She had a firm, Mary Poppins sort of voice, and Maisie wanted to ask her to come broadcast. She listened to the midwife’s brisk explanation of the device and instructions, hearing the voice rather than the words and thinking how useful this would be for their female listeners. Then she heard what Reith’s response would be to such a proposed Talk.
“Yes, it really is that easy,” the midwife said, mistaking Maisie’s smile for a response. “Now, just relax and take a few deep breaths. It won’t hurt, but it’s not terribly comfortable, I’m afraid.”
It wasn’t. The midwife was professionally gentle, though the word “manhandling” came to mind.
“It’s easy to get nervous giggles, but do try to just relax and breathe steady. It’ll be much quicker,” the midwife ordered. “There! You are now wearing a Dutch cap.”
“Can you fit me with wooden shoes, too?”
The midwife chuckled.
“How many of the women ask that?” Maisie wanted to know.
“Only a few,” the midwife assured her. “Any questions?”
A thousand. But none that the midwife meant.
“No. I think I’m all right.”
“Well, any discomfort or concern of any sort, you come straight back to us. Don’t feel awkward.”
Considering where the midwife had just had her hands, Maisie thought it was past time to mention feeling awkward. But she only said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Simon. Good afternoon.”
“Well-done,” Phyllida congratulated Maisie after the whispered confession in the tearoom. “Though after all this time, I’d keep him waiting a month at least.”
“I don’t want to.”
“No. I suppose you don’t. Well, here’s hoping you’re a producer soon and that saves you from the Marriage Bar.”
“And you’ll be Talks assistant.”
“I will, won’t I?”
Their delight was tempered by the reality of Reith. His deep chill toward Hilda escalated the more popular Talks became.
“You’d think instead he’d hire four strapping lads to carry her on their shoulders wherever she went,” Phyllida said.
“Or keep us drowning in sandwiches and cakes all day long,” Maisie countered.
“Or meet us every morning to bow thricely and wish us maximum productivity.”
“Do you girls really have to giggle so much?” Fowler said, looking up from his Chelsea bun. “It’s highly distracting.”
“Just trying to inspire you with sound, Mr. Fowler,” Maisie assured him.
And so here she was, sitting down to a supper she could barely eat in Simon’s “awfully bourgeois flat” in Primrose Hill. “But it’s part of the family pile and a lovely view of Regent’s Park,” he said, both introducing and dismissing the place.
They were served with an excess of deference by “my man, Trent. He’s all right. Aren’t you?” He looked dyspeptic, actually.
The room was almost overbearing in its insistence on masculinity, with heavy, dark furniture and drapes. A walnut bookcase was stuffed with leather-bound books, and Maisie counted two rolltop desks, one closed, the other with a typewriter peeking out between piles of papers and vases full of bouquets of pencils.
“I don’t believe in gifts, Maisie,” Simon announced, smiling. “But I daresay I’m an incorrigible hypocrite.” And he slid a small black box across the table to her.
One fist in her chest became a dozen.
This can’t be real.
She opened it. A ring. An emerald ring. Emerald for May. For Maisie.
“Possibly it’s not really a gift, since I’m asking something rather large in return,” he said, reaching over and slipping the ring on her finger. “My father doesn’t approve, I’m afraid, but I explained you were devoted to England, an admirer of king and country, and whatnot. And that I was determined to marry you because I couldn’t imagine trying to talk with anyone else of an evening.”
This was one in the eye for Georgina. Maisie wondered where Edwin Musgrave was, and wished he were someone she could go to and share this with.
“You’ll marry me, Maisie?”
“Is that a question or an order?” She laughed, and he did, too.
“Oho, the orders come after marriage, my dear! You will swear an oath to obey, don’t forget. Joking! I rather like the idea of a working wife, and in fact I’d be keen to put those magnificent brains to work for me. Think of it, darling. Think of me owning a string of newspapers and magazines and having you to help me! And you’d write. Of course you would. Your name would be all over the pages, connected with your ideas, far more than as a Talks producer, or even if you ever became director. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? ‘Maisie Brock-Morland,’ doesn’t that sound superb?”
He turned her hand around and kissed her palm, looking up into her eyes.