“It was a very fine breakfast. And I see you enjoyed yours as well.” She indicated the empty cake plate.
“It was delicious, thank you,” Maisie said, wishing there was one last bite.
“You’re most welcome. Many happy returns. Twenty-five is a pivotal time. Now, then, Miss Fenwick has just popped ’round to say they’ve been inundated and will have to take lunch much nearer the tea break, but she hopes I will allow you a longer break this afternoon, and I think that can be arranged.”
“Thank you. I can take a short lunch.”
“Well, to do that you’ll have to keep track of the time,” Hilda warned. Then she smiled. “This ought to help,” she said, handing Maisie a cardboard box.
Perplexed, Maisie opened it to find a lilac-colored hard case. And inside that was a little enameled watch with a lilac face. It was already set to the right time. Maisie stared down at it, as though it were a face that could gaze back. She’d never received a proper birthday present in her life, and now she had gotten two . . .
“Oh! Miss Matheson!” The mascara was inching down her cheeks.
“I said twenty-five was a pivotal time, didn’t I?” Hilda smiled. “And this will save you always having to check the clock. What did I tell you your first day? Efficiency. We run on efficiency. Now put it on and remember to wind it every night. It should run for years, I hope. Have you got that letter for Mr. Wells?”
Hilda was continuing to work her charms on H. G. Wells, who was blunt in his opinion that broadcasting was far sillier than anything he could ever write. Hilda’s latest letter to him was a masterstroke, telling him that while of course she respected his position, he was robbing Britain of a special experience. She signed it in her firm hand, then asked for the morning’s correspondence, simultaneously demanding Maisie take dictation on her observations from the breakfast meeting, because it was possible most of what had been said could be worked up into some very fine Talks. The chaotic normalness restored Maisie’s face to some order.
It was, finally, a bright day, with the sky a pagan celebration blue and the flowers in the potted plants hanging from lamps along Savoy Street giving full vent to their bliss. Maisie, armed with a steno pad and a notebook full of Hilda’s thoughts on broadcasting, headed to the Tup, warm thoughts of Mrs. Holmby’s lamb chops putting a skip in her step, but the glory of the day and the majesty of her new watch turned her to the sandwich bar on the Strand. Laden with sandwiches, chocolate from Miss Cryer’s, and, despite the promise of a long tea, two cakes, she strolled down to the Embankment.
She rolled a pencil through her fingers, staring at the Thames as it bubbled along. I wonder how far it goes? I’d love to travel the whole length of it someday. And then out through the estuary and on and on.
“I say, would you mind awfully if I shared the bench? Rotten impertinent of me, but this is the only one I’ve passed for the last half mile that’s not overflowing with squawking children and snapping nannies. Gosh, doesn’t ‘Squawking Children and Snapping Nannies’ sound like a music-hall ditty? I might be in the wrong business.”
Maisie looked up at the tall young man hovering by the bench. His derby was set well back on his head, showing off waving brown hair, slicked back enough to be neat, but not so much as to be dandified. Chocolate-brown eyes, soft and puppyish, with a cheery snap around the edges. Crinkles under his eyes that went deep as he smiled. She felt as if someone had lightly brushed the back of her neck—a tickle she felt all the way to her toes.
“Well, it’s a public bench, so I really can’t lay claim to the whole of it.”
“I can’t know. You might have given money for it,” he pointed out.
“Wouldn’t that be a sight, miles of us all on our own benches? That takes entitlement a bit far.”
“It could sound like free enterprise,” he ventured.
“It doesn’t sound like free anything,” she told him with finality.
“Wise words,” he said, sitting down and unwrapping a sandwich. Maisie sneaked one last glance at him and turned back to her own food.
“I must say,” her uninvited companion piped up, “I’m a bit surprised to see a young girl out on her own like this.”
She bristled. “You think I should have a chaperone?”
“Nothing so bourgeois as that,” he said, chuckling. “I only meant that you modern girls usually go ’round in pairs, or a gag—er, group.”
