The cut wasn’t deep, but it was just above the thumb, and spurting blood.
“My hand, my hand! I’ll lose my job!” Billy’s shrieks flowed as freely as the blood.
“I know it hurts,” Maisie said, “but it’s nothing much. No need to worry.” She expertly wove a napkin around his hand to stanch the flow. “If someone runs to Miss Banks’s room, she’ll have a medical kit. This won’t take but two stitches at most.”
“Can you actually do it?” Phyllida asked, her face percolating with interest.
“I can,” Maisie answered curtly.
Someone else must have thought of the medical kit, because Rusty came sprinting in with it. Maisie calmly selected a needle, wiped it with alcohol, and threaded it. Billy continued to yowl, convinced his career was finished.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Maisie snapped, starting to stitch. “Quit casting a kitten, will you? See a doctor if you want, but you’ll be perfectly fine, probably by tomorrow.” And she finished stitching and cut the thread.
Cyril was the first to speak.
“Well, that’s a turnup,” he said, echoing the unspoken sentiment. “I’d have pegged you for the type who faints at the sight of blood.”
“Yes,” Maisie agreed. “And I’d have pegged you for a gentleman. Some surprises are nicer than others.”
The others, even if they hadn’t previously been given reason to speculate upon Cyril’s gentlemanliness, were still delighted to see his deep blush, and congratulated themselves on a brilliant afternoon’s entertainment.
SIX
“How is it possible?” Beanie wailed, channeling Sarah Bernhardt. “How could I have missed the greatest drama in the BBC? It is too tragic!”
Maisie wondered what version of the story Beanie had heard. Probably the one in which she sewed Billy’s whole hand back on, although it might have been the one of her bringing him back from the dead.
Growing up with Georgina had taught Maisie not to enjoy a pleasant moment, because it was likely to be snatched away. So Maisie worried the story would be heard by Miss Shields and worse, Mr. Reith, and her reputation smeared due to what must have been some sort of improper something or other with Cyril. Reith was particular about morals, and any good credit she might have built up with him would be revoked in an instant, even if she explained. I shouldn’t have gotten in a cab with him. That was asking for trouble.
“The local broadcast says there was quite a tempest in the tearoom the other day,” Hilda announced from the floor, where she was marking up a script as Maisie came in with filing.
Well, of course Hilda knew.
“It was nothing, truly,” Maisie insisted. “The chaps were being a bit . . . stupid, that’s all.”
“Yes, that would make it a day ending in ‘y,’” Hilda agreed. “Although my secretary swanning in to mop up a bad injury rather ups the interest factor.”
“I’m glad I was able to help,” Maisie muttered. (Mostly. It was Billy, after all.)
“I suppose you think someone’s going to ask an awkward question?”
That drew Maisie’s eye.
“Miss Musgrave, if you wanted people not to guess that you lied about your age to nurse during the war, the expedient move would have been to use a different name or simply leave it off your list of experience.”
“I didn’t have any other references,” Maisie protested, both stunned and not surprised by Hilda’s guess. Though it didn’t sound like a guess.
“You had the secretarial school,” Hilda reminded her.
“Yes, but I had to offer some sort of work experience, too,” Maisie said. “Please, Miss Matheson, I don’t mind being reprimanded, but you won’t tell Mr. Reith, will you?”
“Why on earth would I? Anyway, it’s hardly news. I’ve known since your first week. Don’t look so mutinous. You can’t be surprised. As soon as I looked at you I knew you were never old enough to have done all you’d done in the proper way.”
So I’m improper. No wonder Cyril asked me out.
“I did tell that lie,” Maisie admitted, her old crime far easier to dwell on, “but I’m an honest person. I really am.”
“Of course you are,” Hilda said, astonished there would be any argument. “I wasn’t reprimanding you, and it’s no one else’s concern. I was awfully pleased to discover it, though. It told me you were someone who was devoted to a cause. Or would do anything to be part of something bigger than yourself. Or wanted a great escape.”
