The Hunt For Sonya Dufrette Part 2

'Not a bit of it, my precious one,' Dufrette had said. 'Le bon Dieu has already taken care of that.'

'If Lawrence only knew how much I despised him, he would want to go and hang himself. He would want to cut his throat from ear to ear.' Lena had accompanied her words with an eloquent gesture.

'Not before I had cut yours, ducky!' Dufrette had raised his neck as if his collar was too tight and twisted his head slightly to the left -- it was a tic he had. It made him feel authoritative, Antonia imagined.

Part Strindberg, part Punch-and-Judy show - that was how Lady Mortlock had described the Dufrette marriage. Even mild-mannered Sir Michael had conceded in private that things weren't working terribly well, and that 'Lawrence would have been better off if he'd stuck with the Wigham girl.' Sir Michael had been unflaggingly nice to both Dufrette and Lena. He had actually taken the trouble to talk to Lena and given every indication of enjoying the experience -- something few others had done.

There had been much unkind speculation as to what the offspring of such a 'gruesome twosome', as someone called it, would turn out to be - if they had any, that was.

It was not until 1974, when he was forty-four and Lena thirty-six, that the Dufrettes produced a child, a daughter, whom they named Sonya. Reading what she had written about Sonya Dufrette, Antonia felt her eyes filling with tears.

5.

Baby Doll.

A tiny, frail child, like a live doll. She is seven but looks about five, if not younger. Flaxen-haired, light brown eyes, ethereal, gentle-tempered and trusting. She has the sweetest smile. She had picked some flowers in the garden, a straggly bunch, which she held out to me as soon as she saw me. Her eyes are slightly unfocused. Her nanny -- a Miss Haywood - was with her, holding her by the hand. A youngish woman with a hooked nose, sallow-faced, not particularly prepossessing. She had dyed her hair blonde and, like many other young girls, had had it cut and styled like our future Princess of Wales. Miss Haywood struck me as extremely tense and preoccupied-looking. Lady Mortlock later told me that her mother was gravely ill, in hospital. Lady Mortlock said she had great admiration for the poor girl, whom she described as 'having the patience of a saint -- wonderfully suited to the care of a backward child'.

Sonya made me feel extremely protective towards her. I had to resist the urge to pick her up and hold her tight. She had such a 'lost' look about her! She couldn't speak, just the odd word, baby talk, really. It was also the way she walked. She didn't seem to have much awareness of the world around her. Compared to David, who at six and a half is so articulate and so competent. It then dawned on me that there was something seriously wrong with the girl. Well, Miss Haywood referred to Sonya vaguely as 'young for her age', which is an understatement. It is clear Sonya suffers from some kind of arrested development.

After lunch on the 28th I was taking a stroll in the garden, which is not only beautiful but remarkable in that it is full of surprises. One is constantly led from one scene to another, into long vistas and little enclosures, which seem infinite. This is odd since the garden doesn't cover many acres. It abounds in flowers and plants that have been brought from the most outlandish places in Asia and Africa.

I was walking towards the ancient oak tree when I ran into Lena.

She was wearing a pink dress with lots of frills and bows, ankle-length lace socks and gold sandals of an elaborate design. Around her neck she had a gold crucifix. She had just finished painting her nails (an uncompromising scarlet) and was flapping her hands in the air. She said, 'I saw the way you were looking at my kotik. You have such kind eyes. You are a simpatico sort of person. I don't often meet simpatico people. I am always misunderstood and frequently reviled. I haven't had fifty-two days' happiness in my life. Sometimes I wonder I am still alive. My first husband was afoot fetis.h.i.+st. He loved me with a truly terrifying pa.s.sion.'

She leant towards me. 'Now I am going to say something that is bound to shock you. My daughter is subnormal. That is G.o.d's truth. Sounds awful, I know, but that is G.o.d's truth.'

I smelled brandy on her breath. 'It must be difficult for you,' I felt compelled to say.

Difficult? She shook her head slowly from side to side and sighed deeply. It was clear I had disappointed her. So even a simpatico person like me didn't understand! Well, no one understood. It had been h.e.l.l. She hadn't had a moment of peace. (She spoke unemphatically, in lugubrious tones.) Children like her poor Sonya were an open wound, a millstone around the neck, an albatross, a trial, a torture and a punishment. It was terrible when they grew up for -- didn't I see? - they never grew up.

'Can't doctors help?'

