“To help me manage a thousand troops? Absolutely. Now, my dear Miss Matheson, I know this all seems a bit of a shock, but try to take it as the compliment it is. You have done a great deal in building up this department, and now it is simply too much for one person to handle all on her own.”
Maisie was on her way in to tell him just how wrong he was, but she couldn’t move. Fielden’s arm was encircled around her waist, holding her with surprising strength. To push back would create some very undesirable contact; to pull forward risked toppling into the office. He was infuriating, Fielden, but damned clever.
“You and Siepmann and I can meet in my office and we’ll talk it through,” Reith said, grinding out his cigarette in Hilda’s ashtray. “I guarantee by the time you’ve talked to him, heard his persuasive arguments, you’ll be overjoyed.”
“So this was his idea?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. It’s long been my concern and he’s always asking how he can be more useful. When I said I thought Talks needed some reworking, it became obvious that he was the man for the job.”
“I see.”
“Good! Well, see you in my office later, then. Cheerio!”
Fielden’s fingers dug into Maisie’s side, urging her away. They all shrank back as Reith strode off, whistling. Maisie was about to go into Hilda’s office when the phone rang. Phyllida, controlling the tremble in her voice, announced to Hilda that it was a personal call and they didn’t give a name.
Which must mean Vita. Hilda closed her door.
Maisie pushed at Fielden in a blind rage.
“Didn’t I tell you?” she snapped. “Didn’t I warn you? Now everything is going to be ruined.”
“What could we have done differently, Miss Musgrave? You’re so clever; you tell me. What else could we have done?”
His eyes were full of their usual sarcastic fury, but there was a hint of pink around the edges of his eyelids. And the only answer was “nothing.” Because the only option would have been tamping down Hilda, and that was never going to happen.
Hilda avoided them all until after the promised meeting with Reith and Siepmann. When she returned, she called Maisie into her office and shut the door.
“Here. I’ve brought you a bun,” she said, setting it on a trestle table.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know you all heard enough. Apparently there will soon be a memo. The department is to be split. I am director of General Talks and Siepmann director of Adult Education. And it is hoped the politics might be ‘toned down.’”
She methodically stabbed her blotter with a pen. She looked drawn, even ill.
“Miss Matheson, we can manage this,” Maisie said in a sudden swell of confidence. “The DG will hate bad publicity. We just need to make it obvious that anything Siepmann is handling is going poorly and have it be known in a few quarters that the new regime is confusing and making for bad Talks and he’ll set it all right.”
Hilda looked at her with misty eyes. “You sound like me, you silly goose.”
“Good.”
“Miss Musgrave, I’m afraid it only gets worse. The DG has determined that you do not have the necessary qualifications to be the producer on The Week in Westminster.”
There was no reason to be surprised. Maisie frowned at the bun. She gouged off the top.
“I made the point as plainly as I could. But the DG—”
“I know.”
It was foolish of them to think this was going to go any other way. A woman’s program, by women, for women, should not have spurred his interest. But he had warned Maisie against ambition once. This must be her punishment for not heeding him.
“I’m still a Talks assistant?”
“You are.”
Maisie stabbed her finger farther into the bun, making it bleed cream.
“Who gets the position?”
“Cyril Underwood.”
Hilda spoke without expression. She wasn’t the slaughterer, just the messenger.
“He wanted to be a producer on an important program,” Maisie stated, ripping off a chunk of bun and shoving it in her mouth to stop her chin shaking. “He had better consider this a compliment.”
“If Reith wanted the program to fail, or didn’t think it had worth, he would have let you have the position.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
There was nothing to do but look at each other.
“He’s a schoolboy,” Maisie said at last, without bitterness.
“Some of them never recover from it,” Hilda agreed.
The phone was ringing. Business had to go on.
Maisie stood and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. “It is a terrific program,” she said.
“One of our finest,” Hilda agreed.
So there was that.
And something else.
“Miss Matheson, may I send one of the lads out to have some film exposed?”
Hilda raised an eyebrow. For the first time that day, she smiled. “You have more information.”
“I do. The sort that had made me think the day couldn’t possibly get worse.”
“That’s the BBC for you. Always surprising.”
They smiled, though neither of them felt like it.