A Woman of Substance

FOUR (#ulink_04b52da7-5dab-5e37-865e-4327d32bfa0e)

Emma lived. Everyone said it was a miracle that a woman of seventy-eight years of age could survive yet another attack of bronchial pneumonia and the varied complications that had accompanied it this time. They also expressed amazement at her incredible recuperative ability which had enabled her to leave the London Clinic at the end of three weeks. Emma, when these comments were repeated to her, said nothing. She simply smiled enigmatically and thought to herself: Ah, but they don’t realize that the will to live is the strongest force in the world.

After two days of enforced rest at her house in Belgravia she impatiently left her bed and, disregarding the advice of her doctors, went to the store. This was not such a foolish act of defiance as it seemed on the surface, for although she could be empirical she was not reckless and she also knew her own body intimately, could gauge her strength with accuracy, and now she knew herself to be fully recovered. She was greeted warmly by her employees, who for the most part held her in affection. They took her sudden return for granted. It was Paula who hovered nervously around her, cosseting, worried and concerned.

‘I do wish you would stop fussing, darling,’ Emma said crisply as Paula followed her into her office, murmuring something about endangering her health. Emma took off her fur-lined tweed coat. She stood for a few moments warming her hands by the fire and then she walked across the room in her usual energetic way, a buoyant springiness in her step, her carriage perfectly straight and autocratic.

The black waves of shock and despair which had engulfed her after Gaye’s revelations of her children’s plotting had subsided, admittedly slowly and painfully, but they had subsided. The sinister imputations that could be drawn from that damning conversation on the tape, and her acceptance of their treachery, had only served to anneal her mind. She saw things with a cold and clear objectivity, exactly as they were, unclouded by needless emotion. During her illness, as she had drawn upon her iron will, ruthlessly fighting to live, she had come to terms with herself. And a great peace came flowing into her one day like a flood of warm bright light and it gave her solace and renewed inner strength. It was as if her brush with death had reinforced her spirit and her dauntless courage. Her vitality had returned, accompanied now by a quiet calm that surrounded her like a protective shell.

She took up her position behind the great carved Georgian desk, back in command of her domain. She smiled lovingly at Paula. ‘I’m quite recovered, you know,’ she said brightly and reassuringly. And indeed she looked it, although this was partially due to the illusion she had rather cleverly contrived that morning. Noting her pallor and the tired lines around her eyes and mouth as she dressed, she had shunned the dark sombre colours she generally favoured and had selected a bright coral dress from her wardrobe. This was made of fine wool, softly cut with a draped cowl collar that fell in feminine folds around the neck. She was fully aware that the warm colour and the softness of the neckline against her face was flattering, and with a few carefully applied cosmetics she had completed the effect. There was a robust healthy glow about her which Paula did not fail to notice.

Paula realized this was created by artifice to some degree, conscious always of her grandmother’s numerous and varied devices when she wanted to delude. She smiled to herself. Her grandmother could be so crafty sometimes. Yet Paula also sensed true vibrancy in Emma, a new energy and purpose. As she scrutinized her carefully she had to admit that Emma appeared to be her old self. Only more so, she thought, as if she had been totally rejuvenated.

She smiled at her grandmother and said gently, although a little reprovingly, ‘I know you, Grandy. You’ll do far too much. You mustn’t overtax yourself the first day.’

Emma leaned back in her chair, thankful to be alive and on her feet again and capable of returning to her business. She was quite willing to acquiesce to anything at that moment. ‘Oh, I won’t, darling,’ she said quickly. ‘I have a few phone calls to make and some dictation to give Gaye, and that’s about it. I shall be easy on myself. I promise!’

‘All right,’ Paula said slowly, wondering if she really meant what she said. Her grandmother could get caught up in the rush of the day’s activities at the store without thinking. ‘I trust you to keep your promise,’ Paula added, a sober expression on her face. ‘Now I have to go to a meeting with the fashion buyer for the couture department. I’ll pop in and see you later, Grandy.’