Lena waved a dismissive hand. 'Doctors. Don't talk to me about doctors. We've seen everybody. The cream of Harley Street. The best of the very best. We've paid a fortune in consulting fees, money that could have been spent on better things, only to be told that Sonya will remain as she is. She may even take a turn for the worse. It is her poor little head. It is a delicate piece of machinery. If only the tiniest screw were to become loose ...' Lena paused significantly. 'I am punished for the sins of the Yusupovs. I never doubted it would be so. Prince Felix used to wear drag, did you know? I too have this terrible duality in my nature. That is why I am punished. I have been bad, oh so bad, you can't imagine how bad. Ask Hermione Mortlock. She knows me well - better than anybody. She will tell you. She has no illusions about me.'

It was a hot day and we were standing in the shade of the oak. Lena said, 'I don't like this tree. It has the face of a very old, very evil man who gapes and grins. You don't see it, do you?' She seemed irritated that I had failed to see. 'I hate that hollow! It wants to swallow me up, I am sure of it.' She touched her crucifix as though for protection. 'I always see things like that - terrible, vile things. I never see anything beautiful. I am not meant to be happy.' She then turned round and started walking in the direction of the house.

'Some women must never be allowed to become mothers.' It was another of my fellow guests who had addressed me thus: a Mrs Vorodin. Veronica Vorodin. 'You too think it, don't you?' I nodded. She took off her dark gla.s.ses and looked at me out of lavender eyes. 'Lena used to amuse me, but now she only fills me with horror. She'd do anything for money. Cranked up, did you realize?'

'Was she? I thought she was merely drunk.'

'That too ... They used to call her LSD, you know.'

'Lena Sugarev-Drus.h.i.+nski? Oh, you mean - Really?'

'Yes. She had quite an addiction.'

As it happens, Veronica and Lena are distant cousins, but the contrast couldn't have been greater. Veronica was wearing an ice-blue dress, which simply shrieked designer. All her clothes are made by Oscar de la Renta, couturier to Nancy Reagan and Princess Grace of Monaco, among others, Mrs Falconer had informed me. Both Veronica and her husband Anatole (also of Russian extraction) spend most of their time commuting between Florida, London, Rome and the South of France, in each of which they have houses. Fabulously rich, Lady Mortlock had said. They have their own jet, apparently, also a yacht.

(Vorodin -- corruption of 'Borodin'?) Well, the Vorodins are the epitome of cosmopolitan sophistication -- slim, suave, accentless, with those glowing perma-tans. Though I understood them to be thirty-nine and thirty-eight respectively, they look barely out of their teens. They give the impression of being typical jet-setting wastrels and professional bon vivants. The kind of people who have drawing rooms that take half an hour to cross, Monets and Pica.s.sos hanging in the lavatory, truffles and Beluga caviar for dinner, which they eat with a spoon. However, looks can be very deceptive. Lady Mortlock told me that they were generous to a fault, philanthropists with a number of charities named after them. Most of the charities are for children.

As Sonya and Miss Haywood pa.s.sed by, Veronica said, 'She looks like an angel, doesn't she? Such a sweet little girl. Helplessness personified.'

'I always thought angels looked confident and a bit smug - if Christmas cards are anything to go by. What is wrong with her exactly, do you know?'

'She is said to be autistic. I wish Lawrence and Lena would do something about it. They haven't really seen "everybody". It doesn't all start and end with Harley Street. There are good specialists abroad ... If I had a child like that, I'd love her more than I would a normal one!' Veronica spoke vehemently, with genuine pa.s.sion. 'A mentally handicapped child is a very special child -- a gift from G.o.d. A child like that would help me preserve my humanity -- would prevent me from getting spoilt, keep me to the ground.'

How odd it is that one woman should consider a gift what another describes as punishment.

'I love children, so does Anatole,' Veronica went on. She had been a beauty queen and an actress, but she spoke simply and naturally, without the slightest trace of affectation. I found myself warming to her. 'We don't have any children, sadly. Do you?'

I told her I had a boy of Sonya's age. Her face lit up. 'A little boy! How wonderful for you. And he is -- fine? He is in good health? I am so glad! You must be very happy. I'd love to meet him. What's his name?'

'David. I nearly brought him here with me.'

'Oh, why didn't you? I must send him something -- some little present. How about a pair of platinum cuff links with the initial D?'

