house redolent of unhappiness and decay. And yet for all that quiescence there was a sheathed turbulence everywhere, contained but ominous and stealthily waiting to break loose.
Emma was shivering as she glided across the rich Turkey carpet in the vast front entrance hall and pushed open the double doors of the morning room. She stood on the threshold and nervously glanced around. Meagre fingers of gauzy sunlight fought their way into the room through the tall windows, heavily curtained in white silk and draped with thick blue velvet hangings. Dark portraits gazed down from the dim blue flocked-velvet walls and Emma imagined, absurdly, that their ancient eyes followed her as she crept towards the fireplace, squeezing past the many pieces of ponderous Victorian furniture made of mahogany so dark they looked black in the gloomy light. The only sound was the plaintive ticking of the clock on the carved black marble mantelshelf.
Emma deposited the cleaning equipment on the floor and knelt down in front of the fireplace. She dusted off the traces of ash and filled it with the paper spills and chips of wood Murgatroyd had placed in a pile on the hearth, along with the matches. She lit the paper and when the chips took hold she opened the brass scuttle and lifted out small pieces of coal. These she gingerly placed on the burning wood. The coal did not catch light immediately, so she lifted her apron and fanned the fire until it began to blaze.
The monotonous ticking of the clock reminded Emma she had little time to waste. She cleaned the room with efficiency and speed, in spite of the cumbersome and cluttered arrangements of furniture. When she had accomplished this, she took a fine white Irish linen tablecloth from the sideboard drawer and placed it over the great circular table. She arranged four place settings of silver and ran back to the sideboard for the dishes. As she was taking out four blue-and-white Crown Derby plates she tensed and held herself very still. Her neck prickled and gooseflesh sprang up on her arms, for she knew she was no longer alone. She sensed rather than heard another presence in the room. She turned slowly on her haunches. Squire Fairley was standing in the doorway watching her intently.
She stood up quickly and dropped a small curtsy. ‘Good morning, Squire,’ she mumbled timorously, clutching the plates firmly to her breast, so that they would not rattle in her trembling hands. Her legs shook, although more from surprise than fear.
‘Morning. Where’s Polly?’
‘She’s badly, Squire.’
‘I see,’ he said laconically.
His eyes bored into her as he regarded her with the utmost concentration. He frowned and a puzzled expression settled on his face. After a prolonged silence, during which Emma stared at him mesmerized, he nodded tersely, turned smartly on his heels, and left. The banging of the library door as he slammed it harshly behind him made her start in surprise. It was only then that she breathed with relief and finished setting the table for the family’s breakfast.
Adam Fairley stood in the middle of the library and pressed his hands to his face. He was tired, exhausted, in fact, for he had slept badly yet again. His insomnia was nothing new. He seemed to be cursed with it these days, or rather these interminable nights. Even when he resorted to drinking five, sometimes six large ports after dinner, and vintage port at that, the wine did not act as a sedative. He would sleep for several hours, a drugged and heavy stupor descending upon him, but then he would awaken suddenly in the early hours, perspiring or shivering, depending on his nightmares, his mind a turmoil of painfully dredged-up memories and analytical assessments of his life, which did not please him. It had not for a long time.
He walked up and down the room slowly, lost in contemplation, a compact, trimly built man of about six feet, with an attractive, intelligent face, well modelled and sensitive, which was pale and drawn today, and etched with fatigue. His fine eyes were greyish blue in colour and intensely brilliant, almost incandescent, and extraordinarily lucid, filled with hidden depths and the suggestion of spirituality. But today they were red-rimmed and the light in them was dimmed. The most surprising feature in his somewhat ascetic face was his mouth, which was exceedingly sensual, although the sensuality was generally repressed and disguised by the austere expression that constantly played around his lips. His light brown hair had a blondish cast to it, was straight and finely textured. He wore it brushed loosely across his shapely head, slightly longer than was the vogue. He had an aversion to the pomaded hairstyles that were currently the mode for gentlemen of fashion. Consequently, a forelock of hair continually fell down over his wide brow, and he had developed a nervous habit of pushing it back quickly. He did this now as he paced the floor.
Oddly enough, this impatient gesture never seemed to create dishevelment in him, for Adam Fairley was one of those men who looked eternally well groomed, no matter what the circumstance or whatever activity occupied him. His appearance was faultless. He was always superbly attired, befitting the occasion, with the flair usually attributed to a dandy, and yet he was not flashy in the least.
His Savile Row suits were so impeccably cut, so beautifully styled and made with such perfect precision and unerring tailoring, they were the envy of his cohorts in London and his colleagues in the wool trade in Leeds and Bradford. For the most part, they were of fine cloths from his own mills, or from those of his friends – woollens and worsteds from the great looms of Yorkshire, undisputed centre of the world’s woollen business and of which Adam Fairley was the undisputed king. All in all, Adam Fairley was the quintessence of sartorial elegance. He disliked anything shoddy or crude, and his weakness for fine clothes was one of his few indulgences. Conversely, it never occurred to him that the house in which he lived was singularly lacking in beauty. He rarely noticed it.
After a few minutes, he ceased pacing and walked across the room to the enormous carved ebony desk. He sat down in the dark wine-red leather chair and stared dully at his engagement diary. His eyes were scratchy and burning from lack of sleep, his body ached, and his head was throbbing not only from fatigue but from the wearisome thoughts that beset him. He felt there was nothing in his life of any worth. No joy, no love, no warmth, no companionship, not even any interests into which he could channel his energies. There was nothing … nothing but endless lonely days stretching slowly and inexorably into endless lonelier nights, day after day, year after year.
All animation slipped away and his face took on gauntness. Violet smudges bruised his cheeks below his eyes, were strong evidence of the ravages of the night before, of the countless hours he had paced his bedroom, racked with an anguish he found unendurable. And yet it was a boyish face, sorrowful and weary as it was. Adam Fairley looked much younger than his forty-four years.
My life is a damnable mess, he thought with dissatisfaction. What’s the point of living? I have nothing to live for. I wish I had the courage to put a bullet through my head and end it all for ever.
This thought so shocked him he sat bolt upright in the chair and gripped its arms. He looked at his hands. They were shaking. Even in his worst moments, which had been not infrequent lately, he had never before thought of taking his own life. In the past he had always equated suicide with cowardice, yet now he admitted to himself that perhaps, in an oblique way, this act did take a kind of courage. It occurred to him that only the stupid never contemplated suicide. Surely most men of intelligence have considered it at some time or other? he asked himself. For he realized, with a sickening sense of futility, that knowledge of life and the human condition inevitably brought disillusionment and despair. For him it had also brought a sense of helplessness, which he found increasingly intolerable.
In spite of his wealth and position, Adam Fairley was a tormented man who had been bitterly disappointed in life. He no longer expected happiness, but he did crave contentment and, at the very least, peace of mind. And yet he could find no respite from his bitter loneliness and the desolation in his heart, all the more unbearable because it was, to a great extent, of his own creation. Adam’s dissatisfaction and searing disillusionment sprang from his betrayal of himself, his ambitions, his dreams, and his ideals. It was the failure of intellect and of moral conviction.
Adam lifted his head wearily and looked around the library slowly, as if seeing it after a long journey. This was a baronial