‘Thank you,’ said Emma, almost choking with the suppressed laughter.

‘Well then, I’ll leave yer be, Mrs Harte, so yer can unpack.’ Mrs Daniel nodded more cordially and closed the door behind her.

Emma pressed her hand to her mouth, listening to Mrs Daniel’s thudding footsteps retreating until they finally ceased. She flew across the attic to the bed and pushed her face into the pillow, now permitting herself to laugh unchecked, until the tears rolled down her cheeks. Do I know how to do housework! she kept thinking, and the peals of laughter would start all over again. But eventually her merriment subsided and she sat up, wiping her eyes. She pulled off her crocheted gloves. She looked down at her hands and grinned with amusement. They might not be as work-roughened red as they used to be, but they were hardly the hands of a lady. Not yet. It’s a good thing I kept my gloves on all day, she thought, or my hands would have probably given me away.

Now Emma stood up and walked over to the washstand. She stared at her reflection in the swingback mirror. The black dress and the cream bonnet were discards from Olivia Wainright’s wardrobe and their quality was unmistakable. Her punctilious mimicry of Olivia’s voice had not been difficult to accomplish, once she had commenced. In point of fact, speaking in a genteel fashion had come quite naturally to her, for she had a good ear and had practised with Edwin. The tinker and his gypsy wife, Rosie, and Mrs Daniel all believed her to be a fine young lady of Quality, albeit a trifle impoverished. And it was no accident. This was the precise impression she had strived to create, had hoped to establish immediately.

Before leaving Fairley, Emma had determined to start out in Leeds as she intended to continue-as a young lady who would become a grand lady. And a rich one. She smiled again, but now the smile was cynical and her eyes, turning dark with calculation, seemed, for a moment, as hard as the emeralds they so strikingly resembled. She would show the Fairleys but she could not dwell on that now. Her time was precious and must be planned with exactitude and used to the fullest. Every minute must be made to count. She would work eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, if necessary, to achieve her goal-to become somebody. To become a woman of substance.

Abruptly she turned away from the mirror, untied her bonnet, placed it on the chest, and hurried to the bed. Emma had such an abhorrence of dirt it was almost an obsession, and whilst the room itself appeared to be meticulously clean, she was impelled to examine the bed linen. The quilt was old but not badly worn. She pulled it off and looked at the sheets with her keen eyes. They were not new; in fact, they were neatly darned in places, but they were spotless and freshly laundered. To pacify herself completely, she stripped the bed down to the mattress, scrutinized it closely, turned it over, and with a sigh of satisfaction she remade the bed swiftly and with her usual expertise.

As tired as she was, she unpacked her suitcase and put her clothes neatly away in the wardrobe and the chest. In the bottom drawer of the chest she found two clean face towels. As she took them out her eyes lighted on several books lying in the drawer. Her curiosity aroused, she picked one up. It was a volume of poems by William Blake, bound in dark red leather and beautifully illustrated with engravings. She opened it and looked at the flyleaf. Slowly she read out loud, ‘Albert H. Daniel. His book.’ She put it back and regarded the other volumes, also expensively bound. Her mouth formed the unfamiliar names: ‘Spinoza. Plato. Aristotle.’ She returned them carefully to the drawer, wondering who Albert H. Daniel was, and thinking how much Frank would love to get his hands on books like these.

Frank. Little Frankie. She caught her breath and sat down heavily on the chair, her heart beating rapidly. She thought of her father and she was filled with sorrow tinged with a deep yearning, and then a feeling of guilt flooded through her, leaving her weak and vitiated. She sagged against the back of the chair. That morning she had left him a note, telling him she had gone to Bradford to look for a better position in one of the big mansions. She had explained she had a few savings to keep herself for several weeks. She had urged him not to worry and had promised to return quickly, if she did not find a suitable post, adding that should she be fortunate enough to secure a good place she would write to him with her address.

And what will I write? she asked herself worriedly. She did not know. And she had more important things to think about for the next few days. Survival. That above all else.

Emma had been in Leeds for almost a week and so far had been unable to find work. For the past four days she had diligently visited every shop in Briggate and the adjoining streets, seeking any kind of position, prepared to take even the most menial. But to her growing dismay and alarm there were no openings at all. Doggedly, from early morning until dusk, she tramped the pavements, those pavements Blackie had said were paved with gold, but which seemed to her to get harder and dustier by the minute.

In these four days Emma had come to know the central areas of the city well, for she had a remarkable memory and a good sense of direction. In spite of an occasional attack of severe anxiety that would momentarily hold her in its grip, she found Leeds exciting, thrilling, in fact. She had also discovered, much to her own astonishment, that she had no fear of this enormous metropolis, so accurately described to her by Blackie well over a year ago. The great buildings, awesome in their incredible proportions, had seemed slightly overpowering on Monday morning when she had valiantly set out from Mrs Daniel’s boarding-house, intent and relentless in her determination to secure a job. But she had quickly adjusted to the surroundings, which might easily have struck terror in one of weaker character, for Emma saw those immense structures for what they truly were: institutions of industry and progress, symbols of money and, inevitably, of power. And her staunch heart invariably quickened at the opportunities they offered, and her burning ambition was reinforced in her imaginative and optimistic mind, for Emma truly believed anything was possible.

The stores and factories, warehouses and iron foundries, printing works and office buildings towering above her, grim of architecture and pitted and blackened by the city’s dirt, reminded her, in a curious way, of the moors, for these monoliths to commerce were just as implacable and indomitable and everlasting. As she had drawn an inexplicable and uncommon strength from those wild hills, so now she drew encouragement and hope from the soaring edifices starkly outlined against the skyline of Leeds, which was the fifth largest city in England. Instinctively she recognized that here her future lay. In her youthfulness, she was determined it would be one of untold wealth, plus that irresistible power she longed so desperately to seize and hold for ever in her own small but tenacious hands.

This morning as she trudged along, Emma unexpectedly found herself in front of Leeds Town Hall and stopped to stare at it, gasping at its austere grandeur. Many wide steps led up to the imposing south façade, where four giant-sized white stone lions guarded its portals in front of Corinthian columns that floated up to dizzying heights. It was a square building, surmounted by a most amazing tower supported by additional columns echoing those on the south facade. There were clocks on four sides and the tower itself was topped by a strange bold cupola. It was a massive building of great weightiness, black and Victorian, and Gothic in its inspiration, yet it was not ugly. Emma decided it had a handsome and even graceful exterior and it was undoubtedly the most astounding landmark she had seen in Leeds so far. As she gaped at it, her eyes flaring open with wonder, it was not possible for Emma to know that its architect, Cuthbert Broderick, had also been in love with money and power, and his Town Hall, opened by Queen Victoria in 1858, had been the ultimate expression of that love. However, with her rare perception, Emma intuitively understood it was a personification of all the city stood for. As she continued to regard the Town Hall a most vivid and compelling thought flitted into her mind: This city can either conquer you, or you can conquer it. With her usual self-confidence she decided at once, and with no hesitation whatsoever, that it would be the latter.