Political Death

by Antonia Fraser

  Before Jemima had time to say more than, “A visitor tonight, your daughter I think,” the telephone rang again. This time she let her hostess answer it. The other daughter? Regan following Goneril? But Jemima could not hear what was being said, not even whether the caller was male or female. What she did note was that Lady Imogen’s eyes had filled with tears. As she replaced the telephone, Lady Imogen dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief already visibly marked by her mascara. What on earth …

  “I’m sorry, you’d better go, Jemima. There’s something I must do. No, no, you can’t help me. Just take the Diaries, take them, take them all, take them and keep them safe. I give them to you. They’re yours. And the key—could you leave it in the bowl downstairs?”

  Jemima hesitated. Finally: “I’ll just take one of them.” Even as she spoke the words, she had a feeling that she had made the wrong decision. But it was too late.

  “It’s yours. I give it to you. It’s yours,” Lady Imogen repeated like a puppet. Then she called after her in a slightly stronger voice, “Please be careful not to let the cats out. Jasmine is a really naughty girl and she likes to wander. There’s no cat-flap in the front. Poor Jasmine might get locked out.”

  Jemima went down the staircase, still clutching the Diary which had fallen at her feet, feeling her way on the banisters with her other hand since there was either no light or no bulb. She felt one of the cats—presumably Jasmine—slithering softly around her ankles. She took care to keep her inside the house and leave the key in the bowl. Once in the square, Jemima looked back at the tall, rather grim house above her head. She felt it must be rocking in the wind: from an open window on an upper floor curtains were flying. Nevertheless, the balcony windows of the drawing-room were open and she saw Lady Imogen standing there. She appeared to be indifferent to the storm. Jemima’s last sight was of the small forlorn figure gazing out into the night.

  All of a sudden, Hippodrome Square seemed an eerie, haunted place and Number Nine the most haunted house in the square. Even a solitary man in a raincoat standing in the shadows by the gardens had a sinister look about him. A burglar? You would not have to be an accomplished burglar to rob the house she had just left. No alarms, nothing. No guard dog; only two languid cats.

  On the other hand, Lady Imogen manifestly would not be alone tonight since she was expecting two visitors—“we are coming round”—if not more.

  CHAPTER 3

  WOMEN’S WHOLE EXISTENCE

  When jemima shore got back to her flat, she found no messages on her machine. Instead, enormous bunches of white lilies—her favourites—filled the sitting-room. Every conceivable vase, and a plastic bucket as well, had been filled by Mrs. Bancroft, her cleaning lady. There were two notes.

  “Jemima,” the first one read. “Hope you like my floral arrangements. Change of job??? Don’t worry, that’s a joke. Cheers. Mrs. B.”

  The second came with the flowers but was not quite so pleasing. “Darling,” it ran, “Forgive me. Flying to Singapore now. Back soon. Love Ned.” Forgive Ned Silver, her brilliant mercurial barrister companion, partner, lover, with whom she had such a wonderful, passionate semi-attached relationship, when he had to fly abroad on urgent business? Forgive him, of course she forgave him. Forgive him, never, vowed Jemima, kicking her new black suede boot so hard against a chair that the heel broke off.

  That seemed to complete the sense of desolation she had felt ever since she left Hippodrome Square. Jemima had looked to Ned to cheer her up over dinner. They might also, perhaps, have discussed the Faber Mystery again; when making her programme on the subject, Jemima had enjoyed posing problems of evidence to Ned. He would surely be fascinated to hear of her encounter with Lady Imogen. They were also due that weekend to go to a country hotel in Dorset “to take a real break”, something that had already been postponed twice due to professional commitments and was now presumably postponed again.

  “Isn’t it lucky that I live alone?” said Jemima aloud, “and isn’t it lucky I am so thoroughly independent and have such a brilliant career? Otherwise I might be absolutely miserable.”

  The sight of her cat Midnight gazing at her with dignified reproach from the kitchen doorway—surely the first thing any decent person did was to feed a starving cat?—stopped this disloyal line of thought. “No, no, Midi, of course I’m not alone. You’re never alone with a cat.” And that of course took her thoughts back to one person who was undeniably alone, in spite of two enormous cats: Lady Imogen Swain. And the little blue leather Diary in her handbag which did or did not contain a clue to the Faber Mystery.

