As Aletha dressed for dinner, she thought that it had been the most exciting day that she had ever spent.
They had started by riding the new horses which had been brought round to the stables immediately after breakfast.
They were not as impressive as those which Prince Miklós wished to keep.
At the same time most of them were young and in her view had tremendous possibilities.
Aletha knew from the look on Mr. Heywood’s face that he was more than delighted with what the Prince had produced.
It seemed inevitable, Aletha thought, that she should ride beside Prince Miklós.
Mr. Heywood went off on his own, taking jumps unexpectedly so as to properly test out the horse he was on. Occasionally he would gallop away only to return looking more pleased than he had before he started.
“It is just hopeless,” Aletha said to Prince Miklós during the afternoon. “My grandfather obviously finds it impossible to choose which horses are the best.”
The Prince laughed.
“I assure you that we are only too willing to sell those we don’t want for ourselves.”
“That is the whole point,” Aletha replied. “You are being greedy!”
“I am also greedy about other things besides horses.”
He was looking at her as he spoke with the expression in his eyes that she had begun to expect.
Every time she was aware of it, she felt a little tremor in her breast.
She knew that being with him was not only interesting but also thrilling.
‘When I go home,’ she thought, ‘I shall never see him again, so it is no use feeling like this.’
But she could not in any way suppress what she was feeling.
Nor could she stop herself from knowing that her heart turned over whenever he paid her a compliment.
“You are too good to be true,” he said. “Ever since I met you I find it hard to believe you are real.”
“My father once said that if you prick a King he bleeds and that makes sure that he is a human being.”
She expected the Prince to give her some witty reply.
Instead he looked away from her.
When she glanced at him in surprise, she knew instinctively that he wished to say that he wanted to kiss her.
The idea did not shock her. Nor did she feel disgusted, as she had when the Baron had spoken of her lips.
‘Perhaps it would be very exciting to be kissed by a Hungarian in Hungary,’ she thought, ‘and certainly very romantic.’
Then, as she glanced at the Prince, she sensed that he was reading her thoughts.
For a moment they just gazed at each other.
“I suppose you know,” he said, “you are torturing me unbearably. The sooner you go back to England the better!”
He spoke so violently that she stared at him in astonishment.
Without speaking another word, he turned his horse around and started to gallop back towards The Palace.
After a few seconds Aletha started to follow him.
He galloped ahead until they reached the entrance to the stables and then he waited.
She rode up beside him and he burst out,
“Forgive me! Sometimes you torture me beyond endurance!”
She looked at him in bewilderment.
As if he realised that she had no idea what he was talking about, he said gently,
“Forget me. I want you to enjoy yourself and I suspect that your grandfather will soon make up his mind over the horses. Then you will be leaving Hungary behind.”
“But I will have – your horses to remind me of – your wonderful – country,” Aletha replied.
She wanted to add, ‘and to remind me of you’.
But she knew that it was something that was far too intimate.
As if once again he knew what she was thinking, he put out his hand towards her.
After a moment’s pause, she gave him hers.
She had pulled off her glove.
As their bare skin touched, she felt something like a streak of lightning run through her.
Then, as Prince Miklós took off his hat and bent down to kiss her hand, she knew that she loved him.
It was something that she had never meant to do and she had never expected it.
Yet, as her love surged through her, she knew that this was what she had always longed to feel for the Man of her Dreams.
Of course it was what he was!
She wondered how she could not have been aware of it when he had spoken to her on the terrace of the Royal Palace.
“I love – you! I – love you!” she wanted to shout out to the whole wide world.
As she felt the hard pressure of his lips on the softness of her skin, her fingers trembled.
He was aware of it and he raised his head to gaze at her.
To her surprise there was not the glow of admiration in his eyes but an unaccountable look of pain.
It was so surprising and something that she did not and could not understand.
The Prince released her hand, put his hat back on his head and rode ahead of her into the stables.
She followed him feeling somewhat bewildered.