‘By the way, Paula, I thought I would go to Pennistone Royal the weekend after next. I hope you can come with me,’ Emma called to her across the room.

Paula stopped at the door and looked back. ‘Of course! I’d love to,’ she cried, her eyes lighting up. ‘When do you intend to leave, Grandy?’

‘A week from tomorrow. Early on Friday morning. But we’ll discuss it later.’

‘Wonderful. After my meeting I’ll clear my desk and cancel my appointments for that day. I have nothing on my schedule that is very important, so I can drive up with you.’

‘Good. Come and have tea with me this afternoon at four o’clock and we can make our plans.’

Paula nodded and left the office, a radiant smile on her face as she thought of the prospects of a weekend in Yorkshire. She was also greatly relieved that her grandmother was being wise enough to prolong her recuperation by going to her country house in the north.

Emma was true to her word. She attended to some of her urgent correspondence, had a brief session with Gaye and also one with David Amory, Daisy’s husband and Paula’s father, who was also the joint managing director of the Harte chain of stores. David was a man Emma admired and trusted implicitly, and who carried the heavy burden of the day-to-day running of the stores. She was making her last telephone call of the afternoon when Paula came into the office carrying the tea tray. She hovered near the door and gave Emma an inquiring look, mouthing silently: ‘Can I come in?’

Emma nodded, motioned for her to enter with an impatient gesture of one hand, and went on talking. ‘Very well, it’s settled then. You will arrive on Saturday. Goodbye.’ She hung up and walked across the room to the fireplace, where Paula was sitting in front of the low table pouring tea.

Emma leaned forward to warm her hands and said, ‘She’s the most bolshy of them all and I wasn’t certain she would accept. But she did.’ Her green eyes gleamed darkly in the firelight and the faint smile on her face was scornful. ‘She had no choice really,’ she murmured to herself as she sat down.

‘Who, Grandy? Who were you talking to?’ Paula asked, passing a cup of tea to her.

‘Thank you, dear. Your Aunt Edwina. She wasn’t sure at first whether or not she could rearrange her plans.’ Emma laughed cynically. ‘However, she thought better of it and decided to come to Pennistone Royal after all. It will be quite a family gathering. They’re all coming.’

Paula’s head was bent over the tea tray. ‘Who, Grandy? What do you mean?’ she asked, momentarily puzzled.

‘Everybody’s coming. Your aunts and uncles and cousins.’

A shadow flitted across Paula’s face. ‘Why?’ she cried with surprise. ‘Why do they all have to come? You know they will make trouble. They always do!’ Her eyes opened widely and real horror registered on her face.

Emma was surprised at Paula’s reaction. She regarded her calmly, but said in a sharp tone, ‘I doubt that! I’m quite positive, in fact, that they are all going to be on their best behaviour.’ An expression resembling a smirk played briefly around Emma’s mouth. She sat back, crossed her legs decisively, and sipped her tea, looking nonchalant and unconcerned. ‘Oh yes, I am absolutely certain of that, Paula,’ she finished firmly, the smirk expanding into a self-confident smile.

‘Oh, Grandy, how could you!’ Paula cried, and the look she gave Emma was reproving. ‘I thought we could look forward to a pleasant, restful weekend.’ She paused and bit her lip. ‘Now it’s all spoiled,’ she went on in an accusatory tone. ‘I don’t mind the cousins, but the others. Ugh! Kit and Robin and the rest of them are almost too much to bear all together.’ She grimaced as she contemplated a weekend with her aunts and uncles.

‘Please trust me, darling,’ Emma said in a soft voice which was so convincing Paula’s disquiet began to subside.

‘Well, all right, if you are happy about it. But it’s so soon after your illness. Do you think you can stand a house full of … of … people? …’ Her voice trailed off lamely and she looked woebegone and suddenly helpless.

‘They’re not people, are they, darling? Surely not. We can’t dismiss them like that. They are my family after all.’

