A Woman of Substance

‘Yes, but …’

‘No buts, Paula, please. And don’t you underestimate me. Do you honestly think I would expose you to a dangerous situation?’ She shook her head and smiled. ‘I know what your capabilities are, my dear. I have always been sure of you. More sure of you than any of my own children, apart from your mother, of course, and you’ve never let me down.’

‘I appreciate your confidence, Grandmother,’ Paula replied steadily, ‘but I do find it hard to deal effectively with people who don’t take me seriously and the Sitex board do not.’ A stubborn look dulled the light in her eyes and her mouth became a thin tight line, an unconscious replica of her grandmother’s.

‘You know, you really surprise me. You have enormous self-assurance and have dealt with all manner of people, on all levels, since you were quite a young girl. It has never seemed to disturb you before.’ Emma sighed heavily. ‘And haven’t I told you countless times that what people think about you in business is unimportant. The important thing is for you to know who you are and what you are. And frankly I always thought you did.’

‘I do!’ Paula cried, ‘but I am not sure that I have your capacity for hard work, or your experience.’

Emma’s face darkened. ‘Yes, you do. Furthermore, you have all the advantages of education I never had, so don’t let me hear you speak so negatively of yourself again! I’ll concede experience to you, but only to a degree. And you are gaining more of that every day. I’ll tell you in all honesty, Paula, I would have no compunction in sending you back to Sitex tomorrow – and without me. Because I know you would handle yourself brilliantly. After all, I raised you, I trained you. Don’t you think I know what I created?’

A carbon copy of yourself and a copy is never quite as good as the original, Paula thought dryly, but said, ‘Please don’t be angry, Grandmother.’ Her voice was gentle. ‘You did a wonderful job. But I am not you. And the board are very aware of that. It’s bound to affect their attitude!’

‘Now listen to me!’ Emma leaned forward and her narrowed eyes were like green glass slits underneath the old wrinkled lids. She spoke more slowly than was her custom, to give weight to her words.

‘You seem to have forgotten one thing! When you walk into Sitex in my place, you walk in there with something they have to take seriously. Power! Whatever they think of your ability, that power is the one thing they cannot ignore. The day you take over from me, after my death, you will be representing your mother, who will have become the single largest stock-holder of Sitex. With her power of attorney you will be controlling twenty-five per cent of the preferred stock and fifteen per cent of the common stock of a multi-million-dollar corporation.’ She paused and stared intently at Paula, and then continued: ‘That’s not ordinary power, Paula. That’s immense power, and especially so in one person’s hands. And don’t you ever forget that. Believe me, they won’t when it comes to the crunch. They didn’t yesterday. But in spite of their unparalleled behaviour – and I am beginning to realize just how much it did upset you – they were unable to ignore me and what I represent!’ Emma sat back in her seat, but she kept her eyes focused on Paula, and her face was implacable.

The girl had been listening attentively to her grandmother, as she always did, and her nervousness was ebbing away. For she did have courage and spirit, and not a little of Emma’s resoluteness. But the virulence of the fighting at Sitex had indeed appalled her, as Emma suspected. As she gazed at her grandmother, reflecting on her words, she marvelled at her again, as she had yesterday. Emma was seventy-eight years old. An old woman. Yet she had none of the infirmities of the aged, nor their loss of grace. She was vital and totally in command of her faculties. Paula had watched her grandmother’s performance at Sitex with awe, had been amazed at her invincible strength, but most of all she had admired her integrity in the face of incredible pressure and opposition. Now Paula wondered, with a cold and calculating objectivity, whether she would ever have that sense of purpose, that icy tenacity to manipulate those men as astutely as her grandmother had. She was not sure. But then some of the nagging doubts were dispelled as she recognized the truth of her grandmother’s words. Finally it was her own driving ambition that ultimately overcame the remnants of nervousness.

She spoke with renewed confidence. ‘You’re right, of course. Power is the most potent of weapons, probably more so than money. And I’m sure it is the only thing the Sitex board do understand.’ She paused and looked at her grandmother directly. ‘I’m not afraid of them! Don’t think that, Grandy. Although I must admit they did disgust me. I suppose if I was afraid, I was afraid of failing you.’ The smile she gave Emma was full of sureness and the troubled look had left her face.

Emma leaned forward and patted her hand reassuringly. ‘Don’t ever be afraid of failing, Paula. It’s stopped more people achieving their goals than I care to think about. When I was your age I didn’t have time to worry about failing. I had to succeed to survive. And always remember what you just said to me about power. It is the ultimate weapon. Power, not money, talks. Money is only important when you’re truly poor, when you need it for a roof over your head, for food and clothes. Once you have these essentials taken care of and go beyond them, money is simply a unit, a tool to work with. And don’t ever let anyone persuade you that power corrupts. It doesn’t always, only when those with power will do anything to hold on to that power. Sometimes it can even be ennobling.’ She smiled briefly and added with great positiveness, ‘And you won’t fail me, my dear.’

