Radio Girls (26 page)

The truth. Their truth. So different from the truth as Hilda saw it. As Maisie saw it. As most, she hoped, saw it. But she didn't know.

Maisie's fingers twitched. She needed a pencil. She needed to write. It wasn't going to wait. And that man was still looking at them, with the look of one who wanted to introduce himself.

“I've got a merciless headache,” she whispered, reflexively pleased by her first usage of the standard women's social maneuver. “I think I've got to get home.”

Simon promptly proved what it meant to have been inculcated in gentlemanly gallantry since the swaddling stage. Within seconds they were on the street and he had hailed a cab, though she insisted she could manage with the tram.

“I'm grateful to you, Maisie, really. Another minute and they'd have stoned me to death.” He laughed, then took her hand and kissed it, gazing into her eyes.

The treacherous fist in her chest clawed its way to her brain and nearly made her say, “I feel better now. Let's go anywhere, everywhere, now, forever.”

But she was too dazed to form words, and he skillfully handed the driver some money and her into the cab and, with one lingering look, was gone.

The fist inside settled down and her fingers closed around her pencil. Words flowing across the blue lines in her boxy, conscientious script.

“Could the Fear of Communism Lead to Something Worse? Would the British People Willingly Sacrifice Hard-Won Freedoms for This False Fear? Thoughts from a Canadian.”

She stared at that for a moment and amended:

“A Canadian-American.”

She had no idea where she meant these words to end up. It didn't matter. She just kept writing, and writing, and was still writing when she got out of the cab, as she walked through the door, and by the dim light in the sitting room, not noticing that her fingers were growing cramped and she hadn't even taken off her hat.

M
aisie was pacing outside Savoy Hill when Hilda sauntered up.

“I've got to speak with you. Can we go inside the chapel a minute?”

“My goodness, Miss Musgrave, how very cloak-and-daggerish!” Hilda, always delighted with novelty, was glad to accommodate. They were as alone as Maisie hoped; the chapel's only other occupant was a red squirrel, genuflecting over an abandoned sandwich.

“Miss Matheson, I've been reading the
Radio Times
every week, cover to cover—”

“Oh, and here I thought you liked yourself,” Hilda said, eyes dancing.

Maisie refused to smile.

“The thing is, I've been noticing these, well, adverts of sorts, for meetings. I've typed them all up so you can see.” Hilda glanced at the notes and back at Maisie, encouraging her to go on. “And I went along, and it seems to be a branch of the Fascists. Or a splinter, perhaps. Anyway, the DG's friend Mr. Hoppel was there, and he works for Siemens, and you had once thought . . .”

Hilda exhaled heavily and leaned against the baptismal font.

“Well, well, well. You've been having quite an extracurricular time of things.”

“What do you make of it?” Maisie asked.

“What do
you
make of it?” Hilda countered.

“Oh, don't do that, Miss Matheson, not this time, please!”

“I certainly shall! You've not taken up spying as a lark. You know there's likely something afoot. So? What are your instincts suggesting?”

“They were
your
instincts. They came from that German pamphlet you had.”

“I'm well aware. Go on.”

“All right. Well, last night, I was out with, well, a fellow—”

“The Honorable Mr. Brock-Morland?”

Maisie nearly toppled into a pew. “How on earth did you know?”

“He sent you that letter with the
Pinpoint
copies, and at least one other note besides. Remember, I was a secretary, too. Political, not clerical, but nonetheless, we see everything.”

Maisie had a sudden flash on Miss Jenkins instructing them to be the eyes and ears of whatever business they were so fortunate as to gain employ with.

“Oh. Well, I . . . Well, they want to take over the BBC. Or at least influence, but it's the same, because they want to stop all women working here, all women working anywhere, and they want to take over newspapers too, so they ‘tell the truth,' as they call it. But mostly the BBC.”

“Ah! So they see what we're worth, do they? That's most gratifying. Almost compensates for the lack of original thinking.”

“Miss Matheson, they're awfully serious, and most of the people there looked quite posh and important, the sort who can influence things. And if that man Hoppel is involved, and he's so high up in Siemens, and Siemens is one of the companies you thought those Nazi people were trying to get support from, and—”

“Miss Musgrave—”

“If MI5 is concerned, then—”

“Be quiet!” For once, Hilda looked enraged and, possibly, a little alarmed. “Some things you just don't say in some places.” She stroked her onyx necklace. “We've got to go in. I'm three minutes late. Mr. Fielden has likely already rung Scotland Yard.”

“But—”

Hilda held up a warning finger. “Later.” Then she smiled her biggest Bonfire Night smile. “I promise.”

It wasn't that Maisie didn't trust her, but “later” had a way of stretching into weeks in Savoy Hill. Despite Hilda's organization and Reith's dictatorship, things spiraled out of control almost hourly. Just that morning, the well-rehearsed Mrs. Lonsdale, discussing her champion border collies, meant to say, “I breed them,” and instead said, “I bleed them.” Hilda instructed Fielden to have the mailroom set up a temporary holding tent for the coming deluge of complaints. Billy forgot to give Mr. Wallis his cue to begin, leaving thirty-two seconds of dead air, and “Beaky” Brendon's “easy-to-train” singing parrots got loose of their cage in the corridor. Which might have been less of a problem if the string quartet hadn't opened the door to Studio One just as Rusty thundered down the corridor with a butterfly net procured from Sound Effects (people had long since given up asking why the effects men had certain objects). Eckersley could be heard baying for blood over the “destruction” of the studio (“Just a few feathers and droppings; you'd think it was a zeppelin air raid,” Maisie said). Beaky Brendon himself had hysterics when Samson the cat got involved in the roundup, but since only a few tail feathers were sacrificed, no one else was particularly ruffled. The parrots were wrangled, Hilda slung some brandy down Beaky Brendon's throat, and he recovered after she offered to give the parrots some as well. Samson went back to scouring Savoy Hill for mice, and everyone else went back to being
several days behind in their work, a complaint so often stated, no one, including the complainants, paid any attention.