'Oh, that's very kind of you but I couldn't possibly -'

'Of course you can. It's nothing. He can use them when he grows up. I have them in my room. We always carry two boxes full of cuff links that have all the letters of the alphabet on them. I carry the ones with A to K, Anatole has the rest. We present them to deserving little boys. I hope you won't think us too peculiar!' She laughed. 'We have things for girls too.' A shadow pa.s.sed over her face. 'We'd give anything to have a child. If you only knew what it means to us -- ' She broke off, then changed the subject. 'Twiston is a lovely house, isn't it? One thing we haven't got is an English country house. Sorry, this sounds terribly spoilt of me!'

'It is the kind of place exiles think of when they dream of home,' I said.

'Beautifully put... Perhaps one day I will buy this house and live in it.'

Lawrence Dufrette had strolled along and he was joined by Miss Haywood and Sonya. We watched him pick up Sonya and swing her round by her hands, making her scream with laughter. He then put her on his shoulder and unexpectedly broke into song.

'Some to make hay, Dilly, Dilly,

Some to cut corn,

While you and I, Dilly, Dilly,

Keep ourselves warm.'

Sonya clapped her hands. She looked delighted.

Lawrence Dufrette was wearing a white shantung suit and a Panama hat, which he allowed Sonya to take off his head and throw down to the ground. This was repeated several times. She laughed. Her brown eyes were bright. He laughed too. I was amazed since I hadn't thought Lawrence Dufrette capable of laughing like that. His whole face changed. He looked happy and relaxed. More importantly, it was clear to meat that moment that he loved his daughter. I said as much.

'Oh yes, he loves her all right,' Veronica said in a toneless voice. 'Lawrence is nothing like Lena in that respect.'

Three men wearing overalls were walking towards the ancient oak tree. Veronica asked what they were doing, did I know? I did - Sir Michael had told me. 'The tree is something of a historical monument. It was planted by James I. They are going to provide it with a cement base in an effort to preserve it. It is entirely hollow inside. It's starting to disintegrate.'

'It looks horrid. If it were up to me, I'd have it removed. Wasn't there a poem about a hollow? Do you know the one? It always gives me the creeps when I remember it.'

'Would that be Tennyson's Maud?'

She looked blank. "'I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood ..." How did it go on?'

I completed it for her: 'Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood and heath,

The red ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood

And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death".'

6.

The Royal Wedding.

The cuff links had been left on her dressing table, in a charming presentation box with an onyx lid. She had found them later that day. She gave them to David on his twenty-first birthday, though she hadn't seen him wear them very often . . .

How many people had there been altogether? Antonia was standing in her kitchen now, heating some excellent Marks and Spencer's asparagus soup in a pan. Ten? Twelve? Excluding Sir Michael and Lady Mortlock, that was. She counted on her fingers. The Dufrettes, the Vorodins, Major Nagle, somebody called Bill Kavanagh, whose bald head and thick black-rimmed gla.s.ses brought to mind a bank manager, um, Sheikh Umair, several FO types and their wives. A couple called Falconer and another called Lynch-Marquis. She remembered Mrs L-M. as a large woman with a Roedean voice, wearing a long white silk robe with black stripes from the shoulders down both sides of the skirt.

The argument. For some reason she kept thinking about the argument. It had taken place at breakfast on the morning of the 29th. Lawrence Dufrette and Major Nagle had been no strangers to one another. For a while they had worked together in the same department. Neither man could stand the other, it had soon become apparent to everyone. (Sir Michael should never have asked the two of them together. What could he have been thinking of?) The reason for the animosity? 'Some sort of rivalry, the usual office in-fighting,' Lady Mortlock had said dismissively. 'That, and Lawrence's tendency to poke his nose into other people's affairs.'

Nagle, it transpired, had asked to be transferred to another department because of Dufrette. It had been as bad as that. The argument had started as a result of Dufrette making some disparaging remark about the royal family and Nagle countering it. Dufrette didn't like to be contradicted and he had said something very personal and extremely inflammatory - something about Nagle's wife?

After finis.h.i.+ng her soup and feeding the cats, Antonia went back to the sitting room. Should she spend some time on her novel? Standing beside her desk, she looked down at the bottom drawer, which was now closed. She hadn't made any progress with her novel. She did need to work out the details of the rather complicated plot; it was at a stage when everything appeared hopelessly absurd . . . No, the drowning of Sonya Dufrette first.

She resumed reading.

