’m not sure that I like your tone, Miss Dancer.”

‘Miss Dancer!’ Ariana grimaced to herself. This was the title her uncle used to remind her that she was, and had been for some years now, utterly in his power.

“All I am trying to say, Uncle, is that I have few accomplishments that would afford me a way of using my leisure time to some purpose.”

“You play the piano,” he persisted.

“Every young woman of my age plays the piano.”

He leaned on the table with hands under his chin.

“But not every young woman speaks Albanian.”

Ariana lowered her eyes.

“No, I suppose they don’t,” she conceded, a weary edge to her voice.

Her uncle tapped his fingers together.

“That in itself should remind you that you are not and never will be like every young woman. Neither was your mother. She forgot that fact and paid the price. I do not expect you to make the same mistake.”

Ariana reddened. The mistake that her mother had made was to marry without her family’s permission.

“I don’t consider marrying for love a mistake,” she said with as much defiance as she could muster.

Her uncle snorted,

“Love! What good is love? What did it do for my sister, Mariamne?”

Ariana then drew in her breath painfully. How often was this exchange with her uncle to recur in the future?

“What did it do for Mariamne?” he repeated.

“It made her happy,” returned Ariana softly.

“Happy!” He lowered his hands and thumped the table. “Who was she to have the right to be happy? The daughter of an Albanian aristocrat, who once owned land from Berat to Fieri. Land that was lost when we were driven from our country by all those Ottomans with their fezes and hookahs! It was her duty to marry an Albanian and carry on the sacred blood tie with her country.”

Ariana waited patiently. She was well used to these unreasonable outbursts from her uncle.

How many times had she heard of the flight of the Nationalist Bardiccis in 1862 from political repression in the lowlands of Albania? Her ailing widowed grandfather had arrived in London with only his fifteen year old son, eighteen year old daughter and a bag of jewellery that had enabled him to find a lucrative niche in the banking world.

As her uncle ranted on, her gaze moved from his shaking jowls to the portrait on the wall of her grandfather, Felim Bardici.

Plump and sour, he looked like his son, her Uncle Konstantin. And then next to her grandfather was Ariana’s pretty grandmother and she looked just like her daughter Mariamne, Ariana’s mother.

Ariana knew how her mother looked, as among the meagre possessions she had brought into her uncle’s house was a miniature of her.

It was lovingly painted by the husband for whom Mariamne had relinquished her family almost as soon as she arrived in England – Simon Dancer.

Of Simon, her father, Ariana had no image but the one etched in her memory.

He had been a portrait painter, engaged to teach the restless Mariamne about art. She had fallen in love with him and, when her father objected, the couple had eloped.

In response Felim Bardici had immediately cut his daughter off without a penny and he had died without ever setting eyes on his granddaughter, Ariana.

She had often wondered whether his vengeful spirit would have been gratified to learn that the daughter and son-in-law he had repudiated had barely outlived him, both succumbing to typhoid in the summer of 1866.

Thinking on the short and sad lives of her parents Ariana’s eyes filled with tears.

She barely remembered her father and mother, but the love they had felt for each other burned like a beacon in her heart and she wanted no less for herself.

“Are you listening, Ariana?” Her uncle’s eye was sharp and he had noticed her wandering attention.

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Your mother was educated, as were you, in order to be able to dedicate her future to her ancestral homeland. Her schooling was, if you like, a political strategy.”

Ariana stiffened with sudden alarm. Her uncle had never quite referred to her mother’s education and her own as ‘political strategy’ and she struggled to remember what aspect of her schooling might come under such a heading.

She had been sent away to be educated almost as soon as she had passed into her uncle’s sole Guardianship.

Thirteen years ago he had been a mere twenty years of age and had made it clear that he had no intention of devoting his precious bachelor days, now his father was dead, to the care of his orphaned four year old niece.

Rizgard Academy was a school for the children of European émigrés and Ariana had mixed with the offspring of exiled Princes, deposed tyrants and expelled Ministers. Ariana could not see how any of this befitted her to be part of some ‘political strategy’ unless that aspect of her education was the language lessons during the holidays.

While Uncle Konstantin travelled in Europe, Ariana had spent every summer in his airless study with a crusty old Albanian lady, who taught her to speak the language of a country she never thought she would visit.

She took a deep breath and asked her uncle,

“What did you mean by – ‘political strategy’?”

“In what context?”

“You said that my mother was educated in order to be able to dedicate her life – to her ancestral homeland,” Ariana reminded him. “You said that it was a kind of – ”

“ – political strategy,” took up her uncle. “Yes, yes. What I meant was that in Albania marriages are arranged so as to strengthen ties between important families. So you could say that marriages have a political significance. And arranging them requires political strategy.”

“You mean it was intended that my mother should marry an Albanian, Uncle?”

“Quite!” he said and signalled to the maid to leave.

Ariana met her uncle’s gaze with trepidation. She now sensed that the whole confrontation this morning had a purpose, a purpose that would not be to her liking.