Much later that afternoon, while Hilda was attending a broadcast, the correspondence brought Maisie another note from Simon.
Dear Maisie, I do hope you're feeling better today. Many thanks for such a gloriously stimulating evening, and I shall no doubt beg of you your next free Saturday night. Yours, Simon.
Maisie pressed the note to her chest, then crammed it in her bag lest anyone spot it and returned to her immersion in cathode rays. The phone rang.

“Talks Department, Miss Musgrave,” Maisie answered crisply.

“It's Lady Astor for Miss Matheson,” said an equally authoritative secretary.

“I'm so sorry, but Miss Matheson is not available. May I take a message?”

“When will she return, please?”

“She's in the studio and can't be disturbed. May I have her ring Lady Astor back?”

There was a surprised yip, a shuffle, and Lady Astor's imperious voice came on the line.

“Miss Musgrave? Good. I couldn't abide speaking to that hang-dried misery-boot. The news can't wait, because I want to give Miss Matheson an exclusive, and as she trusts you, that means I can as well, doesn't it?”

It wasn't really a question. Maisie was glad Lady Astor couldn't see her smile.

“I always strive to be very worthy of trust, Lady Astor.”

“Marvelous. Though in my experience, keepin' certain people a bit unsure isn't without use. Now, listen! They're going to announce it tomorrow, but they've finally just passed equal suffrage, and that's going to make for some very good Talks, I should think.”

Maisie, writing the information on the Talks Department harvest-moon-orange memo (a clever choice of Hilda's—there was no missing a missive from Talks), knew she was meant to respond with enthusiasm. But Lady Astor knew they were still constrained as to
the sort of news they could report, and when was there time for an exclusive?

“That's very good news, Lady Astor. Thank you so much for letting us know.”

“Those are the words of a polite and professional secretary, my dear. Don't you realize what this means? All women over twenty-one can cast a vote next year, single or married, rich or poor. It's the law now, and it won't ever be changed again. It's rather a bit of something.”

Phyllida would turn twenty-one next year. She would be able to vote. Everyone would. Then Maisie swayed and seized hold of the desk. A Canadian national, living in Britain, was allowed to vote. That meant her. And now she was going to get to spread the news.

“I've got to get Miss Matheson straightaway.”

“That's better,” Lady Astor trilled, her laugh ending in an unladylike snort.

Maisie slammed down the phone, snatched up her pad, and sprinted for the studio. Where of course the
BROADCASTING IN PROGRESS
sign kept her rooted to the corridor. She circled before the door, a bull trapped in a pen.

“My goodness, dear, you'll wear a hole in the floor!” It was Siepmann. With Cyril. She wanted to lower her head and charge. “You don't look like you're working. Doesn't Miss Matheson keep your nose well to the grindstone?”

She thrust her nose into the air to give him a better view. “She does, Mr. Siepmann, though it's hardly necessary. We in Talks are very dedicated to doing the best possible work. For the BBC,” she added, remembering their last conversation. She was pleased to see Cyril look abashed at Siepmann's manner. Or maybe he was surprised at hers.

“I rejoice to hear it,” Siepmann said. “I do sometimes wonder how you all manage, being so busy.” He shook his head, as though the wonderment preyed on him. “I'm surprised Miss Matheson doesn't seek to expand the department, do more delegating while
keeping the whip hand high. I'm sure if I ran it, I'd have to be a terrible tyrant.”

I'm sure if you ran it, we'd all take up pitchforks and torches
.

“Miss Matheson manages very well, thank you.”

“Certainly according to the papers and listener numbers, yes,” he agreed, as though such things were inconsequential. “Well, keep up your hard work, my dear,” he said, and jerked his head to Cyril to chivvy him on.

If only I were one of those secret agents. I'd have a poison dart to shoot at him.

She shunted aside that pretty picture and focused on the real masterpiece: Lady Astor's scoop. There had to be a way to use it and not step outside their bounds. A special guest, perhaps, ruminating on the possibility that full suffrage would at last be the law of the land? And if that person was highly respectable, known, above reproach . . . maybe Lady Astor herself? No, not a sitting politician. Everyone knew they leaked stories all the time, but none would do so publicly. But it should be a woman. A suffragette! Emmeline Pankhurst had just died (such a lovely retrospective Talk on her life and work). Her daughter Christabel had moved to California. Perhaps the other daughter, Sylvia? No. An older suffragette would be better, someone who had fought long and hard and survived to see—of course, Millicent Fawcett. She was over eighty, not well, but very much alive and a dame, so decidedly proper.

Hilda came out of the studio and Maisie pounced on her.

“Miss Matheson, the most extraordinary thing! We've got to . . . It's so . . .”

A shadow loomed over her. She'd forgotten it was Vita Sackville-West who had been broadcasting.

“Holy smokes,” Maisie whispered, gazing up into the great lady's steely eyes. “I . . . er . . .”

Vita laughed. “I do relish the sight of a woman passionate about her work. Do attend to Miss Musgrave, my dear Hilda. I can see myself out this once. Good day.”

As soon as Vita was out of earshot, Hilda turned on Maisie in a rage.

“Since when are you unprofessional? Was my promise of ‘later' somehow not clear? I'm a patient woman, but—”

“No, it's not that. I—” She barreled an astonished Hilda back into the studio, closing the door behind them. “Miss Matheson, Lady Astor rang, and—”

Billy was still in there, clutching a wilted bouquet of red and blue wires.