Radio Girls (40 page)

“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 that 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.”

“Must I?”

“It looks to me as though Grigson—and likely Hoppel too—courted him more with power than money. He runs the one paper they start with. Then they buy more, and he remains the voice behind them all. And then it's easy to disseminate whatever information you like. ‘Nothing to fear from Fascism. The real fear is, et cetera, et cetera.' Once that's the majority opinion in all the respectable papers, anyone disagreeing looks foolish. You don't have to silence them by aggression. Much more civilized.”

Torquhil nosed his way in and assayed the cheese plate. Hilda snapped her fingers and he withdrew to lay his head in her lap.

“How can he like someone like me if that's the sort of power he really wants to wield?”

Hilda took a long drag of her cigarette.

“He may have some severe shortcomings, but he'd have to be a hopeless idiot not to like you. And if he were a hopeless idiot, you would have no interest in him. So there we are.”

Maisie took the ring from her bag and turned it this way and that, catching the light from the fire. Torquhil watched with desultory interest. She looked again at the photos she'd taken of Simon's papers.

“So this is where we stand. Grigson has arranged for a contract between Nestlé and the Brock-Morland cacao holdings, which might get the family out of debt, and asked Simon to run his newspaper. I wonder if Simon even went to Germany at all.”

“That's easy enough to find out, not that it matters. But he likely did. His family does have business there. Possibly less than they used to.”

“So it is bad for them.”

“It does seem so.”

Maisie ate another piece of cake. “I have to go to Nestlé,” she said.

“I don't think that's wise, now that we—”

“No. I know what I have to do. I know what I have to prove. You won't try to stop me, will you?”

“I hope you know me better than that by now.”

It was almost surreal, being back at the BBC the next day and trying to pretend things were ordinary. Especially when Siepmann strutted in again to, as he said, “assess the space.”

“We're going to be a bit snug, aren't we? And still dreadfully busy, I'm sure.” He turned to Phyllida and put a consoling hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flitted toward it, but he bravely kept it there. “I'll be bringing my girl over as well. You don't need to worry about being the lone secretary here.”

“I can hardly contain myself for relief,” Phyllida said. She made a sharp turn back to the typewriter, forcing off his hand.

“Now, now, girls,” he said with a tinkling laugh. “Do let's all be more cheerful and obliging. I would hate to have to recommend any of you be removed. And after all, this little reorganization is all to the good. We can't have people thinking Talks is a woman's sole domain, or the men won't listen in.”

“We have a good number of men in the audience,” Maisie said.

“Most certainly, but that doesn't stop us needing to be mindful. Best not to rock boats.”

“Of course, Mr. Siepmann,” she said. But she wondered if it was too late to keep the boat from changing course.

She'd once known how to talk to Reith. Maybe she still could.

“You may make an appointment, if you like.” Miss Nash, Reith's new secretary (they still called her “new,” even though she'd been there nearly two years), looked at Maisie with dislike.

“Isn't he having his tea now, though?”

“Yes, and he's having it alone.”

“Would you mind terribly asking him if he'd like company?”

Miss Nash raised her eyebrows over her wire-framed glasses. But she asked and the question was answered. Maisie went in.