Barbara Taylor Bradford - A Woman of Substance

Emma held up her hand, utterly exhausted, unable to hear any more. ‘Never mind, Gaye. I’ll play it later. I know quite enough already!’

She stood up and walked across the room to the window, erect and composed, though her steps were slow and dragged wearily across the thick carpet. She moved the curtains slightly. It had started to snow. The crystal flakes fell in glittering white flurries, swirling and eddying in the wind, brushing up against the window and coating it with a light film as delicate and as fine as white lace. But the flakes were rapidly melting under the bright sun, running in rivulets down the glass and turning into drizzle before they reached the ground. Emma looked down. Far below her the traffic moved in slow unending lines up and down Park Avenue and the scene was strangely remote. And everything was hushed in the room, as if the entire world had stopped and was silent, stilled for ever.

She pressed her aching head against the window and closed her eyes and thought of her two sons, of all her children, but mostly of her adored Robin, her favourite son. Robin, who had become her antagonist after they had clashed a few years before about a take-over bid for the chain of stores. A bid which came from out of the blue and which she did not want to even discuss, never mind consider. When she had refused to talk to the conglomerate involved, he had been vociferous in his condemnation of her, exclaiming angrily that she did not want to sell because she did not want to relinquish her power. She had met resentment from him in such virulent proportions that she was at first incredulous and then truly infuriated. What nerve, what gall, she had thought at the time, that he would dare to dictate to her about her business. One in which he did not have the slightest interest, except for the money it brought him. Robin the handsome, the dashing, the brilliant Member of Parliament. Robin with his long-suffering wife, his mistresses, his rather questionable male friends, and his taste for high living. Yes, Robin was the instigator of this deadly little plot, of that she was quite sure.

Kit, her eldest son, did not have the imagination or the nerve to promulgate so nefarious a scheme. But what he lacked in imagination he made up for in plodding diligence and stubbornness and he was uncommonly patient. Kit could wait years for anything he truly wanted, and she had always known he wanted the stores. But he had never had any aptitude for retailing, and long ago, when he was still young, she had manoeuvred him into Harte Enterprises, steered him towards the woollen mills in Yorkshire, which he ran with a degree of efficiency. Yes, Kit could always be manoeuvred, and no doubt Robin is doing just that, she thought contemptuously.

She contemplated her three daughters and her mouth twisted into a grim smile as she considered Edwina, the eldest, the first born of all her children. She had worked like a drudge and fought like a tigress for Edwina when she was still only a girl herself, for she had loved Edwina with all her heart. And yet she had always known that Edwina had never truly felt the same way about her, oddly distant as a little girl, remote in her youth, and that remoteness had turned into real coldness in later years. Edwina had allied herself with Robin at the time of the take-over bid, backing him to the hilt. Undoubtedly she was now his chief ally in this perfidious scheme. She found it hard to believe that Elizabeth, Robin’s twin, would go along with them, and yet perhaps she would. Beautiful, wild, untameable Elizabeth, with her exquisite features and beguiling charm and her penchant for expensive husbands, expensive clothes, and expensive travel. No amount of money was ever enough to satisfy her and she needed it as constantly and as desperately as Robin.

Daisy was the only one of whom she was sure, because she knew that of all her children Daisy truly loved her. Daisy was not involved in this scheme of things, because she would never be a party to a conspiracy engineered by her brothers and sisters to slice up the Harte holdings. Apart from her love and her loyalty, Daisy had the utmost respect for her and faith in her judgement. Daisy never questioned her motives or decisions, because she recognized that they were generated by a sense of fair play, and were based entirely on judicious planning.

Daisy was her youngest child, and as different in looks and character from Emma as the others were, but she was closely bound to her mother and they cared for each other with a deep and powerful love that bordered on adoration. Daisy was all sweetness and gentleness, fine and honourable and good. At times, in the past, Emma had mused on Daisy’s intrinsic purity and honesty and worried about it, believing her to be too open and soft for her own safety. Emma had reasoned that her goodness could only make her dangerously vulnerable. But, eventually, she had begun to comprehend that there was a deep and strong inner core in Daisy that was tenacious. In her own way she could be as implacable as Emma, and she was unshakeable in her beliefs, brave and courageous in her actions, and steadfast in her loyalties. Emma had finally recognized that it was Daisy’s very goodness that protected her. It enfolded her like a shining and impenetrable sheath of chain mail and so made her incorruptible and inviolate against all.

And the others know that, Emma thought, as she continued to gaze out at the skyline of Manhattan, her heart flooded with despair. She was still shaken; however, the stunned feeling that she had been bludgeoned about her head and her body was slowly dissipating. She discovered, too, that although she had been thunderstruck initially, this reaction was also a passing thing. She actually felt no sense of surprise now at Gaye’s story. It was not that she had ever anticipated these actions of her children, for in all truth she had not. But few things came as a surprise to Emma any more and in her wisdom, understanding, and experience of life, family treachery was not surprising to her at all.

Emma had come to believe long ago that ties of blood did not assure fidelity or love. It’s not true that blood is thicker than water, she thought, except in Daisy’s case. She really is part of me. She remembered a conversation she had once had with her banker, Henry Rossiter. It was years ago now, but it came back to her quite strongly, each nuance so clear it might have taken place only yesterday. He had said grimly that Daisy was like a dove that had been flung into a nest of vipers. Emma had shuddered with revulsion at his savage analogy. To dispel the hideous image he had conjured up before her eyes, she had told him that he was being melodramatic and over-imaginative, and she had laughed, so that he would not observe her true reactions. Now on this January day, in her seventy-ninth year, she recalled Henry’s words, which had been so ominous, as she contemplated the first four children she had borne and raised, and who had turned on her. A nest of vipers indeed, she thought.

She turned away from the window abruptly and went back to her desk. She sat down and her unflickering eyes rested on that vile tape for a moment, and then she lifted her briefcase on to the desk, opened it, and dropped the tape into it without further comment.

Gaye had been watching with some consternation, her face grave. She was disturbed by Emma’s appearance. Her countenance was now glazed over by a kind of hard grimness, and she looked haggard and drawn. The fine bones of her face, always very prominent, were so gaunt and close to the surface of her skin they appeared almost fleshless. Her naturally pale face was ashen. The spots of rouge stood out like raw smudges on her cheeks, and her lips had turned livid under the gloss of the red lipstick. Emma’s wide-set green eyes, usually so clear and so brilliant and so comprehending, were now clouded with dark pain and disillusionment and the agony of fully acknowledged betrayal. To Gaye her face had taken on the overtones of a death mask.