Though presumably grateful for the information, the faces of the aunts continued to reflect complete despair, and another drop of water seeped through the leak in the ceiling and plopped into the Meissen soup tureen beneath. Maxi’s compensation had been agreed but not yet paid, and though Spittau would soon be warm and dry, the autumn rains were making things a little trying.

‘It’s not the bloodstains I was worrying about,’ said Tante Augustine, returning to the attack. ‘It’s the size.’

‘I’m going to take it up,’ said Tessa soothingly.

‘And in. Like, perhaps, three metres,’ said Tante Tilda, unaccustomedly caustic.

‘Yes.’ Tessa was gazing at her reflection in the mildewed mirror with every appearance of satisfaction.

‘Tessa, please let us buy you a proper dress. There is still time.’

But the economy game played by the aunts was being turned against them with a vengeance.

‘No. It’s bad enough coming to Maxi without a dowry but I don’t want to waste any more money. You’ll see, it will look very nice. She picked up a flounce of the massive garment and as she did so the Spittau ruby, plucked from the crown of Horsa the Red in 1343, rolled from her engagement finger on to the floor.

Without stooping, Tante Augustine fielded it with the tip of her cane. It was an accomplishment which she had perfected having had, in the eight days of Tessa’s engagement, a great deal of practice.

‘And anyway, Heidi will look lovely — her mother’s made her the prettiest bridesmaid’s dress ever! She’s coming in a minute to pin me; I’ll get her to show it to you.’

The information that Maxi was to become the happiest of men had reached him by letter, during the last week of October. Tessa’s instructions had been clear and businesslike. If he still wished it, she was ready to be married. She would like the wedding to be quick — if possible before the middle of November — and quiet, with as few relatives as possible. If he had meant what he said about asking Father Rinaldo to officiate she would be very grateful, he was so understanding and unfussy. And she was bringing Heidi Schlumberger along to be bridesmaid.

‘A common dancing girl as bridesmaid!’ shrieked the Swan Princess when the contents of the letter had been read aloud to her.

‘Yes, I must say it’s a bit much,’ said Maxi, for once in agreement with his mother.

But Tessa, when he telephoned her, was unrelenting. If he and his mother were too snobbish to welcome Heidi, the marriage was off.

The dismay of Maxi and his mother was nothing to that of Heidi herself when she heard of the honour that was to befall her.

‘No, please, Tessa — please not me! I don’t know how to behave with all those grand people. There must be someone of your own kind to ask.’

‘But it’s you I want, Heidi. I want someone familiar… someone to remind me of the good times I had here and how happy I used to be.’

They were in the deserted, freezing theatre, rummaging among the contents of the skips for garments Tessa considered suitable for her trousseau.

‘But you’re going to be happy now,’ said Heidi. ‘I mean, you do love the prince, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. Only I think perhaps it’s best not to be too much in love when you get married,’ said Tessa carefully. ‘I mean, think how awful it would be seeing everything sort of fade and get less.’

‘Yes… I suppose so.’ The Littlest Heidi looked unconvinced. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll be all right; I’m sure it will!’

‘If you come, it will,’ said Tessa. ‘I want you to travel down with me and stay until the wedding. The country will do you good.’

That Heidi should be overborne by the steely will of the Princess of Pfaffenstein was inevitable, but there was one subject on which she stood firm. She was not, as Tessa helpfully suggested, going to adapt one of her Sylphide costumes as a bridesmaid’s dress. Not only would her old dancing clothes no longer fit her, but if she had to go she would be decently attired. So she had run home to her mother, who was a dressmaker in Simmering, and returned twenty-four hours later with a charming, pristine, three-quarter-length dress.

Tessa’s decision to marry Maxi had appeared fully formed in her head the morning after she had parted from Guy at the cemetery. By marrying Maxi, she would get the aunts away from the Vienna flat, for of course they would live with her at Spittau. Spittau was not their beloved Pfaffenstein but it was the country and a familiar world. There would be maids to help them, and plentiful food without standing in queues. Not only would she be able to help the aunts but also Heidi, who had been looking so peaky, and Bubi who could come to stay. Oh yes, the advantages of marrying Maxi were endless. She would breed not only water spaniels but komondors, those enchanting woolly-haired puszta dogs. And if anything was needed to convince her of the wisdom of her action, it was a quick perusal of the railway timetable which confirmed that a churn of fresh milk put on the 6.05 from Spittau would reach Boris and The Mother in time for lunch.