Mr. Heywood was there speaking earnestly to Herr Hévis, who was doing most of his talking with his hands.
Aletha knew that they were discussing the price for a dozen horses that were being led round them by several grooms.
She slipped from her horse’s back without any assistance and then walked away from the stables towards The Palace.
She hoped, because she could not help herself, that Prince Miklós would follow her.
But she saw that when he dismounted he had joined Mr. Heywood.
As she went up to her bedroom to change, she tried to puzzle out why he had behaved in such an odd manner.
She thought that she did know the answer, but did not want to have to admit it to herself.
In fact her whole being shied away from what she suspected might well be the truth.
As if to soothe her feelings, she told herself that very naturally the dashing and romantic Hungarians were unpredictable and mysterious.
How could they be anything else?
She did not change and go downstairs.
She thought that doubtless the ladies of the party would by now be congregated in one of the beautiful drawing rooms of The Palace.
She felt that at this moment she could not bear to make light conversation.
Every nerve in her body was pulsating towards the Prince.
She therefore took off her habit, undressed and climbed into bed.
“I will call you in plenty of time for your bath, fraulein,” the maid promised her.
She dropped her a curtsey that was more of a bob before she left the room.
Aletha knew that if she was staying there as her father’s daughter it would have been a much deeper one.
The housekeeper would also have curtseyed to her instead of just inclining her head.
She did not particularly wish for such obsequiousness, but at the same time it told her what she already knew.
There was indeed a great difference between being a Duke’s daughter and the grandchild of a gentleman who could not afford to buy his own horses.
She had only to meet the Prince’s father and other members of his family to know how excessively proud they were.
Aletha had to admit that in a way her father was the same.
Yet perhaps it was not so obvious in England as it was here in Hungary.
As they had ridden past the many peasants coming from the fields, all the women had curtseyed to the Prince as they passed by them.
The men had swept their hats from their heads and bowed deeply.
They had also smiled at him with considerable affection.
It was an affection tinged with respect that made him seem almost God-like and not of this earth.
‘I suppose it is very childish of me to love him,’ Aletha thought as she stepped into her bath. ‘I expect really that I am just infatuated with his glamour and the Fairytale background of The Palace.”
She mused that it was exactly the right setting for the Prince of her Dreams, if that was what he was.
She had learned that there were one hundred and twenty-six rooms in The Palace.
Prince Jözsel was continually speaking of how much more magnificent it had been when first erected by his ancestor. The Opera House had been burned down and never rebuilt.
Aletha tried to laugh at herself for being as impressed as the Prince expected her to be.
‘I could tell him that Ling Park, in its own way, is just as grand,’ she now reflected, ‘and actually the building itself is older.’
Then she laughed at herself again for being so childish.
She climbed out of her deliciously hot bath.
The maid helped her to dress in what she thought was the prettiest gown she had brought with her. It was white and embroidered all over with tiny diamanté.
It made her look as if she was a beautiful flower sparkled with tiny drops of dew.
The impression was accentuated by the white flowers with diamanté on their petals that ornamented her neck. Diamanté as well glittered on the small bustle at the back where there were flowers caught in the folds of chiffon.
Tonight Aletha wore no jewellery.
The same flowers, that were something like white orchids, were arranged at the back of her head.
When she went into the salon before dinner, she thought that Prince Miklós drew in his breath.
A number of the other men who had been invited to dinner stared at her with undisguised admiration.
“Now I know why the Estérházy Palace looks more beautiful than it ever has been in the past.” one of them complimented her.
She smiled at the praise and felt her heart give a leap as she realised that the Prince was looking angry.
She just knew that he was feeling jealous.
She thought how wonderful it would be if he should love her as she loved him.
Then she told herself that this was too much to ask.
How could she expect that she would fall in love with the first really handsome man she had ever met? And in Hungary too.
And how could she possibly expect him to feel the same about her?
‘Hungarians are romantic,’ she kept repeating to herself. Romantic!’
That meant, she knew, that they would make love to every pretty woman they met, but she would not mean anything in their life.
