Radio Girls (23 page)

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
.

The afternoon post, as if determined to further vex Reith, was full of letters praising various Talks, as well as invitations for Hilda to speak at this society or that charity or some other lunch.

Then Maisie came to a large square envelope—a parcel, really—and had the oddest sensation of her heart doing a loop-the-loop through her, like a carnival ride.

It had her name. on it.

Definitely her:
Miss M. Musgrave c/o BBC
etc., etc. Her hands shook as she opened it, risking death by a thousand paper cuts.

Four copies of
Pinpoint
magazine were inside. There was a note in a man's confident, elegant hand:

Dear Miss Musgrave, I can't tell you how I enjoyed our chat the other week. I wanted to send you some copies of our little magazine that very afternoon, but thought perhaps I would wait so as to include this latest issue. I should very much like to know what you think of it. If you're free Saturday afternoon, would you care to meet me for tea? Please don't let the prospect of my disappointment sway you, should you not be able (or willing; he cringes with mortification). Yours, very sincerely, Simon Brock-Morland.

Maisie's breath was short and ragged. It could be a trick, of course. A Cyril sort of trick. Simon Brock-Morland might think she was an advocate of free love. But tea, not a drink. An afternoon, not an evening. It all seemed quite civilized. Maybe.

“Ooh, what have we been sent?” Hilda's eager eye danced over the magazines.

“Have you heard of
Pinpoint
?”

“No, I haven't. It must be quite new if it's not one of our regular flow.” Her eyes slid to Maisie. “I say, are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

“No, I'm fine, thank you. May I read one of the copies as well?”

“Of course.”

Maisie slid the note into the top copy and handed the rest to Hilda.

She would thank him politely but decline. One didn't meet men for tea after just an accidental and unwanted shared lunch. Even if he was a writer. Who called her fun and clever and made the back of her neck tingle. She would ask Phyllida if she wanted to go to the pictures; they could see the new Buster Keaton at the Odeon.

She still couldn't breathe.

“A
re there Russian spies amongst us and is this government doing enough to quash them?”

Audiences had been interested to see what sort of Talks they might expect now that “controversial” material was allowed, and thus far Hilda did not disappoint. This was the third of dozens of scheduled debates on slippery subjects of the day, and audiences were primed.

So were the broadcasters. Studio One seemed far too small and stuffy—though Maisie thought it didn't matter, as everyone was holding their breath.

The moderator, Mrs. Strachey (Rachel, but she went by Ray), introduced the speakers on each side, and the debate took shape.

“I have a quarrel with the very title of this debate,” began the first speaker, “because the second question assumes the answer to the first is a resounding yes. And until such time as we have proof positive—by which I don't mean a sensationalist story in a publication favored by fluff-headed young girls titillated by the notion of white slavery—we cannot insist upon the government allocating precious time and resources to chasing down what doesn't exist.”

“But the dissonant voices in Britain are growing!” he was countered.
“Trade unionists and Communists are advocating against our finest traditions.”

“We have a long tradition of dissonance, which surely must be welcome in any free society. As effective as our system might seem to those who benefit from it the most, we must also allow that it has its imperfections, and we ought to be open to correcting them as such.”

Maisie glanced at Hilda, watching the broadcasters, nodding along with each point. Reith liked to suggest that controversial material was simply to “educate and inform,” but Hilda insisted it must go further. It must provoke thought.

The legions of the provoked made their feelings known in letter after letter. But by last count, there were two and a half million BBC licenses purchased, so Hilda felt emboldened to carry on provoking.

Maisie wondered if Hilda was what was termed “a radical.” It seemed unlikely. Lady Astor was a Conservative, so why would she have employed a radical political secretary? Maisie and Phyllida often discussed it on Sunday walks.

“I've heard the rumor Miss Matheson's a Communist. Hardly matters if she can't vote, though, does it?”

“Miss Matheson
can
vote,” Phyllida corrected her.

