Radio Girls (5 page)

“There!” She patted the neat folders with satisfaction. “I shall let you in on a little secret I've unearthed, having been here only since September myself. Few of these papers are of the earth-shattering consequence they're considered by some. It's all about what's
going
to happen, Miss Musgrave, not what's already been and done. Which isn't to say I don't like to keep very complete and tidy records. That is something I do expect, along with a strict attentiveness to all that goes forward. But I daresay Miss Shields and Mr. Reith wouldn't have approved you if you weren't sharp.”

At the moment Maisie had no idea why she'd been approved. Miss Jenkins at the secretarial school always withheld from giving her full marks. “You're the most technically proficient and capable,
Miss Musgrave, but the best secretaries have
brio
, dear.”
Does anyone ever use the word “dear” when they aren't insulting you?

Maisie was grateful to Miss Matheson, who in any case was a good deal more pleasant than Miss Shields, but now, the emergency over, she felt deflated. She'd been expecting a man. A clever, charming, well-spoken man who would intimidate and dazzle her. Under his influence, she would learn how to behave in such a way that would allow a man's genius to flourish. Such skills would hopefully attract another clever and exciting man (dark blue eyes and freckles came to mind) who might be enticed to become her husband.

But a woman. As director of Talks. That seemed to be taking the BBC's audacious modernity a bit too far.

“We have some time before the meeting,” Hilda announced. “Let's discuss the department. I'll detail what we've been doing here and some thoughts I have towards the future and how to implement some plans. We're very small as yet. You'll meet us all by tomorrow. You've already had the pleasure of meeting my junior, Lionel Fielden, very good at his job but rather willfully bad-mannered—you'll get used to him. He's handy, but it's not the same thing as having an energetic, clever young woman to really organize things and keep us all well oiled.” She studied Maisie, assessing those oil reserves. “We're a bit short on time. What say we be wild and I send out for some sandwiches? Anything in particular you'd like?”

“Er . . .”

For heaven's sake, at least use a different syllable!

Hilda grinned.

“Can a person ever go wrong with egg and cress in one hand and ham and cheese in the other? Do sit down.” She waved at the room as she pressed a button to summon a page, another brisk and eager adolescent boy.

Hilda's office was larger than Miss Shields's, more militantly well ordered, but also more inviting. Slivers of gold-and-blue walls peeked around bookshelves, which were stuffed with the sort of books Maisie
had always wanted to own. It was a struggle not to reach out and run her finger across them, feeling each embossed leather binding sing under her skin. What wall space remained was decorated with pictures; an Italian landscape, the Scottish Highlands, Paris on a lavender spring evening. A water jug and two glasses sat on one trestle table, the tea tray on another, next to a tempting plate of biscuits. Maisie wanted to hug the room, kiss it, swallow it whole.

“Why are you standing on ceremony?” Hilda asked. “I wasn't intending for
you
to sit on the floor, you know, though of course you're very free to do so.”

Maisie sank into a chair. A fat round cushion with a red-and-blue Italian print cover nestled into her back. Its fellow was on the floor, having performed its good service for Hilda. Just as Maisie was reaching for it, Hilda caught it up, set it on her own chair, and turned to Maisie.

“I don't want a fetch-and-carry sort of secretary. We're far too busy. Now, then, I've been organizing Talks into series. I think regular programming is useful and builds an audience, but of course we don't want anything so routine that it becomes dull. I like to keep things in categories. So, literary Talks, political, scientific, educational, artistic, household, general, those are what I've put into motion thus far, and I think will form a useful frame within which to operate, but of course it's really only just the springboard for launching any manner of interesting broadcasting. From one person speaking, to interviews, to a series of debates, wouldn't that be splendid?”

Maisie nodded, concentrating on her shorthand as Hilda rattled off names of people she was hoping to persuade to broadcast. Maisie recognized some of them—T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw. But she was soon drowning under the scientists, mathematicians, writers, artists, politicians, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Hilda talked as if she knew every one of them, her giddiness catapulting her from her chair so she paced the room, both it and Maisie shrinking to accommodate her expansive vision.

The sandwiches arrived, along with two bottles of ginger beer.

