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never listened to her. I’ve been told that I have God in one eye and the Devil in the other.’ Cigarette smoke curled from her nostrils. Although educated at an English school, she spoke with a pronounced Russian accent. ‘There was a sign when I was born. (I was born on Bastille Day at the Paris Ritz.) That night a fiery meteor burst across the sky -’
    ‘How could they tell which was which?’ Dufrette had interrupted in his mocking voice. ‘The sky must have been ablaze with fireworks.’
    ‘Lawrence always tries to undermine me,’ Lena told Antonia. ‘It happens every time. He wants to make me look a fool in front of people.’
    Antonia continued smiling politely. She had the awkward feeling that she was not behaving quite as she should, but then how did one respond to the embarrassing confessions of strangers?
    ‘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