A Woman of Substance (96 page)

Blackie smiled at her fondly. ‘You’re undoubtedly the most doting grandmother I’ve ever seen,’ he remarked with a chuckle. ‘And as for the wee one, why, she’s become your shadow.’

‘I suppose we do seem like an odd couple, the old woman and the five-year-old, but we understand each other.’ She turned back to look at the child and her face softened. ‘All my dreams and hopes and expectations are centred in her, Blackie. She is my future.’

And yet, the order of the acts has been schemed and plotted, and nothing can avert the final curtain’s fall.

I stand alone. All else is swamped by Pharisaism.

To live life to the end is not a childish task.

—B
ORIS
P
ASTERNAK
,
Doctor Zhivago

Emma sat at her desk in the lovely, upstairs parlour at Pennistone Royal, going over the legal documents spread out before her, her sharp eyes flicking swiftly across the pages. She eventually nodded with satisfaction, returned the papers to her briefcase, snapped it shut, and placed it on the floor next to the desk. Half smiling, she stood up and glided over to a small Georgian table, where she paused briefly to pour herself a sherry. She carried it to the fireplace and stood as usual with her back to the flames, endeavouring to warm her icy limbs.

Emma Harte Lowther Ainsley was seventy-eight years old. At the end of April, just a month away, she would celebrate her seventy-ninth birthday. And yet in old age, as in youth, her looks were still so arresting they startled with their vividness and clarity. Years before, she had stopped tinting her hair and it was a blaze of pure silver around her oval face, immaculately coiffeured and waved, the prominent widow’s peak protruding on to her wide brow as dramatically as always. Those once incomparable green eyes seemed smaller, hooded now by the ancient wrinkled lids, and they were more penetratingly observing than ever, and they missed nothing. Her face was lined and scored by the years, there were folds and creases in her neck, but her excellent bone structure had not blurred with time and her pink-and-white complexion was as translucent as it had been when she was a young woman. Her adherence to a simple diet had enabled her to keep her slender figure: she easily passed for a woman in her early sixties, without consciously wishing to do so, for vanity had never been one of her frailties.

This evening she wore a stunning black chiffon gown by Balmain, cut on loose flowing lines like a kaftan and with long wide sleeves. Emeralds threw off prisms of intense colour at her neck and ears and on her narrow wrists, and the huge square-cut McGill emerald blazed like green fire on her small
left hand. In the past ten years she had acquired a different kind of beauty, a beauty that was austere and autocratic, and she looked exactly what she had become—a woman of immense power and substance. She was the true matriarch in every sense, and if she was demanding and imperious, she was also understanding, and even her enemies grudgingly acknowledged she was one of the most extraordinary women of her time. Eleven years older than the century, there was almost nothing she had not seen or experienced. She was a living legend.

She took a sip of the sherry, turned and placed the glass on the mantelshelf, and looked down into the fire reflectively, musing on the evening that stretched ahead. Her children and her grandchildren had all arrived, either last night or earlier that day, summoned by her to Pennistone Royal, ostensibly for a family weekend after her bout of pneumonia, but in actuality for the confrontation she had been planning for several weeks. Her face changed, and the light in her eyes dulled as she thought wearily of her children or, more accurately, of the first four she had borne—Edwina, Kit, Robin, and Elizabeth. The plotters caught red-handed in their scheming, but as yet unaware that she had been apprised of their duplicity and disloyalty, or that she had already circumvented them.

When her secretary, Gaye, had revealed her children’s plotting to her in New York in January, Emma had been shocked. But she had not permitted emotions to obscure intelligence, for it was her vivid intelligence which had saved Emma from disaster many times in her life. She had immediately seen everything with objectivity and without sentiment, and she had moved with speed and with consummate resourcefulness, as was her way when she was facing opponents. Whilst they were still fumbling around, inept in their intriguing, she had taken steps to render them powerless against her.

Emma shook her head sadly. She had lost the taste for battle after she had taken over the
Yorkshire Morning Gazette
, and had buried the sword years ago. She found it regrettable that her children had forced her to take it up again to protect all
that which she had so doggedly built up over sixty long years of purpose and sacrifice. The scene which would be enacted that evening was one she did not relish, but her business and the dynasty she had founded must be preserved.

The door opened and Paula came in, interrupting Emma’s ruminations. Paula halted in the doorway, staring at Emma. She’s up to something, Paula thought. Despite Grandy’s reassurances to the contrary, this weekend was not planned for the reasons she gave me. She’s about to do battle. I know that look in her eyes only too well.

