“Hallo, oh, I say, that looks scrumptious.” Beanie sat down with them in a great rustle of crepe de chine and a swish of her Sautoir necklace, whose tassel nearly took out Maisie’s eye.
“It’s special for Maisie,” Phyllida put in quickly so as to allay any trespasses. She liked Beanie; they all did, generally because of, rather than in spite of, her rudeness, it being so wholly without malice or awareness. But Phyllida, an advocate of the classless society, was keenly aware of the breadth of Beanie’s privilege and determined to shield that which was emphatically not hers from any reach.
“What for?” Beanie asked, but promptly forgot to wait for an answer in the wake of her desire to communicate. “Great scandale a-brewing—have you heard?”
They hadn’t.
“Only just announced; quite a shock to the poor DG.”
“Siepmann’s a Russian spy?” Phyllida asked, ever hopeful.
“Wouldn’t that be odd? No, the Great Shields is leaving to get married.”
Maisie choked, sending crumbs sputtering.
“Good Lord, so now we know what it takes for you to lose some of your food,” Phyllida said, thumping her on the back.
“Miss Shields?” Maisie asked, her head spinning much harder than the effect of four cakes in one day could ever manage. “But she’s so . . . rigid.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She did have that torrid affair with the married man a few years back.”
Now both Phyllida and Maisie were choking.
“If you’re going to make that ghastly noise, you should at least do so where we can record it,” Fowler shouted at them.
“Beanie, you can’t be serious,” Maisie said, almost imploring.
“Mama often says so, too, but I’ve proven her quite wrong, I think.”
Miss Shields, straight-backed and straitlaced, slavish to Mr. Reith (“Sir John”). Inflexible tweeds, even more inflexible features. Engaged to be married.
“You wouldn’t have thought a woman her age could manage it,” Beanie went on, helping herself to Phyllida’s cigarette lighter.
“I don’t think she’s much more than thirty-five,” Phyllida said.
“Yes. Perhaps her fiancé’s not very strong, or doesn’t want children. But good on her. Not one of the ‘Surplus Women’ anymore!”
“You shouldn’t use that phrase. It’s ghastly,” Maisie chided Beanie.
“Apparently the DG is devastated,” Beanie continued, ignoring Maisie. “Silly man. Wants everyone to get married, but not if it means they’ll stop serving him. Ah well. Cheerio!” She ground her cigarette in Phyllida’s saucer and skipped off.
“She’s got him absolutely pegged, yet she’s the one who’s the aristocrat,” Phyllida said, shaking her head. “If anyone was ever going to return us to feudalism, it’s the aspirant middle classes.”
“I doubt the aristocrats would mind that very much, though,” Maisie pointed out.
The Savoy Hill buzz quickly told more of the story. Miss Shields had asked to stay on after marriage and been denied. Maisie wondered how anyone could possibly know—none of the parties in question would have disseminated such information. But at the next meeting between Hilda and Reith, she saw for herself Miss Shields’s elegant diamond ring and more-than-usual rigid face. As she looked closer, Maisie recognized what few others would: the light application of stage makeup, probably to hide red-rimmed eyes.
“Miss Matheson,” Reith said, his tone attempting patience. “A great many of these books Lady Nicholson discusses are not at all appropriate. I’ve received a number of complaints, including those expressing the concern that some of the books advocate shocking ideas, perhaps even the overturning of all our most sacred traditions. As if these times aren’t outlandish enough.”
“Lady Nicholson would never be inappropriate,” Hilda said, her chin jutted stubbornly and a decided snap in her tone. She had been to Long Barn, the estate of Vita and her husband, Harold Nicholson, for a dinner party, and her opinion of the whole family, but especially Vita, dwarfed the Eiffel Tower. “And if I may say, Mr. Reith, we have received reams of letters from librarians throughout the country saying that many of the books reviewed are high on request lists.”
“Yes, but are people reading them or burning them?”
“Well, I don’t think that would bode well for their lending privileges.”
“Do please be serious, Miss Matheson. I’ve told you many times, we have got to tread with care. Minds are malleable, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” she said.
“So you’ll speak to Lady Nicholson?”
“I certainly shan’t. She understands the parameters and has inimitable taste. Besides, if you’ll recall, some of the honey we added to the pot when we asked her to take up the reviewing post was that she could choose to review whatever books she liked.”
Reith inhaled on his cigarette so hard, it looked like he was eating it.