It had been a most unsettled morning - the morning of the royal wedding. It had started promisingly enough. At eight o'clock Antonia had been woken up by birdsong and had drawn her curtains made of rich, pea-green moire silk, fringed with applique galloon three inches broad, upheld by stout clasps of gold foliage and draped and ta.s.selled festoons, to see the sun s.h.i.+ning from a cloudless blue sky. From her window she could see the river. The sun's slanting rays had turned it into a stream of s.h.i.+mmering molten gold. A light rain had fallen during the night and the air was brighter and fresher than the day before, with the sweet scent of roses and honeysuckle wafting in from the garden. Somewhere a sprinkler hissed. She felt happy and at peace, but also exhilarated. She reflected sentimentally on the sweet young girl who would one day be Queen and remembered the eve of her own wedding. She thought wistfully of Richard, wis.h.i.+ng more than ever that he was with her at that moment . . .

Things started to go wrong when Miss Haywood left Twiston with the speed of lightning, in a cab. Antonia heard the story when the maid who had received the phone call, a kindly-looking middle-aged woman, brought her tea. 'Poor girl. Her mother was rushed to hospital an hour ago. Suspected kidney failure. They phoned her from the hospital. At half-past seven! Came as a shock to the poor girl. Apparently her mother was fit as a fiddle the last time she saw her. Today of all days. Terrible.'

Miss Haywood wasn't the only one who left. So did the Vorodins, in their car. At least their departure was pre-planned ; they were flying to the USA later in the day.

The row between Major Nagle and Lawrence Dufrette occurred at quarter to nine and resulted in Major Nagle declaring that he wasn't staying under the same roof as Dufrette a moment longer. Nagle rushed out of the dining room and reappeared several minutes later, his face the colour of beetroot, a suitcase in one hand, his car keys in the other. It took Sir Michael all his diplomatic skills to persuade him to stay. Nagle did stay, though he spent the whole morning in his room, 'covered in shame', as an unrepentant Dufrette gloatingly told Antonia, who had only just sat down at the breakfast table.

'You missed my coup. I managed to reduce old Nagle to a quivering jelly by making public a jolly murky episode from his very private life. He didn't like it - what with Michael and Bill Kavanagh and the Falconers and Sheikh Umair listening. Bill's the greatest gossip the FO has ever known!'

Dufrette gave a delighted croak. 'I thought Nagle was about to explode. If looks could kill! Well, I do tend to acquire interesting information about people. In this particular instance, I ran into someone at my club, a chap whose late stepsister turned out to have been the first Mrs Nagle. He was of the opinion that Nagle was a monster. I said, what a coincidence, I was of that opinion too. That broke the ice. It turned out that the day before her death his stepsister had confided in him - told him what treatment she had been receiving at Nagle's hands. Well, after a couple of scotches he spilled the beans. Nagle had been having an affair and he'd been flaunting it in front of his wife. Twice he made sure she found him and his mistress in bed together. Mrs Nagle then committed suicide. Hurled herself under a train. She'd had a history of mental illness of one kind or another, but there is no doubt that it was Nagle who drove her to it. He as good as killed her. Something of a s.a.d.i.s.t, old Nagle. He's married his mistress since but it seems things are far from blissful. Nagle enjoys treating his women roughly, especially at bedtime, if you know what I mean - but that's another story.'

It was at that point that a ghostly tinkling sound had been heard and Sonya walked into the dining room in her somnambulist manner, carrying a doll that was almost as big as her. Both girl and doll wore similar dresses: white and gold, with tiny bells at the waist - one of Lena's dafter ideas, Antonia imagined. Sonya reached out and took Antonia's hand. She started pulling her towards the open french windows that led into the garden. Antonia looked at Dufrette and received an approving nod. 'It's a lovely day, Mrs Rushton. Go and pick some flowers, why don't you? She likes that.'

They walked out into the garden and Antonia made a daisy chain, which she placed on Sonya's golden head. She pointed things out to her: a comic magpie, a busy squirrel, a strutting wood pigeon, but Sonya paid little attention - she was cooing to her doll. Happening to glance up at the house, Antonia saw Major Nagle standing stock-still at his open window, smoking. It was one of the south windows from which the garden layout of symmetrical beds, stone gate plinths and ironwork could be seen at its best, but she didn't think Nagle was admiring the view. His eyes seemed fixed on them. Feeling somewhat disturbed, Antonia had steered the way briskly down a path leading to the river bank. Sonya had prattled the while, incomprehensible baby talk, directed exclusively at her doll. Beside the river it had felt pleasantly cool.

Antonia raised her brow again. Could Major Nagle -? No, no guesses - too early.

