Read The Hunt for Sonya Dufrette for Free Online Page B

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 fetishist. He loved me with a truly terrifying passion.’
    She leant towards me. ‘Now I am going to say something that is bound to shock you. My daughter is subnormal. That is God’s truth. Sounds awful, I know, but that is God’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 hell. 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 glasses 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-Drushinski? 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