Paula had been staring at the teapot, vaguely disturbed. Now she flashed Emma a swift look, for she had detected that edge of cynicism in her voice. But Emma’s face was bland, revealing nothing. She’s concocting something, Paula thought with some alarm. But she quickly dismissed the idea, chiding herself for being so suspicious. She arranged a sunny smile on her face and said, ‘Well, I’m glad Mummy and Daddy are coming. I don’t seem to have seen much of them for ages, with all my travelling.’ She hesitated, stared at Emma curiously, and then asked hurriedly, ‘Why have you invited all of the family, Grandmother?’

‘I thought it would be pleasant to see all of my children and grandchildren after my illness. I don’t see enough of them, darling,’ she suggested mildly and asked, ‘Now do I?’

As Paula returned her grandmother’s steady gaze she realized, with an unexpected shock, that in spite of her soft voice her grandmother’s eyes were as cold and as hard as the great McGill emerald that glittered on her finger. A flicker of real fear touched Paula’s heart, for she recognized that look. It was obdurate, and also dangerous.

‘No, I don’t suppose you do see much of them, Grandy,’ Paula said, so quietly it was almost a whisper, not daring to probe further and also reluctant to have her suspicions confirmed. And there the conversation was terminated.

A week later, at dawn on Friday morning, they left London for Yorkshire, driving out of the city in a cold drizzling rain. But as the Rolls-Royce roared up the modern motorway that had replaced the old Great North Road they began hitting brighter weather. The rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to filter through the grey clouds. Smithers, Emma’s driver for some fifteen years, knew the road like the palm of his hand, anticipating the bad patches, the twists and the bumps, slowing when necessary, picking up speed when there was a clear smooth stretch of road before them. Emma and Paula chatted desultorily part of the way, but mostly Emma dozed and Paula worried about the forthcoming weekend, which, in spite of her grandmother’s assurances to the contrary, loomed ahead like a nightmare. She gazed dully out of the window, troubled as she reflected on her aunts and uncles.

Kit. Pompous, patronizing and, to Paula, a devious, ambitious man whose ineffable hatred for her was thinly disguised beneath a veneer of assumed cordiality. And he would be accompanied by June, his cold and frigid wife, whom she and her cousin Alexander had gleefully nicknamed ‘December’ when they were children. A chilly, utterly humourless woman who over the years had become an insipid reflection of Kit. And then there was Uncle Robin, a different kettle of fish indeed. Handsome, caustic, smooth-talking, and strangely decadent. She always thought of him as reptilian and dangerous and for all his charm and polish he repelled her. She particularly disliked him because he treated his rather nice wife, Valerie, with an icy scorn, a contempt that bordered on real cruelty. Her Aunt Edwina was something of an unknown quantity to her, for Edwina spent most of her time knee deep in the bogs of Ireland with her horses. Paula remembered her as a forbidding woman, snobbish and dull and sour. Aunt Elizabeth was beautiful, and amusing in a brittle sort of way, yet she could be unpredictable and her skittishness grated on Paula’s nerves.

Paula sighed. A picture of Pennistone Royal formed in her mind’s eye, that lovely old house so full of beauty and warmth which she loved as much as Emma did. She imagined herself riding her horse up on the moors in the brisk clean air, and then quite unexpectedly she saw Jim Fairley’s face. She closed her eyes and her heart clenched. She dare not think of him. She must not think of him. She steeled herself against those turbulent, distressing emotions that whipped through her whenever the memory of him came rushing back.

Paula opened her eyes and looked out of the window, determinedly closing her mind to Jim Fairley. Her love. Her only love. Forbidden to her because of her grandmother’s past. A little later she glanced at her watch. They were already well beyond Grantham heading towards Doncaster, and were making excellent time. The traffic was relatively light because of the early hour. She settled back in her seat and closed her eyes.

Half an hour later Emma stirred and sat up, wide awake and fresh. She moved slightly to look out of the window, smiling quietly to herself. She always knew when she was in Yorkshire. This was where her roots were and her bones responded with that atavistic knowledge and sense of place. Her place. The one place where she truly belonged.