“You were about to say ‘gaggle,’ weren’t you?” She was surprised by her own sharpness. It was so easy to talk to someone you weren’t sure you wanted around, tickle or no. He was handsome, and perhaps clever, but she knew now that handsome young men were lethal.
He threw back his head and laughed, just like Hilda.
“Caught but corrected. And contrite.”
“I like eating alone,” she told him. She didn’t want it to sound like a hint, but her hackles were rising. She refused to be seen as easy prey.
“Ah, but you’re not alone. You’ve got a notebook. Do you write?”
She closed the book, protective of Hilda’s privacy.
“A little.”
“For business or pleasure?”
“Isn’t most writing always both?”
He laughed again.
“You’re a funny thing,” he told her. “I’m a writer as well, journalism, some essays—well, they bleed together.”
“Oh!” Interest flowered. “Do you write for one of the Fleet Street papers?”
“No. Far too bourgeois for me. I write for Pinpoint. Do you know it?”
“I don’t, I’m afraid.” Reams of periodicals coursed into Savoy Hill daily, buffeted either by staff who thought they might be of worth, or by Hilda’s insistence that they all be familiar with more than just the principal papers. (“It’s always useful to hear as many voices as possible. Even those somewhat lacking in coherence.”)
“We’re still new. Just starting to make some rumblings,” he said, rubbing his hands together and grinning a little maniacally. Maisie always liked seeing men passionate about their work, but then, Guy Fawkes probably had been, too. “If you’re keen, I’d be delighted to send you some copies. Wouldn’t presume to ask your home address, but if you’re one of the great new throng of lady laborers, I could post them to you there, if your employer would allow it.”
“They would positively encourage it,” Maisie said. “I work at the BBC,” she told him, lacing her pride with a sliver of nonchalance.
“No! Do you, really?” He laughed again, longer than seemed warranted. “Ah, well, we all pay our respects to Mammon somehow. Secretary, are you?”
And a very good one. But she wondered what it would be like to be asked without the expectation of being right.
“But you do a bit of writing on the side—is that it?” He registered her nod and barreled on, pleased with his perspicacity. “Good show! Always try to do something more—that’s my motto. Well, one of them. But a fun girl like you, seems you ought to be chatting with other clever girls in your free moments. You’re all rather clever these days, aren’t you?”
“Fun”? “Clever”? When had such language ever been applied to her?
“Maybe we always were clever, and you just never noticed.” Was this really her?
“And here I always thought I was observant.” He sighed, weighty with drama.
The watch, still cool on her wrist and heavy with newness, reminded her it was a short lunch. She wasn’t overly sorry.
“Ah, of course.” He nodded. “But do please tell me your name?”
“Maisie Musgrave,” she said, shaking his extended hand.
“Simon Brock-Morland. Perhaps our paths will cross again?”
“I suppose people have written stranger scenarios.” She smiled. She couldn’t help it.
“That almost sounds like a challenge.” He grinned back.
/> “It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Brock-Morland,” she told him. “Good day.”
The tingle lingered on her neck as she walked up Savoy Place. But she wrestled the feeling down, shoving it somewhere the fist inside could beat it till it broke. She wasn’t going to fall for another handsome man, even if he thought she was funny, and clever. She wasn’t going to run from anyone else again. Not ever.
Loyal to Maisie’s request, Phyllida hadn’t spread the word about her birthday. Not that anyone cared, but Maisie remembered her idea of where she would be by this age. All those carefully wrought plans, little boxes in the back of her mind, each labeled and filled with some segment of life. Love. Marriage. Home. All amounting to security. Though she knew now that they didn’t. She’d seen illnesses, injuries, work shortages strip households bare and send whole families into the streets, where even the other poor wanted to pretend they didn’t exist. Both Phyllida and Hilda were advocates of a better system of helping “unfortunates.” It sounded Utopian. Maisie found most people would rather not care than care, and not help if they could help it.
She blinked away the cobwebs and rejoined the tearoom, where Phyllida was presenting her with a walnut cream cake and a jug of chocolate to pour on top provided by Mrs. Hudson, who regarded Maisie’s appetite as a glorious challenge.
