She was hot and flustered when she reached her desk, and slammed her coat and hat on the rack. She stared at her neat piles of paper. There was a great deal to do. Letters from assorted experts in fields, hoping to be considered for broadcasts. Scripts to revise. Letters to draft.
Phyllida hissed in her ear, “You look hellish. Are you feeling all right?”
Maisie just nodded.
“Rubbish. Can I get you some tea? Or bicarbonate of soda?”
Maisie burst out laughing. If only, if only she were nursing a hangover! What a marvelously fashionable, mundane ailment that would be.
“Oh, there you are, Miss Fenwick,” Fielden said. “I made the mistake of looking for you at your own desk.”
“What luck Miss Musgrave’s desk is less than twenty feet away. Otherwise I’d feel dreadful about your having to trek so far.”
“I don’t know how the pair of you aren’t making a fortune in the music halls,” Fielden said, including Maisie as part of the great comic duo. “Can you type these, please? And we’ve got to reschedule Mr. Jennings from Lloyd’s.”
“We need more broadcasting time.” Phyllida sighed, looking at the schedule.
“We need more everything time,” Fielden agreed, glad to have company in his complaints. “More time, more space, more staff.”
“Maybe when the new building is ready,” Maisie said automatically. The already designated “Broadcasting House” was well under construction and on schedule for 1932, but seemed like Arcadia, something not to be reached.
Almost as if she were listening, they heard Hilda cry from her office, “But we haven’t space as it is!”
Then they looked at each other, alarmed. When did Hilda ever raise her voice?
They crept to the edge of her door, as near as they dared. Reith was there, arms folded, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“No, you misunderstand me,” he said, his voice calm and singsongy. “It’s just a bit of departmental rearranging. A better use of all our best resources.”
“You cannot be serious.” Hilda was standing, white-faced, her eyes wide and glassy.
“You’ve said you need more staff, that you are all at full pressure. Everyone knows you in Talks work later than everyone else. It’s too much for just one person. And I am not taking away your title, far from it. I do think you’re getting a bit hysterical. Really, you should be grateful.”
“Grateful? You are telling me I am incapable of running this department.”
“Now, you see? That’s the hysteria talking. My dear Miss Matheson, I am including you as one of those best resources I mentioned, and I doubt there is any man in Britain who doesn’t know of your brilliance in running this department. This little change—”
“Little!”
“—will allow you to focus on the Talks you like best. Everyone can be more carefully designated, without so much mishmash. Focused minds, focused work. And you and Mr. Siepmann are doing such similar work anyway. It makes sense to consolidate your mental acumen, no? Miss Somerville will head up the Schools Broadcast herself—she’s delighted to do so—and you and Mr. Siepmann can divide the spoils here and thus bring more to Talks overall.”
“Mr. Reith,” Hilda said, licking her lips, “I do appreciate what you are attempting to do, truly, but whilst I do need more staff here, my hope was for some more fine producers and one or two additional administrative staff. That’s all. I think if you talk to my staff as stands, they will assure you that I am a very good director. If you add another director, however much you may pretend he is doing different work, it will only add confusion. You are a man of great experience. You know that’s true. Would you have had a second captain serving with you in the trenches?”
“To help me manage a thousand troops? Absolutely. Now, my dear Miss Matheson, I know this all seems a bit of a shock, but try to take it as the compliment it is. You have done a great deal in building up this department, and now it is simply too much for one person to handle all on her own.”
Maisie was on her way in to tell him just how wrong he was, but she couldn’t move. Fielden’s arm was encircled around her waist, holding her with surprising strength. To push back would create some very undesirable contact; to pull forward risked toppling into the office. He was infuriating, Fielden, but damned clever.
“You and Siepmann and I can meet in my office and we’ll talk it through,” Reith said, grinding out his cigarette in Hilda’s ashtray. “I guarantee by the time you’ve talked to him, heard his persuasive arguments, you’ll be overjoyed.”
“So this was his idea?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. It’s long been my concern and he’s always asking how he can be more useful. When I said I thought Talks needed some reworking, it became obvious that he was the man for the job.”
“I see.”
“Good! Well, see you in my office later, then. Cheerio!”
Fielden’s fingers dug into Maisie’s side, urging her away. They all shrank back as Reith strode off, whistling. Maisie was about to go into Hilda’s office when the phone rang. Phyllida, controlling the tremble in her voice, announced to Hilda that it was a personal call and they didn’t give a name.
Which must mean Vita. Hilda closed her door.
Maisie pushed at Fielden in a blind rage.
“Didn’t I tell you?” she snapped. “Didn’t I warn you? Now everything is going to be ruined.”
“What could we have done differently, Miss Musgrave? You’re so clever; you tell me. What else could we have done?”
His eyes were full of their usual sarcastic fury, but there was a hint of pink around the edges of his eyelids. And the only answer was “nothing.” Because the only option would have been tamping down Hilda, and that was never going to happen.
Hilda avoided them all until after the promised meeting with Reith and Siepmann. When she returned, she called Maisie into her office and shut the door.
