The hunt for Sonya Dufrette

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 Bloody Mary, but she put down her glass 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?‘

‘True enough about the Russians.’ Lynch-Marquis nodded. ‘The French too. They guillotined the King and Queen and tortured the Dauphin, and look at them – not a single decent government since!’

‘Serves them jolly well right,’ Bill Kavanagh said. ‘Let’s drink to it.’

Mrs Lynch-Marquis said tentatively, ‘We killed our King too…’

‘Ah, Charles the Cavalier, with his zeal for his creed, his expensive demands and silk underwear!’ Dufrette croaked. ‘Cromwell did a damned good job.’

‘Have we got a decent government?’ Mrs Falconer asked.

The night before, Antonia had heard Dufrette refer to the ‘Grafin of Grantham’, or it might have been the ‘Griffon of Grantham’, or even the ‘Gryphon of Grantham’, so she expected another disparaging comment, but what this perverse person said now was, ‘Of course we have. Ma Thatcher is a goddess and I will personally shoot anyone who dares suggest otherwise.’

Lena pointed to the TV screen. ‘Is the glass coach bullet-proof? Is it made of fortified glass? What if somebody decides to shoot at dear sweet Diana? There might be a sniper hiding somewhere! The IRA -’

‘That would be the day!’

‘So young, so fresh, so beautiful.’ Lena dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘So innocent-looking. Do you know who Diana reminds me of? She reminds me of me.’

Dufrette said with a smile that she must be thinking of somebody else. She had never been innocent. Young and beautiful yes, about two hundred and fifty-five years ago. Innocent – never. ‘Shall I remind you what one of your party tricks used to be? Better not – we are after all in polite society.’

‘Do you know what I want to do, Lawrence? I want to throw my glass at you and smash your face,’ Lena slurred.

‘You are most likely to miss, my sweet, but do you know what will happen if you do a crazy thing like that? I will strangle you with the curtain cord.’

Sheikh Umair had been looking immensely bored, but at this last lively exchange he perked up. Antonia saw his hooded eyes fix speculatively on the window curtains. The rest of them, being terribly English and well bred, pretended nothing untoward had happened.

‘Drink, anyone?’ Sir Michael called out. Antonia saw his faded brown eyes fix anxiously on Lena. He seemed to be the only one who took her seriously.

‘When you die, Lawrence, I shall dance on your grave,’ Lena declared. ‘Then I shall dig you up and feed you to the dogs.’

Antonia remembered thinking that it all put Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the shade.

‘Poor Johnny looks dreadful,’ Sir Michael had said as a beaming, if painfully slow Earl Spencer led his daughter up the steps of St Paul’s and along the aisle.

‘Go back, you slippered pantaloon! Shoo! Shoo! Go back before it is too late! You don’t know what you are letting your daughter in for! Go back, I say!’ Dufrette flapped his hands. He could be very funny, Antonia had to admit, though his particular brand of humour wasn’t to everybody’s taste – if Lady Mortlock’s face was anything to go by.

‘That silly goose. Just look at her. Observe how she simpers in her doomed glory. She has no idea. The Wind sors will eat her alive. Shoo! Back! Back, I say!’

‘Why don’t you have a drink, Dufrette?’ Sir Michael suggested in a mild attempt at deflection.

‘Ivory silk… That’s so beautiful.’ Lena brushed away a tear.

Bill Kavanagh said, ‘I used to know Raine Spencer very well at one time – before she married Johnny. When she was married to Dartmouth. Remarkable woman. Shame the Spencer children never got to appreciate her properly.’

‘Just imagine…’ Lawrence Dufrette raised his voice. ‘Just imagine that instead of landing two earls, Raine had married and divorced the following: Lord Rayne, Prince Georg of Saxe-Gotha, the King of Spain, Baron Kommer, Dr Johnny Gaynor, Tommy Nutter and Sir Robin Day, she’d have been called – now you need to pay very close attention – Raine Rayne Gotha Spain Kommer Gaynor Nutter Day…’

That was met with some appreciative laughter, Only Lady Mortlock’s expression remained morose while Sheikh Umair merely looked puzzled.

How long had it taken him to work that one out? Antonia wondered. It wasn’t exactly spur-of-the-moment wit. He must have prepared it well in advance.

‘What a drip Charlie boy looks.’ Dufrette had spoken again. ‘And there’s Mrs P-B. How she must be wishing it was her walking up the aisle!’

‘That was never terribly likely, was it?’ Mrs Lynch-Marquis said.

‘Not terribly likely, no,’ Mrs Falconer agreed.

‘If he had lived in my country,’ Sheikh Umair pointed out, ‘the Prince of Wales would have been able to marry them both. There would have been no problem at all.’

‘I always understood Camilla was a cracking bird,’ Mr Lynch-Marquis said. ‘Parker-Bowles is a lucky fellow.’

‘The question is, does she curtsey before she jumps into bed? Does she call him “sir”? It’s a well-documented fact that her great-grandmama did.’ Dufrette gave a histrionic little cough. ‘Of course, as the redoubtable Mrs Keppel herself put it, things were done so much better in her day.’