Phyllida was rapturous over the watch. Her Yorkshire flowed like the chocolate.
“Yon Miss Matheson is the most gradley . . . nae, champion . . . topping woman in Britain, nowt finer. I knew she thought the world of you, and why not, but this is really super.”
“Shh, don’t let it get ’round,” Maisie insisted. “I don’t think she got Mr. Fielden anything for his birthday, and he’s her deputy.”
“Yes, but you can’t buy a sense of humor in Selfridges.”
“Or even Harrods.”
Their giggles attracted the ire of the sound effects men, huddled in the corner.
“Do you mind?” Jones growled. “We are discussing how to create a tennis party.”
Which only made them laugh harder.
“Hallo, oh, I say, that looks scrumptious.” Beanie sat down with them in a great rustle of crepe de chine and a swish of her Sautoir necklace, whose tassel nearly took out Maisie’s eye.
“It’s special for Maisie,” Phyllida put in quickly so as to allay any trespasses. She liked Beanie; they all did, generally because of, rather than in spite of, her rudeness, it being so wholly without malice or awareness. But Phyllida, an advocate of the classless society, was keenly aware of the breadth of Beanie’s privilege and determined to shield that which was emphatically not hers from any reach.
“What for?” Beanie asked, but promptly forgot to wait for an answer in the wake of her desire to communicate. “Great scandale a-brewing—have you heard?”
They hadn’t.
“Only just announced; quite a shock to the poor DG.”
“Siepmann’s a Russian spy?” Phyllida asked, ever hopeful.
“Wouldn’t that be odd? No, the Great Shields is leaving to get married.”
Maisie choked, sending crumbs sputtering.
“Good Lord, so now we know what it takes for you to lose some of your food,” Phyllida said, thumping her on the back.
“Miss Shields?” Maisie asked, her head spinning much harder than the effect of four cakes in one day could ever manage. “But she’s so . . . rigid.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She did have that torrid affair with the married man a few years back.”
Now both Phyllida and Maisie were choking.
“If you’re going to make that ghastly noise, you should at least do so where we can record it,” Fowler shouted at them.
“Beanie, you can’t be serious,” Maisie said, almost imploring.
“Mama often says so, too, but I’ve proven her quite wrong, I think.”
Miss Shields, straight-backed and straitlaced, slavish to Mr. Reith (“Sir John”). Inflexible tweeds, even more inflexible features. Engaged to be married.
“You wouldn’t have thought a woman her age could manage it,” Beanie went on, helping herself to Phyllida’s cigarette lighter.
“I don’t think she’s much more than thirty-five,” Phyllida said.
“Yes. Perhaps her fiancé’s not very strong, or doesn’t want children. But good on her. Not one of the ‘Surplus Women’ anymore!”
“You shouldn’t use that phrase. It’s ghastly,” Maisie chided Beanie.
“Apparently the DG is devastated,” Beanie continued, ignoring Maisie. “Silly man. Wants everyone to get married, but not if it means they’ll stop serving him. Ah well. Cheerio!” She ground her cigarette in Phyllida’s saucer and skipped off.
“She’s got him absolutely pegged, yet she’s the one who’s the aristocrat,” Phyllida said, shaking her head. “If anyone was ever going to return us to feudalism, it’s the aspirant middle classes.”
“I doubt the aristocrats would mind that very much, though,” Maisie pointed out.
The Savoy Hill buzz quickly told more of the story. Miss Shields had asked to stay on after marriage and been denied. Maisie wondered how anyone could possibly know—none of the parties in question would have disseminated such information. But at the next meeting between Hilda and Reith, she saw for herself Miss Shields’s elegant diamond ring and more-than-usual rigid face. As she looked closer, Maisie recognized what few others would: the light application of stage makeup, probably to hide red-rimmed eyes.
“Miss Matheson,” Reith said, his tone attempting patience. “A great many of these books Lady Nicholson discusses are not at all appropriate. I’ve received a number of complaints, including those expressing the concern that some of the books advocate shocking ideas, perhaps even the overturning of all our most sacred traditions. As if these times aren’t outlandish enough.”