‘I hope not, Grandy,’ Paula said, and when she saw the challenging look that swept over Emma’s face, she added quickly, ‘I know I won’t! But what about Harry Marriott? He’s the chairman and he appears to hate me.’

‘I don’t think he hates you, Paula. Fears you perhaps.’ Emma’s voice was suddenly flat, but there was a dark gleam in her eyes. She had many memories of Harry Marriott, none of them very pleasant, for she had crossed swords with him innumerable times in the past.

‘Fears me! Why?’ Surprise made the girl’s voice rise noticeably, and she leaned forward towards her grandmother.

A flicker of contempt touched Emma’s face as she thought of Marriott. ‘Because you remind him too much of your grandfather and that unnerves him. Harry was afraid of your grandfather from the very beginning, when they formed the original Sydney – Texas Oil Company and started drilling. Your grandfather always knew what Harry was and Harry instinctively knew that he knew. Hence his fear. When your grandfather left the Sitex stock to me it was with the understanding that I would never sell it as long as I lived. I was to hold it in trust for your mother and any children she might have. You see, your grandfather had great vision, Paula. He recognized years ago that Sitex would become the major company it is today and he wanted us to benefit from it. And he wanted Harry controlled. He wanted my rein on him always.’

‘I don’t think he can do any more damage at Sitex. He’s been rendered virtually powerless, thanks to you. Grandfather would be proud of you, darling,’ Paula said, and then asked with some curiosity, ‘Do I really resemble him? Grandfather, I mean?’

Emma looked at Paula quickly. They were flying into the sun and a passage of light, very intense and golden, came in through the window. It centred on Paula as she was speaking. To Emma, her hair seemed shinier and blacker in this golden light, hanging in folds like switches of velvet around the pale still face, and her eyes were bluer and more alive than ever. His eyes. His hair. She smiled gently, her eyes lighting up. ‘Sometimes you do, like right now. But mostly I think it’s something in your manner that flusters Harry Marriott. And you have no cause to worry about him, Paula. He won’t be there for long.’ She turned to the briefcase on the seat and began sorting her papers. After a few minutes she looked up and said, ‘If you’ve finished with the balance sheets of the New York store I’ll have them back. By the way, do you agree with me?’

‘Yes, I do, Grandy. They’ve made a marvellous turnaround.’

‘Let’s hope we can keep them on the straight and narrow,’ Emma said as she took the folder from Paula. She put on her glasses and began studying the figures from the Paris store, already calculating the changes that would have to be made there: Emma knew the store was running into trouble and her mouth tightened in aggravation as she concentrated on the damning figures, and considered the moves she would make on their return to England.

Paula poured herself another cup of coffee and, as she sipped it, regarded her grandmother carefully. This is the face I’ve seen all my life and loved all my life, she reflected, a wave of tenderness sweeping through her. And she doesn’t look her age at all, in spite of what she thinks. She could easily pass for a woman in her early sixties. Paula knew that her grandmother’s life had been hard and frequently painful, yet, surprisingly, her face was incredibly well preserved. Paula realized, as she looked at Emma, that this was due in no small measure to the excellence of her bone structure. She noted the webs of wrinkles etching lacy patterns around her grandmother’s eyes and mouth, as well as the two deep lines scoring down from her nostrils to her chin. But she also saw that the cheeks above these lines were still firm, and the green eyes that turned flinty in anger were not the rheumy wavering eyes of an old woman. They were alert and knowing. And yet some of her troubled life is reflected in her face, she thought, observing the indomitable set of Emma’s mouth and the pugnacious tilt of her chin. Paula acknowledged to herself that her grandmother was austere and somewhat stern of eye, to many the basilisk. Yet she was also aware that this autocratic bearing was often softened by a beguiling charm, a sense of humour, and an easy naturalness. And, now that her guard was down, it was a vulnerable face, open and fine and full of wisdom.

Paula had never been afraid of her grandmother, but she recognized that most of the family were, her Uncle Kit in particular. Paula remembered now how delighted she had been when her Uncle Kit had once likened her to Emma. ‘You’re as bad as your grandmother,’ he had said when she was about six or seven years old. She had not fully understood what he had meant, or why he had said it, but she had guessed that it was a reprimand from the look on his face. She had been thrilled to be called ‘as bad as your grandmother’, because surely this meant that she, too, must be special like Grandy and everyone would be afraid of her, as they were afraid of her grandmother.

Emma looked up from the papers. ‘Paula, how would you like to go to the Paris store when we leave New York? I really think I have to make some changes in the administration, from what I see in these balance sheets.’

‘I’ll go to Paris if you want, but to tell you the truth, I had thought of spending some time in Yorkshire, Grandy. I was going to suggest to you that I do a tour of the northern stores,’ Paula remarked, keeping her voice casual and light.

Emma was thunderstruck and she did not attempt to disguise this. She took off her glasses slowly and regarded her granddaughter with a quickening interest. The girl flushed under this fixed scrutiny and her face turned pink. She looked away, dropped her eyes, and murmured, ‘Well, you know I’ll go where you think I’m most needed. Obviously it’s Paris.’ She sat very still, sensing her grandmother’s surprised reaction.