“Here. I’ve brought you a bun,” she said, setting it on a trestle table.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know you all heard enough. Apparently there will soon be a memo. The department is to be split. I am director of General Talks and Siepmann director of Adult Education. And it is hoped the politics might be ‘toned down.’”
She methodically stabbed her blotter with a pen. She looked drawn, even ill.
“Miss Matheson, we can manage this,” Maisie said in a sudden swell of confidence. “The DG will hate bad publicity. We just need to make it obvious that anything Siepmann is handling is going poorly and have it be known in a few quarters that the new regime is confusing and making for bad Talks and he’ll set it all right.”
Hilda looked at her with misty eyes. “You sound like me, you silly goose.”
“Good.”
“Miss Musgrave, I’m afraid it only gets worse. The DG has determined that you do not have the necessary qualifications to be the producer on The Week in Westminster.”
There was no reason to be surprised. Maisie frowned at the bun. She gouged off the top.
“I made the point as plainly as I could. But the DG—”
“I know.”
It was foolish of them to think this was going to go any other way. A woman’s program, by women, for women, should not have spurred his interest. But he had warned Maisie against ambition once. This must be her punishment for not heeding him.
“I’m still a Talks assistant?”
“You are.”
Maisie stabbed her finger farther into the bun, making it bleed cream.
“Who gets the position?”
“Cyril Underwood.”
Hilda spoke without expression. She wasn’t the slaughterer, just the messenger.
“He wanted to be a producer on an important program,” Maisie stated, ripping off a chunk of bun and shoving it in her mouth to stop
her chin shaking. “He had better consider this a compliment.”
“If Reith wanted the program to fail, or didn’t think it had worth, he would have let you have the position.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
There was nothing to do but look at each other.
“He’s a schoolboy,” Maisie said at last, without bitterness.
“Some of them never recover from it,” Hilda agreed.
The phone was ringing. Business had to go on.
Maisie stood and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. “It is a terrific program,” she said.
“One of our finest,” Hilda agreed.
So there was that.
And something else.
“Miss Matheson, may I send one of the lads out to have some film exposed?”
Hilda raised an eyebrow. For the first time that day, she smiled. “You have more information.”
“I do. The sort that had made me think the day couldn’t possibly get worse.”
“That’s the BBC for you. Always surprising.”
They smiled, though neither of them felt like it.
Everyone did their best to smile when Siepmann descended on them, Cyril in tow, “just to say hello.” He was quick to assure everyone that nothing was really going to change, even though there were going to be immense changes.
“Ah, Miss Musgrave, industrious as ever, aren’t you, dear?” Siepmann bent his head around to examine her work.
I wonder how hard it would be to accidentally topple him out the window.
“Yes, I understood you were rather hoping to be producer on the little Westminster program, but you understand that Underwood here needs that sort of experience more than you, don’t you? Of course you do. Very clever little thing. I’ve always said so.”
“And I’ve always appreciated it, Mr. Siepmann.”
“Ah, isn’t that nice? Well, must be tootling on, but of course we’ll soon be seeing a great deal more of each other.”
Cyril lingered, biting his lips.
“Did you need something?” Maisie asked. “Because we’re really very busy, you know. Apparently, that’s the whole reason for this little massive upheaval.”
“I’m sorry,” Cyril said.
“No, you’re not. Don’t bother lying. It’s really never suited you.”
“Maisie . . .” Her sharp glare backed him down. “Miss Musgrave. I didn’t ask for the Week in Westminster assignment. I want you to know that.”
“All right, so I know.”
“I really am sorry. I know you’d have done a fine job.”
“If you believed that, Mr. Underwood, you’d thank your benefactors and ask that I be given the assignment instead. It’s not a plum for you anyway, being a woman’s program and all, and in the morning. It’s not as though you were being assigned to Mr. Bartlett’s broadcasts. It would have been a great chance for me, but for you it’s just another notch as you clamber your way on up. Well, congratulations, and good luck to you.”
She turned around and typed as loudly as she could, even long after she knew he was gone.
Somehow, the terrible day came to an end. Not a single person in Talks felt like staying late. Hilda and Maisie left together and hailed a cab. The driver gave them an apologetic grimace.
“Sorry, misses, but the backseat’s got a poorly spring on one side—bally kid wouldn’t stop jumping on it. One of you will have to ride jump, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind,” Maisie said, hopping in to prevent Hilda from taking the awkward seat facing backward. Hilda attempted to give the driver the address in between his tirade on lax child-rearing and all the ills it forebode.
“You could go to the governors, you know,” Maisie said once they were finally en route. “They want a tight ship, not a sloppy one. What amounts to two directors of Talks won’t go down well at all. The salaries, if nothing else.”
“I certainly shall not go to the governors. I’m not going to be seen to be crying like a little girl because Papa doesn’t like me.”
“But that’s not—”
Hilda held up her hand. “He must have already persuaded them. If I were even to try, it would be evidence of my churlishness.”
