Radio Girls (4 page)

She shut the door to her tiny haven and grinned as she settled herself to another mountain of typing.

Too soon, she was shunted back to the corridors. It wasn't even lunchtime and she was contemplating writing the hospital to ask if they'd post her some Ephedrine.

“Here.” Miss Shields thrust several heavy folders into her arms, papers peeking out from the string binding, yearning to breathe free.
“These belong to the Talks Department. I can't think how they came to be here. Oh, and this.” She added a large brown envelope with the imposing words: “Interoffice Memo: Dir. Talks H. Matheson” emblazoned across it. She also added a disparaging sniff. “I suppose you'll need a steno pad. You remember where the Talks Department is.”

Since it was a statement, not a question, Maisie pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and nodded.

Let's see. It was on the fourth floor, I think, and at the far end of the corridor
.
Or, no, wait. Maybe it was down this way . . .

Everything Rusty had rattled off that morning sat piled in her brain like unsorted items for a jumble sale. No one took the lift—that much she remembered—unless they were transporting something awkward. It was faster to run up and down the stairs; the more impressive noise was a bonus.

She walked with purpose, drawn to the clatter of loud typing and louder chat. Too late, she realized it was only women's voices she heard and thus the typing pool. She was accosted by a statuesque blonde, a sketch artist's dream of curves and curls and country-pink cheeks, depositing work in a tray marked “Output.”

“Hullo! Is that all for us?”

“Er, no,” Maisie muttered. She couldn't discern any of the women individually, but collectively they oozed glamour and modernity, a sea of red lipstick and snapping eyes. “It's for the Talks Department.”

The curvy blonde's interest was further piqued.

“No! You must be the Shields hire! Well, I . . . What are you doing along here?”

Maisie was not about to let the entire typing pool, who, if past was prologue, were the beating heart of gossip and judgment in Savoy Hill, know she was less than thoroughly competent and capable.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Do excuse me.” She strode away fast to avoid hearing giggles.

Down another flight and scooting around an awkward bend in the corridor, Maisie, eyes firm on the polished floor, collided hard with a
man carrying a tuba. One of her overworked shoes slid forward, then the next, and then she landed with a hard “phlumph” on the floor. The files gave one great leap—dozens of papers flew free and fluttered down on her, burying her like a pile of autumn leaves.

A musical giggle landed on top of the papers, and Maisie looked up at a girl every studio in Hollywood would have offered a mansion and the moon. Her dark red hair curled in the natural waves only a Mayfair hairdresser could concoct. Enormous green eyes, lashes that could have doubled as hedgerows. She tilted her head; long jet earrings rested against her jaw. Even from the distance of the floor and her infinite humiliation, Maisie could tell the girl's jersey and skirt were Chanel. And her stockings were most definitely silk.

“Need a hand?” another man volunteered, though not going so far as to set down his own box full of unidentified objects, or even come to a complete stop.

Maisie scrambled to her knees, wondering if there was any chance no one had spotted the holes in her shoes.

“No, I'm all right, thank you,” she told the papers on the floor, sweeping them into piles.

“You've got to move quickly around here,” the Chanel beauty told Maisie in the most aristocratic accent she had ever heard. “Can't blink even for a moment, you know.”

“Yes, I . . . I'm learning that.”

“Miss Warwick!” one of the men called in a deferential but hurrying tone.

“Oh, this is a super place for an education!” she trilled, ignoring him. “Better fun than Cheltenham, and I've told my teachers there so. Mind you, I think they were pleased to see the back of me.” Another melodious giggle.

Maisie's knees stayed glued to the floor.

“Miss Warwick!” the man called again.

“You don't look the BBC sort,” she went on. “Unless perhaps you work in the tearoom? Oh, no, you've got papers. Oh, are you
giving a Talk? You rather look like a bluestocking. It must be awfully relaxing, not being bothered with your clothes. I suppose that's how you find time to write, or whatever it is you do.”

