The Portuguese Escape — Ann Bridge

When Julia Probyn came to sun-lit Portugal to cover a royal wedding for her paper, the last thing she expected was to find herself involved in the escape of an important Hungarian priest, ruthless Communists who pursued him, and the affairs of a young Hungarian countess just released from behind the Iron Curtain.

The lvely countess, Hetta Paloczy, a convent school girl for two-thirds of her life and a cook to a rustic priest in Hungary for the rest, is suddenly plunged into an international society where social tact is just as important as the right clothes. Hetta had lived with poverty, hardship and danger for her daily bread and here, she vivdly relates her horrifying experiences in Soviet-dominated Hungary. Her adjustment to her new life in Portugal is complicated by the two men who are irresistibly drawn to her. One is a well brought-up American in the high Bostonian sense of the phrase; the other is outwardly much the conventional Englishman, but one who secretly adores recklessness.