“But they like you! Or anyway, they like the good press you get. It’s good for the BBC and then they look good, too, and—”
“Yes, everyone’s very quick to assure me I’m indispensable and invaluable and all the things that have led me to this sterling moment.”
It was unsettling to see Hilda be bitter. Maisie jerked her eyes away, staring instead at the ever-disappearing street behind them.
“Miss Matheson?”
“Hmm?”
“I think there might be someone following us.”
She’d thought she noticed a car idling at the bottom of Savoy Street when they were waiting for a cab, but there was always some activity or other around there. And she had maybe registered it starting up when they drove off, but that wasn’t odd in and of itself. But over Hilda’s shoulder, out the tiny rear window, she saw the same headlights following them.
“What makes you sure?” Hilda asked.
“It’s been following us since we left Savoy Hill. I know it. One of the lamps is dimmer than the other.”
“Very good!”
Hilda was suddenly almost cheerful. She turned and knelt on the seat to study their pursuer.
It continued to wend its way after them. Hilda turned back and tapped on the driver’s shoulder. “I say, cabbie, change of plan. Can you take us to 31 Sumner Street instead?”
“Wha’? But that’s miles the other direction!”
“Terribly inconvenient, I know. Will another two shillings compensate?”
He whipped around and roared off with a new spring in his acceleration, if not the cushion.
And they lost their tail.
“Not even trying to turn ’round? That’s a poor show,” Hilda tutted.
“What’s on Sumner Street?” Maisie asked.
“My flat,” Hilda answered simply.
Sumner Street was one of the many London streets sporting rows of elegant white Georgian houses with pillars, on which the house numbers were painted in black. Each house was indistinguishable from the other, unless its residents had done something with the patch of concrete that stood in for a front garden. They didn’t need a garden, really, having ready access to the square around the corner. And the houses themselves boasted their own beauty.
Hilda chivvied Maisie inside number thirty-one just as Torquhil hurtled down the stairs and flung himself on Hilda, barking and wagging his tail in danger to the Staffordshire likenesses of himself on the coat rack shelf.
“There’s my favorite lad. Had a good day?” Hilda crooned. “Not all by your lonesome, are you? Hallo, anyone in?”
“You don’t live alone?” Maisie asked, following Hilda downstairs into the kitchen. She could certainly afford to.
“Landlords aren’t especially keen on renting to lone women,” Hilda said, loading a tray with bread, cheese, and fruit. “Though I could have had my father or brother stand for me, but it’s not a bad thing, having other people about. We can look out for one another, and it means I’ve been able to buy a car. Gorgeous beast. I’ll show you sometime. Yes, you’re a gorgeous beast, too,” she assured Torquhil, and opened a tin of meat for him. After several jetés and a circle around Hilda, he settled to his food.
“I’m feeling some affinity to him,” Maisie remarked. Hilda laughed, set the tray in a dumbwaiter, and rolled it upstairs. They followed their supper to Hilda’s domain, a large sitting room with a bedroom beyond. Hilda stoked the fire and tossed cushions on the floor.
The room was as bright and warm and cheerful as Maisie could have imagined. But she remembered why they were there and what she had discovered in Simon’s flat t
hat morning, a thousand years ago. Hilda handed her a glass of sherry just as she started to cry.
“Your photos were developed with great haste and I’ve had a look at them, so I have somewhat more of a sense of what’s bringing on the great floods. I’m so very sorry.” She pressed a handkerchief into Maisie’s hand. “You have notes, too?”
Maisie passed her pad to Hilda, and shoved a chunk of Wensleydale in her mouth.
“Isn’t it possible,” she asked through the cheese, “that Simon doesn’t know what he’s doing, or who he’s involved with? He wants to run a newspaper. He’s said so a dozen times. And now here’s his chance. Maybe he doesn’t know the rest.”
“I hope so. And I’m sure you would have noticed if he has Fascist inclinations.”
“He can’t have. He was so horrified at that meeting I brought him to.” Maisie hesitated, remembering. “Actually, he thought it was hilarious. And they were talking about wanting to control the press.” She paused. “And Grigson was there, looking at him. But then we left before they could talk. Or . . . I wonder. I suppose he could have gone back in after I left?”
Hilda lit a cigarette and slid a cake tin off a shelf. Victoria sponge. Maisie laid a slice of Wensleydale on the cake. They went together nicely.
“It’s possible,” said Hilda. “It’s also possible Grigson recognized him. I knew who he was myself, remember? He’s been plastered over the society pages at various and sundry times. A big man in business would know of someone like that, especially when the aristocrat in question is trying his hand at journalism.”
“But he . . . he can’t . . .” Maisie slugged down some sherry. “He’s made a lot of remarks about newspapers—calls them ‘bourgeois,’ actually—and definitely wants to show them how to do the job, but of course he believes in a varied and free press. He must, surely.”
Hilda refilled Maisie’s glass. “There’s a sort of man who thinks he ought to have power. As of the divine right of kings. Hideously atavistic, of course, but impervious to evolution. And it’s a media baron who can wield real power. Think of William Randolph Hearst.”
Radio Girls Page 32