Page 42 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

Lennie was waiting for Rose when she came off the set at the end of the day’s filming and gave her the news.

‘Shakespeare!’ she said, as they crossed the lot. ‘But that’s great! I’ve about had my fill of cowboy movies. How did you talk him into it?’

‘It was his idea.’

‘It’s a romance, right?’ Rose said. ‘I haven’t read it.’ He gave her a quick outline of the plot. ‘It sounds complicated.’

‘But if it’s done right, it’ll be a big hit for you – as long as you behave yourself.’

‘I will. I’m over all that stuff. I just wish—’ She stopped, with a sigh.

‘Wish what, honey?’ Lennie said.

‘I wish I could fall in love, and have the guy love me back, like an ordinary person.’

‘But you’re not an ordinary person,’ Lennie said, feeling a little sick at heart.

She looked up at him. ‘Is that the price I have to pay for my career? I don’t know if it’s worth it.’

‘Only you can decide that. I would never push you, you know that. If you want to quit, you can.’

She thought a moment. ‘But I love it,’ she said.

‘I love acting, I love being in front of the cameras. When I walk onto a set I get a thrill. And seeing myself on screen. I don’t know if anything else would make me feel like that.

’ She followed her thoughts then said, ‘You won’t leave me, will you, Uncle Lennie?

You won’t go away? I don’t think I could cope without you there at the end of the day. ’

‘I’m not really your uncle, you know.’

‘But I like calling you that. Makes me feel safe.’

‘Go on and get changed. I’ll take you out to Perino’s for dinner tonight.’

She brightened. ‘That’s Bette Davis’s favourite restaurant.’

‘You’re going to be twice as famous as Bette Davis. And you’re ten times as pretty.’

She laughed happily. ‘Perino’s! I love you, Uncle Lennie.’

The Messenger took Basil to its heart in a way that confounded him.

Everyone was openly friendly and helpful.

Even the proprietor – normally, at a newspaper, a distant and terrifying figure – was genial.

Sir Bradley Perkins, who had made his fortune through a national chain of haberdashery shops, liked to pop his head round the door of every department on his weekly visits and say, ‘Well done, chaps! Keep it up!’ and had his chauffeur deliver a box of cakes for the employees’ afternoon tea.

And everyone was so trusting that it was no fun to bamboozle them.

Shirking would have been so easy that he could not work up any enthusiasm for it.

Also, to his surprise, he was finding the work so interesting he did not want to avoid it.

Even his probationary days went quickly.

His immediate boss, news editor Dickins – a spare, rumpled, harassed individual – was generously encouraging.

‘Go where you like, see what’s going on, ask questions, find out what you’re good for.

Follow your instincts,’ he had said, an open invitation to Bad Basil to disappear for most of the day.

But Bad Basil was losing ground to Curious Basil, and he feared that Diligent, Eager and Focused Basil might be close behind.

He had been put under the wing of a junior reporter, Bob Zennor – an enormous young man like a friendly puppy, who had played rugby at Oxford and was only a few years older than him – and went out on ‘stories’ with him.

Dickins gave him back his early attempts at writing them up almost completely obliterated by blue pencil, but still said, ‘Good effort! You’ll soon pick it up!

’ Zennor told him not to be discouraged by the blue pencil – even veteran reporters were not immune.

A sheet that came back unaltered, he said, would have worried him.

At the end of his month’s trial, Basil was given a rosy assessment and was offered a permanent job. He even got a handshake from the newspaper’s actual editor, Mr Comstock – a person so exalted a junior reporter hardly ever came across him. ‘Hearing good things about you, Compton. Keep it up!’

Basil accepted the manly grip with a sickly grin and muttered thanks, feeling at the same time gratified and oddly nervous. Adulthood was claiming him. He was going to be a grown-up, whether he liked it or not.

While most of the staff were male, there were some females around the building, and on one of his early expeditions, when Zennor was showing him around and introducing him to the lino men and the comps and explaining what they did, they encountered a tall young woman, who greeted Zennor with a brisk ‘Morning, Bob!’ and gave Basil a look that was swiftly comprehensive.

She did not slow to be introduced, and walked rapidly to the stairs at the end of the corridor and disappeared down them.

Basil, who had turned to watch her go, discovered that her back view was almost as enticing as the front. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

‘Miss Byrne,’ Zennor said. The tone of his voice made Basil turn back to look at him, to discover Zennor’s big, healthy face had taken on a distinctly ‘soppy’ look.

‘Tell me more,’ Basil encouraged.