“Ah, excellent,” Hilda crowed, pressing a large coin into the happy page's hand. “Bit outlandish, sending for victuals from the pub when it's just our little meeting, but first days must be marked.” She busied herself finding napkins.

Maisie's gratitude mingled with mortification. Hilda shouldn't be spending her own money like this. It made Maisie feel indebted to her before she'd earned a penny.

“I mean to make ‘efficiency' our byword here in Talks.”

Hilda was so efficient as to be able to eat while talking and somehow remain elegant. Maisie's attempt at combining efficiency with elegance was far less successful. She wrote with her pad balanced on her knee, leaving her other hand free to shovel in food, and hoped Hilda was too absorbed in her soliloquy to notice.

Women notice everything, though. I bet she's seen every mend in my stockings. I bet she knows I have to cut my hair myself. I bet she thinks she's drawn a straw so short, even Thumbelina couldn't drink out of it
.

Hilda dabbed her lips.

“Terrific challenge, talking about new art on the radio. Let's schedule a meeting with Sir Frederic at the British Museum and Charles Aitken at the Tate—very able man, Aitken. We'll explore some possibilities . . . I think it might be really compelling to have a curator or art historian speak with an artist about a current piece. Wouldn't that be thrilling? Paint a picture, if you see.” She smirked.

The glossies also said that men didn't like women making jokes, but perhaps it was different when there were no men present. Maisie didn't want to laugh. That would imply she was relaxing.

“You've done fine justice to those sandwiches, Miss Musgrave.” (Was that a compliment?) “Before we segue to biscuits, do tell me something of yourself.”

“Er, well, there's nothing much to tell,” Maisie demurred.

“Nonsense. And if you don't mind me saying so, that's a very bad habit, playing yourself down. We all have a life story, age notwithstanding.”

Maisie didn't want to talk about herself. She did, however, badly want biscuits.

“What made you apply to work here?” Hilda asked.

“There was an advertisement,” Maisie answered, surprised.

“There are always advertisements. Why the BBC?”

“I . . . er, well, I . . . It was a job I thought I could do. And it, er . . .”

Blissful distraction wheeled in with the basket post. Hilda glowed with Christmas joy.

“Ah! The second round!”

“Here you are, Miss Matheson. Enjoy it.” Alfred balanced another foot-tall pile of papers in Hilda's in-tray. He started even more violently than before on seeing Maisie again, and she was too busy inhaling a biscuit to greet him.

“Have you met Miss Musgrave, my new secretary?”

“Hallo.” He nodded, and shook his head all the way back out the door.

Hilda moved to tidy the letters. Maisie hoped that wasn't going to be one of her assignments. It looked as though it would be lethal simply to breathe too close to the pile.

“You look alarmed, Miss Musgrave. Correspondence comes in by the veritable hogshead all day long. Didn't Miss Shields tell you?”

It seemed rude to say no.

Hilda gave the now-symmetrical mound an approving pat. “I call it my Tower of Babble. Though in fact nearly all of it is interesting. Or useful. And some of the criticism is downright entertaining.”

The white-and-pink guilloche enamel carriage clock perched in pride of place on top of the desk sang out the hour. Hilda glanced at it and tossed back the last of her ginger beer.

“Time to face the DG! Director-general,” she clarified, seeing Maisie's blank face. “Our master, Mr. John Reith, director-general of the British Broadcasting Company. But nearly everyone here calls him ‘the DG.' Are you finished?”

Maisie nodded, her longing to see Mr. Reith eclipsing her desire for another biscuit.

Hilda plucked the green leather diary from her desk and glanced at a bookmarked page. Maisie shifted her gaze downward, noticing Hilda's smart mahogany shoes, low-heeled, with three straps and a double-stitched edge. They gleamed like new, though they might have been several years old. This was what Georgina meant about buying good quality. Hilda, though she obviously had money, didn't seem the extravagant type, or one to buy every latest thing, leaving still-good items to languish in a cupboard or be dispatched to a church's charity box. Perhaps she rubbed saddle cream into the leather every night to keep her shoes so fresh.

I'll do that with my new shoes, from the first night
.