Having taken her decision, Tessa became immediately and radiantly happy. Everyone knew that she was happy because she told them so. True, certain outward and traditional attributes of happiness were not entirely within her grasp. Since she found it difficult to swallow anything much larger than a pea, she lacked the plump, pink look of the more obvious kind of ecstacy, and her nights, spent underneath a pillow not crying, gave her huge, hollowed eyes a look which a casual observer might be forgiven for not recognizing instantly as one of pre-nuptial bliss.

Nevertheless, having made up her mind, she moved with such efficiency and despatch that a week after her letter to Maxi, she arrived at Spittau with her aunts, her bridesmaid and the pug in a carpet-bag.

Though Heidi had had an uncomfortable journey, alternating frequent visits to the toilet with frenzied searches on the floor of the railway carriage for Tessa’s engagement ring, she was deeply awed by her first sight of the Wasserburg.

‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘How beautiful! How melancholy!’ It was clearly the greatest praise she could bestow.

In the vaulted hall at Spittau, the servants were lined up in serried ranks to meet their new mistress. But the stab of misery Tessa felt as she confronted the pomp and protocol she had hoped to leave behind for ever was instantly suppressed. She smiled brilliantly, made (as she knew only too well how) the short, expected speech and swept up the stairs to universal sighs of satisfaction.

During the next few days Tessa was very, very busy. She visited the tenants, many of whom had known and loved her from childhood, listened to their grievances and determined that at least some of Maxi’s compensation should come their way. She rowed over to a neighbouring bay to bespeak from a retired captain of Dragoons an enchanting komondor puppy as soon as it was weaned, and spent hours in the kennels bursting paper bags in the ears of the new pointer puppies to prevent them from being gun-shy. Everything, thus, was going splendidly and the fact that Maxi now kissed her on the lips rather than on the cheek when he said good night was absolutely natural — something she would get used to very quickly and, indeed, enjoy.

Maxi was being altogether most kind and attentive in every way and the only fault she had to find with him was his treatment of Heidi.

‘Why can’t you be nice to her, Maxi?’ Tessa wanted to know. ‘You weren’t such a snob in Vienna. You were glad enough to take her out to lunch and to the cinema when I was busy, but here you hardly talk to her at all. You know how I hate snobbishness, and she’s so sweet.’

‘Yes, I know she is. But anyway she avoids me just as much. Look, just leave me alone, Putzerl,’ said Maxi, who really had rather a lot to bear.

Two days after Tessa had given her aunts the benefit of a preview of her bridal gown, the guests began to arrive for the ceremony. The meanness of the Swan Princess, coupled with Tessa’s request for a small and speedy wedding, kept the numbers down to a minimum. Waaltraut came and was offended because she had not been asked to be a bridesmaid; the Archduchess Frederica came and was offended because Tante Augustine had her room; Monteforelli arrived grumbling about the damp… and Father Rinaldo who looked at the bride through narrowed eyes, flicked her nibbled fringe with his fingers — and held his tongue.

Then, less than a week before the ceremony, Tessa heard the sound of muffled sobbing as she was passing Heidi’s bedroom door.

She knocked, entered and found the Littlest Heidi curled up on the four-poster, her blonde curls damp and her face streaked with tears.

‘Heidi! What is it, love?’ said Tessa, bending over her anxiously. ‘What’s the matter?’

No answer: just a disconsolate shake of the head.

‘You’re still not feeling well, are you? You didn’t have any lunch again. Heidi, please let me fetch a doctor. This has gone on long enough.’

‘No!’ Heidi sat up, a look of terror on her face. ‘Tessa, I absolutely don’t want a doctor. You mustn’t think of it. I’m perfectly all right. It’s just the first months — I’ll feel better soon. My sister was the same,’ said Heidi wildly, now concerned only to prevent a visit from the Spittau practitioner.

‘Oh, my God! How could I be so stupid!’ Tessa had dropped her friend’s hands, aghast at her own blindness. ‘It is really quite unbelievable! Oh, love, why didn’t you tell me straight away? You know I would have helped you.’

‘There’s nothing to help with. It’s all absolutely all right. My mother’s very good, she won’t turn me out.’