The family staring solemnly at page upon page of the Duchess’s holiday with Mr Wrong was arguably the grandest family in the world
The family staring solemnly at page upon page of the Duchess’s holiday with Mr Wrong was arguably the grandest family in the world, yet here it was conscientiously devoting itself to studying the tabloids. It was hard for them to resist, however: these were the shoddy scripts for their own personal soap opera.By Christmas, the Big Freeze had begun. Sarah found herself denied access to the big house at Sandringham. Determined to be close to the children, she elected to stay at the gate house. Cars were sent for Eugenie and Beatrice early in the morning. Andrew entertained his daughters, leaving his wife alone like a dog in quarantine.The Queen remained astonishingly tolerant.
Despite the appalling publicity her daughter-in-law had brought on them all, she turned up in the afternoon for a few private seasonal whiskies. Everyone else in Sarah’s life might have been throwing her to the wolves, but her mother-in-law offered kindness and support – as she still does “We talk to each other I love her. I love her to bits.”This kindness was all the more welcome for being visited upon what Sarah admits, with Wodehousian understatement, has been “a jolly awkward life”, full of betrayal. First her mother, then her father, then her absent, unsupportive husband, then Steve Wyatt, the rich Californian who, John Bryan alleges, treated her “the way she likes to be treated, which is like shit.”The list continued with Bryan, with Madame Vasso and with the Allan Starkie expose. Sarah says that this last was the betrayal that hurt most – presumably because it was the most recent. Starkie had become her confidant as the John Bryan affair was evaporating.
He was, she thinks, infatuated with her, though she did not reciprocate. But what really hurts, one suspects, is not his betrayal but Bryan’s.IT IS difficult to imagine anyone looking back on any involvement with Bryan with anything but distaste I even have some experience of this myself. In the final days of their relationship, American Esquire magazine decided to run a profile of a contemporary rake The Texan’s name came to mind. The distinguished US writer, Elizabeth Kaye, was handed this tricky assigment, and found to her surprise that Bryan was only too keen to talk. He was particularly keen to discuss his affair with the Duchess – the one subject he had always refused to mention in the past – and he dwelt on the disastrous St Tropez holiday in a way that aroused suspicions he might have set the trap up himself.With unusual empathy, he imagined what it must have been like for Sarah on the day the pictures appeared “Can’t you just see it?” he asked Kaye.