‘Why, Grandy, you look absolutely fabulous,’ Paula exclaimed. She kissed Emma and stood away, her expression admiring. ‘You’re really going to knock their eyes out in that gown and with your jewels.’

‘I wonder,’ Emma said. Her eyes settled on her favourite grandchild, became softer, and the obdurate look disappeared from her face. She nodded approvingly. Paula wore a deep violet-blue silk evening dress that perfectly matched the colour of her eyes and enhanced the translucency of her skin. Her coal-black hair tumbled loosely around her face, giving her a vulnerable quality that touched Emma. She said. ‘You look perfectly lovely, Paula. Like a bit of spring sky.’

‘Thank you, Grandy.’ Paula walked over to the Georgian table and filled a glass with white wine. ‘But just wait until you see Emily. She looks gorgeous in your red chiffon dress and diamond earrings. I noticed her mother eyeing those, and quite covetously.’

‘Elizabeth always was acquisitive,’ Emma said dryly, and picked up her glass of sherry. She took a sip and went on, ‘I suppose they have all assembled by now and are waiting for me to come down. Riddled with curiosity to see how the old woman is holding up.’ She laughed cynically. ‘I really think they thought I was going to kick the bucket this time. But I’m not pushing up daisies yet and it will be a long time before I do.’

Paula said, ‘Yes, they’re slowly straggling into the drawing room, where Uncle Blackie is holding court. It doesn’t seem possible he’s eighty-two and still going strong. He’s a miracle, isn’t he?’

‘He is indeed,’ Emma said. She was filled with a rush of warmth as she thought of Blackie. They had been friends for sixty-four years and he had always been there when she had needed him. ‘My dearest friend,’ Emma added almost to herself, and went on, ‘Has Jim arrived yet?’

‘Yes, he has. The aunts and uncles looked positively flabbergasted to see a
Fairley
in this house, and for a family gathering, no less. Especially Uncle Robin.’

‘I’m not surprised. He’s not particularly enamoured of Jim, you know. He thinks I’ve given him too much power in the newspaper company, that I let him have his head. I do, to a certain extent. But I’m not going to engage a man to run my papers and then manacle his hands.’ Emma’s eyes turned flinty. ‘Ever since your Uncle Robin has been Member of Parliament for South-East Leeds he has held the misconception that my papers should be vehicles for his socialistic viewpoints. But I’ve never espoused his politics and I have no intentions of doing so now. He misguidedly blames Jim for the Tory policy of the papers, not appreciating that I dictate policy. I always have and I always will. Anyway, Robin’s opinions don’t really interest me,’ she finished dismissively. ‘He’s too damned left-wing for my taste.’

‘Robin’s political pholosophy and his way of life don’t quite dovetail, though,’ Paula remarked. ‘Share and share alike is his motto to his constituents. But that only holds good as long as he doesn’t have to share what
he
has. He’s a hypocrite and an opportunist, if you want my opinion.’

Emma threw back her head and laughed uproariously. ‘Enough of Robin. Has Jim spoken to your father?’

‘He’s doing that right now. They’re in the library together. Jim said he’d like to see you privately before dinner, Grandy. Is that all right?’

‘Of course. He can come up shortly. I want to see your Aunt Edwina first, but what I have to say to her won’t take long. Now come, darling, sit here with me for a few minutes. There’s plenty of time, and anyway I’m in no hurry to go down.’ She smiled a trifle maliciously. ‘Let them wait.’

Paula joined Emma on the sofa, her violet eyes, so like Paul McGill’s, clouding over. ‘Is there something wrong, Grand
mother? You sound serious.’

‘No,’ Emma said. ‘Don’t look so worried.’ She took Paula’s long tapering hand in her small strong one and her eyes swept over her granddaughter’s face searchingly. ‘You are happy now, aren’t you?’

‘Oh yes, Grandy! Very happy.’ Paula’s face was filled with radiance. ‘I do love Jim so much. Thank you for reversing your decision, for giving us permission to marry. You’ve changed my whole life, given me the one thing I truly want.’

‘I’m so glad, so very glad, darling,’ Emma murmured. ‘Your happiness is more important to me than anything else in this whole world. It was a small gift really, in view of what you mean to me. As I told you last night, I decided it was ridiculous, and yes, even wicked, to let the pride and bitterness of an old woman get in the way of your heart’s desire, your future.’ She looked deeply into Paula’s eyes. ‘The Fairley family have touched my life with pain since I was a girl of fourteen. Perhaps now the last of the Fairleys will touch it with joy.’ Emma shook her head bemusedly. ‘It’s odd, when I think about it. I went out of my way to protect my children from the Fairley family, to keep them well out of their orbit, and yet it never occurred to me to protect my grandchildren from them, particularly you. I suppose because there weren’t any Fairleys left, except Jim.’

