Chapter One
Emma Harte was almost eighty years old.
She did not look it, for she had always carried her years
lightly. Certainly Emma felt like a much younger woman as
she sat at her desk in the upstairs parlor of Pennistone
Royal on this bright April morning of 1969.
Her posture was erect in the chair, and her alert green
eyes, wise and shrewd under the wrinkled lids, missed
nothing. The burnished red-gold hair had turned to shining
silver long ago, but it was impeccably coiffed in the
latest style, and the widow's peak was as dramatic as ever
above her oval face. If this was now lined and scored by
the years, her excellent bone structure had retained its
clarity and her skin held the translucency of her youth.
And so, though her great beauty had been blurred by the
passage of time, she was still arresting, and her
appearance, as always, was stylish.
For the busy working day stretching ahead of her, she had
chosen to wear a wool dress of tailored simplicity in the
powder-blue shade she so often favored, which was so
flattering to her. A frothy white lace collar added just
the right touch of softness and femininity at her throat,
and there were discreet diamond studs on her ears.
Otherwise she wore no jewelry except for a gold watch and
her rings.
After her bout with bronchial pneumonia the previous year,
she was in blooming health, had no infirmities to speak
of, and was filled with the restless vigor and drive that
had marked her younger days.
That's my problem, not knowing where to direct all this
damned energy, she mused, putting down her pen,
leaningback in the chair. She smiled and thought: The
devil usually finds work for idle hands, so I'd better
come up with a new project soon before I get into
mischief. Her smile widened. Most people thought she had
more than enough to keep her fully occupied, since she
continued to control her vast business enterprises which
stretched halfway around the world. Indeed they did need
her constant supervision; yet for the most part they
offered her little challenge these days. Emma had always
thrived on challenge, and it was this she sorely missed.
Playing watchdog was not particularly exciting to her way
of thinking. It did not fire her imagination, bring a
tingle to her blood, or get her adrenaline flowing in the
same way that wheeling and dealing did. Pitting her wits
against business adversaries and striving for power and
supremacy in the international market place had become
such second nature to her over the years that they were
now essential to her well-being.
Restlessly she rose, crossed the floor 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
vales and hills, 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 dosed 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
favorite of all her children, just as Paula, Daisy's
daughter, was her favorite 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 leveling 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.
© 2003-2026