Am I supposed to say which it was?
“All worthy,” Hilda went on. “It also told me you were someone who, when it came to it, was prepared to break rules.”
Her eyes were sparkling. Maisie railed inwardly, determined to no longer be any sort of rule breaker. Mr. Reith wouldn’t like it.
“Rules are useful, of course,” Hilda noted, as though she were discussing galoshes. “But I find it’s best to be flexible. You’d be amazed at who might turn out to be wrong.” Hilda’s grin turned conspiratorial. “The lads are keeping it quiet, but Billy was taken to the woodshed by Mr. Eckersley. He’s also been given a few days off—without pay—to ‘recuperate,’ as it’s being put. What with the shame, and a ‘mere secretary’ having done him such a good turn before all his friends, he’ll never dare look you in the eye again, I should think.”
Maisie couldn’t help it. She laughed. Hilda laughed, too. She opened a biscuit tin and tossed one to Maisie.
“Butter. Your favorite, I believe.” It was. “Let’s forge on. We’ve a great deal to do. The lads can mess ’round if they like. We need to get things done.”
“Perhaps . . . perhaps we can have a nurse do a series of Talks on treating injuries at home,” Maisie suggested. “Not me! I mean, obviously, a proper nurse, a Sister from a hospital. Someone who really—”
“A very, very fine idea,” Hilda agreed. Her smile was something different this time. Maisie had nothing to compare it with, but if she had to guess, it was respect.
“I’d have thought you’d be too brokenhearted to carry on there, after that rotten fellow,” Lola said, watching Maisie put on her hat. “But you seem almost . . . jolly.”
Imagine me, jolly.
“I suppose I’m still a bit cut up about it, to be honest,” Maisie admitted. “But they keep me too busy to think about it much.”
“‘Too busy’ is the problem. You’ll never get a chance to meet anyone else.”
“Ah well.” Maisie shrugged, pleased with her fresh lack of concern. “Perhaps I’ll have more luck when I get some new clothes. What do you think?”
Lola, always a keen advocate of new clothes, waxed eloquent all the way to the tram stop, where she saw Maisie off.
True to Hilda’s prediction, Billy melted into the wall whenever he saw Maisie approaching. When she couldn’t be avoided, his addresses were to her shoes, or occasionally an elbow. Maisie marveled at the improvements humiliation could make in a man’s character.
Phyllida, on the other hand, was so impressed with Maisie, she drew her into a circle of two. They quickly became friends.
“You’re very lucky, working for Miss Matheson,” Phyllida told her. “She’s an absolute genius. She was political secretary to Lady Astor, you know.”
“I know. I can’t imagine. Or I can, but I can’t.”
Phyllida flicked some ashes off her cigarette and sipped her coffee.
“I trow . . . er, bet she was a suffragette.” Phyllida’s native Yorkshire dialect ceaselessly battled to break free of its London cage, scoring the most victories when she was animated. “I wanted to be a suffragette. I even came down to London for the last big fight!” She grinned and took a long drag of her cigarette. “I was ten years old. But tall, so no one noticed me till we were arrested. And just months before it was legal, what rot. The police didn’t mither—bother—me, but I still have the scars from Father’s
whipping. Right nonsense women can’t vote till we’re thirty! I’m going to stand for office one day, you know, and get to changing things.”
From a Yorkshire dairy farm to a typist at the BBC to an MP. That would be quite a story. Someone should be keeping notes.
“Did you vote, in America?” Phyllida asked longingly.
“I couldn’t. I’m not a citizen there,” Maisie reminded her. She’d still been in Brighton in 1920, and read about the American election with the same cursory interest she’d give a story about farming in India.
“The Talks are getting awfully fascinating. I wish I could have been Talks secretary.” Phyllida looked mournful, not jealous.
“Did you put yourself forward?” Maisie felt guilty.
“Couldn’t.” Phyllida snorted. “If a lass is to shift from typing, she’s got to be asked, not ask herself. That’s just not the done thing. Besides, I’m a Northerner, officially uneducated, and nobody. So goes the assessment.”
