Page 82 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ he said, ‘so I don’t suppose anything else has. Except that Alec’s bound to be a lot bigger. He won’t remember me. Does he look like Ren?’

‘Not at all,’ she said shortly. ‘He looks like me.’

‘Lucky boy,’ he said.

As an avid picture-goer, Ethel was in her seventh heaven.

The film company was being accommodated in various lodgings and local hotels, but inevitably spent much of each day at Morland Place.

As well as the external scenes, there were several to be shot inside the house, using the Great Hall, which had had to be stripped of all furnishings.

Here, the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham fought a duel with Robin Hood; here Lord Bedford pressed his malign attentions on Lady Marian.

In addition, the dining-saloon had been set aside for Costume and Make-up, again requiring the removal of its usual furnishings.

Everything had been taken to the gentlemen’s wing, out of bounds for the week.

Joy and profit had been brought to a large swathe of York people.

The film company was ferried back and forth by a fleet of motor-cars, to the satisfaction of John’s boss and other motor-garages.

Jessie and Bertie had been commissioned to provide horses.

She hired those of her own that were temperamentally suitable, and found more in other local stables, along with grooms to handle them.

Provisioners of all sorts made an unexpected and very welcome profit.

The tradesmen of York enjoyed a golden period as the film people spent their spare time exploring, eating, drinking and buying souvenirs, while their presence drew in people from all around hoping to catch a glimpse of them, spending money in the process.

Even the cinemas cashed in by showing Dick Randolph films and The Falcon and the Rose to packed houses.

And a fencing school on Monkton Road was delighted to provide two instructors to act as doubles and perform the duel for a handsome fee.

But for Ethel, having real film stars under her roof, especially the three principals – Rose Morland, Dean Cornwell and Dick Randolph – brought her to the edge of ecstasy.

The drawing- room was made available to them to relax between shots, prepare and read over their lines.

They were in and out of the dining-saloon, being costumed and made up.

They took refreshments in the small dining-room, where the house’s inhabitants actually got to sit down with them.

These people she had read about in film magazines and seen on screen were actually in her house !

Quite unconsciously, she took on the aspect of grand lady of the manor in front them, as if it was her house and not Polly’s.

She wore her Sunday best every day, her accent underwent a noticeable gentrification, she offered them the hospitality of Morland Place and assured them that anything they desired would be provided for them.

She listened with flattering attention to their least sentences and laughed trillingly at their little jokes.

She was condescending, charming, arch, gracious, and blushingly admiring by turns.

She was particularly excited about Dick Randolph, whom she had always adored on screen, and perhaps not realising that Ethel was not the chatelaine, Randolph played up to her.

He bowed over her hand and kissed it, calling her ‘dear lady’ in what he thought was an English accent.

He extravagantly opened doors and pulled out chairs for her, to the confusion of the footman whose job it was.

Ethel blossomed under his attentions, and allowed herself a little fantasy, at night in bed, where he fell in love with her English charms and whisked her off to California to marry him and live in his Hollywood mansion.

At the back of her mind she knew it was only a fantasy, but it was sweet all the same. She had been a widow a long time.

The maids were divided between gazing adoringly at Dick and at Dean Cornwell.

Dean was pleasant to everyone in a schoolboyish way and especially friendly to the younger footmen, but Lennie, keeping an eye on him, did not see anything untoward taking place.

He seemed on his best behaviour – and it would be only a week, after all.

Martin, another of Polly’s dependants, was home from college, and befriended him, and Dean seemed to take to his unstudied naturalness.

Rose was very excited to be at Morland Place, which she had heard so much about but didn’t remember, and on a day when her schedule was light she begged Polly to give her a tour of the house.

Polly had seen The Falcon and the Rose , and was prepared for Rose to be the grand actress, but she was friendly and natural, and seemed almost shy with Polly, as if unsure she would be liked.

By the end of the tour, during which Rose showed a great appreciation of everything, Polly felt genuinely attached to her.

They were, after all, cousins, and Polly was happy to talk about their shared ancestors.

The servants and estate workers were excited about witnessing the making of a film, and people from the village and the housing estate also flocked over to see what was going on, so that a perimeter had to be set up to keep them from interfering with the action.

John Burton saw to it, and arranged for it to be patrolled by some of the largest estate workers.

The Morland Place people were besieged by picture-goers with requests for information about the stars’ actions, habits and preferences, and Alec did a brisk trade in autographs for his schoolfriends.

The pinnacle of joy came when a number of the servants were recruited to act in some of the scenes.

‘It’s very nice of your producer-lady to ask them,’ Polly said to Lennie. ‘They couldn’t be more thrilled. They’ll talk about this for the rest of their lives.’

Lennie smiled. ‘Don’t you realise that Dorothy’s saving money? Your people are happy to do it for nothing, which saves her having to hire extras.’

‘Oh, is that it? Well, they’re delighted, anyway.’

‘It’s particularly useful to have people who can ride. In Hollywood, extras with skills cost more.’

