has been trying to compete with the man-made fibre goods on the market today. Nobody wants pure wool any more, except the Savile Row boys, and they’re not a big enough market for the Fairley output. Look, either we produce the blends or shut up shop – which you don’t want to do. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Can we make the changeover easily?’
Alexander nodded emphatically. ‘We can. By manufacturing cheaper goods we can capture the more popular-priced markets here and abroad, and do volume sales. Of course, it is a question of sales and getting a real foothold in those new markets. But I’m sure we can pull it off.’ He reached into his inside breast pocket, pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve analysed every aspect of the plan, and I’m certain I’ve not overlooked one thing. Here it is.’
Emma took it from him, reached for her glasses, studied the closely-typed sheet. She recognized immediately that he had done his homework with his usual diligence. He had refined the idea she herself had toyed with, although she had no intention of revealing this, not wishing to undermine him, or diminish his efforts. She looked up, removed her spectacles and gave him the benefit of a warm, congratulatory smile.
‘Well done, Sandy!’ she exclaimed, reverting to the affectionate diminutive of his childhood. ‘You’ve put a lot of sound thinking into this, and I’m delighted, really delighted.’
‘That’s a relief,’ he said, a smile breaking through. Reserved of nature though he was, Alexander was always completely relaxed and outgoing with Emma, who was the one person he truly loved, and now he confessed, ‘I’ve really bashed my brains out on this one, Grandy, played around with all manner of convoluted ideas, I don’t mind telling you. Still, I kept coming back to my original plan for creating the new blends.’ He leaned closer to the desk, and gave her one of her own penetrating stares. ‘But, knowing you, I have a feeling you’d already thought of the solution before you threw the problem at me.’
Emma was tickled at his perceptiveness, but she stifled the laugh that bubbled in her throat. She looked into his candid blue eyes and slowly shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she lied. Then observing his disbelief, she added, ‘But I suppose I would have. Eventually.’
‘You’re damned right you would,’ he acknowledged. He shifted slightly in the chair and crossed his legs, wondering how to break the bit of bad news to her. He decided to jump in with both feet. ‘There is one other thing, though, Grandmother.’ He hesitated, worry suddenly clouding his face. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to cut down on our running costs at the mill. Really tighten our belts out there at Fairley, if we want to operate more efficiently – and profitably. I hate to tell you this, but a number of men will have to be laid off.’ There was a slight pause before he finished gloomily, ‘Permanently laid off.’
Emma’s face tightened in aggravation. ‘Oh dear.’ She nodded slowly, as if confirming something to herself. ‘Well, I sort of expected that, Alexander. If you have to do it, you have to do it. I presume you’ll be letting the older men go, those who are near retirement age?’ she asked, one brow lifting questioningly.
‘Yes. I think that’s the fairest thing.’
‘See to it that they get a special bonus, severance pay, whatever you want to call it. And naturally their pensions will become effective immediately. No penny pinching, and waiting it out until they actually reach retirement age. I won’t have any of that nonsense, Sandy.’
‘Yes, of course. I second-guessed you on that one. I’m preparing a list of names, and details of our financial obligations to the men. I’ll get it to you next week, if that’s all right with you.’ He sat back, waiting.
Emma made no response. She pushed herself up and walked slowly to the oriel window, where she stood looking down into the magnificent gardens of Pennistone Royal. Concern edged on to her wrinkled face as she ruminated on the mill at Fairley. Her life had been bound up with it in so many different ways. Her father had worked there, and her brother, Frank, when he was only a small boy and should have been at school. Frank had been a bobbin ligger, slaving from early morning until nightfall, hardly able to drag his weary little legs home at the end of the long day, sickly pale from exhaustion and lack of fresh air and sunshine.
Adam Fairley, Jim’s great-grandfather and the Squire of Fairley, had been the owner of the mill then. How she had hated him as a girl; for the best part of her life really. With the wisdom of great age, she knew Adam had not been the tyrant she had believed him to be. But he had been negligent, and that in itself was a crime in her eyes. His monumental negligence and his selfish preoccupation with his personal problems and his all-consuming love for Olivia Wainright had caused grievous trouble for others less fortunate. Yes, Adam Fairley had been guilty of abdicating his duties in the most careless and callous fashion, and without so much as a glance at those poor souls who toiled in his mills: The workers who made his cushioned life of ease and privilege possible, who were dependent on him, and were, in a very real sense, his responsibility. Half a century ago, she commented silently. I may understand something of the man now, but I’ll never forget what he did. Never.
She glanced down at her small but strong hands, soft and well cared for, the nails manicured to expensive perfection. But once those hands had been red and chapped and sore from scrubbing and polishing and washing and cooking for the Fairleys, when she had been bound in service to them as a child. Lifting one hand, she touched her face, and remembered with stunning clarity Murgatroyd’s sharp blows on her cheek. The detestable Murgatroyd, Adam Fairley’s butler, who had been permitted by the squire to rule that pernicious and secretive doomed house with a cruelty that bordered on savagery. Despite his harshness and his unremitting persecution of her, Murgatroyd had never frightened her. It was that monstrous house which had filled her with a nameless terror and from which she had wanted always to flee.
Then, one day, she had owned that great mausoleum of a place – Fairley’s Folly, the villagers had called it – and she had known at once that she would never live in it, would never play the role of the grand lady of the manor. And with a flash of sudden and intense vision she had understood exactly what she must do. She must obliterate it from the face of the earth as if it had never existed. And so she had torn it down, brick by brick by brick, until not a trace of it was left, and she could still recall to this very day the grim satisfaction she had experienced when she had finally razed it to the ground.
Now, across the span of four decades, she heard an echo of her own voice saying to Blackie: ‘And destroy this garden. Demolish it completely. I don’t want a rosebud, one single leaf left growing.’ Blackie had done exactly as she had instructed, uprooting that walled rose garden where Edwin Fairley had so inhumanly and shamefully repudiated her and their child, which she had been carrying. Miraculously, in the space of a few days, the garden, too, had disappeared as if it had never been there at all, and only then had she felt free of the Fairleys at last.
At this time in her life, Emma had acquired the mill. She had done her utmost to give the men proper living wages and overtime and all manner of fringe benefits, and she had kept the village going for years, often at great financial cost to herself. The workers were part of her in a way, for it was from their class that she herself came, and they held a favoured and unique place in her affections. The thought of letting a single one of them go distressed her, yet she had no choice, it seemed. Better, surely, to operate at half her work capacity and keep the mill rolling, than to close it down completely.
Half turning she said, ‘By the way, Alexander, have you discussed any of this with Kit?’
‘Uncle Kit,’ Alexander exclaimed, his startled tone reflecting the expression flicking on to his face. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he admitted. ‘For one thing, he hasn’t been around. And for another, he doesn’t seem interested in any of the mills, Fairley least
