The Jane Austen Society(9)
“Yes, the ring.” She smiled back, and in that smile was an entreaty he was powerless to resist.
The paperwork was being completed for the transactions, with the wiring of the American funds still sitting in the New York bank. Yardley looked at the director of Sotheby’s, and with a few discreet nods they agreed to retrieve the contents of box number fourteen. As the director walked out of the room, Yardley marvelled at how much of his job—the most important parts of his job—seemed to be conducted with absolutely no words whatsoever. Like an actor himself, he was constantly attuned to the needs and demands of others, adapting to them as much as he could, and as much as was necessary to acquire or hold on to some essential power for himself.
The director came back into the room a few minutes later and whispered to Yardley that following some questions from the Manhattan bank, the lawyers for the buyer had authorized withdrawal from a European account in his name instead. This was greatly speeding up matters, and they now had the final release from the Zurich account confirmed by telegram. Yardley nodded his approval, then walked over and presented the small numbered box to the gentleman.
“I believe this is yours.” Yardley held the marked box out to the man, whose name they now knew to be Jack Leonard, a successful businessman and fledgling Hollywood producer.
The woman stood up quickly, and the high heel of her shoe—the highest set of heels Yardley had ever seen—caught just slightly on the edge of the antique Indian rug that carpeted the floor.
“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed, her fingers outstretched towards the small box as she righted herself, her hand shaking perceptibly.
Jack stood up and took the box from Yardley’s hand, then playfully held it up high, far out of her reach. Only because Yardley knew the woman to be as big a fan of Austen as himself, did he see in the man’s behaviour something more than playfulness. Something between teasing and a little cruel.
“Good things come to those who wait,” Jack said to the woman, as she finally gave in and lowered her arms in mock defeat.
But Yardley was not sure he fully trusted the Hollywood mogul with the looks of a matinée idol. And he was left to wonder, as the Americans said their goodbyes and were accompanied by security into the early-September twilight, who the real actor was between them.
Mimi Harrison had met Jack Leonard six months earlier, by the backyard pool of the producer of her latest film. Home & Glory was the story of a widow whose two sons are fighting in different battles in the war, strategically kept apart by the British navy to minimize the potential for grievous loss to the family. But the boys desperately want to fight together, and this leads to inevitable and tragic consequences for all. Mimi had heard a real-life story similar to this years ago, on a trip to England, and agreed to the role without even reading the script.
It was a “weepie”—a woman’s picture—the very kind that had made Mimi Harrison a Hollywood star. She had meant to become a great stage actress and, after graduating with a degree in history and drama from Smith, had started out on Broadway in several strong supporting roles in the mid-1930s, reluctantly changing her name along the way from the more sombre Mary Anne. But her dark, exotic features were caught one night by a studio casting director sitting in the front row, and she completed a quick make-up-free screen test in New York, before being sent out West by train to Los Angeles. There she had another screen test, this time in full make-up, followed by facial bleaching to reduce her freckles, and a minor surgical procedure that would have mortified her mother.
“One procedure is a record for around here, honey,” the wardrobe assistant had remarked when Mimi pointed out the scar. Mimi was a slave to the truth and felt that, if her body was no longer 100 per cent a Harrison’s, the least she could do would be to not hide the fact.
Mimi’s first day at the studio had been an eventful one. The leading actor in a string of successful Depression-era comedies hit on her immediately, and after several days’ persistence, she gave in and agreed to dinner at Chasen’s. But that was all she agreed to—a fact he had trouble accepting at the end of the night. She would have been more unnerved by all of this if she did not already have a list of successful stage credits behind her. Arriving in Hollywood a little older than most, she believed that none of this would be happening if she did not possess something of value. And if she gave away any of it out of fear, she would be in a race to the bottom. Her father, a notable judge in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, had taught her this, along with a love of horseback riding, Renaissance art, and Jane Austen.
Her first few months were marked by many men’s attempts to seduce her for one night—and sometimes even less, if they had an afterparty they hoped to get to—and her meeting them right there on the start line, not budging one bit. She knew she had only one person she needed to keep happy, the head of the studio, Monte Cartwright—and she had carefully and wisely cultivated fatherly feelings in him from the start, until he was patting himself on the back for being such a mensch, at least where Mimi Harrison was concerned.
The past decade in Hollywood, career-wise, had been remarkably successful. She had contractually retained the right to one outside-studio film a year, and she was averaging four in-house movies on top of that, keeping her too busy for much of a social or romantic life. With a per film take of forty thousand dollars, she was considered one of the highest-paid actresses in the world.