Radio Girls(95)

Her plate was nearly empty by the time she found him, perched under an umbrella, watching the sound effects crew play a highly querulous game of croquet.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fielden! May I join you?”

“I know the DG considers this a social gathering, Miss Musgrave, but we don’t need to humor him beyond a nod. Do please feel free to finish off the buffet instead.”

Since there was nothing to be gained by breaking the plate over his head, she sat down as if she’d been invited, or at least not discouraged. It would be so preferable to talk to Beanie! Both as an aristocrat and an adept of an elite school, she must know everything about shifting allegiances and how petty quests for greater personal power must operate. But Beanie was very deliberate in her avoidance of trouble at the BBC, and very loving of gossip. Fielden might not like Maisie, but he didn’t like anyone, except Hilda. So there it was.

He looked at her a long moment, as if trying to ascertain that she really was sitting there and not moving.

“I suppose the geese are watching from the shrubbery, and if you trouble me long enough, you win some sort of prize?”

“Er. No. What?”

“Direct and clear-spoken as ever.”

“Mr. Fielden.” She cast a nervous glance around her to be sure they couldn’t be heard. Then again, there was little chance of being heard over the shouts of the sound effects men. It seemed inadvisable to let them handle wooden mallets. “What would happen, do you think, if someone in Savoy Hill was thinking of disrupting the Talks Department?”

His eyebrows shot up. She wouldn’t have guessed his features could be so animated.

“Seen a bad play, have you?” he asked, though it was clearly just to maintain form.

“A multitude,” she agreed. “But that’s beside the point. I overheard a discussion I wasn’t meant to hear—”

“That’s what ‘overhearing’ generally is, Miss Musgrave.”

“—and it made me think there is an effort to elevate . . . a certain person . . . in a way that would, er, affect our department.”

“Ah. Siepmann,” Fielden stated.

“What have you heard?” Maisie demanded.

“Only what you’re failing to tell me in worthwhile detail. But the DG’s fading enthusiasm for Our Lady is legion enough that it may as well have been broadcast, and who else could he connive with within the ranks to try to splinter us? He’s not going to pull from outside, not these days. Strictly an earn-your-way-up man, save where himself is concerned.”

“We’ve got to do something.”

“We can’t do something against nothing. We couldn’t even if it were something.”

The whole of the BBC opined that A. A. Milne had modeled Eeyore on Fielden.

“We’ve got to warn Miss Matheson,” Maisie insisted. “There must be a way to do it without upsetting her.”

“There is. We say nothing, but rather double our efforts in producing brilliant Talks. We support the genius of Our Lady and of course be sure that there is no chance of the Dear Generalissimo missing a single positive response, either from listeners or the press. Whatever he thinks of Our Lady, his greatest love is for the BBC itself.”

“Can’t help feeling sorry for his wife,” Maisie said.

“For so many reasons. My point is, he’s not going to interfere with the growth of his child, even if one of its godmothers irks him. He’s far too pleased with his nose to cut it off.”

“But the thing of it is, Mr. Fielden, we do a top job already, and if he’s thinking—”

“You don’t really know what the Dire Gargoyle is thinking, and he could simply be letting Siepmann know he has faith in him.” Fielden hid a faint smile in his drink. “Thinks he’s good enough to do a woman’s job.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maisie snapped.

Fielden looked surprised. “Do they not have jokes in your homeland? Or is the entire dominion of Canada joke enough in itself?”

His head was saved by a shout from Fowler and an errant croquet ball crashing into the table between them. Fielden pulled his drink to safety but jerked too hard and half of it landed on his summer tweed.

Maisie seized the ball and pitched it back to Fowler so hard he yelped.

She sat back down and handed Fielden her napkin. “You needn’t always be so nasty,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “But I generally prefer it to the alternative.” He suddenly drew close and conspiratorial—she could see all the droplets of gin fizz in his mustache. “No one in Savoy Hill is better at what they do than Our Lady. Some are just as good, maybe, but no one is better. The DG knows it. And he knows the logic of it. Where does a brilliant person go but up? And where else is ‘up’ for Our Lady?”

Oh. The fantasy. Hilda as DG. And if Fielden left, perhaps Maisie could . . .

“That’s lovely but ridiculous,” Maisie snapped. “The governors like us modern, but they know perfectly well that the BBC wouldn’t be seen as serious if it were headed by a woman. Besides, I don’t think Miss Matheson would want the job.” But even as she said it, she thought of all the meetings between Hilda and Reith and how Hilda had a stronger sense of audience and technology and content and Reith knew it and hated every bit of it.