The Gates of Paradise (3 page)

“But you definitely saved Constantinople, ma'am,” the Bishop had added.

This had been no mean feat, he thought.  The Grand Duke Nicholas had been forced to turn back when his Army was only six miles from Constantinople, which had cost the lives of twenty thousand men but made it quite impossible for the Russians to defy Great Britain again.

Again, it occurred to the Bishop that perhaps Narina was heading into danger, but he sternly told himself he was being unnecessarily perturbed by the idea.

For as long as the British flag was flying high over Alexanderburg, the Russians would not dare to intervene.

He put his arms round Narina,

“Goodbye, my dearest. I know that you will help your friend Louise and it will be delightful for you to be together again.  At the same time do not forget your Papa.”

“As though I could, Papa, I love you.  I shall really miss our conversations and most of all your enthralling stories.”

She kissed her father.

“Store them all up for when I return home.  Then I will appreciate your wisdom all the more.”

He chuckled and then held her close, kissing her affectionately.

“I love you, my dearest Narina, and I will pray that God will bless your visit and that you will be able to help Princess Louise.”

“Yes, don't forget me in your prayers, Papa, and I will pray for you in mine as well.”

She went up on deck and, as the Battleship moved slowly away, she waved until her father was out of sight.

Then she went below deck to help the maid unpack the clothes she would need whilst at sea.

The maid could speak reasonably good English, but Narina delighted her by replying in German.  Soon they had hung all of Narina's clothes in the smart wardrobes built into her cabin, talking together all the while.

Once the Battleship was moving more quickly, Narina went to find the Baron and Baroness.

They were seated in the cabin that adjoined the Captain's.

The Baroness was already complaining that the sea was rough, although there was as yet very little movement.

Narina was sure that when they reached the Bay of Biscay, she would retire to her cabin and not be seen again until the end of the voyage.  The Bay was notorious for storms and strong winds, leading to even the most experienced sailor's often feeling seasick.

Fear of sickness soon turned out to be only one of the tribulations of the journey, especially travelling in such a small party.

Narina soon found the rather flowery compliments the Baron kept paying her rather embarrassing.

Excusing him for merely trying to be kind at first, it soon became increasingly difficult to smile politely and thank him as he made yet another remark about her beauty.

She reflected that his behaviour was so different to the way that people usually treated her, especially men.  As a Clergyman's daughter, they were often over-polite and inclined to treat her differently from the way they treated other girls.

In her experience, they all expected her to be shocked at the slightest thing and so never overwhelmed her with compliments on her beauty or the way she was dressed.

She was well aware, and it rather amused her, that some men thought it was not fitting, as her father was in the Church, for her to be so outstandingly pretty.

In fact if they did pay her a compliment, they would begin by saying,

“I daresay your father would think it improper for me to say this, Narina, but you are undoubtedly the most beautiful girl here tonight.”

When she told her father, he merely grinned.

“I seem to put a curb on their turning your head too quickly, but I agree with them, you are much prettier than any of your contemporaries.  But I promise that I will not rebuke them for being truthful in saying so!”

“Of course you wouldn't, Papa, but I am only afraid that I might be missing something.”

“I think you will be told a great number of times by many men that you are very lovely.  I remember when I first married your mother, she told me that men used to say to her, ‘I am longing to flirt with you, Mrs. Kenwin, but I am terrified your husband might put a curse on me'!”

Narina thought that this was hilarious.

“And did you, Papa?”

He shook his head.

“I had no need to do so.  Your mother and I fell in love with each other the moment we met and from then on it was impossible for either of us ever to find anyone else attractive.”

Narina had always believed that their devotion was the reason that every house the family lived in was filled with love and the sun always seemed to shine.

It was the kind of sublime love she wanted for herself, but she was secretly afraid that it would never happen.

Certainly the men she had met so far seemed somewhat dull and rather ineffective compared to her beloved father and, although she enjoyed dancing with them, they had very little else to offer her.

Her father never seemed to worry, as her mother had, about her getting married.

And in fact he had said more than once,

“There is no hurry for you to be married and, as we are so happy together, there is no point yet in your thinking of yourself as an ‘old maid'!”

Narina had giggled.

“I certainly don't do that!  It's only when the girls who came out at the same time as me get married that I begin to feel a little that I am being left behind.”

“There is no hurry about love,” her father advised.  “It will come to you one day out of the blue and it will be the right sort of love we all seek in our hearts and some of us are privileged to find.”

“As you did, Papa.”

“As I did.  I know that your mother and I will meet again when I join her in Heaven and I am quite certain she is listening to us both now, knowing that what I am telling you is the truth so there is no need for you to hurry.”

Narina had kissed him.

“As long as I have you, Papa, I have no wish to be with anyone else.”

This was true.

Nevertheless when she was alone, she often wished that there was someone to share her interests – most of all someone to ride with her when Papa was unable to do so.

Now as the ship was moving out into the open sea she was thinking just how superb it would be if her father could be with her.

He would tell her, as he always did, stories that other people did not know about the countries they were passing, especially those bordering the Mediterranean.

There was so much more she wanted to know about Africa and especially Greece.

Her Papa had been entranced when he was a young man by the wonder and beauty of Ancient Greece and she had learnt the language from him.

One day she would like to go with someone she loved to Delphi and its shimmering cliffs and visit the Greek Islands, especially Delos where Apollo was born.

“Every girl,” her Papa had said once, “would like the man she marries to look like Apollo.  But I have found that handsome men do not always make good husbands.”

