Page 23 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

CHAPTER SIX

It was raining in Manchester. She didn’t remember ever going there when it wasn’t raining and, after all, this was April.

March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers .

Not that there would be many flowers, except the odd bit of ragwort sprouting at the base of a wall or a dandelion or two clinging to life in a crack in the pavement.

The air smelt sooty, and the rain running down windows left streaks behind, but there was a committee waiting for her in the factory yard with umbrellas and smiles.

She was shown up the stairs to the manager’s office, an impressive room of mahogany furniture, panelling, rich carpet, bookshelves of impressive tomes with gilded spines, and a large, ornate chimneypiece under which a fire burned vigorously.

It was deliciously warm, the lights were on against the dreary day outside, and there was a smell of coffee in the air.

The manager, Lesser, came forward with hand extended, and said, ‘It’s very good to see you here, Mrs Morland.

And I hope you don’t think me impertinent, but I’ve someone here for you to meet. ’

And he conducted her towards the figure standing by the fireplace, a tall man in some kind of naval uniform.

He looked about sixty, with thinning hair carefully cut, a square, clean-shaven face, tired eyes and a fatherly smile.

‘How d’you do, Mrs Morland?’ he said. ‘I’m very glad indeed to make your acquaintance. I knew your father, you know.’

He had a slight Yorkshire accent, eroded by long absences, and he offered her a hand like a plank with thick old man’s fingers. Polly had guessed who he was even before Lesser gave his name: Sir Edgar Britten, commodore of the Cunard Line and commissioned to captain Queen Mary on her maiden voyage.

She had naturally read up about him when the appointment had been announced: born in Bradford, went to sea at fifteen as a cabin boy on a sailing ship, joined Cunard in 1901 and had been with them ever since.

‘I’m delighted to meet you, Sir Edgar,’ she said. ‘How did you know Papa?’

‘With me being Cunard and him being White Star, you mean?’ Britten said.

‘Oh, we all knew each other in the ocean-racer business. I met him quite a few times at this or that jamboree – more so during the war, of course, with working on the hospital ships. And now Cunard and White Star are under one roof, so we’re all one family, and when Clive here mentioned you were coming for a visit, I couldn’t resist popping over to make my number with you. ’

He beamed, as if meeting her was the greatest treat imaginable. She couldn’t help smiling back at him – he was so natural a person, without ‘side’, that he reminded her a little of her father.

‘I’m honoured you could find time,’ she said. ‘You must be terribly busy. How is the fitting-out going?’

‘Oh, very well, very well. She’s a fine ship.

There are always little snags, but that’s what we’re there for, to iron them out.

We’ll be ready for the twenty-seventh of May.

My first command, you know, was one ton, and Queen Mary ’s going to be near eighty, quite a difference!

She’ll have every luxury you could think of – and the finest crew that ever sailed.

I’ve deckhands and stokers and stewards and stewardesses who had fathers and even grandfathers in the Line.

We value tradition, as you know. Your linens, by the way, are beautiful. ’

‘You have the start of me, Sir Edgar – I haven’t seen them yet.’

‘I have samples laid out in another room,’ Lesser said quickly. ‘I’ll show them to you later. I thought you might like a tour of the factory before luncheon.’

‘Ah, I wish I could join you for that,’ Britten said, ‘but I must be getting back. However, there’s something I want to ask you first, Mrs Morland, and I hope you won’t deny me.

Your father was always invited on the maiden voyage of any of the ships he supplied for, and Cunard-White Star is anxious to keep up the tradition.

I spoke to Sir Percy only yesterday about it, and he agreed with me. ’

‘Sir Percy Bates, the Chairman of the Line,’ Lesser murmured, for Polly’s benefit.

‘Do you know him?’ Britten asked.

‘I know of him. I’ve never met him,’ Polly said.

‘You will. Delightful feller. At all events, he agreed with me that you should be extended the same invitation we would have given to your father, to sail as our guest on the maiden voyage to New York. Now, do say you will! There’s a good chance she may take the Blue Riband, if the weather’s kind so she can stretch her legs. ’

‘You don’t need to add any extra inducement,’ Polly said, laughing. ‘I can’t think of anything more delightful. I’d love to, and thank you.’

If what she had read was true, the interiors of Queen Mary would be even more wonderful than Titanic ’s, which her father had described to her, wistfully, in later life.