Of course they would flit from flower to flower.
They would always be hoping against hope that they would find a more beautiful one the next day than they had found the day before.
‘I have to be sensible about this,’ she murmured to herself.
At the same time she enjoyed every moment of the dinner.
She found that nearly every man at the table was raising his glass to her in a toast to her beauty.
The other young women present were looking at her sourly tinged with disbelief.
She had already learnt that in London debutantes were not of any great consequence.
Except for the moment when they were presented at Buckingham Palace. They attended the balls that they were invited to because their fathers were distinguished gentlemen.
But they were overshadowed by the sophisticated married beauties, who were acclaimed not only by Society but also by the public and especially singled out by the Prince of Wales.
‘This is my glorious hour,’ Aletha told herself, ‘so I had better make the most of it!’
As Prince Miklós had promised, she found that they were to have a gypsy orchestra in the huge magnificent white and gold ballroom.
It was here that Haydn had conducted the first performance of his Farewell Symphony.
It was the most beautiful ballroom that Aletha could have ever imagined.
The flowers that decorated it were all white, which complemented her gown.
The long windows were open to the splendid gardens outside and lights were hidden in the fountains that illuminated the water they flung up towards the diamond-studded sky.
The gypsy orchestra was exactly what she had expected it would be.
The gypsy women were dressed in their brilliantly coloured costumes and they wore huge earrings and a profusion of bracelets on their arms.
Their headdresses of red ribbons were ornamented with endless gold and precious stones.
They sparkled and glittered with every movement they made.
The music started with the clash of cymbals and the bell-like ring of tambourines.
Then the volume of sound lifted the wild joyous music of a gypsy dance up to the sky.
Among the guests some of the young girls and men moved hand-in-hand in a traditional gypsy dance in the centre of the ballroom.
Then the music changed and became sweeter and more tender.
The Prince put his arm around Aletha and drew her onto the floor.
Everybody began to dance and the gypsy music gradually became compelling and more romantic.
After only a little time, the wildness came back into the gypsy instruments and those who were dancing moved quicker and quicker around and around.
Aletha had found herself dancing with various other men for a while, but now once again she was with the Prince.
He drew her closer to him.
To her surprise she found now that she could follow his steps exactly even though she had never learnt them.
Faster and faster the rhythm rose and quicker and quicker they moved.
Then, as the dance grew even wilder still, she felt as if he carried her into the night air.
Their feet were not moving on the ground as rather they flew like birds.
It was all so exciting and exhilarating and, when finally the music stopped, Aletha was breathless.
She also felt as if she was tumbling down from a great height back to reality.
Prince Miklós still had his arm around her.
As she looked up at him, her breasts were moving tempestuously beneath the soft chiffon of her gown.
She thought that there was a fire in his eyes, but told herself it was only a reflection of the light.
The guests were loudly applauding the wild music which had carried them away.
Aletha was convinced that they danced with their hearts and not with their feet.
The Prince was now drawing her from the ballroom through the French window and into the garden.
She took a deep breath of the cool night air, as if somehow it would be able to soothe the tumult within her.
The Prince put her arm through his and they walked past the fountains and over the soft green lawn.
They then reached some bushes covered in profusions of blossom.
They passed through them and surprisingly there was a glasshouse shining amongst the trees.
The Prince opened the door.
As they entered, Aletha saw that the whole place was filled with orchids.
They were white, purple, green, pink and every other colour imaginable.
In some unusual manner the glasshouse was lit from the floor and all the orchids were so lovely that Aletha stood looking at them as if spellbound.
The Prince closed the door gently behind them.
Then he said,
“This is the right place for you. I thought perhaps you could dissolve into the flowers you resemble. Then I would never lose you!”
Slowly, because she was a little shy, Aletha turned her head to look at him.
She thought as she did so that no man could look more handsome or so magnificent.
His evening clothes fitted tightly to his slim and athletic body. He wore one large pearl in the centre of his shirt and Aletha knew that if it was a more formal occasion and Royalty had been present, his coat would have been covered with decorations.
