“They are all offending,” Reith insisted, but Maisie could hear the scratching of a pencil even from up the stairs, which they were still climbing. She cast her eyes around desperately, edging herself along the wall.
Reith and Siepmann came up the stairs just as Maisie closed the nearest door behind her—the door to the men’s lavatory, which was thankfully unoccupied.
“Shall I go and give her the revised script?” Siepmann asked, hopeful.
“No. I’ll ring her and tell her to come and get it herself,” Reith growled. “Get me Matheson, will you?” he shouted to his secretary.
Maisie listened hard. She could only get the gist, but it was enough. Hilda must be shouting back just as vigorously as Reith. And Siepmann, that worm, was enjoying all of it.
She peeked out the door. The corridor was empty. They were all in the office. Hilda had taught her well; her footfall was silent as she ran down the stairs and all the way back to Talks.
Hilda hadn’t gotten far, only halfway down the corridor. She saw Maisie but didn’t break stride.
“Miss Matheson, please. It’s just his insane vendetta. It’ll burn out eventually, and all the criticism about how Talks aren’t as good as they were will force his hand. And it’s Siepmann, you know, that spider on his shoulder. We just need—”
“Miss Musgrave, they’ve won at nearly every turn. I want to work, not battle. And I will not work in a place that advocates censorship.”
“No, of course, but you can’t face him like this.”
“I bloody well shall.”
Maisie tried again to stop her, but they only ended up going into Reith’s office together.
“What do you mean by this?” Reith demanded. “That Harold Nicholson is a poof, and his lady just as unnatural, and that repulsive Joyce novel is banned! How dare you allow such a thing to be discussed?”
“Who are we to be banning books?” Hilda shouted. “My God, you moralists are such a pack of hypocrites. You decry Communism, screeching that it forces all its peoples into the narrowest of strictures, and then impose much the same in a presumed democracy! Why can’t any man, woman, or child try to read Ulysses if they wish to? And if they like it, grand, and if they don’t, fair enough, and if they find it disturbing to their morals, they can soothe themselves with some appropriate balm, and if they find it a stimulant to mind and heart, then they will carry that with them all their days and be always seeking out new books to treasure, and isn’t this the whole point of the society we supposedly fight for and value?”
“I will not be spoken to like this!” Reith was bright red. “Why can’t you comprehend that there are a great many people who must be guarded, who depend upon their betters to guide them to the sort of culture that will be pleasing and comforting but not taxing—most people cannot manage with being challenged—”
“So then they leave those books aside!”
“No, because they might be damaged with even just a little reading! These are delicate people, and the world is really far more dangerous than a girl like you can understand—”
“I beg your pardon?”
“—and we have a solemn duty. You will go to your poofy little friend, and you will tell him that whatever he does in his own life, his bandying about with his aristocratic ‘wife’ and all their estates and travel and importance, and then all that time he really spends with men, doing just as he wants, with no judgment upon him, and no consequence, just living like a hedonist, all that pleasure . . .”
Reith was as scowling as ever, but as his words folded over and over one another, Maisie stared at the contours of his face, his eyes, enraged, but full of . . . Was it pain? Was it envy? Was it both? Her glance slid briefly to Hilda, and it was clear she saw it as well. There was almost a flash of pity in Hilda’s eyes. Bits and pieces of Reith’s actions and words over the last five years tumbled through Maisie’s brain. His obsession with men’s morality. His unreasonable rage when someone was having sex outside marriage. And the way he smiled and fawned over Siepmann. He had a wife. He had children. He had been given honors and had worked his way into immense importance. But there was something else he really wanted, and perhaps he hated himself for it, or hated everyone else who got to have it. And it colored absolutely everything else he did.
It made Maisie speak to him with more sympathy than she otherwise might have.
“Mr. Reith, of course we understand your concerns, but Harold Nicholson is awfully well considered and respected, and think of how many times you’ve had a similar worry and it’s all come to nothing, really?”
He ignored her.
“Miss Matheson, you will instruct Nicholson to remove the offending passages from his script if he wishes to broadcast. What’s more, you will now vet every last one of your speakers and their scripts with me and submit to all my direction.”
“I will do no such thing. Not one last bit of it.”