For a fairly petite woman, Hilda walked fast. Maisie gave full leash to her own speedy walk (not very feminine), and noticed, even above the din of people thundering all around them, that Hilda's footfall was almost silent.

“Apologies for the lack of girlish heel clicks,” Hilda said, seeing Maisie's puzzled face staring at her feet. “Just trying to set a good example. However good the soundproofing is, that's no excuse for carelessness.”

Maisie thought Hilda was fighting a losing battle there. Carelessness seemed to run amok in the corridors.

“Mind you,” Hilda continued. “I learned to walk quietly some time ago. It's quite useful, not being heard when you approach. Or leave. In my experience, it suits rather a few situations.”

They reached Miss Shields's office, and Hilda sailed in.

“Good afternoon, Miss Shields. Here we are. Is he ready?”

“Mr. Reith is always very punctual, Miss Matheson, as you well know,” Miss Shields informed her. Now Maisie understood the sneer when Miss Shields mentioned the director of Talks. She glanced at Hilda, who, if she even registered Miss Shields's electric dislike, was wholly untroubled by it.

The inner door opened, and Maisie involuntarily stepped back. The imposing figure of Mr. Reith towered in the frame, heavy
eyebrows drawn together, dark eyes boring into the women assembled before him.

Resplendent in Harris Tweed, a gold watch chain glittering across the dark fabric, shoes so polished he could inspect himself in them, Mr. Reith could not have been more what Maisie had hoped for than if she had crafted him herself out of the same fine cloth that made his suit.

The fierce eyes settled on her, the one unknown amid the familiar.

“Ah, you are the new girl,” he told her, scowling, though his voice, upstanding King's English laced with a Scottish burr, wasn't without warmth. “The one who is fond of the Old World.”

Maisie reeled. Miss Shields hardly seemed the sort of person to repeat such information.

“I'm—I'm so pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Reith,” Maisie stammered, hoping all the words came out in the right order.

“We're pleased to have you here, Miss . . . ?”

“Musgrave,” Hilda put in.

“Ah, yes.” Reith nodded, brows drawing together again. “Well, do come in, ladies.”

It was the grandest room Maisie had ever entered. The heavy pile of the carpet tickled her feet through the newspapers in her shoes. Velvet drapes, heavy enough to suffocate her, were looped back to allow for a view of the Thames. The ceiling seemed to stretch up for miles, appropriate to accommodate both the immense rosewood bookshelves and a man of Reith's stature, as well as helping Maisie feel minuscule.

Reith settled himself into a chair behind an oak desk that nearly spanned the width of the room. Once he ascertained that they were all waiting on his preamble, he drew some papers toward him and began.

“Your programming schedule for next week is most satisfactory,” he told Hilda. “The series on winter gardening sounds very pleasant. I will be sure to alert Mrs. Reith to it.”

“Oh, excellent. Do tell me how she likes it. I'm quite pleased with our speakers, though I haven't managed to get anyone from the Botanical Society to agree to broadcast. I think they find us a bit shocking.”

“Hm. You wrote to Charlie Simms? Old Gresham's chum of mine; should be game.”

“Yes. Here was the reply, from his secretary.” She handed him a small square of paper. “She sounds the dragonish sort, guarding the gate against all comers.”

A sharp intake of breath from Miss Shields, even as she dutifully continued to take the minutes.

“Hm,” Reith said again, passing the square back. “Bit of rum nonsense. I'll phone him; due for a coffee anyway. Miss Shields, you'll make the arrangements?”

“Of course, Mr. Reith,” she replied, her voice so warm and deferential, Maisie looked up to be sure it was the same woman.

“That's very good of you, Mr. Reith,” Hilda said.

“All in it together, eh, Miss Matheson? And if the Talks keep going as they've been just in the last few weeks, or so I gather from these correspondence reports, you should have less and less trouble beating down dragons.”

“Onwards and upwards, yes, indeed! But in the meantime, I shall continue to be my best St. George,” she assured him.

“Good, good.” He nodded seriously. “Now, about Christmas. You've put in far too many suggestions—it's not as though we broadcast twenty-four hours a day, and even then we wouldn't have time.”