“You’re most welcome. Many happy returns. Twenty-five is a pivotal time. Now, then, Miss Fenwick has just popped ’round to say they’ve been inundated and will have to take lunch much nearer the tea break, but she hopes I will allow you a longer break this afternoon, and I think that can be arranged.”
“Thank you. I can take a short lunch.”
“Well, to do that you’ll have to keep track of the time,” Hilda warned. Then she smiled. “This ought to help,” she said, handing Maisie a cardboard box.
Perplexed, Maisie opened it to find a lilac-colored hard case. And inside that was a little enameled watch with a lilac face. It was already set to the right time. Maisie stared down at it, as though it were a face that could gaze back. She’d never received a proper birthday present in her life, and now she had gotten two . . .
“Oh! Miss Matheson!” The mascara was inching down her cheeks.
“I said twenty-five was a pivotal time, didn’t I?” Hilda smiled. “And this will save you always having to check the clock. What did I tell you your first day? Efficiency. We run on efficiency. Now put it on and remember to wind it every night. It should run for years, I hope. Have you got that letter for Mr. Wells?”
Hilda was continuing to work her charms on H. G. Wells, who was blunt in his opinion that broadcasting was far sillier than anything he could ever write. Hilda’s latest letter to him was a masterstroke, telling him that while of course she respected his position, he was robbing Britain of a special experience. She signed it in her firm hand, then asked for the morning’s correspondence, simultaneously demanding Maisie take dictation on her observations from the breakfast meeting, because it was possible most of what had been said could be worked up into some very fine Talks. The chaotic normalness restored Maisie’s face to some order.
It was, finally, a bright day, with the sky a pagan celebration blue and the flowers in the potted plants hanging from lamps along Savoy Street giving full vent to their bliss. Maisie, armed with a steno pad and a notebook full of Hilda’s thoughts on broadcasting, headed to the Tup, warm thoughts of Mrs. Holmby’s lamb chops putting a skip in her step, but the glory of the day and the majesty of her new watch turned her to the sandwich bar on the Strand. Laden with sandwiches, chocolate from Miss Cryer’s, and, despite the promise of a long tea, two cakes, she strolled down to the Embankment.
She rolled a pencil through her fingers, staring at the Thames as it bubbled along. I wonder how far it goes? I’d love to travel the whole length of it someday. And then out through the estuary and on and on.
“I say, would you mind awfully if I shared the bench? Rotten impertinent of me, but this is the only one I’ve passed for the last half mile that’s not overflowing with squawking children and snapping nannies. Gosh, doesn’t ‘Squawking Children and Snapping Nannies’ sound like a music-hall ditty? I might be in the wrong business.”
Maisie looked up at the tall young man hovering by the bench. His derby was set well back on his head, showing off waving brown hair, slicked back enough to be neat, but not so much as to be dandified. Chocolate-brown eyes, soft and puppyish, with a cheery snap around the edges. Crinkles under his eyes that went deep as he smiled. She felt as if someone had lightly brushed the back of her neck—a tickle she felt all the way to her toes.
“Well, it’s a public bench, so I really can’t lay claim to the whole of it.”
“I can’t know. You might have given money for it,” he pointed out.
“Wouldn’t that be a sight, miles of us all on our own benches? That takes entitlement a bit far.”
“It could sound like free enterprise,” he ventured.
“It doesn’t sound like free anything,” she told him with finality.
“Wise words,” he said, sitting down and unwrapping a sandwich. Maisie sneaked one last glance at him and turned back to her own food.
“I must say,” her uninvited companion piped up, “I’m a bit surprised to see a young girl out on her own like this.”
She bristled. “You think I should have a chaperone?”
“Nothing so bourgeois as that,” he said, chuckling. “I only meant that you modern girls usually go ’round in pairs, or a gag—er, group.”
“You were about to say ‘gaggle,’ weren’t you?” She was surprised by her own sharpness. It was so easy to talk to someone you weren’t sure you wanted around, tickle or no. He was handsome, and perhaps clever, but she knew now that handsome young men were lethal.
He threw back his head and laughed, just like Hilda.
“Caught but corrected. And contrite.”
“I like eating alone,” she told him. She didn’t want it to sound like a hint, but her hackles were rising. She refused to be seen as easy prey.
“Ah, but you’re not alone. You’ve got a notebook. Do you write?”
She closed the book, protective of Hilda’s privacy.
“A little.”
“For business or pleasure?”
“Isn’t most writing always both?”
He laughed again.
“You’re a funny thing,” he told her. “I’m a writer as well, journalism, some essays—well, they bleed together.”