Her eyes met his and they just stood there gazing at each other.
At last he said,
“You are so incredibly lovely and so beautiful that you will always be in my heart and soul.”
Aletha was about to reply that he would always be in hers as well when he added,
“I have brought you here tonight to say ‘goodbye’ to you.”
“Goodbye?” Aletha repeated. “I-I did not – know that we were – leaving tomorrow.”
“It is not you who is leaving,” the Prince replied, “it is I!”
Aletha could only look at him wide-eyed.
Then he said harshly,
“I am crucifying myself and I cannot stand being tortured any longer!”
“I-I don’t – understand,” Aletha stammered.
“I know,” the Prince replied. “I know every thought in your exquisite head, every breath you breathe and every beat of your heart.”
The way he spoke made Aletha quiver with the feelings he aroused in her.
Instinctively she put her hand to her breast to quell the tumult within.
“I love you!” the Prince declared. “I love you, as I have never loved a woman before. That is why, heart of my heart, I have to go away.”
“But – why – why?” Aletha asked. “I just don’t – understand!”
“Of course not,” he said. “You are so unspoilt and so utterly desirable. I want to take you in my arms and carry you with me to my house in the mountains where we would be alone with no one around to disturb us.”
Aletha felt her whole body tremble with a strange excitement.
There was a fire in the Prince’s eyes that she had not seen before.
“Once we were there, my lovely one,” he said, “I would teach you about love. Not the cold empty love that an Englishman would give you but the wild, burning irresistible love of Hungary!”
Because the way he spoke was so compelling, Aletha instinctively took a step towards him.
To her surprise he moved away from her.
“Don’t come near me,” he said harshly. “I dare not touch you! If I do, I will make you mine! Then you could never escape and I would never let you go again.”
“You – you love – me?” Aletha stammered as if it was the only thing she understood in all that he was saying.
“I love you!” the Prince repeated, “I love you wildly, uncontrollably and irrevocably. But, my sweet, my precious one, there is nothing I can do about it.”
“W-why? Why – not?”
“The answer, quite simply, is that you are just like these flowers, pure and unspoilt. How could I damage anything so beautiful and so perfect?”
Aletha continued to stare at him.
Then, as the starlight touched her hair, he turned away as if he could not bear to look at her any longer.
“I don’t think that I ought to put it into words,” he said, “but it would be unfair to leave you wondering.”
“Please – tell me – please explain – what you are saying,” Aletha asked him piteously.
“I have told you I love you,” the Prince insisted, “and I believe that you love me a little.”
Aletha made a little murmur and he went on,
“I can imagine nothing nearer to Heaven than to take your love and make it a part of mine, which it is already.”
He made a sound that was one of pain as he added,
“But it is something that I dare not do.”
“Why not – please tell me – why not.”
“Because my precious, beautiful little English girl, you are a lady. If you were not, if you were just the relative of an ordinary man who bought and sold horses like Hévis, I would take you away with me and I think, my beloved, we would be very happy together.”
Aletha did not make a sound.
She was beginning to understand what he was saying and she felt as if her whole body was turning to stone.
The Prince made a gesture with his hand.
“That way is barred and, because of my family, I cannot make you my wife.”
The words had been said and to Aletha they seemed to ring out in her mind.
She wondered why the orchids did not fall to the floor and the glass that covered them smash and scatter into pieces.
“You have seen my father,” the Prince was saying, “and you are imaginative enough to know that it would break his heart if, as the eldest son, I took as my wife anyone who was not the equal of our blood.”
Aletha did not move.
She only felt very cold as if the blood had drained away from her body and her life had gone with it.
“From the first moment I saw you,” the Prince said, “I knew you were something special and something different from anyone I had met before. As you stood at the balustrade outside the Royal Palace, it was as if you were surrounded by a white light and I thought that no one could ever be lovelier.”
The Prince put his hands over his eyes for a moment as he continued,
“I could not sleep for thinking about you. And the following days and nights you were always with me until I believed that I was haunted.”