They drove quickly along the motorway, bypassing all the familiar towns. Doncaster, Wakefield, and Pontefract. And finally they were in Leeds. Grey, brooding Leeds, yet powerful and rich, pulsating with vibrant energy, one of the great industrial centres of England with its clothing factories, woollen mills, iron foundries, engineering companies, cement works, and great printing plants. Her city. The seat of her power, the foundation of her success and her great wealth. They passed buildings and factories she owned and the enormous department store that bore her name, slowing down as they threaded their way through the busy morning traffic in the city centre, and then they were out on the open road again heading towards the country.

Within the hour they were pulling up in the cobbled courtyard of Pennistone Royal. Emma practically leapt out of the car. It was bitterly cold and a penetrating wind was blowing down from the moors, yet the sun was a golden orb in a clear cobalt sky and, under the sweep of the wind, the early March daffodils were rippling rafts of bright yellow against the clipped green lawns that rolled down to the lily pond far below the long flagged terrace. Emma drew in a breath of air. It was pungent with the peaty brackenish smell of the moors, the damp earth, and a budding greenness that heralded spring after a hard winter. It had rained the night before and, even though it was noon, dew still clung to the trees and the shrubs, giving them an iridescent quality in the cool northern light.

As she always did, Emma looked up at the house as she and Paula walked towards it. And once more she was deeply moved by its imposing beauty, a beauty that was singularly English, for nowhere else could such a house have flowered so magnificently and so attuned to the surrounding landscape. Its beginnings rooted in the seventeenth century, there was a majestic dignity to the mixture of Renaissance and Jacobean architecture, indestructible and everlasting with its ancient crenellated towers and mullioned leaded windows that glimmered darkly against the time-worn grey stones. But there was a softness to the grandeur and even the protruding gargoyles, weathered by the centuries, were now bereft of their frightening countenances. They did not linger long on the terrace. In spite of the clear bright radiance there was no warmth in the sun, and the wind that blew in across the Dales from the North Sea was tinged with rawness. For all its beauty and spring freshness it was a treacherous day. Emma and Paula moved quickly up the steps, past the topiary hedges silhouetted against the edge of the velvet lawns like proud sentinels from a bygone age.

Before they reached the great oak door, it was flung open. Hilda, the housekeeper, was on the stone steps, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘Oh, madame!’ she cried excitedly, rushing forward to clasp Emma’s outstretched hand. ‘We’ve been so worried about you. Thank goodness you’re better. It’s lovely to have you back. And you, too, Miss Paula.’ She broke into more smiles again and hurried them into the house. ‘Come in, come in, out of the cold.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to be home,’ Emma said as they went into the house. ‘How have you been, Hilda?’

‘Very well, madame. Just worried about you. We all have. Everything is running smoothly here. I’m all prepared for the family. Is Smithers bringing the luggage, madame? I can send Joe down to the car if you think he needs help.’ Words tumbled out of her in her excitement.

‘No, thank you, Hilda. I’m sure Smithers can manage,’ Emma replied. She walked into the middle of the great stone entrance hall and looked around, smiling to herself with pleasure. Her eyes rested on the fine old oak furniture, the tapestries that lined the walls, the huge copper bowl of daffodils and pussy willow on the refectory table.

‘The house looks beautiful, Hilda,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘You’ve done a good job as always.’

Hilda glowed. ‘I have coffee ready, madame, or I can make some tea. But perhaps you’d prefer a sherry before lunch,’ she volunteered. ‘I put your favourite out in the upstairs parlour, madame.’

‘That’s a good idea, Hilda. We’ll go up now. Lunch about one o’clock. Is that all right?’ Emma asked, her foot already on the first step.

‘Of course, madame.’ She hurried off to her duties in the kitchen, humming under her breath, and Paula followed Emma up the soaring staircase, marvelling once more at her grandmother’s vitality.

‘I’ll join you in a moment, Grandy,’ Paula said as they walked down the long corridor leading to various bedrooms and the upstairs parlour. ‘I’d like to freshen up before lunch.’