She really wanted a holiday, and the crossing would provide it, with more luxury than any hotel on solid land.

And she would see New York again. It was five years exactly since she had left, and though Morland Place was home , with all that small word implied, there was a piece of her heart that would always belong to New York, where life had been so full and so exciting; where she had been young with everything ahead of her.

* * *

Rose was lying on the terrace beside the pool on a steamer chair.

She was wearing a bright red bathing costume, a straw hat and enormous sunglasses.

She had a tumbler of something in her hand that Lennie hoped was iced tea.

Condensation beaded on the glass; the sun bounced dazzlingly off the turquoise water; hummingbirds were feeding on the blooms of the golden currant. Rose, however, did not look happy.

‘I hope you’re not going to stay out in the sun too long,’ he said, coming down the last step. She didn’t look at him. ‘You don’t know what part is going to come up. You know how difficult sun-bronze is to cover with make-up.’

She pouted. ‘It doesn’t look as if I’m ever going to be offered another part. You told me if I was good and got clean, everything would be all right. I go to voice-coaching classes and fencing classes and singing classes – all I do is go to classes. When is something going to happen?’

‘I’m sure—’ he began encouragingly.

‘And when’s this divorce going to be done?’ She pulled off the sunglasses.

‘It’s going through. You know how lawyers like to hang things out.’

‘But who’s looking after my career? Maybe I should be getting myself an agent. I know you know everybody, but you aren’t getting me parts, are you?’

He’d been afraid of this – the restlessness and boredom that would kick in when she began to feel well again.

He had shielded her from the bad publicity and the gossip, so it was his fault that she did not know how out of favour she had been.

In an odd reversal of the usual order, it was better that she should get the offer of a part first, and engage the agent afterwards, to wrangle the terms. And his influence with ABO was the most likely route to an offer.

‘I’m going to talk to Al Feinstein today,’ he said. ‘Just be patient, honey. Things will take off very soon. And, please, get out of the sun. You’re going to get a mark all the way round the edge of that costume.’

‘Oh, all right ,’ she said, heaving herself up reluctantly. He dragged the steamer chair into the shade of the trumpet vine, and wriggled an umbrella round. Without the intimidating dark glasses she looked forlorn and vulnerable. ‘Are you hungry? Shall I get Wilma to fix you a sandwich?’

Lennie was one of the few people who were shown straight into Al Feinstein’s office with no waiting.

Joeseph Kennedy was another, and for the same reason – they had both been big financers of motion pictures, often the same ones.

But Kennedy lately had been concentrating on politics, supporting Roosevelt’s campaign and promoting the New Deal – with eight million still unemployed it was needed more than ever.

Lennie had lived his life the other way round, having been involved in politics in the twenties and now finding more to interest him in the movies.

Al greeted him with enthusiasm. ‘The Civil War! I was right about it, wasn’t I? This book is dynamite, and it’s going to make a great movie. It’ll be the biggest hit of the decade.’

Lennie was pleased but surprised at the degree of enthusiasm. ‘You liked The Leopards and the Lilies ?’

‘The who and the what now?’ Feinstein looked genuinely puzzled round the pacifier of his cigar stub.

‘The Cavaliers and Roundheads,’ Lennie prompted. ‘Romeo and Juliet in seventeenth-century England?’

Al made an impatient gesture. ‘Christ, no, not that shit! I’m talking about the real civil war.

North versus South. Southern belles and northern carpetbaggers!

This new book! Don’t tell me you haven’t read it?

’ He slapped what was evidently a bound proof that was lying on his desk.

‘ Gone With the Wind . Not crazy about the title – sounds like a bout of indigestion. But we can change that. Written by some dame or other. Title’s supposed to be a “literary allusion”, for Chrissake.

But the book’s the goods all right. It hasn’t even been published yet, but we’re all fighting like cats in a sack over the movie rights. ’

‘If it hasn’t been published, it’s no surprise that I haven’t read it,’ Lennie said mildly.

‘It’s hot, I tell you. MGM’s reading it.

David Selznick is.’ The director David O.

Selznick had recently set up his own company with the ample backing of the fabulously wealthy Jock Whitney.

‘Pandro Berman at RKO. Darryl Zanuck at Fox. Jack Warner at Warner Brothers. And the damn thing isn’t published until June! ’

‘With so much competition, it’ll push the price up,’ Lennie said doubtfully.