“Yes, you Americans do like your tea sweet,” Miss Shields observed, pleased with her knowledge as she handed Maisie a cup and saucer with bluebirds flying around the rim.
“Oh, I’m Canadian,” Maisie stammered, and went into her usual apologetic patter. “Half-British, as my father was British. My mother is Canadian and I was born there. Then my mother and I went to New York, where she was an ac—where she had work. I mostly lived there but spent summers in Toronto until I joined the VAD in 1916 and was assigned to the hospital in Brighton.”
She trailed off. Her biography was such a terribly unimpressive hodgepodge. She handed Miss Shields her two letters of reference and managed only one sip of tea before they were read through and set aside.
“Where was your father born?”
“Oh. I . . . I don’t . . .” She couldn’t see how the question was relevant, but glanced down at her shoes and settled on “Oxford,” as that sounded gorgeously respectable. Very not Georgina.
“I suppose his name was Musgrave.”
“Edwin Musgrave,” Maisie specified, which was true as far as she knew. The familiar pang tapped her behind the breastbone, and she suppressed a sigh. The father she apparently—and unluckily—resembled almost exactly. Whom she still hoped to find someday. Had he taken one look at his infant daughter and walked away, or did she have memories of him locked away somewhere, if only she knew where to search?
“And do you know where he was educated?”
“Where he . . . ? No, I . . . I’m sorry . . . I—I don’t.” She forced herself to keep looking into this woman’s cold eyes.
“I see. Well, we’ve grown quite busy of late, and I need someone who will provide a bit of extra assistance when the typing pool is at full pressure. I am the personal secretary to Mr. Reith.”
She pronounced his name with the sort of fervor Lola reserved for Rudolph Valentino.
“The director-general, yes,” Maisie put in, attempting to demonstrate that she had made an attempt to learn something of this place.
“Mr. Reith expects everything done well and on time. He expects a serious and dedicated staff. We are growing, gaining in importance. Everything we do must reflect and enhance that. I require an assistant who can manage a number of tasks at once and yet be ready to add something more when called upon. You having been a nurse, that is—”
She narrowed her eyes at Maisie.
“You must have been quite young when you joined.”
Maisie never knew how to respond to that observation. Surely someone must appreciate her patriotism and initiative—or at least her need to escape—in having procured a fake birth certificate so as to be eighteen when she first came to England, instead of several months shy of her fourteenth birthday. But she had never yet found anyone to whom she dared mention it.
“Most of my nursing was after the war,” Maisie explained, truthfully enough. “I left because we had discharged enough men that I wasn’t needed anymore.”
“And you didn’t seek a job with another hospital?”
“I . . .” Wanted to stop washing blood off my hands. Wanted to be part of the living world. “I wanted to do something a bit different.” And she hadn’t been much of a nurse anyway.
“So you went to secretarial school.” Miss Shields nodded briefly at the certificate. “And in New York, it seems.”
“Yes. I, er, I . . . returned there for a short while.”
I was penniless, my grandparents wanted nothing to do with me, and Georgina wanted to show off her generosity to her newest sponsor. She is always so happy when I fail. Though in fact Georgina had called Maisie her niece, not her daughter, and it was the sponsor’s money that paid the way.
“I see,” said Miss Shields. “And where did you work after completing your course?”
“A number of offices, but they were only short-term assignments, I’m afraid.”
Everyone wanted secretaries to be glamorous and bubbly and modern.
“I see. When did you return to Britain?”
“Last year. My mother, er, knew I was happier here.” And she and Georgina were both happier with an ocean between them. “I am indeed very happy in London and hope to stay, provided I can secure a good job.” Maisie kept her tone prim.
“Mm,” was the sole reward. “Now, aside from your nursing and secretarial training, where did you go to school?”
And we’re at that question.
It was a question asked in American interviews, too, for formality’s sake. Maisie’s single criticism of the British was that they were inordinately obsessed with education, even for girls. Or at least, girls who interviewed for the sort of jobs she wanted.
Oh, just lie! she scolded herself. One more can’t hurt. Make up a name. They’re not going to write somewhere overseas just to confirm it. It’s so easy. Miss Morland’s Free School for Girls. St. Agatha’s Girls High. Gramercy Girls Academy. She won’t know they’re not real. Just say something!
“Er, I . . .”
“Yes?” Miss Shields’s eyebrows danced the dance Maisie knew too well.