Page 73 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

‘These are all good ideas,’ Richard said. ‘You should write them down.’

‘I shall. I am doing,’ she said. He was glad to see her look so animated.

Hannah was less enthusiastic. ‘Why do we need to expand? We’re doing all right. And my Samuel is no spring chicken. I don’t want him to work himself to death.’

‘I won’t let that happen,’ Richard said. ‘I’ll do everything.’

She gave him an old-fashioned look, but said nothing more, only took Cynthia away to work on the financial details.

‘We have to know how much we can charge before we can see if a profit is there,’ she said.

They investigated the cost of a bed, breakfast and evening meal in various seaside resorts, the cost of additional meals, cinema tickets, deckchair hire, entrance to piers and shows and attractions, and so on.

Then they had to estimate what staffing costs would be, food, laundry and maintenance. The capital costs of building the village they left to Richard.

Cynthia voiced a problem. ‘It’s going to sound expensive, next to what they pay for bed and breakfast. We have to find a way to make them understand that it includes all the other things they pay for when they’re on holiday.’

‘Advertising,’ Richard said.

‘That’s another expense.’

‘We’d have to advertise anyway, to let people know the place exists,’ Richard said.

‘And keep on advertising, for the first few years, until people start to know what Nevinson’s Holiday Villages are.’

‘Villages – plural?’

Cynthia gave him a smile. ‘No sense in wasting a good idea.’

Polly had been glad to have James back, especially when the mild December they’d been having suddenly turned on them and showed its teeth.

The heaviest snowfall in living memory blanketed Yorkshire, and there was so much to do: getting animals in, feeding them, exercising horses, checking on elderly neighbours and pensioners, repairing fences and roofs.

And when work was done, there were the long hours of being confined to the house, when James’s ingenuity and cheerfulness were worth more than gold.

Once the snow departed and things got back to normal, James threw himself into the project for getting Alec a more suitable pony – he would be eight this summer and was growing tall.

James and Polly had agreed that a New Forest pony would be ideal, being a nice, narrow breed, and very hardy, if they could find one big enough: many of them were only twelve hands, or twelve-two.

After a great deal of enquiry and many visits of inspection, James found a six-year-old fourteen-hand bay gelding with a white star, elegant dark stockings and a sweet nature.

Alec was instantly enchanted by him, didn’t mind that he had been ridden hitherto by a girl, didn’t even mind that he was called Shady, when he had told everyone that he was going to call his new pony Thunder.

‘Horses don’t like to have their names changed,’ he told Josh loftily.

Shady was well-mannered and reliable, but with enough ‘go’ to satisfy the young master. And, unlike Mr Pickles, the pony had no objection to jumping. Alec began talking about jumping him in horse shows. Polly didn’t want to sell Mr Pickles, but Jessie found a good family to lend the mare to.

Polly saw that, having completed that task, James became restless.

She tried to interest him in routine matters, but kept finding him looking at books of travel memoirs.

He got out his old journals of the trips to Bear Island and Canada, was often found poring over the big atlas from the library.

He mentioned his disappointment at the American trip’s being cancelled, and began to talk about going there under his own steam, buying a motorcycle and travelling around the country.

And in the end she was not surprised, though she was sorry on her own account, when he announced that he was going back to Paris for a while.

‘To work for Charlie?’ she asked.

‘I think I’ll just see what turns up. I can earn enough with my painting to keep myself in a modest way. I wonder if I can get my old lodgings back? And there’ll be a few people who’ll be surprised to see me,’ he said, with a happy smile.

Polly saw she could not keep him, and only said wistfully, ‘Remember there’s always a home for you here. Alec will miss his favourite uncle.’

He seized her in a bear hug. ‘I won’t forget my favourite sister,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be gone for ever – just a few months. You ’re my home, Pol, my real home. I’ll always come back.’

And the next day he was gone. Alec was disconsolate. ‘I wanted to show him how I’ve taught Shady to shake hands,’ he complained. ‘He’s nearly learned it perfectly.’

Gone With the Wind was once more in the news, because Selznick had announced he was to scour the country for the right person to play the heroine, Scarlett O’Hara. ‘It says here that he’s going to audition two thousand unknowns,’ Rose said, nose in a magazine.

‘I heard fifteen hundred,’ said Lennie, looking up from his morning pile of post. They were breakfasting on the terrace, and the smell of waffles and coffee was in the air.

Rose shrugged. ‘A nationwide casting call, it says here. I don’t see why he can’t find someone in the usual way.’

‘Of course he could,’ Lennie said, ‘but this way he gets a lot of publicity for the film. Think of all those pretty girls in small towns across America who dream of being a movie star, and their excitement about maybe getting an audition. Their mothers and aunts will be in a frenzy, and when the movie eventually comes out, they’ll all go to see it so they can say, “You’d have been much better than her , honey. ”’

Rose laughed. ‘You’re such a cynic, Uncle Lennie. Maybe there is a wonderful unknown actress out there, waiting to be discovered. They have to get started some way.’

‘The fact of the matter is,’ Lennie said, ‘that Selznick is determined to have Clark Gable for Rhett Butler, and MGM never loans him. He can’t start production until he’s sorted that out, so while he works on Mayer to change his mind, he might as well be doing something useful.