“But she's not married,” Maisie said. “Doesn't a woman have to be married?”

“The stupid rule is you have to be over thirty. Then you have to either own property yourself or be married to a chap who does. Or be a graduate. It's mad,” Phyllida scoffed. “The fight was for equal suffrage, not this cobbled-together rubbish. I don't want to wait. I want to make things happen now!”

“America doesn't bar women under thirty.”

“Nae, because America was so late joining the war,” Phyllida said, without judgment. “We lost loads more young men, so if women over twenty-one were allowed to vote here, we'd be the majority. And, you know, heaven forfend.”

Maisie was looking forward to the debate on equal suffrage.

Billy gave the sign they were off the air, and everyone applauded.
The debaters were shiny pink with sweat, and Mrs. Strachey looked cheerfully harassed.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed. “That was stimulating! And here I always thought blood sports a lot of nonsense. I could moderate one of these every day of the week. Marvelous exercise.”

Maisie wished the debates would answer the questions they asked, but she agreed with Mrs. Strachey. The constant asking was a thrill. She wanted to be even deeper in the midst of it. She'd certainly rather not keep asking herself about Simon.

“Why did I agree to this?” Maisie asked Phyllida, staring into the mirror in the favorite ladies' lavatory.

“Because he's handsome and witty and said you were clever, which means he's not stupid, so you'll go and have this tea, and then you're meeting me for chips and croquettes and the pictures after,” Phyllida told her firmly.

Maisie had deliberately made no effort to look smarter, though the Garland Green dress had been given a careful brushing, and she wore Lola's white rose in her hair. Phyllida supervised a light dab of pink lipstick, laid a tissue on Maisie's lip and instructed her to blot, then barreled her off to the tram.

This is nothing. It's just tea. I have plans afterward. And he wasn't
that
handsome, not really, I think, or clever. He probably just—

“I don't know what the BBC's playing at, allowing that sort of talk.” A man's complaint cut across her thoughts and captured her attention.

“Can't agree with you there. I thought it was rather useful. Good luck finding a paper that will ask those questions.”

“Haven't we got more to worry about than Bolsheviks?”

“That's the point! Why worry about something that isn't going to happen?”

“I'm not sure that was the point at all.”

On and on, as white-hot as the debate itself, though less eloquent and occasionally unbroadcastable. Maisie had to force herself off at her stop. It was one thing to read the correspondence. It was quite
another to hear, live and in person, how much the BBC was engaging the public. Hilda was right; radio might not change anything. But she was also right in that it was forging a connection with people.

She was still smiling as she entered the poky teashop and Simon sprang up from his seat and smiled back. He wasn't as handsome as she remembered—he was quite a bit more so. That tickle on her neck ran all the way down her spine.

“Miss Musgrave! I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you again. Do sit down. What would you like to drink?”

“Well, it
is
a teashop,” she said, feeling an obligation to state the obvious.

“They have coffee, too,” he said, mock defensively. “And some sort of lemon fizz thing, probably for kiddies.”

He ordered a pot of tea and a tray of sandwiches and scones.

“Shall we be wholly bourgeois and get cake as well? You like cake, if I remember.”

“I wouldn't trust someone who didn't,” she said, meaning it.

“I read that we're having a great revival of cake; it's our glorious new era. From Shakespeare to Donne to Hardy . . . to cake.”

“The Bloomsbury crowd, the BBC, and cake? I'd say we're doing all right.”

“Ah, I see that cunning hat tip to your employer!”

“They are changing the world, you know. They deserve a nod.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly. And giving all you young ladies a chance at some interesting work,” he said, winking.

“A few of us, anyway.”

“So I must ask, Miss Musgrave, are you perhaps American?”

Is that why I'm here?
Was that light touch of “other” really so alluring? Her accent, never definitive anyway, was much softer than it once had been. She didn't sound British, but she certainly didn't sound like she came from New York. Or Toronto.
I sound like someone who doesn't belong anywhere
. Which might have been what made her appealing—a cipher upon which to draw. The reverse image of Eliza Doolittle, but just as much clay.

