Page 102 of The Gathering Storm

‘Village,’ he corrected.

‘—answer their questions and make them feel welcome. And they can keep an eye open for repairs that need doing, or dropped litter – it’s best to keep on top of such things or the place will start to look shabby.’

‘How will the customers know who the couriers are?’

‘We’ll put them in uniform. Oh, not military uniform, don’t be silly,’ she said, when he made a face. ‘Just something neat, like flannel trousers and a blazer, with a badge to identify them.’

‘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.”’