Barbara Taylor Bradford - A Woman of Substance

‘Inventory my eye and Peggy Martin!’ Emma exclaimed, and she thought to herself: I can read Paula like a book. Of course it’s Fairley. Aloud she said, ‘I do know that you are seeing him, Paula.’

‘Not any more!’ Paula cried, her eyes flashing. ‘I stopped seeing him months ago!’ As she spoke she instantly recognized her mistake. Her grandmother had so easily trapped her into admitting the one thing she had vowed she would never admit to her.

Emma laughed softly, but her gaze was steely. ‘Don’t be so upset. I’m not angry. Actually I never was. I only wondered why you never told me. You usually tell me everything.’

‘At first I didn’t tell you because I know how you feel about the Fairleys. That vendetta of yours! And I didn’t want to upset you. God knows, you’ve had enough trouble in you life, without me causing you any more. When I stopped seeing him there seemed to be no point in bringing up something that was finished. I didn’t want to disturb you unnecessarily, that’s all.’

‘The Fairleys don’t upset me,’ Emma snapped. ‘And in case you’ve forgotten, I employ Jim Fairley, my dear. I would hardly have him running the Yorkshire Consolidated Newspaper Company if I didn’t trust him.’ Emma gave Paula a searching glance and asked quickly, curiously, ‘Why did you stop seeing him?’

‘Because I … we … he … because,’ Paula began, and hesitated, wondering whether she dare go on. She did not want to hurt her grandmother. But in her crafty way she’s known about our relationship all the time, Paula thought. The girl drew in her breath and, knowing herself to be trapped, said, ‘I stopped seeing Jim because I found myself getting involved. I knew if I continued to see him it would only mean eventual heartache for me, and for him, and pain for you, too.’ She paused and looked away and then continued with the utmost quiet: ‘You know you wouldn’t accept a Fairley in the family, Grandmother.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Emma said in a voice that was hardly audible. So it went that far, she thought. She felt unutterably weary. Her cheekbones ached and her eyes were scratchy from fatigue. She longed to close her eyes, to be done with this silly and useless discussion. Emma tried to smile at Paula, but her mouth was parched and her lips would not move. Her heart constricted and she was filled with an aching sadness, a sadness she thought had been expunged years ago. The memory of him was there then, so clearly evoked that it bit like acid into her brain. And Emma saw Edwin Fairley as vividly as if he was standing before her. And in his shadow there was Jim Fairley, his spitting image. Edwin Fairley, usually so elusive in her memory, was caught and held and all the pain he had caused her was there, a living thing. A feeling of such oppression overcame her she could not speak.

Paula was watching her grandmother intently and she was afraid for her when she saw the sad expression on that severe face. There was an empty look in Emma’s eyes and, as she stared into space, her mouth tightened into a harsh and bitter line. Damn the Fairleys, all of them, Paula cursed. She leaned forward and took hold of her grandmother’s hand anxiously. ‘It’s over, Grandy. It wasn’t important. Honestly. I’m not upset about it. And I will go to Paris, Grandy! Oh, Grandy darling, don’t look like that, please. I can’t bear it.’ Paula smiled shakily, concerned, afraid, conciliatory. These mingled emotions ran together and underlying them all was a sickening fury with herself for permitting her grandmother to goad her into this ridiculous conversation, one she had been avoiding for months.

After a short time the haunted expression faded from Emma’s face. She swallowed hard and took control of herself, exercising that formidable iron will that was the root of her power and her strength. ‘Jim Fairley’s a good man. Different from the others …’ she began. She stopped and sucked in her breath. She wanted to proceed, to tell Paula she could resume the friendship with Jim Fairley. But she could not. Yesterday was now. The past was immutable.

‘Don’t let’s talk about the Fairleys. I said I would go to Paris,’ Paula cried, clinging to her grandmother’s hand. ‘You know best and perhaps I should look the store over anyway.’

‘I think you must go over there, Paula, to see what’s going on.’

‘I’ll go as soon as we get back to London,’ Paula said swiftly.

‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ Emma agreed rather brusquely, as glad as Paula to change the subject, but also instinctively pressed for time, as she had been all of her life. Time was a precious commodity to Emma. Time had always been evaluated as money and she did not want to waste it now, dwelling on the past, resurrecting painful events that had taken place some sixty years ago.

Emma said, ‘I think I must go directly to the office when we arrive in New York. Charles can take the luggage to the apartment, after he’s dropped us off. I’m worried about Gaye, you see. Have you noticed anything peculiar when you’ve spoken to her on the phone?’

Paula was sitting back in her seat, relaxed and calm again, relieved that the subject of Jim Fairley had been dropped. ‘No, I haven’t. What do you mean?’

‘I can’t pin it down to anything specific,’ Emma continued thoughtfully, ‘but instinctively I know something is dreadfully wrong. She has sounded edgy during all of our conversations. I noticed it the day she arrived from London and called me at Sitex. Haven’t you detected anything in her voice?’

‘No. But then she has been speaking mostly to you, Grandmother. You don’t think there is some trouble with the business in London, do you?’ Paula asked, alarmed.

‘I sincerely hope not,’ Emma said, ‘that’s all I need after the Sitex situation.’ She drummed her fingers on the table for a few moments and then looked out of the window, her mind awash with thoughts of her business and her secretary, Gaye Sloane. In her sharp and calculating way she enumerated all of the things that could have gone wrong in London and then gave up. Anything might have happened and it was futile to speculate and hazard wild guesses. That, too, was a waste of time.

She turned to Paula and gave her a wry little smile. ‘We’ll know soon enough, my dear. We should be landing shortly.’

The American corporate offices of Harte Enterprises took up six floors in a modern office block on Park Avenue in the Fifties. If the English department-store chain Emma Harte had founded years ago was the visible symbol of her success, then Harte Enterprises was the living heart and sinew. An enormous octopus of an organization, with tentacles that stretched half around the world, it controlled clothing factories, woollen mills, real estate, a retail merchandise company, and newspapers in England, plus large blocks of shares in other major English companies.

As the original founder of this privately held corporation, Emma still owned 100 per cent of the shares of Harte Enterprises, and it operated solely under her aegis, as did the chain of department stores that bore her name, with branches in the North of England, London, Paris, and New York. Harte Stores was a public company, trading on the London Stock Exchange, although Emma was the majority shareholder and chairman of the board. The diversified holdings of Harte Enterprises in America included real estate, a Seventh Avenue dress-manufacturing company, and other stock investments in American industries.

Whilst Harte Stores and Harte Enterprises were worth millions of pounds, they represented only a portion of her fortune. Apart from owning 40 per cent of the stock in the Sitex Oil Corporation of America, she had vast holdings in Australia, including real estate, mining, coal fields, and one of the largest fully operating sheep stations in New South Wales. In London, a small but rich company called E.H. Incorporated controlled her personal investments and real estate.