Radio Girls(10)

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: DIRECTOR OF TALKS—H. MATHESON. 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.