Radio Girls(53)

“Well, good afternoon. Are you my guide?”

“I am, yes, Lady Nicholson,” Maisie answered, fighting the urge to curtsy. Vita’s silky warmth was even more intimidating than Lady Astor’s cheerful condescension.

“Please, no titles here. I’m in my capacity as a working writer. ‘Miss Sackville-West’ will do, thank you.”

“Oh. I . . . Yes, of course. Well, please follow me, Miss Sackville-West,” Maisie beckoned. She would never dream of subjecting Vita to the stairs, so the lift was summoned, and Bill cheerfully took them up. The noise of the lift tended to dissuade conversation, allowing Maisie to study Vita, who gazed straight ahead, utterly at ease. Her simple elegance was arresting. She was fashionable, of course—not like Beanie, who as a young unmarried socialite was expected to be ahead of the trends—but rather as a respectable, admired woman whom every tailor wanted to dress. Hilda’s jackets and skirts were tailored, too, but there were tailors and tailors, and Maisie could see that Vita’s was the kind that helped set the aristocracy apart.

Hilda met them at the lift.

“Miss Matheson!” Vita boomed before Hilda could speak, pumping Hilda’s hand as though she expected to yield water. “Such a pleasure to see you again. I can’t begin to express my excitement for this venture. I am deeply gratified to be asked to participate.”

“We’re very honored to have you broadcast, Lady Nicholson,” Hilda said.

“‘Vita,’ please. Let us begin by being informal. Your reputation well precedes you, and I know I am going to be run absolutely ragged with rehearsal, so we may as well be the friends we’re so evidently meant to be.”

“Then you must call me Hilda.”

“Good! Now, I’m absolutely longing to see the studio and get to work.”

Maisie tagged behind, watching them. Hilda was always delighted to greet a speaker, but there was something different in her reception of Vita. She was radiating warmth and excitement, more than usual, but that wasn’t quite it.

She almost seems nervous.

Hilda was never nervous. So it had to be something else.

The rehearsal was hardly needed. Vita was a born speaker. She had of course been given elocution lessons, but plenty of actresses weren’t as readily engaging as she was. She simply understood at once what it was to give a compelling broadcast and employed her warm, elegant tones to perfection. She was someone who had expected to be listened to her whole life, and so spoke with total ease, knowing attention would be paid. And of course it would. No one who heard her would turn away from the broadcast. Hilda was tap-dancing on the ceiling again.

Rather than the usual bullying—or teaching, as Maisie preferred to call it—Hilda focused on making Vita as comfortable as possible. Which seemed unnecessary. The woman could be comfortable on an ice floe. But Hilda fussed to be sure her script was laid out so the pages would move with even more seamlessness than usual—she seemed to feel Vita should not have to handle her script herself. The great lady felt otherwise, and laid a steadying hand over Hilda’s, holding it there while she assured her that such ministrations weren’t needed.

“You are very kind, Hilda, but truly, these reviews are my honor.”

“I think, Vita, we shall have quite a set-to deciding who is doing whom the greater honor.”

“I suspect you might be the loser there. I’m quite a bit bigger than you.”

“Ah, but I’m small and scrappy.”

Vita’s throaty laugh would have made the sound effects men swoon.

“I knew we should be great friends.” Vita grinned at Hilda. “Miss Woolf said you were quite the tyrant, perhaps not realizing I appreciate a bit of tyranny. Well, I’m glad you think my efforts are up to scratch. I do hope you’re not withholding any criticism due to some ceremony or other.”

“Not a bit of it. Miss Musgrave can tell you there’s little I despise more than a terrible broadcast. I won’t have it, not on my watch. And I certainly won’t have it from my friends, for my sake or theirs.”

“Exactly as I would have thought of you. If I don’t disgrace the BBC after my broadcast, you must come to dine. Will you?”

“You shan’t disgrace us, so we may consider it a date.”

“Jolly good!”

When Maisie stood to show Vita out, Hilda waved her aside.

“I’ll escort our reviewer, Miss Musgrave, thank you.”

Hilda often walked the more important broadcasters, or the ones she really liked, back to the main door. Which meant nearly all of them.

But she’s never done so blushing.

“How did the great and powerful Vita Sackville-West get on?” Fielden asked gloomily when Maisie returned to the Talks Department.

“She was superb,” she raved. “People will just have to read whatever she recommends.”

“Aristocrats. They still want to be dictators.” Fielden sighed, shaking his head.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Maisie snapped.

“I did,” he said, with a shrug. “Did Our Lady bully her a good deal?” he asked in a more hopeful tone.

“Not a bit,” Maisie said, rolling in a sheet of fresh letterhead and typing with extra force to drown him out. It was always nice to disappoint Fielden, and if he thought she was the type to tell that sort of story, he didn’t know her at all.