‘Miranda Byrne. She works in the advertising department. She did HMDs before—’

‘She did what?’

‘Hatches, Matches and Despatches. Births, deaths and marriage notices,’ he elucidated, seeing Basil still looked blank. ‘But she was in the newsroom for a bit before that. She’s wonderful !’

‘Are you and she … ?’

‘Lord, no!’ Zennor blushed. ‘Doesn’t know I exist.’

‘She called you “Bob”.’

‘Well, we were pally when she was in the newsroom. But she’s much too good for me. I wouldn’t have a hope.’

Basil was glad to hear it, though he found himself, inexplicably, saying, ‘A girl is just a girl, you know.’

‘Not that one,’ Zennor insisted. ‘Quite apart from—’ He made a vague gesture, encompassing Miss Byrne’s charms. ‘She’s Mr Comstock’s niece. And frightfully well off.’

‘Oh, is she?’ Basil said, and changed the subject. Encouraging Bob Zennor to think he had a chance was no longer in the plan.

Kit had been out with Raymond and a group of friends. Arriving home late, he saw a light under Emma’s door, and went in, finding her sitting up in bed reading.

‘I was hoping you’d drop in,’ she said.

He crossed the room to kiss her and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘What are you reading?’

‘ Regency Buck – Georgette Heyer.’

‘Nice?’

‘Pure frivol. I was struggling through Brave New World and thought I deserved a treat. Did you have a nice evening?’

‘Ish. Dinner was good, but then we went on to Brokespeare’s flat for coffee and brandy and the talk turned terribly earnest. Brokespeare’s a devoted leftist, and they’ve all vowed never to enjoy themselves until the New Order is established – perhaps not even then.

But he had some divine pieces of early Sèvres, and some rather good ivories, so I occupied myself pottering among them while they saved the world. How was your day?’

‘I went to have a look at Macklin Street with John Douglas this morning. He has some good ideas. I’ll show you tomorrow – they’re on the desk downstairs.’

Kit nodded. ‘Lunched where?’

‘Here. Came back to change, thought I’d slip over to Verena’s, but I found Wally on the doorstep in a terrible state.

So of course I had to ask her in. Mrs Ambrose had to find something for us.

Cold watercress soup and omelettes fines herbes ,’ she added, knowing he’d want to know. He thrived on detail.

‘And what was the Wally upset about?’

‘You were right, she’s never realised how much she was being protected from the press.

When she left the Nahlin she stopped off in Paris, at the Meurice, and her post caught up with her, including a big package of press cuttings from her aunt Bessie in America.

Pictures of her with the King on holiday – him in shorts and no shirt as often as not – and lurid accounts of their affair.

Plenty of detail, not much of it accurate, but a terrible shock, when she was used to the silence of Fleet Street. It’s thrown her into a panic.’

‘Yes, I can see that it would. A taste of horrors to come. Sooner or later the dam will burst – I’m amazed the press restraint has lasted this long.’

‘Now she’s saying she must break off her relationship with the King.

I think she really means it. She says she wants to go back to Ernest. She really misses him – talked about how he used to come home from work with the Evening Standard under his arm, mix her a cocktail and chat about ordinary things.

“We were always good friends,” she said.

And, of course, you and I know that there’s no friendship for her with David – he’s like a demanding child.

’ Emma paused, then concluded, ‘I think she’s lonely. ’

‘But she loves the high life,’ Kit said. ‘She wouldn’t really give that up.’

‘I think she would now. The price is too high.’

‘She’s left it too late. Ernest wants the divorce. Even if she withdrew the petition, he wouldn’t want to live with her again, and you can’t blame him. He must have seen what the American press is saying about him. No man likes to be cast in that light.’

‘At any rate, she’s writing to the King to tell him she wants to break with him.’

‘Ha! Well, we’ll see how that goes.’

‘She looked awfully ill, poor thing. She said she’d caught a cold in Paris, but I think it’s all emotional. I can’t say I really like her, but I do feel sorry for her.’

Kit stared at his hands. ‘Yes. It’s hard to see how this can turn out well. There’s absolutely no chance the establishment will let him marry a twice-divorced woman. The country would never stand for it, let alone the colonies.’

‘Perhaps he could just marry her in secret,’ Emma said doubtfully.

‘But that’s not what he wants. He wants to marry her in Westminster Abbey in the full glare of publicity, and have her crowned as queen beside him.’

‘But that makes no sense,’ Emma said in frustration. ‘It’s madness.’