“Oh, come.” He laughed again. “Since when do you indulge in hyperbole?”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Billy broke in. “But Miss Matheson’s quite truthful, sir. It creates a dreadful bit of interference that’s a nasty thing to hear.”
“Almost as much as ‘there’s a bit of trouble with your taxes,’” Hilda added.
“It’s why we keep the room so clean, sir,” Billy went on. “Got to control dust.”
“Sensitive little device, isn’t it?” Bartlett observed.
“But powerful,” Hilda said, smiling fondly at the mike.
“All right, so not too close and no paper rustling. What’s the tricky bit?”
“The actual reading. Because you don’t want to sound like you’re reading, you see?” (He didn’t, as far as Maisie could tell, and neither did she.) “No one likes a declamation. Turns them right off. I’ll bet the best speechmakers in the League sound as though they’re extemporizing—am I right? Think of yourself as speaking to a friend. They’re genuinely curious and want to know all about the work of the League and its goings-on. Try addressing yourself to Miss Musgrave here, if it helps.”
Maisie almost fell off her chair. She just caught sight of Billy shaking his head, sneering at the idea that looking at her could ever help anyone.
“That won’t make you uncomfortable, Miss Musgrave?” Bartlett asked.
Desperately! Horribly! Completely! I’d rather eat this pencil, type a thousand pages of Miss Matheson’s writing, ask Miss Shields for a pay raise!
“No, not at all, Mr. Bartlett,” she murmured.
So he began again, looking right at Maisie. “‘We know it’s shocking to consider an ongoing slave trade in 1926,’” he told her, “‘but the traffic in human lives is a tragedy still occurring in some areas of the globe. The League’s successful treaty to end this shame once and for all begins implementation in March. This is how . . .’”
Maisie realized she hadn’t registered anything he’d said during his first reading. Now that he was talking to her, she was fascinated and full of questions, many of which he answered as he went along. But more kept cropping up, questions that had nothing to do with his script. You couldn’t have something like the League before, could you? Gather people from around the world in one place and talk about things? If we’d had it before, would it have prevented the war? What . . . ?
“Very well-done, Bartlett,” Hilda crowed, treating him to a small applause. Even Billy nodded in approval. “Do you want to try once more for luck?”
He did, and was so engaging this time, Maisie had to bite her tongue to stop herself from entering into dialogue. I’d look an imbecile besides getting sacked. What’s wrong with me?
After Bartlett left, Hilda commanded Maisie’s attention.
“I think that went rather decently. Didn’t have to bully old Bartlett too badly, did I?”
“Er, I don’t think so?”
“You should have seen his original script, dear, oh dear.” Hilda shook her head. “As if some people couldn’t happily ignore the League enough. Very sporting of you to act as audience. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, certainly,” Maisie said.
“Some of them will insist on declaiming. You’d think they were doing Euripides in the Parthenon,” Hilda mused. “Mind you, the worst ones are usually the actors.” She drew several neat lines down interoffice memos to indicate they were read and handed them to Maisie. “DG-bound, these. What say we go through some fresh scripts this afternoon, shall we? You can get your first glimpse of the sausage ingredients at their most raw!”
“Er, well, I don’t think I’m really, that is—”
“Not so much fun typing up revisions if you don’t see from whence they began. And that’s the best way to learn how to help make them better. Oh I know, that’s not in your job manifest, but I like all my staff to have opinions and feel free to air them.”
“But I don’t know how—”
“Not yet, certainly, but you’ll learn. Onwards and upwards! And on up to the DG for now.”
“At one of those rehearsals, were you?” Miss Shields sniffed when Maisie entered the office a few minutes later. More points for the Savoy Hill buzz. “Rehearsals!” Miss Shields went on. “Give that woman an inch and she takes the entire British Isles. Honestly, just because reviews of Talks have been so good, she thinks she can dictate terms. What, pray tell, was the subject?”
“Mr. Bartlett was talking about the work of the League of Nations.”
“I see. Well, I suppose someone must like that sort of thing.”
Maisie was hard-pressed to imagine what sort of thing Miss Shields would like.
“Dull, was it?” Miss Shields asked hopefully.