He paused for a moment before he said and his voice was raw,
“Then you came back and for one moment I was wildly ecstatically happy just because you were here.”
His voice deepened as he carried on,
“Nothing else seemed to matter. I merely waited for the moment when I could hold you in my arms and kiss you until we could no longer think of anything but each other.”
Aletha knew that was exactly what she wanted too.
Yet she could not speak as the Prince continued,
“There is no need for me to say that you ride better than any woman I have ever known. You even equal the Empress herself but that is immaterial.”
He stared at her before he said,
“It is not what you may do, what you say, or even what you think. It is something Divine within yourself, which I have searched for and dreamt of but thought I would never find.”
Aletha knew that it was what she felt about him.
She wanted to cry out and beg him not to destroy anything so perfect as their love.
But the words would not come to her lips and he continued,
“If I did make you my wife, which I do want more than my own salvation, it would be impossible for me to make you happy because, though we would be in Heaven while we were together, we would have to live in the world as it is.”
He drew in his breath before he went on,
“My family would never forgive me for making what to them would be a mésalliance. It would hurt you not once but a thousand times a day to know what they were saying, what they would do and what they would think.”
He paused for a moment and then went on,
“It would be impossible for me to protect you and gradually, like water dripping onto a stone, it would destroy our love.”
He drew himself up and seemed to grow taller as he said,
“That is why, my darling, I am going away tomorrow and after that we shall never see each other again.”
There was such despair in his voice that made Aletha want to reach out her arms towards him.
She wanted so much to tell him that he need not suffer and that she could sweep away his unhappiness.
As she was trying to find the right words to say to him, he said,
“Goodbye, my lovely sylph. I pray God will protect you and that one day you will find a man who will love you as I do and who would take his own life rather than hurt you in any way.”
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he went down on one knee and raising the hem of her gown kissed it.
Aletha looked at him in amazement.
As he rose, she said in a voice that hardly sounded like her own,
“Miklós – wait – I have something to – tell you – ”
Even as she spoke the words, he was gone.
He had opened the door of the glasshouse and then disappeared into the shadows outside before her sentence was finished.
Aletha stared after him.
It was then that she put up her hands to cover her eyes.
Could this really have happened to her?
Could she really have heard Prince Miklós tell her that he loved her?
At the same time, he would not marry her.
‘I must – tell him,’ she thought, ‘I must – tell him he is – mistaken and that his – family would – accept me – and we can be together – and we can be very happy.’
She took a step towards the open door.
Suddenly a pride that she had not known she possessed made her stand still again.
If he was so intuitive, if he really, as he said, could read her thoughts, her feelings and understand the beating of her heart, why did he not know the truth?
Why was he not aware that her blood was as blue as his own if not more so?
Why did he not guess that her family were as important in England as the Estérházys were in Hungary?
He should have known intuitively that she was not what she pretended to be.
How long she stood surrounded by the orchids with the stars shining through the glass above her head Aletha had no idea.
When at last she realised that she must go back to The Palace, she moved slowly as if in a trance.
It was then she told herself that her dream had come to an abrupt end.
The Man of her Dreams had failed her.
‘If he was really so closely attuned to me, he would have known who I am and that my Family Tree is not of the least consequence.’
She reached a side door of The Palace and slipped upstairs.
The gypsy orchestra was still playing in the ballroom and there was still the sound of voices and laughter.
Aletha went to her bedroom.
She did not ring for the maid who she knew would be waiting to help her.
Instead slowly with stiff fingers that did not seem like her own, she took off the beautiful white gown.
The diamanté were still glistening on the flowers.
She removed the flowers from her hair and let it fall down over her shoulders.
It seemed to take her a long time to undress herself and climb into bed.
Only when she had blown out the candle and was in darkness did she hide her face in her pillow.
It was then that the tears began to fall.
They were tears of despair, not only because she had lost Miklós and her heart.
He had also destroyed her dream.