Maisie had never heard an insult delivered with such sunny politeness.

“I . . . No,” Maisie said. “I've just been brought on by Miss Shields.”

“You're American!” the Chanel cried, with all the pleasure of having discovered Tutankhamen's tomb.

“Canadian,” Maisie grunted obstinately, attempting to get up while gripping the gathered papers. “I mean, that's where I was born.”

“I say,
Beanie
, look sharp!” the man bellowed. “Can't have dead air, you know.”

“Hopping, skipping, and jumping over!” she chirped.

“Wait!” Maisie cried in desperation. “Sorry. Can you, I, er, I actually am looking for the Talks Department, please.” She wrestled any hint of interrogation from her tone.

“Second floor, just down the end. Can't miss it—always a hotbed of activity. Shame the Talks are so soporific, but I'm for the jazz and drama. Not everyone can like action, I do understand. No need to be ashamed. Cheerio!”

She pranced away after the two men. Maisie, despite her anxiety about the time lost, couldn't help but stare after her. She ran on her toes in an elegant little trot that would be the envy of every dancer in the Ballets Russes. Her skirts bounced around her hips and knees, demonstrating to any naysayers that the modern fashions could indeed show a woman's figure to its finest turn under the right circumstances.

Dazed, Maisie wended her way to the Talks Department, clinging to the mad hope that she could sort out the papers without anyone knowing she'd dropped them. Miss Shields undoubtedly considered such an offense to merit the cutting off of hands before being bowled into the street.

For all the Chanel-clad “Beanie” had described Talks as a hotbed of activity, the department was church-like quiet, and Maisie slowed to a tiptoe.

Her reward at last, a crisp, polished sign on a door, glistening with newness: D
IRECTOR OF
T
ALKS
—
H
.
M
ATHESON
. She took a deep breath, rehearsing an apology as she crept to the office.

The door was ajar. Maisie peered in and saw a severely tidy desk. There seemed to be a building block in the in-tray, but as Maisie drew closer, she realized it was only correspondence stacked so meticulously as to appear smooth. A half-written letter in a rather scrawly hand lay on the blotter. A pile of books. A green leather diary. Maisie chewed her lip as she studied the desk, wondering where to lay her burden.

“Hallo. Is it anything urgent?”

Maisie shrieked, and the papers went flying again. She whirled to see a woman sitting on the floor by the fireplace, smiling up at her.

“Are you off your nuts?” Maisie cried, surprising herself both by the decidedly American expression she hadn't realized she'd ever known and the volume of her speech, which showed that she'd learned one thing from Georgina: how to project to the upper balcony.

“Steady now,” the woman advised, her smile broadening. “Carry on like that and you'll be part of the transmission. Indeed, they'd hardly need the tower.”

The head of a grim-faced young man in tortoiseshell glasses slithered around the door and glared at Maisie.

“What was all that ruckus? It's not a mouse, is it?”

“Hardly,” the woman on the floor responded, her gaze boring into Maisie.

“So what's the matter with you?” the man scolded Maisie. “Pick those up. Don't you know how to deliver things? I've always said girls have no place working in—”

“Now, Mr. Fielden, do calm down. You're in danger of being
ridiculous,” the woman chided. “The young lady was simply startled by my presence, and you must agree, I am astonishing.”

Fielden's thin lip, unimproved by his haphazard mustache, curled. Maisie could feel how much he longed to keep scolding her.

“I shall handle this,” the woman concluded. Her voice was pleasant, cheerful, but rang with an absolute command that would not be countered.

Fielden nodded obediently, and his head slid back around the door.

The woman chuckled. Maisie couldn't understand her ease. If
she
had been caught lounging on an office floor—not that she would ever contemplate such an action—she'd be lucky to retrieve her hat and coat before being shown the door. But this woman took a luxurious sip of tea, set her cup on a lacquered tray, and swung to her feet with an almost acrobatic leap.