“So when my mother – ran away with my father – it was then a double blow to the family? They lost not only a daughter but – a political pawn?” she asked.

Uncle Konstantin drew back in distaste.

“What a way to put it!”

“How else should I put it, Uncle?” Ariana sighed.

“You could put it this way. Mariamne lost a great opportunity to do her family and her homeland a service. Had she married, as was intended, an Albanian Prince, she would have forged a link between his family and ours that might have served us well.”

There was silence for a moment.

“It is on just such a topic that I wish to engage with you this morning,” he then said and Ariana knew at once that her life and future were at stake.

“Uncle?” she murmured.

“Several months ago I began corresponding with a certain Albanian Prince, a Stefan of Dukka. I had heard already through the émigré grapevine that he was seeking an English wife. One who happens to speak Albanian.”

Ariana felt her hand begin to shake as she asked,

“Why is he looking for an English wife? Are there – no young women in Albania?”

Her uncle narrowed his eyes, wondering if he had detected a note of sarcasm in Ariana’s voice. But her clear eyes looked innocent enough.

“Dukka is located in the Northern part of Albania,” Konstantin replied. “It’s a remote mountainous region and young ladies there tend to be somewhat unsophisticated. Prince Stefan would like someone with a mind congenial to his own, he writes. And he is looking for a rare beauty.”

Ariana relaxed. Surely this eliminated her from the competition!

Her uncle noted her ill-concealed satisfaction.

“Ariana, go to that mirror above the fireplace?”

“Why?”

“Do not question my commands.”

With a sigh Ariana rose and went to the mirror.

“Take a good look at your face, Ariana. Describe what you see.”

She gazed at her reflection. Since her uncle never praised her looks, she had developed little self-regard.

“Describe what you see,” repeated her uncle.

“I see – very pale skin.”

“Translucent. With a rose hue on the cheeks?”

“Y-yes. And yellow hair.”

“Spun gold. Cobalt eyes and dark arched brows. Delicate lips. A pert nose and a tiny waist.”

Ariana flushed under such unaccustomed scrutiny.

“Don’t you see that you are pleasing to the eye?”

“If you say so, Uncle.”

“I do say so. And so does Prince Stefan.”

“But he has never seen me!” Ariana cried out.

“Oh, but he has,” replied Uncle Konstantin. “I sent him the portrait of you that I commissioned last year.”

Ariana had indeed sat for a portrait last summer, the artist being a friend of the lady who taught her Albanian.

“The Prince is much taken with you,” he went on. “I would go so far as to say that he fell in love with your likeness.”

Ariana felt a sudden trembling run through her.

“I-in love?”

“Yes. He says so here.”

Uncle Konstantin picked up one of the envelopes by his elbow and extracted a letter from which to quote,

“She pleases my heart already. God willing that she will please my house and my bed as well.”

Ariana was at once shocked at the Prince’s manner of expression, yet the hint of passion it suggested sent a shiver through her body that she could not explain.

Her uncle continued to read,

“Let Ariana come to me from your hand and please let her accept as a token of my esteem this necklace that once belonged to my own mother.”

Uncle Konstantin put down the letter and opened the box on the table that had aroused Ariana’s curiosity.

Her eyes widened as she saw the glistening pearls that a second later dangled from her uncle’s fingers.

“They – they are for me?” she asked on a breath that was almost as sob.

And never in her life had anyone ever offered her anything as beautiful.

“For you,” nodded her uncle.

Ariana, quite bedazzled, reached out her hand, but he withheld the necklace.

“What do you say, niece? Will you agree to travel to Albania and marry Prince Stefan? Remember it is your duty to please me more than yourself and remember too that I will not otherwise provide for your future.”

Her uncle need not have added that last admonition. Ariana always knew that she had little to hope from him, that his wish was to marry her off with as modest a dowry as he could get away with and return to his bachelor ways.

She had not considered going abroad, but suddenly the idea of it took on an unexpected lustre.

Starved of attention and admiration as she had been for so long, the proffered love of a passionate and far-away Prince overwhelmed her caution.

“Tell him – yes, Uncle,” she whispered. “Yes – I will come.”

*

It took some weeks to organise the details of the journey and it was late March before Ariana set off.

She was to be accompanied by a young girl called Bonnie, who, until her elevation to lady’s maid, had been little more than a general maid in the Bardici’s household.

Bonnie was excited at the idea of travelling abroad and living in a Palace and she thirsted for adventure.

From the moment that she had accepted the pearl necklace, Ariana had been lost in a dream of romance.

She had received only one further communication from her fiancé and that was a formal letter of gratitude that she had accepted his proposal.

Over this letter she had poured for days, searching the terse words for a hidden message. In the end she had argued to herself that it was not so much a personal letter as a Letter of State.

Nevertheless it lived under her pillow and she often stroked the insignia stamped at its head, PRINCE STEFAN OF DUKKA.