He’s paid fifty grand for the rights, after all, so he’s got to drum up some publicity for the end product. ’

‘But if MGM won’t lend Clark Gable—’

‘Oh, there’s a deal to be made,’ Lennie said. ‘Louis B. Mayer is Selznick’s father-in-law. He won’t hold out for ever or his daughter will cut up rough. It just has to be juicy enough on both sides. Meanwhile, a national frenzy over the female lead keeps the interest up.’

‘I bet it will be Norma Shearer,’ Rose said. ‘I read in a magazine that Selznick wanted her.’

‘I read somewhere that the author of the book thought Miriam Hopkins was the closest to her character. But Selznick thinks she’s too old.’

‘How old is too old?’

‘Mid-thirties, I think. But that’s the same age as most of the other front-runners – Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Tallulah Bankhead. If it were me, I’d be looking for someone your age.’

Rose looked up sharply. ‘You think I should do it?’

‘Have you read the book?’

‘Not all the way through. I flicked. There was a lot of history in it. And honestly? I thought Scarlett was pretty dumb, always thinking about her looks, and chasing that Ashley character when it was plain he didn’t want her.

But I can see it’d make a good movie. Do you think I could get an audition? ’

‘You’re going to be pretty busy, honey. When Into the Night ’s wrapped up, there’ll be the Robin Hood film.’

‘Woody says I ought to keep going to auditions, even when I don’t need the part. He says you have to keep your audition skills honed, and put your name out there.’

‘Did he suggest you try for Scarlett?’

‘I haven’t discussed it with him. But I bet he would. Robin Hood ’s still not tied up, is it? It might still not happen.’

‘I’ll talk to Al Feinstein again,’ said Lennie.

There had been a lot of work done on the script by the story editor, Kay Courtney, who had experience of countering Feinstein’s wilder aberrations without alienating him.

So the Robin Hood/King Arthur entanglement was largely unpicked, the baddie was back to being sheriff, rather than king, and Sir Bedevere – since a dangerously attractive cad was thought to be a strong element – was now Lord Bedford, one of the sheriff’s rich henchmen.

The other knights were out, the comic relief was toned down and was now a fairly muted Friar Tuck, who had a rather touching romance with Marian’s faithful maidservant Jenny, the nun was out, and the wicked queen was now the sheriff’s proud and haughty wife, who had once had a tendresse for Robin, which explained his exile in the forest – the sheriff had found out and threatened to kill him – and her hatred of Marian – jealousy because Robin now preferred her.

It was not essential, of course, as Lennie knew, that a script make sense – it was more important that the movie was action-packed and engaging – but all other things being equal, it was more satisfying if it did.

The problem with Al Feinstein was that if too many problems were rolled into his path, he tended to lose interest in a project and change direction.

Lennie was worried that that might have happened with Robin Hood .

He contrived to bump into him on the lot one day in March and saw from Al’s immediately narrowed eyes, and the aggressive way he manoeuvred his cigar from the corner to the middle of his mouth, that he expected to be harangued about Robin and bullied for a decision.

So Lennie changed his attack. ‘How about Selznick and this nationwide casting call?’ he said. ‘That’s a smart move, Al. I wonder you haven’t thought of it.’

‘It’ll cost him a hundred thousand bucks if it costs him a cent,’ Al said. ‘And for what? Running round the country rounding up girls instead of letting the agents do the screening? Crazy!’

‘It’s good publicity,’ Lennie said. ‘But the end of it will be someone from the regular circuit, courtesy of an agent, just like you say. I heard Warner’s offering a package of Bette Davis and Errol Flynn in return for distribution rights.’

‘Tchah!’ Feinstein said in disgust. ‘Stale news. Selznick’s already turned down Bette Davis.’

‘Good publicity, too, for the girls who get as far as a screen test,’ Lennie persisted. ‘I was thinking, Van ought to put Rose up for it. She’d make a great Scarlett. And even if she didn’t get the part, just being considered would get her name known.’

Al scowled dreadfully. The cigar rolled to the corner of his mouth so he could get the words out.

‘Known? Her name’s already known! D’you think I’d let Selznick and Mayer get their grubby hands on my girl?

I coulda bought Gone With the Wind if I’d wanted it.

I tell you, it’s got disaster written all over it.

That movie will never be made. You tell Rosie I’m not having her audition for that piece-a garbage.

She’s under contract to me. And she’ll be far too busy with Robin Hood even to think about it – tell her that. ’

‘So Robin Hood ’s going ahead?’ Lennie said innocently.

Feinstein champed the cigar to the other corner. ‘Going ahead? Course it’s going ahead! What kind of a damn fool question is that?’

‘Oh, it’s just that I hadn’t heard anything in a while, and I need to be sure I’ve got enough finance liquid when it’s needed.’

Al removed the cigar so that he could jab it in Lennie’s direction.

‘You get yourself liquid, my boy. Contracts are being finalised as we speak. They’ll be out to you end of this week.

I was gonna tellya, but you jumped me with all this Gone With the Wind shit.

Stale news, Len, stale news. You oughtta keep more on top of things, a guy like you. ’

And, pleased with himself for this parting shot, he turned on his surprisingly small, springy feet and rolled away.