“Lady Nicholson would never be inappropriate,” Hilda said, her chin jutted stubbornly and a decided snap in her tone. She had been to Long Barn, the estate of Vita and her husband, Harold Nicholson, for a dinner party, and her opinion of the whole family, but especially Vita, dwarfed the Eiffel Tower. “And if I may say, Mr. Reith, we have received reams of letters from librarians throughout the country saying that many of the books reviewed are high on request lists.”
“Yes, but are people reading them or burning them?”
“Well, I don’t think that would bode well for their lending privileges.”
“Do please be serious, Miss Matheson. I’ve told you many times, we have got to tread with care. Minds are malleable, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” she said.
“So you’ll speak to Lady Nicholson?”
“I certainly shan’t. She understands the parameters and has inimitable taste. Besides, if you’ll recall, some of the honey we added to the pot when we asked her to take up the reviewing post was that she could choose to review whatever books she liked.”
Reith inhaled on his cigarette so hard, it looked like he was eating it.
“I’d speak to Sir Harold, but I know the lady holds the whip hand over him. I do hope, by the way, that their union is not so unnatural as is rumored, or of course we will have to review her position here.”
Hilda’s stubborn chin was trembling and her jaw was turning white. Maisie leaned forward.
“If I may, sir, we’ve received quite a lot of complimentary letters from listeners, not just librarians, appreciating Lady Nicholson. I have a compendium in the Talks Department, if you’d like to see it?”
He had a way of blinking at her as though surprised she could speak in full sentences. He’d done it before, Maisie realized, but she’d always been too pleased to be acknowledged to notice his expression.
“Yes, well, I’m sure that’s . . . very nice. But now really, Miss Matheson, I’d be obliged if you would at least hint that some discretion is advised
? Even in these unrestrained times?” He said the word “unrestrained” with the sort of grimace someone might make if they’d just sucked down a whole lemon. One that was rotting. “The greatest loyalty must be to the BBC. We all need to put it first.”
Maisie glanced at Miss Shields, who bit her lip as she wrote those shorthand marks.
Would she miss this? Maisie had always thought of marriage as going toward something. Now she thought about what you were leaving. The BBC was one of the few places in Britain where a woman could keep working after marriage, provided she was senior enough, and given approval. Maybe Miss Shields didn’t qualify. Or perhaps Reith didn’t want to feel like the woman serving him loved another man more.
The meeting over, the women dismissed, Maisie held out her hand to Miss Shields.
“Congratulations, Miss Shields. I hope you’ll have great happiness.”
Miss Shields actually smiled and took Maisie’s hand.
“That’s very kind of you, Miss Musgrave. Many thanks.”
It was hard to remember that not quite two years ago, Maisie, pale and bony, first tiptoed into this office, a frightened hen on the way to the chopping block. Miss Shields hadn’t thought much of her, but she’d given her tea. And the chance to speak the words that had brought her inside to stay.
Maisie wanted to thank her. But Miss Shields wasn’t the sort of woman who welcomed thanks. And anyway, they both remembered that her wish to keep Maisie far away from the BBC had been thwarted.
I, at least, continue to put the BBC first.
She was hard-pressed to imagine anything more important.
Maisie and Hilda had not exaggerated about the amount of letters they received. Most were thanks, and congratulations, but there were also requests and even open suggestions for new Talks pouring in from every square inch of Britain. Not only that, but thousands of people, gallantly offering their time and expertise, were eager to come broadcast. The mail boys marveled at the sacks of correspondence that flowed in and out every hour. They were as pleased with their work as the rest of Savoy Hill, though they did grumble about Reith’s rule regarding men’s jackets. While shirtsleeves were allowed in the mailroom, jackets had to be worn when delivering correspondence. Reith’s puritanical insistence on a dress code was one of those subjects that gave fodder for the satirical magazines that otherwise weren’t always at their best skewering radio. “They should thank us for giving them such a challenge,” Hilda observed, snickering over Punch.
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