Radio Girls(66)

“You’re not going to argue that radio forges connection again, are you?”

“I don’t have to. I think it’s been quite proven.”

She was going too far. Maisie wanted to throw herself between them.

“Miss Matheson, I admire your hard work, but you must be more temperate. I see, for example, you are allowing Lady Nicholson to review that filthy Mead book?”

“Oh, it’s not filthy at all, Mr. Reith. It offers an extraordinary insight into the Samoan culture! Remarkable people. Here . . .” She produced the book from her stack. “Do read at least some of it.”

Reith shied from the book in more alarm than Maisie guessed he ever had from mustard gas.

“You’ll disinvite Sir John, and I don’t like the sound of this fellow talking about our oil interests in Persia. The Persians are lucky to have our business, you know.”

“That’s not really what—”

“You must be politic as well as political,” he said. Feeling the impression of the exit line, he nodded to Hilda and Maisie and strode away.

Fielden stuck his head in. “Shall I reschedule the oil talk, then?”

“I suppose so,” Hilda said. “I’ll try to winkle more of what’s troubling him. Do draw up some names to replace Sir John Simon, will you?”

Fielden almost smiled. Catastrophes and unpleasant tasks stimulated him.

Maisie flipped to a fresh sheet in her pad. “Do you want to draft the letter to Sir John now?”

“No,” said Hilda. “I most emphatically do not. He must have crossed Reith. If everyone with a dodgy personal life were barred, there’d be no one left to broadcast.” She lit a cigarette, leaned back in her chair, and glared up at the leaf-and-dart cornice. “Very silly, panicking about panic. Dangerous, too, really.”

“Yes!” Maisie burst in. “It’s funny you should say that, because—”

Rusty ran in, bearing aloft an urgent telegram for Hilda, just as the phone rang and Maisie jumped to answer it. One emergency turned into another, and somehow the entire week disappeared in a flume of radio waves.




Alfred handed her a card with the last round of correspondence. “Funny, people writing to you,” he said, winking. Maisie ignored him and tore open the envelope. It was just one line, from Simon, asking if she was free to meet for a drink the next evening.

“Ooh, someone fancies himself a Bohemian,” Phyllida said when she saw the part of Chelsea he was suggesting for their rendezvous.

“Maybe he is and the aristocrat suggestion was just a joke?” Maisie ventured.

They left their tea and ran down to the BBC’s library—a grand appellation for what was basically a converted airing cupboard. Squeezed together at the single bookcase, they turned the pages of Debrett’s straight to “B.” And there it was. Simon’s father, Charles Brock-Morland, was the Earl of Banbury. His older brother, Nigel, was the principal heir. Simon himself was an Honorable. A thrill of excitement ran through Maisie as she read this. Damn, I thought I’d outgrown my Lady Astor fantasies.

“‘Honorable,’ eh?” Phyllida drawled. “And do we suppose he is?”

“The evidence is in his favor thus far,” Maisie said. She started to close the book, but instead flipped to “W.” “Well! Look at that. Beanie’s an Honorable, too. ‘Hon. Miss Sabine Eugenia Warwick.’ It certainly is a refined name, isn’t it?”

Phyllida shut the book.

“Lot of maungy nonsense,” she pronounced, and blew a raspberry at the cover for extra emphasis. Maisie whipped out her handkerchief to wipe the book clean of spittle before replacing it on the shelf. “Means sod all these days, and they know it,” Phyllida added, folding her arms in satisfaction.

“Someone like Miss Matheson deserves to be in a book like this, doesn’t she? There’s Who’s Who, but that doesn’t seem illustrious enough,” Maisie said, her finger still resting on the spine.

Phyllida drew her away. “Miss Matheson will earn her way into something much better, you’ll see.”




The Chelsea pub definitely attracted a Bohemian crowd. Maisie glanced around it in satisfaction. However much she might dislike Georgina, she always felt right surrounded by people who wrote and made art. Maybe Simon did, too?

“Maisie!” he cried, reaching for her hand. “Absolutely topping of you to join me. Quaint little snug this, isn’t it?”

That seemed an abuse of synonyms, but he winked, and she noticed his eyes had flecks of gold in them. That tingle danced across her neck again, and she was glad to swallow her sudden heat in the gin-and-tonic he offered her.

“So! Have there been any great new adventures in Savoy Hill since we last met?” he wanted to know.

“Every hour is an adventure there,” she said, not mentioning that there were some adventures the Talks Department could do without. She still hadn’t had a moment to tell Hilda about the meeting. She hadn’t even had time to think about Simon. Or not too much, anyway.

“Every time you mention your BBC, your eyes dance a little reel,” he said.

She grinned, feeling herself blush.

“That’s an awfully old-fashioned dance.”

“I’m an awfully old-fashioned fellow.”