“But I’m not educated, and I’m nobody,” Maisie said. “Why would—”
“Ah, but you’re foreign,” Phyllida pointed out, as though that answered everything. “Never mind. We’re all here; that’s what matters.”
Back in the office, Hilda was radiating so much glee, the chilly summer felt almost warm.
“No, I shan’t tell you until the meeting,” Hilda teased. Her excitement was contagious, and Maisie tore through correspondence with hungry impatience.
The Talks staff usually held their meetings around a large table in the room that housed their files. It was the only room where the staff was guaranteed to sit still for an hour at a time, and so had the perversity to be the draftiest in the department.
Hilda sailed in, took a brief gauge of the temperature, and threw up her hands.
“Oh, this is just too absurd. Into my office, everyone, and settle by the fire. Room enough for all. Budge up, budge up,” Hilda fussed, chivvying the staff into place. “Come along, we’re all friends.”
“Not all,” Fielden muttered. He was sitting next to Maisie, but his disparagement was generously general.
Hilda’s cheerfulness, as well as the novelty of holding a meeting on the floor, sparked a campfire mentality. Maisie thought they might open the meeting with a song.
“We’ve got weeks of business to discuss in one hour,” Hilda warned them, the usual start of a Talks meeting. “But I have some rather ripping news to share. ‘News’ news, if you like.” Enjoying the sight of their bemused faces, she plunged on. “We’re finally starting a News section in Talks!”
“Won’t we be prosecuted?” Fielden asked, looking almost perky.
“This comes down from the governors,” Hilda assured him, eyes twinkling. “We can do things like in-depth analyses of events, and other such, and thus show off our capacity. It’s a beginning!”
The BBC’s governors, simultaneously dictatorial and distant, were Reith’s benefactors and the thorns penetrating his tweed waistcoat. He bowed before their every whim, even as he cursed them fluently from a safe distance. But it was less the governors than the actual government that tied the BBC’s hand when it came to news reporting.
At the BBC’s birth, Fleet Street newspapers had banded together in an unheard-of camaraderie to insist that radio not be allowed to do original news. As certain as they were that radio was a silly fad that wouldn’t last and no one except a few eccentrics was going to buy a license and who could afford a wireless anyway, if the BBC reported news, it would put the papers out of business. And Parliament, always keen on good press, agreed, so the BBC could only read news after seven p.m. and that was only the prepared Reuters bulletin.
“If we can prove anyone listens to those bulletins, I’ll eat my hat,” Fielden said. Maisie had never hoped so much that the bulletins garnered interest and decided they’d have to rent a cine-camera to record the meal.
“The ban is not lifted,” Hilda told them, and they all wilted, even Maisie, who had never given news a thought. “But Talks such as Mr. Bartlett’s broadcasts can be expanded and increased. So! Let’s have some ideas!”
It was understood that Hilda had enough ideas to fill the Talks slots for the next seven years, but she expected her department to be a place where everyone had a dozen thoughts at any one time and should express them.
Fielden began, as usual. As second-in-command, he felt his position keenly. He rattled off eight ideas at a speed that made Maisie suspect he was testing her shorthand.
“Of course, that’s just off the top of my head,” he finished, giving Hilda a reverent nod.
“Very good indeed,” she congratulated him. Always the same script, but always sounding so sincere. “Anyone else? Let’s really thrash this all out.”
“What about a series of Talks on Russia?” suggested Collins. “So many people are so aerated about Bolshevism and spies and what, but maybe if we—”
“Get accused of supporting Bolshevism?” Fielden interjected. “Won’t that do wonders for our reputation?”
“I agree that the more people know about Russia and the Russian people, the less afraid they might be,” said Hilda, ever the diplomat. “Though a series would require a bit of finessing before the DG would accept it.”
