A Woman of Substance

‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ Emma remarked, rather pleased at Paula’s information. Emily was diligent, she knew that. Perhaps it was the solution. Emily, like all of her other grandchildren who were old enough, worked within the Harte companies and had proved herself to be tireless and assiduous in her work. She would consider it later. Now she turned her mind to more immediate problems. ‘I have made the seating plan for dinner,’ Emma began, and poured herself another cup of tea.

Paula looked at her with interest. ‘Yes, you told me you were going to, Grandy.’ Paula waited expectantly.

Emma cleared her throat. ‘I think I have seated everyone appropriately. I’ve tried to separate the ones who don’t get along too well, although, as I said, I am sure everyone will be on their best behaviour.’ She put her hand in her pocket and her fingers curled around the paper. She was still reluctant to bring it out and show it to Paula.

‘I hope so, Grandy! It’s such a crowd and you know how difficult some of them can be.’ She laughed sardonically. ‘Impossible, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ Emma replied. She leaned back against the sofa and stared at Paula intently, questioningly. ‘I suppose they all thought I was drawing my last breath these last few weeks, didn’t they?’

The unexpected question surprised Paula. ‘I don’t know,’ she began thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps …’ She hesitated and then her exasperation with her aunts and uncles got the better of her. ‘Oh, they’re such leeches, Grandy!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘I don’t know why you bother with them! I’m sorry. I know they’re your children, but I just get furious every time I think of them.’

‘You don’t have to apologize to me, dear. I know only too well what they are.’ Emma smiled thinly. ‘I don’t delude myself that they are coming to see me out of concern. They accepted my invitation out of curiosity. Vultures come to regard the carcass. But I’m not dead yet and I have made no immediate plans for dying,’ she finished, a note of triumph in her voice.

Paula leaned forward quickly, staring at Emma fixedly. ‘Then why did you invite them, Grandy, if you know what they are?’ she asked in a deliberate voice.

Emma smiled enigmatically and her eyes turned cold. ‘I wanted to see them all together for one last time.’

‘Don’t say that, Grandy! You’re better and we are going to take care of you properly this time. To hell with the stores and business,’ Paula cried passionately.

‘By the “last time”, I meant the last time I will invite them here for this kind of weekend,’ Emma declared. ‘I have a little family business to attend to, and as they are involved, they should be here. All of them. Together.’ Her mouth tightened into the familiar resolute line and her eyes gleamed darkly.

Concern clouded Paula’s eyes. ‘You must promise me you won’t let them upset you,’ she said, noting the expression on Emma’s face. ‘And you shouldn’t be worrying about family business this weekend. Is it so important it can’t wait?’ she demanded fiercely.

‘Oh, it’s nothing all that vital,’ Emma said dismissively with a shrug. ‘Just a few details regarding the trust funds. It won’t take long, and of course I won’t let them disturb me.’ A half smile flickered across her face. ‘Actually, I’m rather looking forward to it.’

‘I’m not sure that I am,’ Paula said carefully. ‘May I see the seating plan?’

‘Of course, darling.’ Emma moved her position slightly and put her hand in her pocket. She felt the paper and hesitated, and then, taking a deep breath, she pulled it out. ‘Here you are.’ She handed the paper to Paula, waiting expectantly, holding herself perfectly still, hardly daring now to breathe at all.

Paula’s eyes travelled quickly over the paper. Emma was watching her intently. Paula’s eyes stopped. Opened wide. Moved on. Returned again to the previous spot. A look of total disbelief spread itself across her face. ‘Why, Grandy? Why?’ Her voice rose sharply in anger and the paper fluttered to the floor. Emma was silent, waiting for the initial surprise to disappear, for Paula to calm down.

‘Why?’ Paula demanded, jumping up, her face white, her mouth trembling. ‘You have no right to invite Jim Fairley tomorrow night. He’s not family. I don’t want him here! I won’t have him here! I won’t! I won’t! How could you, Grandmother!’

She ran to the window and Emma could see she was fighting to control herself. Her thin shoulders hunched over as she pressed her forehead against the pane of glass, her narrow shoulder blades sharp and protruding under the silk dress. Emma’s heart ached with love for her and she felt her pain as deeply as if it were her own. ‘Come here and sit down. I want to talk to you, darling,’ Emma said softly.