  There was an odd aspect to all this, thought Jemima, as she opened a bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge with which to wash down the diary, as it were. When she had researched her programme about the Faber Secrets Case a year ago, she had simply not come across the name of Lady Imogen Swain. It was the last programme she had made directly for Megalith, so the mellifluous Byzantine presence of Cy Fredericks had made itself felt on her project. He had performed certain introductions for her, for example, including one to Burgo Smyth himself, even though she had not secured that particular interview.

  Was it possible that Cy had headed her off? It was true that Cy had a notorious weakness for pretty women he could somehow regard as being society figures. Comparisons from Proust sprang readily to his lips, although the social standing of some of the women optimistically found to resemble the Duchesse de Guermantes might have astonished the author. As for Cy’s jeunes filles en fleur! The range of age and experience of those Cy was still able to regard as maidens was indeed remarkable. (Jemima and Cherry, before they left Megalith, might be two examples of that.) Nevertheless Jemima did not really think that Cy had had a romance with Lady Imogen. It was of course hardly a subject on which anyone could be absolutely certain—including, she sometimes thought wryly, Cy himself.

  Yet there had been a fatal air of loss about the house in Hippodrome Square with all its dust and neglect, of a past which had overwhelmed the present and negated the future. Lady Imogen herself was not only a clear loser (that unattractive but evocative modern phrase) but lost beyond rescue. Cy, the ever hopeful and buoyant survivor, thoroughly enjoyed the adventure of rescue (including rescuing himself when times were bad, which had happened more than once in Jemima’s experience). But someone like Lady Imogen, so utterly desolate, no, Jemima did not think that chivalric Cy would have been tempted to roll his eyes in her direction.

  The truth about Lady Imogen’s seeming obliteration from the Faber Secrets Case saga was probably more to do with the unfulfilled nature of some women’s lives in the previous generation, than anything more sinister. Jemima was reminded of the lines of Byron in Don Juan which always irritated her (although naturally she adored Byron):

  Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart

  ’Tis woman’s whole existence.

  Very much not true of Jemima Shore: look how well she had taken Ned’s vanishing! She was now prepared quite happily to devote her evening to reading the Swain Diary with scarcely a thought for the reprobate. But perhaps the lines were true of Imogen Swain and Burgo Smyth.

  “You see, he was the great love of my life.” The words spoken in that forlorn house came back to her. What had happened to Imogen Swain since the time of her affair nearly thirty years ago? She had not remarried but she had brought up two daughters: one a rising actress and the other married to an MP—success stories of a sort if you liked. But Imogen Swain did not seem to enjoy very warm relations with them, if the sharp daughterly voice on the telephone was any clue. Jemima suddenly realised that the drawing-room had contained no recent photographs at all, not even one of her actress daughter at some moment of triumph. Weren’t there any grandchildren? If so, they too were invisible. The daughters remained frozen in time as those dark sullen little girls, looking slightly reluctant in their pretty mother’s arms.

  Burgo Smyth on the other hand had risen up high from being a bright young MP, Parliamentary Private Secr
etary (in other words dogsbody) to the Secretary of State for a ministry long since abolished (perhaps because of its fatal connection to the Faber Secrets Case). In spite of the cloud which that whole affair had undoubtedly cast on his earlier career, Burgo Smyth had emerged as a junior minister in the new Conservative government of 1970. No doubt his strongly pro-European views had been helpful at that juncture. No doubt Burgo Smyth’s particular kind of charismatic charm had been helpful too, as it always would be—or had been at least until the present time.

  Nowadays Burgo Smyth, white haired, well preserved, elegantly tailored, manners as perfect as his suits, was surely the epitome of the British Foreign Secretary: unshakably courteous in the face of his country’s enemies, implacably tough in his country’s interests. Yet as a young man in the early sixties Burgo had exuded an air of vulnerability which appealed to Tory ladies of all ages. It went with a youthful English male’s untidiness set off by his heavy build, his broad shoulders and the thick black hair which to a martinet’s eye was never quite short enough.