Less afraid. There were moments when Maisie felt the chill of walking shadows, all those vanished people under poppies. Sometimes, she was sure others felt them too, even the brightest and most beautiful, glancing nervously over their shoulders. Maybe we’re all trying to outrun something, like me outrunning the kids in Toronto. They’d wanted to beat her till she broke, and not just her bones. The suffragettes had put themselves forward for breakage, hadn’t they? That would be something, being the person who could put herself in harm’s way, for a cause.
“There’s meant to be an election, isn’t there, in twenty-nine?” Maisie heard herself ask.
“Unless it gets called sooner,” Fielden said.
“Maybe there can be Talks about aspects of the election, the candidates’ platforms, what people hope—”
“Spoken like the American.” Fielden sniffed.
“Canadian!” the entire Talks Department chorused.
“Go on, Miss Musgrave,” Hilda encouraged. It was still alien, seeing someone look interested in her thoughts.
“I suppose, now that women vote, things must be different.”
“Three general elections in almost as many years,” Fielden said. “Hardly auspicious.”
“I think it’s something to think about,” Hilda said, following the script, but Maisie believed her. “We’ll give it a bit of a thrash.”
After the meeting, Maisie heard Collins express his surprise that “the little occasional girl has a thought in her head. Who would have thought, a thought?” The others hadn’t.
I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t have imagined it myself.
“If you could type up the minutes now, Miss Musgrave, that would be very useful,” Hilda said. “Or do you need to get back to the DG?”
“Oh. I can do them now, yes,” Maisie said, confirming from the carriage clock that she had ten minutes to spare. She lingered, turning the pad over and over.
“Was there something else?” Hilda looked up, surprised at the sudden lack of industry.
“Oh. No. Yes. Er, I was wondering . . .” The question was there, bouncing on her tongue, but it fell right back down her throat. Instead she asked, “Could I take your newspapers home to read, when you’re done with them? The ones in English,” she added, unnecessarily. Hilda came to work with an upholstered holdall in addition to her handbag, in which she carried newspapers, magazines, and at least three books in rotation. She also had the principal newspapers from Germany, France, Italy, and America sent to the office every week, and read them through. In the evenings, she went to the theater, concerts, salons, lectures, and, more nebulously, “events.” When did she
sleep? She always had more energy than all the rest of them.
“Of course,” Hilda said. “Though I rather thought you read the papers on your tram ride.”
Over men’s shoulders, yes, but Hilda thought she bought at least one paper in the morning. Maisie was surprised to realize she knew something Hilda didn’t: what it was to be poor. Hilda didn’t know what it meant to have to mind each literal penny. Pennies were important, one after another meant a bun, soap, toothpaste. A penny spent on a newspaper might be the difference between being able to buy thread to mend stockings, and allowing a hole to show meant your status plummeted, even among the poor. Maisie was slowly rising out of penury, but all her savings now were for a dress. One good dress fixed your status. But she wanted to read more of the papers. That would change her status, too, if only at the BBC.
Reith was also a devotee of the papers, and assigned a phalanx of staff to mark every one of the articles on the BBC for his delectation.
“Ah, Miss Musgrave!” he greeted Maisie one afternoon as she brought in his tea. “Here’s a fine thing. The Times writes that the BBC is ‘doing good work in bringing more education to the British public.’ And they don’t just mean the Schools broadcasts. They mean music and the Talks. Very good, very good.”
He continued to read aloud as he stirred in sugar.
“‘Whilst many still think the wireless a fad of this peculiar modern age in which we live’—peculiar, indeed. I saw a couple dancing the other night and was of half a mind to call for an exorcist—‘it cannot be denied that the BBC is presenting programming of an overall informative, enlightened, and elevating matter that is a credit to its purported mission.’” He raised his tea in a salute to the paper, though more likely to himself, then favored Maisie with his warmest scowl.
“It’s a very satisfying thing, seeing this validation in the newspapers.” Reith sighed happily, reading through the piece again. “Though they do say ‘enlightened.’ I often worry about that word. It sounds like a euphemism for ‘too modern.’”
Radio Girls Page 11