The inconvenience to Polly of the invasion was amply repaid, not only by the money ABO were paying her, but by the fun of watching the business of movie-making.

She was surprised that the outside scenes required enormous arc-lamps, running off a large generator – daylight was apparently not enough.

And at how often there seemed to be nothing going on, everyone standing around in their costumes waiting for …

she knew not what. The director, a gaunt, saturnine person who seemed to inspire awe even in the principals, was brought to rage by the passing of aeroplanes overhead, which meant the filming had to stop, and the producer, Dorothy, had to go and placate him.

Polly overheard her saying to Lennie that he ought to have told her the place was so close to an airfield.

At least they weren’t rained off. The weather remained perfect, sunny, not too hot, with picturesque large white clouds in a blue sky.

Lennie told her that when they didn’t have attractive clouds they sometimes added them to the film later, and she wasn’t sure whether to believe him.

There was a day when they spent some hours filming horses, ridden by extras in costume, galloping back and forth across one of the fields – from which the cows, of course, had been removed to a safe distance.

Polly couldn’t see what this had to do with the story, but Lennie told her that as they had hired the horses, they might as well use them, and that you could always find a place in a film for a few hundred feet of galloping horses.

The drawbridge worked perfectly, and the estate carpenter watched it go down and up with parental pride, and murmured to Polly that he had never been to the pictures but he would make an exception when this film came out.

‘It’s the star of the whole show, is that,’ he said.

‘I shall take the missus. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. ’

Perhaps the biggest sensation was caused by the butler, Frederick Barlow, a tall and handsome man, when he agreed to get into costume and play the part of the sheriff’s major-domo.

It was Dorothy Fitch who persuaded him. He had only to conduct Robin Hood, in disguise, into the sheriff’s presence, bow, and retreat, but Dorothy was so impressed by his height, looks and manner that she persuaded the director to give him a line.

‘A messenger from Sherwood, sir,’ he had to say.

It caused a such a ripple among the maids, they had to be restrained from crowding into doorways to watch the rehearsals and the ‘takes’.

They begged him nightly in the servants’ hall to say his line, then sighed and cooed when he did.

‘You’ll have to keep an eye on him,’ Lennie said to Polly. ‘Dorothy’s after him.’

They were taking the dogs for a last walk round the moat; the evening was mild and sweet, and a gibbous moon was washing its face in the still black water. It had been less than half full when Lennie arrived. The week was almost up.

‘After him?’ she queried.

‘I heard her talking to him last night, saying that with his looks he could make a fortune in Hollywood. She even offered to arrange auditions for him if he came over.’

‘She can’t take my butler,’ Polly said indignantly. ‘It took years to train him.’

‘I don’t think she cares abut his butlerishness. I rather think she’s enchanted by his smouldering masculine magnetism,’ Lennie said. ‘She sees the screen potential. And she is a woman, after all.’

‘Barlow doesn’t smoulder. Besides, handsome men are ten a penny. Experienced butlers are impossible to replace.’

‘I don’t think you need to worry,’ Lennie said. ‘Your Barlow listened to her with exquisite politeness, then said he didn’t think Hollywood would suit him, if she would excuse him, madam, and might he bring her a little more sherry.’

Polly laughed. ‘I can just hear him saying it. All the same, it’s not cricket to accept my hospitality, then try to poach my servants. I shan’t feel safe until she and the whole film company have packed up and gone.’

She heard the words just after she said them, and looked up at Lennie, whose smile faltered. ‘I can’t believe the week’s almost over,’ she said. ‘It’s flown past.’

‘Yes,’ he said, and seemed to be hesitating on the verge of saying something, when Kithra, the youngest of the dogs, dashed up with a stick and obliged Lennie to throw it.

‘Not in the moat!’ Polly cried. ‘He’ll come back and shake, and soak us.’ Lennie threw the stick as far as he could and Kithra dashed off, and Polly used the hiatus. ‘I wish you weren’t going away. We haven’t had any time to talk – not properly.’

‘I don’t have to go,’ Lennie said, looking down at her.

She caught her breath. There was so much in that look. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m a free agent. I can stay as long as you like.’

‘Don’t you have to take Rose back?’

‘She’ll travel back with the company. There are plenty of people to look after her, on the journey and in California. And she’s a grown woman now – off my hands. Would you like me to stay, Polly?’

She felt ridiculously shy, as if she were eighteen again.

‘I wish you would,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You haven’t so much as been on a horse yet.

All you’ve seen is the house. I expect there’ve been lots of changes on the estate.

I could take you round the farms: the tenants would love to see you again.

And I know Jessie would like to entertain you at Twelvetrees.

And—’ She heard herself babbling, and stopped.

Kithra came running up again, and as Lennie removed his gaze from her to deal with the stick-throwing, Polly was able to shake herself into composure again, and say politely, ‘I would like you to stay.’

He looked down at her for a long time. But he only said, ‘Then I shall.’