‘Why this sudden interest in Yorkshire?’ Emma demanded. ‘It strikes me there is some fatal fascination up there! Jim Fairley, I presume,’ she added.

Paula shifted in her seat, avoiding her grandmother’s unflickering stare. She smiled falteringly and the flush deepened as she said defensively, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I just thought I ought to take inventory at the northern stores.’

‘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.’

TWO

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.

It had been Emma’s custom to travel to New York several times a year. She was actively involved in all areas of her business empire and although she was not particularly distrustful of those to whom she had given extraordinary executive powers, confident of her own shrewd judgement in these choices, there was a canny Yorkshire wariness about her. She was impelled to leave nothing to chance and she also believed that it was vital for her presence to be felt in New York from time to time.

Now, as the Cadillac that had brought them from Kennedy Airport pulled up in front of the skyscraper that housed her corporate offices, Emma’s thoughts reverted to Gaye Sloane. Emma had instantly detected Gaye’s nervousness during their first telephone conversation when she had arrived from London. Originally Emma had thought this was due to tiredness after the long transatlantic flight, but the nervousness had accelerated rather than diminished over the last few days. Emma had noted the tremulous quality in Gaye’s voice, her clipped manner, her obvious desire to terminate their talks as quickly as possible. This not only baffled Emma but disturbed her, for Gaye was behaving totally out of character. Emma contemplated the possibility that personal problems might be upsetting Gaye, but her inclination was to dismiss this idea, knowing Gaye as well as she did. Intuitively Emma knew that Gaye was troubled by a business problem, one which was of some import and one which ultimately affected her. She resolved to make her talk with Gaye the priority of the day’s business.

Emma shivered as they alighted from the car. It was a raw January day, and although the sun was bright in a clear sky, the wind was sharp with frost and Atlantic rain. She could barely remember a time when she had not felt ice cold all over and sometimes it seemed to her that her bones were frozen into solid blocks of ice, as if frostbite had crept into her entire being and petrified her very blood. That numbing excruciating coldness that had first invaded her body in childhood had rarely left her since, not under the heat of tropical sun nor in front of blazing fires nor in the central heating of New York, which she usually found suffocating. She coughed as she and Paula hurried towards the building. She had caught a cold before they had left for Texas and it had settled on her chest, leaving her with this hacking cough that flared up constantly. As they swung through the doors into the building, Emma was for once thankful for that furnace-like heating in her offices.

They took the elevator up to the thirtieth floor, where their own offices were located. ‘I think I had better see Gaye at once, and alone,’ Emma said as they stepped out. ‘Why don’t you go over the balance sheets of the New York store with Johnston and I’ll see you later,’ she suggested.

Paula nodded. ‘Fine. Call me if you need me. Grandmother. And I do hope everything is all right.’ Paula veered to the left as Emma continued on to her own office, moving through the reception area quickly and with agility. Emma smiled at the receptionist, and exchanged cordial greetings with her as she swept through the double doors that led to her private domain. She closed the doors firmly behind her, for she did not subscribe to this American custom of open doors in executive offices. She thought it peculiar and distracting, addicted as she was to total privacy. She threw her tweed coat and her handbag carelessly on to one of the sofas and, still holding the briefcase, she crossed the room to the desk. This was a gargantuan slab of heavy glass on a simple base of polished steel, a dramatic focal point in the highly dramatic office. It was angled across a corner, looking out into the vast and lovely room, facing towards a plate-glass window. This covered the whole of one wall and rose to the ceiling in a glittering sweep that presented a panoramic view of the city skyline, which Emma always thought of as a living painting of enormous power and wealth and the heartbeat of American industry.

She enjoyed her New York office, different as it was from her executive suite in the London store, which was filled with the mellow Georgian antiques she preferred. Here the ambiance was modern and sleek, for Emma had a great sense of style and she had decided that as much as she loved period furniture, it would be unfitting when juxtaposed against the slick architecture of this great steel-and-glass structure that pushed its way up into the sky. And so she had assembled the best in modern furniture design. Mies van der Rohe chairs were mingled with long, slender Italian sofas, all of them upholstered in dark leather as soft and as supple as silk. There were tall steel-and-glass étagères filled with books, cabinets of rich polished rosewood, and small tables made of slabs of Italian marble balanced on polished chrome bases. Yet for all of its modern overtones there was nothing austere or cold about the office, which had a classical elegance and was the epitome of superior taste. It had, in fact, a tranquil beauty, a softness, filled as it was with a misty mélange of intermingled blues and greys, these subdued tones washing over the walls and the floor, enlivened here and there by rafts of more vivid colours in the cushions on the sofas and in the priceless French Impressionist paintings which graced the walls. Emma’s love of art was also evidenced in the Henry Moore and Brancusi sculptures and the temple heads from Angkor Wat, which were displayed on black marble pedestals around the room. The great soaring window was sheathed in sheer bluish-grey curtains which fell like a heavy mist from the ceiling, and when they were open, as they were now, the room seemed to be part of the sky, as if it was suspended in space above the towering concrete monoliths of Manhattan.