‘And yet you gave him a job with the newspaper company, Grandy.’

Emma laughed wryly. ‘Yes, that I did. I must admit when he applied for the position I was thrown off balance, and then my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see for myself what he was like. When he came up from Fleet Street for the interview I was impressed with his ability, despite my terrible prejudice. I knew he was the right man, the best of all the candidates. It would have been self-defeating to pass him over.’ Emma’s mouth twitched with amusement. ‘I also suspect I derived a great deal of satisfaction at the idea of a Fairley working for me. But in my wildest imaginings I never thought you two would meet, particularly since you have nothing to do with the publishing side of Harte Enterprises.’ Now Emma leaned forward. ‘How
did
you meet him? I’ve
often wondered.’

‘I didn’t meet him in Leeds, Grandy, if that makes you feel any better. I met him on a plane coming back from Paris. I’d been covering the fashion shows for the stores, and he’d been on holiday.’ Paula grinned. ‘Actually he’d been eyeing me at the airport, and he went out of his way to get the seat next to me. I was aware of him and attracted to him at once. But when he told me his name, and who he worked for, I almost had a heart attack. It’s no great secret you’ve always hated the Fairleys, and I knew you wouldn’t approve if I went out with him. A Fairley in your employ is one thing, courting your grandchild quite another.’

Emma gave Paula a penetrating look. ‘You did go out with him, though, despite your misgivings. But then you’re as stubborn and as self-willed as I am, I suppose.’

Paula returned Emma’s look steadily. Just as you intended me to be, she thought. Aware of Emma’s continuing interest, she said, ‘Looking back, I think I fell in love with Jim the second time we met. He asked me to have dinner with him the following evening. I knew I shouldn’t, that it was asking for trouble, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see him again. And in all fairness to Jim, he didn’t know who I was. I had been rather evasive about myself. We dined at the Mirabelle and your favourite waiter, Louis, spotted me. Naturally he made quite a fuss of me and sang your praises to high heaven. He wanted to know when you would be in town and dining at the restaurant again. Jim became inquisitive about you. He wanted to know who my famous grandmother was.’

As she imagined the scene, Emma’s eyes twinkled. ‘And what did you say?’

Laughter bubbled in Paula. ‘I was a bit naughty, really. I couldn’t resist saying, “My grandmother is the chairman of the board of the Yorkshire Consolidated Newspaper Company and your boss.” Jim almost fell out of the chair. He stared at me dumbfounded and then he remarked about us both having a widow’s peak, and said that you must have looked like me when you were young. I know you don’t think we resemble each other physically, but I do. I’ve seen all those old photographs of you, and the likeness is there, Grandy.’

‘Your Uncle Blackie would agree with you, but I’m not so sure. Perhaps because I have always thought you take after your grandfather in appearance. Anyway, what happened after you had dinner together?’

‘I went on seeing Jim, against my better judgement. We couldn’t resist each other. When I realized how involved we were becoming, how serious Jim’s intentions were, I pulled away. You know the rest.’

Emma looked down at her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘So it was a chance meeting. A meeting that would have happened whether Jim worked for me or not. I suppose not even I can control events. It was meant to be, perhaps.’

‘I think it was, Grandy. Jim is my destiny and I am his.’

Emma started and gave Paula a curious look. ‘It’s strange you should say that. Your grandfather told me I was
his
destiny fifty years ago.’

There was a knock on the door before Paula could respond, and Edwina walked in peremptorily, carrying a glass of scotch. ‘You wanted to see me, Mother,’ she said coldly, and gave Paula a curt, unsmiling nod.

‘I did indeed, Edwina. I see you already have a drink, so come and sit down. Please excuse us, Paula dear. Tell Jim I’ll see him shortly.’

‘Yes, Grandy,’ Paula murmured, and left.

Edwina, Dowager Countess of Dunvale, swept majestically into the parlour and seated herself opposite Emma, her antipathy thinly veiled. She stared at her mother, waiting expectantly, and there was a belligerent look on her face.

Emma regarded Edwina with quickening interest. She thought: If Adele Fairley had lived to be Edwina’s age this is exactly how she would have looked. Edwina was sixty-two and she had not worn as well as her mother. Her exquisite blonde beauty had been too delicate to weather the years, and her looks had faded long ago. Her hair was still a shimmering silver-gold, but its colour now came from a bottle, and the once-lovely argent eyes were dimmed and heavily lidded.