A Woman of Substance. Barbara Taylor Bradford
her feelings about the older woman. Suspicious, cautious, and wary though she was with everyone, she sometimes found herself admiring Olivia, much against her will. This emotion continually surprised Emma and also vexed her, for her fundamental distrust of the gentry, and the Fairleys in particular, had not abated in the least. So she endeavoured always to suppress the rush of reluctant warmth and friendliness that surfaced whenever she came into contact with Mrs Wainright. And yet, because of Olivia Wainright’s singular and most apparent interest in her, Emma was taking a new pride in her work, and much of the time she was less fearful and resentful than she had been in the past.
Apart from this, when Polly became sick Emma had been given Polly’s duties of attending to Adele Fairley. This close and more familiar contact with her mistress had, in itself, been an influence on Emma, and had also helped to change her life at the Hall to some extent, and for the better. As for Adele, Emma found her spoiled, self-indulgent, extremely demanding of her time and attention, but her unfailing and profound gentleness with the girl outweighed these other characteristics. Then again, Adele’s chronic vagueness, and her perverse disregard of the stringent domestic rules quite common in such a large house, gave Emma autonomy to care for Mrs Fairley as they both deemed fit, and without too much interference from anyone else in the establishment. This new independence, meagre as it actually was, engendered in Emma a sense of freedom, and even a degree of authority that she had not experienced at the Hall before, and it certainly removed her from Murgatroyd’s jurisdiction and foul temper for much of the time.
If Emma looked up to Olivia Wainright, thought her the more superior woman, and, against her volition, secretly adored her, she could not help liking Adele Fairley in spite of what she was. Mainly she felt sorry for her. To Emma she could be forgiven her carelessness and her strange lapses, since Emma considered her to be childlike and, oddly enough, in need of protection in that strange household. Sometimes, to her astonishment, Emma found herself actually excusing Mrs Fairley’s patent obliviousness to the suffering of others less fortunate, for Emma knew instinctively this was not caused by conscious malice or cruelty, but simply emanated from sheer thoughtlessness and lack of exposure to the lives of the working class. Her attitude towards Mrs Fairley was much the same attitude she adopted at home. She took charge. She was even a little bossy at times. But Adele did not seem to notice this, and if she did, she apparently did not mind. Emma alone now took care of her and attended to all her daily needs and comforts. Adele had come to depend on her, and she found Emma indispensable in much the same way Murgatroyd was indispensable, because of the secret supplies of drink he provided.
Between them the two sisters had, in their different ways, shown Emma a degree of kindness and understanding. And whilst this did not entirely assuage the hurt she felt at the humiliations inflicted on her by other members of the family, it made her life at the Hall all that more bearable. But it was one other element, fundamental, cogent, and therefore of crucial importance, that had done the most to bring about the change in Emma’s personality. And this was the consolidation of several natural traits that were becoming the determinative factors in her life – her fierce ambition and her formidable will. Both had converged and hardened into a fanatical sense of purpose that was the driving force behind everything she did. Blackie’s initial stories about Leeds had originally fired her imagination, and on his subsequent visits to the Hall she had assiduously questioned him, and minutely so, about prospects of work there. Constrained, circumspect, and even negative as he was at times, he had unwittingly fostered her youthful dreams of glory, of money, of a better life, and, inevitably, of escape from the village.
And so Emma had come finally to the realization that her life at Fairley Hall was just a brief sojourn to be patiently endured, since it would end one day. She now believed, with a sure and thrusting knowledge, that she would leave when the time was right, and she felt certain this was in the not too distant future. Until then she was not merely marking time, but learning everything she could to prepare herself for the world outside, which did not frighten her in the least.
Emma also had a secret she had shared with no one, not even Blackie. It was a plan, really. But a plan so grand it left no room for doubt, and it filled her days with that most wonderful of all human feelings – hope. It was a hope that foreshadowed all else in her cheerless young life. It gave added meaning to her days and made every hour of punishing toil totally irrelevant. It was this blind belief, this absolute faith in herself and her future, that often put a lively spring into her step, brought an occasional smile to her normally solemn young face, and sustained her at all times.
On this particular morning, filled with all that hope, wearing her new pristine uniform, and with her cheerfully shining face, she looked as bright and as sparkling as a brand-new penny. As she moved purposefully across the rich carpet she was like a gust of fresh spring air in that cloistered and overstuffed room. Squeezing gingerly between a whatnot and a console over-flowing with all that preposterous bric-à-brac, Emma shook her head in mock horror. All this blinking junk! she thought, and with mild exasperation, as she remembered how long it always took her to dust everything. Although she was not afraid of hard work, she hated dusting, and this room in particular.
‘Half of it could be thrown out inter the midden and nobody’d miss owt,’ she exclaimed aloud, and then clamped her mouth tightly shut self-consciously and peered ahead, fully expecting to see Mrs Fairley sitting in the wing chair she favoured near the fireplace, for traces of her perfume permeated the air. But the room was deserted and Emma breathed a sigh of relief. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed several times, and with not a little pleasure. She had grown used to the pungent floral scent pervading the suite of rooms and had actually come to like it. In fact, somewhat to her surprise, for she was not one given to frivolities, Emma had discovered that she was most partial to the smell of expensive perfumes, the touch of good linens and supple silks, and the sparkle of brilliant jewels. She smiled secretively to herself. When she was a grand lady, like Blackie said she would be one day, and when she had made the fortune she intended to make, she would buy herself some of that perfume. Jasmine, it was. She had read the label on the bottle on Mrs Fairley’s dressing table. It came all the way from London, from a shop called Floris, where Mrs Fairley bought all of her perfumes and soaps and potpourri for the bowls, and the little bags of lavender for the chests of drawers that held her delicate lawn and silk undergarments. Yes, she would have a bottle of that Jasmine scent and a bar of French Fern soap and even some little bags of lavender for her underclothes. And if she had enough money to spare they would be just as silky and as soft as Mrs Fairley’s fine garments.
But she did not have time to indulge herself in thoughts of such fanciful things right now, and she put them firmly out of her mind as she hurried to the fireplace with the tray. There was too much to be done this morning and she was already late. Cook had overloaded her with extra chores in the kitchen, which had delayed her considerably, and consequently she was irritated. Not so much about the extra chores, but the delay they had caused. Punctuality had taken on a new and special significance to Emma and had become of major importance to her in the past few months. She hated to be late with Mrs Fairley’s breakfast, or with anything else for that matter, for since being elevated to the position of parlourmaid she took her new responsibilities very seriously.
She placed the breakfast tray carefully on the small Queen Anne tea table next to the wing chair, in readiness for Mrs Fairley, who liked to have her breakfast in front of the fire. She looked over the tray to be sure it was perfect, rearranged some of the china more attractively, plumped up the cushions on the wing chair, and turned her attention to the dying fire. She knelt in front of the fireplace and began to rekindle it with paper spills, chips of wood, and small pieces of coal, handling them cautiously with the fire tongs in an effort to keep her hands clean. She clucked impatiently. Mrs Turner with her extra chores was a real nuisance sometimes! If she had been up to the sitting room on time she would not have been faced with the task of making the fire again. This annoyed her because it ate into her precious time, and Emma, so rigid and relentless with herself, hated any deviation from her normal routine. It put her out of sorts because it ruined her timetable for the entire day. This timetable, Emma’s own recent creation, was her Bible and she lived by it. She knew that without it she would be hopelessly lost.
She picked up the bellows and worked them in front of the meagre fire. Under the force of the small but strong gusts of air, the smouldering chips of wood spurted