Political Death by Antonia Fraser Page B

Madre still alive. We were so worried about her. I remember Randall making some joke: "Your ma's love letters, anything red-hot there? Maybe they are worth a packet." It seemed like a joke at the time. He even said: "Come on, let's read them."
    "And did he? Did he read them?" The whole conversation, with Imogen Swain dead, had a tasteless ring: the three of them in Randall Birley's dressing-room late at night, joking about that poor woman's long gone love affair. One had to remember, as Millie Swain had pointed out, that Millie had believed her mother to be alive at that point. And that it was late. And the tension of the last preview... Wait a moment, thought Jemima as her investigative mind took over. "How did Randall Birley know the packet contained your mother's love letters? You told him? And Hattie, too, I suppose."
    "No, of course he didn't read them. And yes, I did tell him, lightheartedly if you like. As for Hattie, no, I didn't tell her, though it's possible she might have heard. Hattie is always hanging about, she's like that. After all I had to explain where I had been, why I'd come back. All of that. I didn't mention the Diaries. Everything I said was light. But no, of course we didn't read them. Hattie just took the bag away and locked it up. She always seemed so reliable.
    "Cut to this afternoon," Millie went on. "I wanted it back, the whole caboodle. We had to decide what to do, Olga and I. The whole thing about the Hippodrome Square house had made it very complicated. Do you know that Madre actually left it to him, our noble Foreign Secretary, Burgo Smyth? Can you imagine? No more welcome to him than to us."
    "Yes, I can imagine," said Jemima carefully. She did not think it necessary -just yet to mention her encounter with the Smyths outside Number Nine Hippodrome Square, at which Sarah Smyth had broken the news of the embarrassing legacy.
    "No doubt it will all be fixed with great discretion. One of the good things about the Establishment, you could say, if you're on the receiving end. Burgo Smyth will resign his rights, waive the bequest or whatever it is you do. No big deal for him! He hardly needs it financially and politically he doesn't need it at all. As a matter of fact, Madre only left it to him quite recently, when she started to live in the past, as it were, so I suppose we could have fought it, unsound mind and all that. Thank God we didn't have to. All this will be fixed, presumably when the election is over." Millie Swain gave a rather sweet smile, a relief from the fierceness with which she had been speaking.
    "Let's hope he's out of office," she said. "Unlike Olga and Holy Harry, I am not a Conservative, Jemima." It did not seem the right moment to point out that since Jemima had seen Millie demonstrating here there and everywhere against the government, she'd had some inkling that this was the case.
    "After that, Olga and I will get what we always thought we were going to get, half each. We'll sell that house, sell the past with it as far as I'm concerned, just as we'd always planned. Quite welcome in my case: I don't own my own flat. Even more welcome to Olga. Says something about wanting more children before it's too late, but Holy Harry is the sort of person who thinks it's socially irresponsible to have more children than you can afford to bring up properly. She's always telling me they're absolutely desperate, what with Elfi's private school naturally and Holy Harry not being the kind of MP who gathers directorships like nuts in May."
    "Why not? Everyone else seems to."
    "Well, would you want Holy Harry on your board to enhance the image of your company? He'd spend his entire time worrying his pretty head about the pensions of the workers, a sort of Robert Maxwell in reverse, and I don't somehow think that's what Tory directors are for."
    Jemima laughed. "I've not met him. I'm going round there tomorrow."
    "Ah. You may find yourself breaking the news to Olga: we'll see. The thing is that