They had spent no more than a minute on the river bank, watching the dragonflies circle and the skitterbugs skate across the smoothish green surface of the river, before making their way back to the garden. There they stopped for another minute and Sonya picked some more flowers while Antonia watched the men in blue overalls pour cement into the hollow of the ancient oak. They were talking about Sir Michael's weakness for 'large ladies'. They had seen the Rubens in his study, apparently, and were making ribald jokes about it.

'Will a cement base prevent the tree from decaying?' she asked. The men shrugged and one of them said that the boss - he meant Sir Michael - certainly seemed to think that was the right thing to do. The man was clearly amused by Sir Michael calling the tree a 'historical monument' for he chuckled each time he uttered the phrase. Antonia and Sonya had then returned to the house.

And then?

She had let go of Sonya's hand only when they reached the hall. That was the last time Antonia had seen Sonya. She had heard Lena say, 'Run along, darling, Mamma's terribly busy at the moment.' She had not turned round to see where Sonya had gone but had walked into the sitting room in search of orange juice - she had been extremely thirsty.

Had Sonya, left unattended, wandered out of the front door and back into the garden? The door had certainly been open. Later Lena told the police that she had no recollection, that she hadn't seen where Sonya had gone, but she was pretty sure it hadn't been up the great staircase.

(Criminal negligence, Miss Pettigrew had called it.) In the wake of the Nagle-Dufrette contretemps, the house party had been subdued. Sir Michael tried cheering them up by playing numbers from Fred Astaire's film Royal Wedding, with a reminder that the broadcast was about to begin in a quarter of an hour. Would they care to take their seats? Everybody - with the exception of Major Nagle - was there and they complied.

The sitting room was the size of a barn, filled with comfortable chairs and sofas, with ancestral portraits hanging from claret-coloured ropes with ta.s.sels against beige neutral silk walls. There was a giant TV set, as well as strategically positioned small tables with plates of sandwiches, bowls of smoked almonds and peanuts and stands containing canapes of various kinds. There were bottles of gin, whisky and brandy on two side tables, old-fas.h.i.+oned siphons, also two coffee percolators and a tea urn. Through the window Antonia had observed the men in blue overalls walking briskly in the direction of the servants' hall, where, she knew, there was another TV set. Sir Michael was as considerate an employer as he was gracious a host. She remembered the whirring of an ancient electric fan in one corner of the room.

'One of your wives is at St Paul's, isn't that so, old boy?' Bill Kavanagh had addressed Sheikh Umair.

'Indeed she is. It was Her Majesty the Queen Mother who provided the pa.s.s. The Queen Mother is a very old and valued friend. We both have a pa.s.sion for horses. My wife is exceedingly fond of weddings. I am not, I must confess. You will probably argue that it has something to do with the fact that I have already attended several of my very own.'

'A certain sense of ennui sets in after a while, eh?'

Lynch-Marquis said with a sigh he knew the feeling well - though he had been married only once.

Dufrette perched on the arm of a chair close to the television set and shook his forefinger at the festive crowds filling Ludgate Hill. 'Look at them - just look at them! The singing, chattering fools in their ridiculous Union Jack hats! What they really should be doing on a day like this is storming the palace, like the Russkies did in 1917.'

And he hadn't stopped there. It soon became apparent that Lawrence Dufrette had taken it upon himself to provide his hosts and fellow guests with a running commentary on the event. Everything he said was noted for its anti-monarchist bias. How he had transmogrified from an ardent royalist to a rabid enemy of the Crown was a mystery, though Lady Mortlock hinted that it had something to do with a snub he had received from the Duke of Kent, that mildest of royals, during a shooting party in 1969. Dufrette, it appeared, did not forgive easily.

'I am no great admirer of my wife's fellow Russkies as a rule, but I take my hat off to them for shooting the Tsar and the Tsarina and their brood like a bunch of dogs.'

'Why do you always say such awful things?' Lena had been sipping a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, but she put down her gla.s.s and crossed herself. 'That was the greatest calamity to befall Russia. There is a church there now, on the very spot the Romanovs' blood was spilled. Do you know what it is called?' She paused significantly and looked round. 'It is called the Church of the Spilt Blood.'

'Oh, how remarkably original!'

'Pilgrims trekked hundreds of miles on foot to Yekaterinburg for the consecration. They carried crosses and icons. They burnt so much incense that day, the sun disappeared in the fumes. They saw that as an omen.'

'It's been said that if people treat their royalty badly, a kind of curse is visited on them,' Mrs Falconer - a tall woman in a tomato-coloured dress with high winged shoulders - said. 'D'you think that's true?'