Radio Girls(88)

“Well, I never.” Maisie laughed. “Phyllida Fenwick is becoming romantic.”

“No,” Phyllida said, shaking her head and refusing to smile. “Not in the slightest.”

“It’s just one letter,” Maisie said. “We’ll see if he writes again.”

She had noticed Hilda, in those rare spare minutes, using Talks and BBC memos to scribble more and more letters, all to Vita. She wanted to warn her, lest someone else see, too. But to warn her would be to mention it, which she couldn’t do.

The love that dare not speak its name indeed. Good grief.

But it wasn’t just that. Maisie was starting to understand very well that the heart just had to go where it wanted to go. She hoped Hilda was happy. She didn’t know anyone who deserved it more.





SIXTEEN




“Ladies! The election is the thirtieth of May. Are you registered to vote?”

“We most certainly are,” Phyllida told their questioner, though with more politeness than the last one who accosted them on their stroll through Hyde Park, as this man’s red boutonniere spoke him for Labour.

“Good on you! Embracing your hard-fought right, as you should. And only one party is determined to uphold the freedom and independence of all young women, be they single or married—”

“Labour, yes, though in fact the Liberals claim to be our champions as well. And the Conservatives, too, though I sense they wish to be seen as protectors.”

“But you wish your interests protected, not your person, of which you can tend yourself, I think,” the party man said.

“Oh! You are good!” Phyllida complimented him. “Give us a pamphlet, then, and we’ll read it over with care.”

Phyllida pawed through it as she and Maisie ambled on down the path.

“Really, Phyllida, that’s got to be the fifteenth pamphlet you’ve taken.”

“Yes, I’m hoping to paper a wall with them soon.”

It was hard not to be excited. All the newspapers, noticeboards, and public walls were emblazoned with the upcoming election and aimed particularly at this enormous new crop of voters, courteous of their intelligence and thoughtfulness and pleased for their independence of mind and spirit—and determined to win them to a particular party and hold them there forever.

Maisie and Phyllida claimed a free bench by the lake, with a good view of boys staging a race between paper sailboats.

“I feel as though we ought to be doing something ourselves, not frivoling like this,” Phyllida said, lighting a cigarette.

“Resting up, that’s what we’re doing,” Maisie said, though she felt the same. The election fever was high, and even women who would never have called themselves political were buzzing about it. They could hear snips of conversations all around them, and discovered the sailboats were christened “Labour” and “Liberal.”

“I can’t wait till I’m running in an election,” Phyllida said, stretching out her legs and crossing her ankles.

Maisie reached into her bag and pulled out another letter from Simon.

“Practice your political acumen by telling me what you think of this.”

My dearest Maisie,

The beauty of this part of Germany is extraordinary. The food and wine are nothing to what one gets in France, but the people are far more fine than I imagined and I think they have learned their lessons well. I do miss all the beauty of home, of course, but business must be done and things must be put right before I can return. Be well and be good, and think of me.

“Still busy trying to renew the family fortune by exploiting the flattened German economy somehow or other, is he?”

“I hope not,” Maisie said, biting her lip. “But somehow, the way he’s always saying how keen he is on beauty—”

“Call yourself plain and I’ll punt you into the lake.”

“I wouldn’t say that about me anymore. It’s that, all right, he lives and works in London, and loves it, but he’s always joking about his love of that other life: the great house, the manor, riding his horse every day. And I don’t know that it’s joking, really, and . . .”

“And you’re wondering where you fit into that life?”

Maisie sighed. “Sometimes I imagine a . . . wild sort of world, I guess, me in a long dress and cloak, long hair, wandering through the countryside . . .”

“And after the five minutes are up, what do you think of?”

“A flat in Mecklenburgh Square, where I can read as late as I like and listen to the wireless and no one says boo about the electricity.”

“And is Simon there, too?”

“I guess I can’t help hoping so.”

“Hmm. Well, no good getting mithered till he’s back in Britain anyhow,” Phyllida said with finality. “Come on, let’s hire some mallets and join the croquet.”

“I don’t know how to play.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s great fun. You just pretend the ball is the head of someone you despise and give it a solid whack.”

“You’re a champion at it, aren’t you?”

“With the ribbons to prove it.”




The spring of 1929 might have been beautiful or miserable, but no one in Savoy Hill could know for sure, because in those few weeks from the announcement to the election, the staff worked at a fever pitch. The broadcasting day was still short, but the preparations for each election-related broadcast took hours. And where there was time, Hilda swept Maisie off in the evenings to instruct her in the finer details of snooping through a stranger’s office.