  How someone so handsome—and so ruthless, for in Jemima’s opinion no politician rose to the top without ruthlessness—could really be vulnerable was another matter. As ever in politics, image was more important than reality. The Tory ladies, so vital to the party, had believed Burgo Smyth to be vulnerable, in need of loving care. That fact had probably saved him when their menfolk had been inclined secretly to hold his remarkable good looks against him. Those eyelashes! Unsuitable in any male over the age of five! From the press cuttings, Jemima had learned that Burgo Smyth had once been nicknamed the Tories’ Elvis, an image he certainly did not suggest today.

  She pondered once more on the Faber Secrets Case, or the Faber Mystery as it was popularly termed. The Faber Secrets Case could surely be ranked with the Profumo Affair, in terms of the damage to the Tory government of the early sixties. As a result the administration had to endure an embarrassing trial in early 1964. Maybe it was already moribund. Yet the unpleasant mixture of double-dealing and hypocrisy which the trial of Franklyn Faber had revealed, contributed strongly to the government’s defeat in the autumn of that year, quite apart from the dramatic ending of the case itself.

  Of course this Tory defeat was not a disaster for everyone. Various people had had their careers helped by that particular election, not just Harold Wilson, the incoming Labour Prime Minister. One of the others was thirty-one-year-old Burgo Smyth: he lost his seat, and was able to disappear out of the public eye for the next five or six years until he regained it in 1970. For an MP who had been a key witness in an official secrets case, there was a positive benefit to this obscurity.

  The Faber Secrets Case! What a sinister, baffling affair it had been, thought Jemima. And the disappearance of Franklyn Faber—his presumed suicide at such a dramatic moment in his trial—meant that it would never be utterly resolved despite many books written on the subject (and programmes like her own). Had Franklyn Faber really passed on that secret list of armaments for money as the prosecution alleged? Or had he done so for idealistic reasons as the defence firmly stated? Just why did he kill himself—if indeed he had? His friendship with Burgo Smyth, going back to Oxford days, when Franklyn Faber had been an Oxford scholar, now what was the truth of that?

  Jemima poured herself another glass of Chardonnay; somehow the bottle was emptying itself remarkably quickly, as though there were an invisible but drinking ghost beside her. Or perhaps just the spirit of Lady Imogen hovering over her Diary, no mean drinker she, determined to inject her presence into the Faber Mystery even at this late date. In all this, the name of Imogen Swain had never, so far as she knew, appeared. Yet here she was holding in her hand the Diary (with its chic initials) which purported to tell the truth of it all … Or rather one of the Diaries. She had left the others in Hippodrome Square for another occasion, and those letters on their House of Commons’ writing paper as well.

  Time to begin. It seemed appropriate enough, since she was to read of a woman’s passion for a younger man, to put on the first act of Der Rosenkavalier. As Jemima began to read Imogen Swain’s sprawling black handwriting, the sensual post-coital music of the Marschallin and Oktavian (Lotte Lehmann and Sena Jurinac, restored to life by CD) filled the flat. It was music which Ned also loved … But it didn’t do to think about that …

  The first entry in the Diary was fairly short. But for Imogen Swain and Burgo Smyth at this stormy moment in their lives, the background of Der Rosenkavalier did indeed seem well chosen.

  “February 3. Bur came round after vote. We had cocoa for hours. Then more cocoa. Bur wonderful. Ecstasy etc. (Tee in country, good.)”

  Cocoa? Ecstasy from cocoa? Ah yes, lovers’ code. All lovers had them. To Jemima, Lady Imogen’s code had something rather pathetic about it, nursery talk. However, what would Lady Imogen make of her, Jemima’s code … Let that thought drop too and back to the Diary.

  “Made stupid scene when he said he had to go. Said stupid things. Me: ‘You don’t like me as much. I’m getting old.’ Cried. Bur: ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. Just remember that.’ More cocoa. Ecstasy.

  “Bur really had to go. In court tomorrow. Will get me a ticket but better if I go with Su. Girl friends more respectable. All that about F.F. is awful. Poor Bur. But can’t worry too much when we’re so happy. He’s never loved anyone like me, not Tee, not anyone.

  Tee. That’s just because he thought an MP should be married. I’m the first woman he’s ever really loved. He never understood about loving women before he loved me. His shady past as we call it!”

