A Woman of Substance. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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