Paula swung around quickly, her eyes now so dark they looked navy blue. ‘I don’t want to talk to you, Grandmother. At least not about Jim Fairley!’ She stood poised by the window, defiant, reproachful, filled with rage. She trembled and clasped and unclasped her hands in agitation. How could her grandmother have been so thoughtless. To ask Jim Fairley to the dinner was cruel and unfair, and she had never known her grandmother to be either of these things. She turned her back on Emma and laid her head against the window again, looking out at the green treetops yet seeing nothing, pushing back the tears that rushed into her eyes.

To Emma she looked suddenly pathetically young and vulnerable and hurt. She is the one thing of value I cherish, Emma thought, her heart contracting with love. Of all my grandchildren, she is the one I love the most. My hard and terrible life has been worth it just for the joy of her. This girl. This strong, dauntless, courageous, loyal girl who would put my desires before her own happiness.

‘Come here, darling. I have something I must tell you.’

Paula stared at Emma abstractedly as if she were in shock. With reluctance she came back to the fireplace, moving like a sleepwalker, her face blank. She was still fuming, but the shaking had ceased. Her eyes were flat and dull, like hard stones of lapis lazuli in her ashen face. She sat down erect and rigid on the sofa. There was something contained, unyielding about her that was frightening to Emma, who knew she must quickly explain, so that look would leave her granddaughter for ever. Emma had chosen an oblique way of informing Paula that she had invited Jim Fairley to the dinner, because she did not trust herself to do it verbally. But now she must speak. Explain. Put the girl out of her terrible torment.

‘I have invited Jim Fairley tomorrow, Paula, because he is indirectly involved in the family business matters I mentioned to you earlier.’ She paused and sucked in her breath and then continued more firmly, looking at Paula closely. ‘But that is not the only reason. I also invited him for you. And I might add he was delighted to accept.’

Paula was transfixed, incredulous. A deep flush rose up from her neck, filling her face with dark colour and her mouth shook again. ‘I don’t understand … invited him for me …’ She was flustered and confused. Her hair had somehow worked loose from the hair slide in her agitation and she moved it away from her face impatiently. She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘What are you saying, Grandmother? You have always hated the Fairleys. I don’t understand.’

Emma pushed herself on to her feet and went and sat on the sofa. She took one of Paula’s beautiful tapered hands in her own small sturdy ones. She gazed at Paula and her heart tightened when she looked into her eyes, vast caverns in the paleness of her face and full of pain. Emma touched that wan face, smiling gently, and then she said in a hoarse whisper, ‘I am an old woman, Paula. A tough old woman who has fought every inch of the way for everything I have. Strong, yes, but also tired. Bitter? Perhaps I was. But I have acquired some wisdom in my struggle with life, my struggle to survive, and I wondered to myself the other day why the silly pride of a tough old woman should stand in the way of the one person I love the most in the whole world. It struck me I was being selfish, and foolish, to let events of sixty years ago cloud my judgement now.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ Paula murmured, bafflement in her eyes.

‘I am trying to tell you that I no longer have any objections to you seeing Jim Fairley. I had a long conversation with him yesterday, during which I gathered he still feels the same way about you. That he has always had very serious intentions. I told him this afternoon that if he wishes to marry you, he not only has my permission, but my blessing as well. I bless both of you, with all my love.’

Paula was speechless. Her mind would not accept her grandmother’s words. For months she had cautioned herself not to think of Jim, had finally accepted that there was no possible future for them. She had been hard on herself, ruthlessly pushing aside all emotion, all feelings, pouring her energy into her work in her abject misery. Through the blur of her tears she saw Emma’s face, that face she had seen and loved all of her life. That face she trusted. Emma was smiling fondly, waiting, and her eyes were wise and understanding and full of love. The tears slid silently down Paula’s cheeks and she shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you would change your mind,’ she said, her voice choked.

‘I did.’

These two simple words, uttered with firmness and conviction, finally penetrated Paula’s aching brain, her battered heart. She began to sob, her whole body heaving as the smothered and pent-up emotions of months were released. She slumped forward, blindly reaching for Emma, who cradled her in her arms like a child, stroking her hair and murmuring softly to her in the way she had done when she was a little girl. ‘It’s all right. Hush, darling. It’s all right. I promise you it’s all right.’

Eventually the heaving sobs subsided and Paula looked up at Emma, a tremulous smile on her face. Emma wiped the tears from her face with one hand, stared intently at her and said, ‘I never want to see you unhappy again as long as I live. I’ve had enough unhappiness for both of us.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I’m numb. I can’t believe it,’ Paula replied quietly. Jim. Jim!

