“Brio?”
“The right sort of manner,” Miss Shields countered.
“I’m sorry. I do try, you know.”
“Yes. But the BBC requires someone who doesn’t need to try.”
“I understand you,” Maisie said, meaning it. “And I am sorry. But I’m not sorry I’m here. I know I’m not the sort of girl you want as your deputy, but I’m working on being the best sort for the BBC I can be.”
“Much luck to you,” Miss Shields said, with more amusement than acidity. “If I were you, I’d start with catching up on your typing.”
Maisie returned to her typewriter. She hadn’t needed this incident to tell her Miss Shields didn’t want her here. But there were any number of people in Savoy Hill whom she wanted to see the back of, and when Maisie considered who was first on that list, she decided it wasn’t a bad list to be on at all.
Despite the honor of the list, Maisie resolved to put aside equity drops, German propaganda, and anything else that wasn’t strictly within her job parameters.
At the next meeting between Hilda and Reith, there was no mention of wireless sets or Hoppel. Reith didn’t seem to notice, being too overwhelmed by Hilda’s laundry list of plans and thoughts, several of which required vast technical improvements, until he interrupted her with a dry chuckle and said, “Miss Matheson, do try to restrain some of this unbridled ambition. It’s not an attractive thing in a girl, you know, even at your age. You have to be patient, my dear.”
“Certainly, Mr. Reith,” Hilda conceded, a flap of her hand smacking patience aside. “But at least in so far as our content and its nature, there’s a great deal we can—”
“Our content’s exactly what it should be. You see how the papers compliment us. It’s edifying and entertaining. What more could we possibly achieve?”
“We’re doing well, certainly, but think of the opportunity for deep connection—”
“For what?” He turned pink around the edges, and Maisie thought he must have misheard something very rude.
“Connection,” Hilda repeated, with a transcendent smile. “That’s what people really want, you know. They want the feeling of immediacy, someone actually there and sharing an experience. A voice in the wilderness of the mind.”
Maisie knew what Hilda meant. It was in the quieter letters they received, the sort Reith would never read, but she did. Radio helped people feel less lonely.
“It’s not unlike a favorite book,” Hilda went on, “the way it can be a friend. What’s your favorite book?”
“The Bible,” he answered promptly.
“And yours, Miss Shields?” Hilda said, turning around to draw the secretaries into the conversation.
Miss Shields’s eyes rolled upward just enough to meet Hilda’s.
“Just for a bit of fun,” Hilda clarified.
Miss Shields looked as if she’d rank this “fun” slightly below getting branded.
“I can’t but be curious, even if this is a colossal waste of time,” Reith put in.
“Well,” said Miss Shields. “I suppose it’s the . . . Jane Eyre.” She spoke with an almost defiance that seemed to surprise her. Reith’s brows shot into orbit, and Hilda smiled, a minuscule glint of triumph in her eyes.
Maisie had never owned a book and couldn’t imagine rereading anything when time was so short and the libraries so full. So as to a favorite, “Whichever one I have in my hand,” was the only answer. She was just happy to know how to read and that libraries were free. Hilda looked pleased.
“I suppose mine is Pride and Prejudice, although I do so love poetry,” Hilda mused. “But you see my point, that we turn to these books as old friends. They’re always there and they speak to us. Radio has the same capacity, and we should make more of it, in all our broadcasts. That’s how we’ll build something that will find a home in any number of hearts.”
Reith exhaled cigarette smoke through his nose. “Miss Matheson, you either read too much poetry or are simply a true Utopian. It’s a charming picture you paint, I’m sure, but I don’t think anyone thinks of radio quite so seriously. We simply will do our best with it for as long as it lasts. All right? Now, was there anything else on the agenda?”
Hilda was applying lipstick when Maisie brought the last of the day’s letters for her to sign. She was lovely already, with that milky skin and those penetrating eyes, and the makeup she didn’t need made her exquisite. Striking. Maisie sighed and turned her gaze out the window.
“Good, good, good,” Hilda told each letter as she signed it. “Very good. Are you busy this evening, Miss Musgrave?”