  Jemima skipped quickly over a less ardent day.

  “Talk to Nanny about Mill and The Lies. Mill tells lies, then gets furious if she’s caught out. N says Mill ‘a little show-off’. Always wanting attention. Mill jealous of poor baby Ol, always so good and sweet, never any trouble. Even when Ol has one of her black clouds, she just doesn’t speak. How unlike Mill! Me: ‘Well, Nanny, give her plenty of attention then she won’t tell lies.’ ” So that was how an actress was born, thought Jemima, out of a neglectful mother and an unpleasant Nanny, to say nothing of a jealous older sister syndrome.

  “February 5. Bur in court giving his story. Looked so handsome. Heart swelled. Couldn’t help thinking about cocoa—wicked with that awful old judge peering round. Not allowed to meet for lunch though. Bur: ‘Unwise’. Promised to come round later for cocoa if Tee doesn’t come up. (Typical Tee! Not interested in seeing Bur in court.) Su maddening at lunch. So much for girl friends! Had forgotten about her old friendship with Tee (school). Told me quite unnecessary story about Bur and Tee being so happy together in the country.”

  But the evidence, thought Jemima. Ah, here Imogen Swain did get on to the appearance of Franklyn Faber in the dock. This was more like it:

  “Bur says F.F. could ruin him. Political death, he says, if things come out. Always looks so sandy for a villain, hate white eyelashes in a man. Nonsense to say Bostonians are more English than American—that’s what he thinks. Looked at him hard, willing him. Don’t ruin my Bur. Otherwise, says Bur, boot could be on the other foot. Political death all round. Wore my navy-blue Dior which Bur—” But Jemima skipped quickly over the details of what Lady Imogen had worn.

  Burgo Smyth had told his mistress that Franklyn Faber could ruin him. That it would be political death. What did that mean? Beyond the obvious fact that Franklyn Faber’s evidence had been crucial to Burgo Smyth’s survival as a politician. In the box, Faber had denied Burgo’s foreknowledge of the use to which he would put the document. They were old friends, but not conspirators. That was all. “ ‘Otherwise’, ” says Bur, “ ‘boot could be on the other foot’ ” and “ ‘Political death all round’.” A threat? Threatening someone with “political death,” i.e., permanent exclusion from the world of politics, was hardly the same as threatening them with actual death, was it? Although some dedicated politicians might not agree. The scrappy Diary simply did not make it clear what had been meant.


  Jemima flipped forward the light golden-edged pages. There were a great many details about interior decoration, fifties style. Lady Imogen’s house was generally deemed to be ravishing (“pale pink swags in my bedroom a triumph” was a typical entry) and the houses of her friends rather less so (“Laura’s dining-room dragged paint positively dull …”) Poor Laura, lucky Imogen. Jemima passed over all this as quickly as possible, merely marking that the present dilapidated state of Hippodrome Square gave little clue to the fact that its owner had once been preoccupied by triumphant pink swags and positively interesting dragged paint.

  A certain amount of the Diary was also occupied by the somewhat tedious problems of Nanny, who sounded a real old-fashioned nightmare, with Bad Millie the little show-off and Good Olga the little angel (with occasional black clouds). There were children’s parties to which Lady Imogen generally sent the nanny, but at one of these, to which she did actually escort her own children, the Smyth twins featured. “Terribly plain,” was the uncharitable comment, “Just like Tee.” There were also adult social events, including Imogen Swain’s own dinner-parties, and outings with other men who courted her. If Lady Imogen was a widow (there was the occasional reference to “poor Robin”), she was evidently a merry one. And the Diary ended, by chance, two days before the date on which Franklyn Faber vanished.

  Otherwise Lady Imogen’s absolute physical obsession with Burgo Smyth permeated the Diary. “Cocoa with Bur” (or the lack of it) meant that any day was either “wonderful” or “miserable” (sometimes even more strongly “bloody day”). Yet the sheer concentrated focus of her feelings appeared to have lulled Burgo into a sense of false security about his mistress’s discretion. Because nothing mattered to her except him, Burgo had trusted Imogen not to betray him. On the evidence before Jemima, he had not been entirely wise to do so. He clearly did not know that Imogen kept a diary.