LITMIR.BIZ

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in swift light steps, and opened one of the soaring leaded windows. She took a deep breath, peered out. The sky was a faultless blue, without a single cloud, and radiant with spring sunshine. New buds, tenderly green, sprouted on the skeletal branches, and under the great oak at the edge of the lawn a mass of daffodils, randomly planted, tossed yellow-bright heads under the fluttering breeze.

      ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils,’ she recited aloud, then thought: Good heavens, I learned that Wordsworth poem at the village school in Fairley. So long ago, and to think that I’ve remembered it all these years.

      Raising her hand, she closed the window, and the great McGill emerald on the third finger of her left hand flashed as the clear Northern light struck the stone. Its brilliance caught her attention. She had worn this ring for forty-four years, ever since that day, in May of 1925, when Paul McGill had placed it on her finger. He had thrown away her wedding ring, symbol of her disastrous marriage to Arthur Ainsley, then slipped on the massive square-cut emerald. ‘We might not have had the benefit of clergy,’ Paul had said that memorable day. ‘But as far as I’m concerned, you are my wife. From this day forward until death do us part.’

      The previous morning their child had been born. Their adored Daisy, conceived in love and raised with love. Her favourite of all her children, just as Paula, Daisy’s daughter, was her favourite grandchild, heiress to her enormous retailing empire and half of the colossal McGill fortune which Emma had inherited after Paul’s death in 1939. And Paula had given birth to twins four weeks ago, had presented her with her first great-grandchildren, who tomorrow would be christened at the ancient church in Fairley village.

      Emma pursed her lips, suddenly wondering if she had made a mistake in acquiescing to this wish of Paula’s husband, Jim Fairley. Jim was a traditionalist, and thus wanted his children to be christened at the font where all of the Fairleys had been baptized, and all of the Hartes for that matter, herself included.

      Oh well, she thought, I can’t very well renege at this late date, and perhaps it is only fitting. She had wreaked her revenge on the Fairleys, the vendetta she had waged against them for most of her life was finally at an end, and the two families had been united through Paula’s marriage with James Arthur Fairley, the last of the old line. It was a new beginning.

      But when Blackie O’Neill had heard of the choice of church he had raised a snowy brow and chuckled and made a remark about the cynic turning into a sentimentalist in her old age, an accusation he was frequently levelling at her of late. Maybe Blackie was right in this assumption. On the other hand, the past no longer troubled her as it once had. The past had been buried with the dead. Only the future concerned her now. And Paula and Jim and their children were that future.

      Emma’s thoughts centred on Fairley village as she returned to her desk, put on her glasses and stared at the memorandum in front of her. It was from her grandson Alexander, who, with her son Kit, ran her mills, and it was bluntly to the point, in Alexander’s inimitable fashion. The Fairley mill was in serious trouble. It had been failing to break even for the longest time and was now deeply in the red. A crucial decision hovered over her head … to close the mill or keep it running at a considerable loss. Emma, ever the pragmatist, knew deep in her bones that the wisest move would be to close down the Fairley operation, yet she balked at this drastic measure, not wanting to bring hardship to the village of her birth. She had asked Alexander to find an alternative, a workable solution, hoped that he had done so. She would soon know. He was due to arrive for a meeting with her imminently.

      One possibility which might enable them to resolve the situation at the Fairley mill had occurred to Emma, but she wanted to give Alexander his head, an opportunity to handle this problem himself. Testing him, she admitted, as I’m constantly testing all of my grandchildren. And why not? That was her prerogative, wasn’t it? Everything she owned had been hard won, built on a life rooted in single-mindedness of purpose and the most gruelling work and dogged determination and relentlessness and terrible sacrifice. Nothing had ever been handed to her on a plate. Her mighty empire was entirely of her own making, and, since it was hers and hers alone, she could dispose of it as she wished.

      And so with calm deliberation and judiciousness and selectivity she had chosen her heirs one year ago, bypassing four of her five children in favour of her grandchildren in the new will she had drawn; yet she continued to scrutinize the third generation, forever evaluating their worth, seeking weaknesses in them whilst inwardly praying to find none.

      They have lived up to my expectations, she reassured herself, then thought with a swift stab of dismay: No, that’s not strictly true. There is one of whom I am not really sure, one whom I don’t think I can trust.

      Emma unlocked the top drawer of her desk, took out a sheet of paper, and studied the names of her grandchildren, which she had listed only last night when she had experienced her first feelings of uneasiness. Is there a joker in this pack, as I suspect? she asked herself worriedly, squinting at the names. And if there is, how on earth will I handle it?

      Her eyes remained riveted to one name. She shook her head, with sadness, pondering.

      Treachery had long ceased to surprise Emma, for her natural astuteness and psychological insight had been sharply honed during a long, frequently hard, and always extraordinary life. In fact, relatively few things surprised her any more, and, with her special brand of cynicism, she had come to expect the worst from people, including family. Yet she had been taken aback last year when she had discovered through Gaye Sloane, her secretary, that her four eldest children were wilfully plotting against her. Spurred on by their avariciousness and vaunting ambition, they had endeavoured to wrest her empire away from her in the most underhanded way, seriously underestimating her in the process. Her initial shock, and the pain of betrayal, had been swiftly replaced by an anger of icy ferocity, and she had made her moves with speed and consummate skill and resourcefulness, which was her way when facing any opponent. And she had pushed sentiment and emotions aside, had not allowed feelings to obscure intelligence, for it was her superior intelligence which had inevitably saved her in disastrous situations in the past.

      If she had outwitted the inept plotters, had left them floundering stupidly in disarray, she had also finally come to the bitter, and chilling, realization that blood was not thicker than water. It had struck her, and most forcibly, that ties of the blood and of the flesh did not come into play when vast amounts of money and, more importantly, great power, were at stake. People thought nothing of killing to attain even the smallest portions of both. Despite her overriding disgust and disillusionment with her children, she had been very sure of their children, their devotion to her. Now one of them was causing her to re-evaluate her judgement and question her trust.

      She turned the name over in her mind … Perhaps she was wrong; she hoped she was wrong. She had nothing to go on really – except gut instinct and her prescience. But, like her intelligence, both had served her well throughout her life.

      Always when she faced this kind of dilemma, Emma’s instinctive attitude was to wait – and watch. Once again she decided to play for time. By doing thus she could conceal her real feelings, whilst gambling that things would sort themselves out to her advantage, thereby dispensing with the need for harsh action. But I will dole out the rope, she added inwardly. Experience had taught her that when lots of freely proffered rope fell into unwitting hands it invariably formed a noose.

      Emma considered the manifold possibilities if this should happen, and a hard grimness settled over her face and her eyes darkened. She did not relish picking up the sword again, to defend herself and her interests, not to mention her other heirs.

      History does have a way of repeating itself, she thought wearily, especially in my life. But I refuse to anticipate. That’s surely borrowing trouble. Purposefully, she put the list back in the drawer, locked it, and pocketed the key.

      Emma Harte had the enviable knack of shelving unsolvable problems in order to concentrate on priorities, and so she was enabled to subdue the nagging – and disturbing – suspicion that a grandchild of hers was untrustworthy, and therefore a potential adversary. Current business was the immediate imperative, and she gave her attention

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