“Why not, Papa?” she asked quizzically.

“Because they are more concerned with their own looks than those of their wives.  And if there is to be one beautiful person in the family, it should be the woman.”

“Why, Papa?” Narina persisted, surprised at his words.

“If you have a husband who is too handsome, you will be fighting very hard to protect and keep him, instead of him fighting to protect
you
from being swept away!”

It was just the sort of joke Papa would make and Narina laughed.

But she learnt, as she watched her contemporaries that there was some truth in his words and she had told herself there was no need to pray for Apollo as her husband, but a man who would adore her and fight off any who tried to take her from him.

At the moment, however, there had been no one for whom she had felt the least affection.

Anyway it was not affection she wanted, but love – the overwhelming love so beautifully described in books she had read and it was, she was quite certain, what women all over the world were always seeking.

‘Perhaps some are just unlucky,' she mused.

However, it was very seldom that she worried about acquiring admirers.

There would be no one on the Battleship, she felt, who would pay her any compliments.

But to her surprise she was mistaken.

As she expected, the Baroness retired to her cabin and was not seen again on the voyage and the Baron, when they were alone, plied her with compliments!

He looked at her with his aging eyes in a way that made her feel somewhat embarrassed.

If it had not been from a man of his age, she might have felt shy, instead of which she found herself sparring with the Baron in words, being in a way somewhat rude to him.  She knew that she should respect him as her elder, but equally she was aware that he must have been a
roué
in his youth.

It seemed that it was impossible for him to be alone with a pretty woman and not flirt with her.

As the Battleship steamed down the Mediterranean and into the Aegean Sea, she found the Baron's incessant compliments increasingly boring.

And she was aware that when she was near him, his hands would automatically come out to try and touch her.

It became quite a game for her to avoid him, but it was a bit difficult in the rather cramped circumstances of the Battleship.

They sat opposite each other at meals, but while he could not touch her with his hands, his eyes were always on her face and the compliments would come blithely from his tongue in a number of different languages.

Narina especially enjoyed practising the language of Alexanderburg, which she found was an easily picked up dialect of German, in order to answer the Baron back.

Occasionally she would defeat him by a riposte that made them both laugh.

“If I was a bit younger,” the Baron said in his rather thick voice, “I would hold you tightly in my arms so that you could not escape me and then kiss you until we were both breathless!”

“And if I was younger,” Narina managed to retort, “I would doubtless appreciate it because I would not know better.  But now I have become very discriminating and I am sure you have no wish to fail at a game which at one time you must have been a past master!”

The Baron threw back his head and laughed, but he did not cease to ply her with endless compliments.

Unsure if he might decide to pursue her after she had retired, she was always very careful to lock her cabin door.

‘No one would ever believe it was necessary,' she reflected. ‘But one never knows and it is a big mistake to be wise after the event.'

As they moved up the Dardanelles, Narina became more and more excited.

Now she was certain that once she was with Louise again they would be as happy as they had been when they were at school together.

The Battleship sailed through the Sea of Marmara and then up the Bosporus.

When they eventually reached the Black Sea, the sun was shining brightly and it was really too hot to be on deck without a hat or a sunshade.

They were steaming, Narina was sure, at what must be record speed and she was wondering why the Captain had not stopped at any port on the way.

She had longed to spend just a few hours in Athens or just an hour on one of the Greek Islands.

But the engines did not stop rolling.

At last she could see the coast of Alexanderburg in the distance.

It was then that she became certain there was some special reason why they must reach Louise as quickly as possible.

But just as she assumed that they would soon be docking in the Port of Balchik, the engines slowed down and to her astonishment they came to a stop.

“What has happened?  What has gone wrong?” she asked.

Because she was so surprised and anxious, she ran along the deck and climbed up onto the bridge.

“What on earth has happened?” she rather sharply demanded of the Captain.  “Why have we stopped here?  We are still a good way off land.”

“We will be moving in as soon as it is dark,” the Captain replied.  “Actually, Miss Kenwin, I have arrived slightly sooner than I anticipated.”

“But why do we have to wait until it is dark?”

“Those are my orders – and you will be taken ashore as soon as the boat comes for you.”

There was a short pause and then Narina said in a puzzled voice,

“You said
I
would be taken ashore. What about the Baron and Baroness?”

“I will be taking them both back to Constantinople where the Baron is now to be posted,” replied the Captain.

Narina was astonished.  The Baron had never once mentioned that his destination was Constantinople and not Alexanderburg.

She could understand that he and his wife had only been asked to chaperone her on the voyage and yet it seemed so strange that he had not told her about his plans.

Nor had he said amongst his other overwhelming compliments that he would miss her when she left them.

She had in fact thought he would be living near the Palace and they would meet again after she had joined Louise.

It was very obvious, however, that the Captain did not want to answer any more questions and Narina thought, although it might be her imagination, that he was rather embarrassed by her reaction.

She knew that the Capital of Alexanderburg was on the coast and the Palace was just outside the City.  Louise had mentioned in one of her letters that it was high up on a hill.

Puzzled, she told herself that at least the journey was over.

Yet it seemed, as every minute passed by, more and more extraordinary that she was not allowed to go ashore.

Finally the sun disappeared below the horizon and darkness fell quickly.

Her luggage was packed and had been taken up on deck, but still they waited and waited.

Eventually when the stars were coming out one by one and the moon was climbing up the sky, she saw a boat.

It was quite a large one with a hood over the stern and it was coming towards them.