Emma nodded. ‘I know how you feel,’ she said, and her tired eyes brightened. ‘Now, why don’t you do me a favour. Go and call Jim. He’s still at the paper. He’s waiting for you, in fact. Invite him for dinner tonight, if you wish. Or better still, drive into Leeds and have dinner with him alone. I’ll have Emily and Sarah for company, and perhaps Alexander and the others will arrive in time for supper.’ She laughed, her eyes shining. ‘I do have other grandchildren, you know.’ Paula hugged her and kissed her, and then she was gone, flying out of the room without another word.

Wings on her feet, Emma thought, going to her love. She sat for a while on the sofa, preoccupied with thoughts of Paula and Jim and so many other things. Then she stood up suddenly, abruptly, and walked to the window, stretching her stiffened limbs, smoothing her dress with her hands, patting her silver hair into place. She opened one of the leaded windows and looked out.

Below her in the garden the trees glistened in the cool evening air, and everything was dark green and perfectly still. Not a blade of grass, not a leaf stirred, and the birds were silent. She could see the daffodils rapidly losing their brilliant colour, bleaching palely to white now that the sun had set, and the topiary hedges were slowly turning black. She stood there for a long time in the gloaming, watching the dusk descend as the crystalline northern light faded behind the low hump line of hills on the horizon. The mist was drifting into the garden, wrapping everything before it in a vaporous, opal-tinted shawl, rising suddenly to obscure the trees and the shrubs and the old flagged terrace, until all these images were fused together.

Emma shivered and closed the window, turning back into the welcoming warmth and comfort of the room. She walked across the faded Savonnerie carpet, still shivering slightly from the cold damp air that had blown in through the window. She picked up the poker and energetically pushed the burning logs around, throwing on more of them to build the huge roaring fire she loved.

She sat by the fireside staring into the flames, content and at peace, forgotten memories of her youth invading her mind as she waited for her other grandchildren to arrive. She thought of the Fairleys. All of them were gone now, except for James Arthur Fairley, the last of the line. ‘Why should he suffer, and Paula, for the mistakes of a dead generation?’ she asked herself aloud, and then thought: I was right to do this. It is my gift to her. To both of them.

It was growing darker outside and in the dimly lit room the firelight cast its strange and mysterious shadows across the walls and the ceiling and in amongst them she saw so many old and familiar faces. Her friends. Her enemies. All of them dead long ago. Ghosts … just ghosts that could no longer touch her or hers.

Life is like a circle, she mused. My life began with the Fairleys and it will end with them. The two points have now joined to make the full circle.

PART TWO (#ulink_ff8553af-ca9b-51b1-8408-cf1270511e80)

The Abyss 1904–5 (#ulink_ff8553af-ca9b-51b1-8408-cf1270511e80)

Long is the way

And hard, that out

of hell leads up to light.

– JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

FIVE (#ulink_3d46ce5a-0054-51ec-8fde-8385e45893d0)

‘Mam … Mam … Are yer awake?’ Emma called softly from the doorway. There was no answer.

She hovered uncertainly near the door, her ears straining for the slightest sound, but the room was as still as the grave. Nervously she pulled the meagre shawl more tightly around her slender shoulders, shivering in the thin nightgown in the bitter cold before the dawn, her pale face a ghostly beacon in the murky darkness.

‘Mam! Mam!’ she cried in an urgent whisper, and crept further into the room, moving cautiously, feeling her way around the few mean pieces of furniture, her eyes not yet adjusted to the gloom. She could scarcely breathe, so dank and stale was the malodorous air. She shuddered, momentarily repelled by the mingled odours of musty walls, soiled bed-clothes, and cloying sweat. It was the unmistakable stench of poverty and sickness. She sucked in her breath and edged forward.

When she reached the iron bedstead her heart missed a beat as she peered down at the sick woman who lay inert underneath the bedclothes, which were thrown about in disarray. Her mother was dying. Perhaps she was already dead. Panic and fear sent shudders through her thin little body, so that she shook uncontrollably. She bent forward and pressed her face to her mother’s body, straining towards that fragile form, as if to imbue it with renewed vigour, to give it life. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and uttered a silent prayer, passionate and beseeching, every ounce of her concentration pouring into it. Please, God, don’t let me mam die! I’ll be good for the rest of me life. I’ll do anything Yer want, God. I will, God, I will! Just don’t let me mam die. Emma believed that God was good. Her mother had told her that God was Goodness. That He was understanding and forgiving. Emma did not believe in a wrathful God, the God of retribution and revenge that the Methodist minister warned about in his sermons on Sundays. Her mother had said God was Inconceivable Love and her mam knew best. Emma’s God was compassionate. He would answer her prayer.