“I'm Canadian, but I spent a lot of my childhood in New York.”

“Oh, New York! Father took us in 1920. Ostensibly to look at some property he owns—or anyway has holdings in—but I think really it was to chastise the Yanks for taking their time helping us thump the Boche.” He shook his head, chuckling. “Ah, you do have to wonder what it was all for. But never mind. I did my bit and it's sunny days now.”

“Your father owns property in New York?” Maisie tried not to gulp. She could tell his accent was upper-class, but now she wondered just how high up it went.

“Owns a bit in Trinidad, too, but primarily it's the old seat here,” Simon said with a shrug. “Matters nary a whit for a spare second son, so I'm just thrown an afterthought title and off I go to make my own way in the world.”

Title? All of Maisie's deepest girlhood fantasies poked their heads from their box and sniffed hopefully. It seemed churlish to press the subject, though, so she forced herself to pretend disinterest and instead asked how he'd liked New York.

“Very much. I was twenty-one. I was decorated at Cambrai. I liked everything.”

And just like that, she liked him.

“Thank you for sending the magazines,” she said, remembering what he wanted to hear. “You're awfully talented.”

Actually, she wasn't sure.
Pinpoint
was an odd magazine written in a jokey style but nothing like
Punch
. Simon's articles were either paeans to the best of Britain, or an attempt to consolidate the views of many newspapers, though usually pointing out that it was no wonder Britain was awash in myriad opinions. And the conclusions were that this was likely good, or else the government might really get to accomplish something.

“That's very kind of you, thanks,” he said, ducking his head and grinning. “I wasn't sure what you'd think, you being at the BBC and all.”

“What do you mean?” Maisie asked, surprised enough to set down her cake.

“Well, the spoken word versus the written, quite different, isn't it?”

“Yes!” Ha! Hilda had taught the public well.

“Quite, and when you really want people to absorb and understand something, well, it just has to be written.”

He remained charming as he excoriated the whole concept of radio. But he courteously listened to Maisie's argument that the oral tradition was ancient and had the capacity to engage audiences in a wholly new—which was to say, old—way, and rouse their passions.

“True, true. It's why theater is still more vital than cinema,” he said, shaking his head. “Though the theater's grown dreadfully bourgeois. We could do with a Master of the Revels like in the Elizabethan days, someone determining what's allowed to be staged and what's not. Save a lot of people a lot of money.”

“I suppose there's an awful lot of tripe onstage,” Maisie agreed, wishing his eyes weren't so liquid. “But someone saying what could or couldn't go forward . . . that doesn't seem right.”

“I expect you think I'm a bit of a silly blowhard.” (She did a little, though his voice was hypnotic.) “The fact is, I just want everything to be beautiful all the time. I want all theater to be profound, delightful, enchanting. I want to see nothing but magnificent art. Clothes, buildings, villages . . . I'm a forward-thinking man, I am, but what's more perfect in the whole world than an English village? Thatched roofs, a street of little shops, all the good people doing all their good work. And I can't think of a greater ecstasy than riding a stallion through an English wood, and up to the top of a mountain—or a tall hill, anyway—and looking down over the rolling expanse of all the glorious green. Just manor houses and quaint villages to disrupt the flow, but making it all prettier. That's my England, and the only place I want to live, always.”

If she could speak, she would say that he'd proved her point. There was nothing like the spoken word for arousing an audience's passion.

“Will you meet me again, Miss Musgrave?”

“Maisie,” she breathed, relieved to remember.

“Ah, yes, Maisie. A bit of May, a fresh spring. I suppose you haven't a telephone?”

“No, I'm afraid not.” Mrs. Crewe would sooner install a swimming pool.

“Good. I prefer to write. Words to paper, it's my
élan vital
, you know.”

She knew. She was the same way about words now. And she couldn't wait to read more of his.