“Now, then, what were you delivering?”

“Er . . .” Maisie bent to gather the papers, now far beyond hopeless and well into disaster.

Why didn't I just look for work picking potatoes?

The woman helped her up, and Maisie balanced the papers on the desk.

“Are you . . . ? I, er, I thought the director of Talks didn't have a secretary,” Maisie said, her hands still shifting through the papers to hide their trembling.

“Not as such, no, and that's something that badly needs rectifying,” came the jaunty reply. Maisie had the uneasy sense of being read from the inside out, despite the placid sweetness of the huge blue eyes. The woman was rather lovely, with soft blond hair cut into a wavy bob and an elegant figure shown to advantage in a practical, and obviously bespoke, tweed suit. Her skin was the pink and white of first bloom, but Maisie felt sure she was in her thirties. It was just something about her bearing. This was a woman who had seen and done things.

And now she had seen the interoffice envelope, addressed to the director of Talks.

“Ah!” she cried, catching it up and opening it.

Maisie was galvanized. “No! That's for Mr. Matheson, Miss Shields said.”

“I know of two Mr. Mathesons, and neither are here.” The woman grinned. She had the air of an infinitely patient teacher.

Maisie had the horrible sense she was being set up for a joke. That any second, Cyril, Beanie, Rusty, and the boys were going to swarm around the door and laugh at her. That the story would fly through the whole of Savoy Hill and follow her wherever she ran, even if she fled to deepest Saskatchewan.

“You . . . Are you . . . the director of Talks?” Maisie whispered, hoping everyone waiting to laugh wouldn't hear.

“I am,” the woman announced with a pleased nod. “Hilda Matheson. Miss. And you are?”

“Maisie Musgrave.”

“Aha!” Hilda pumped Maisie's hand, her eyes snapping with delight. “My new secretary! Or as much as Mr. Reith and Miss Shields are willing to spare you. Thus far. Marvelous! Now, don't you mind me sitting on the floor by the fire. It's a grand way to think and just one of my quirks.”

“I didn't mean to—”

“You most certainly did, and don't you apologize for it. It was glorious.” Hilda laughed. Her musical laugh was very unlike Beanie's. It was boisterous, rolling, and deep—Maisie found it a touch alarming.

“I expect you thought I was a secretary,” she went on, not waiting for Maisie's embarrassed nod. “Wouldn't I get into the hottest water for such impropriety? Well,” she added, eyes twinkling with an unsettling roguishness, “I might anyway at that. But it is chilly and one must stay warm. I appreciate your looking after me, Miss Musgrave, though I might suggest in future moderating your tone just a nip.”

Maisie could hear an echo of that laugh.

“Of course, Miss Matheson,” she whispered.

“That's going to the other extreme. But quite all right. It's always useful to try a few possibilities. Else how can you be sure what's right?”

“I . . . I don't know, Miss Matheson.”

“Well, we try, try again. Now, are all these for Talks as well?” she asked, indicating the folders.

“Er, yes, but I'm afraid . . .” Maisie squeezed her eyes shut, both to avoid seeing this exacting woman too closely and to stop the tears from spilling more freely than the papers. “Oh, Miss Matheson, I'm so sorry, but I'd already dropped them, even before now. They've got to be put all back together and I don't know—”

“Folders dropped twice, and on your first morning, no less! That is a feat. You don't make a habit of tossing paper thither and yon, do you?”

“Oh, no! No, I was . . . Well, I ran into a tuba.”

“Occupational hazard in Savoy Hill. But you're all right? Good. Now, let's have at these papers and see how quickly they submit to order.”

Could she possibly be facetious? Maisie thought with yearning of Miss Shields's disapproving candor, which was at least comprehensible. She gazed, fascinated, as Hilda organized the papers, small neat hands flying through them, nails manicured, left finger brazenly unencumbered by a wedding ring, a silver-and-enamel Mido watch clamped around her wrist.