“Quite, and when you really want people to absorb and understand something, well, it just has to be written.”
He remained charming as he excoriated the whole concept of radio. But he courteously listened to Maisie’s argument that the oral tradition was ancient and had the capacity to engage audiences in a wholly new—which was to say, old—way, and rouse their passions.
“True, true. It’s why theater is still more vital than cinema,” he said, shaking his head. “Though the theater’s grown dreadfully bourgeois. We could do with a Master of the Revels like in the Elizabethan days, someone determining what’s allowed to be staged and what’s not. Save a lot of people a lot of money.”
“I suppose there’s an awful lot of tripe onstage,” Maisie agreed, wishing his eyes weren’t so liquid. “But someone saying what could or couldn’t go forward . . . that doesn’t seem right.”
“I expect you think I’m a bit of a silly blowhard.” (She did a little, though his voice was hypnotic.) “The fact is, I just want everything to be beautiful all the time. I want all theater to be profound, delightful, enchanting. I want to see nothing but magnificent art. Clothes, buildings, villages . . . I’m a forward-thinking man, I am, but what’s more perfect in the whole world than an English village? Thatched roofs, a street of little shops, all the good people doing all their good work. And I can’t think of a greater ecstasy than riding a stallion through an English wood, and up to the top of a mountain—or a tall hill, anyway—and looking down over the rolling expanse of all the glorious green. Just manor houses and quaint villages to disrupt the flow, but making it all prettier. That’s my England, and the only place I want to live, always.”
If she could speak, she would say that he’d proved her point. There was nothing like the spoken word for arousing an audience’s passion.
“Will you meet me again, Miss Musgrave?”
“Maisie,” she breathed, relieved to remember.
“Ah, yes, Maisie. A bit of May, a fresh spring. I suppose you haven’t a telephone?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Mrs. Crewe would sooner install a swimming pool.
“Good. I prefer to write. Words to paper, it’s my élan vital, you know.”
She knew. She was the same way about words now. And she couldn’t wait to read more of his.
“Oh good, you found your way. I knew you wouldn’t let the side down.”
Maisie blinked at Phyllida, not entirely sure how she’d found her way to the chip shop. She thought she might have flown.
“Was it that good or is there a Talk brewing in there?” Phyllida asked, tapping Maisie’s temple.
“I . . . well . . . I enjoyed it.”
“Aye, you’re floating so high, you could make a few extra bob giving people balloon rides.”
“He’s rather swell. A swell swell,” Maisie added.
“Which certainly trumps being swill,” Phyllida rejoined. “Now tell me what you mean.”
“I think he might be an aristocrat.”
“Oh, good Lord.”
“Possibly not a lord. He didn’t say.”
Maisie grinned shakily and dumped half a decanter of vinegar on her chips.
“You do look besotted,” Phyllida said. “Before the fantasy gets too developed, just remember you’re not senior enough to stay at the BBC if you get married.”
“It was one date,” Maisie protested. “And only tea.” Though he did seem to be everything she’d ever dreamed of. Except now I want something more. She shoved a forkful of chips in her mouth, feeling guiltily ungrateful. Phyllida’s father was content to think of her as dead until she got married and grew out her hair. Half the female working force in Britain had a similar story. The papers trumpeted their great modern times, but a lot of parents were still firm devotees of Victorianism, and nearly all the institutions and businesses embraced modernism only in so far as it enhanced their fortunes. The BBC was nearly a lone exception, and even its beneficence only stretched so far. I wonder if my father would approve of me working.
“Ah, that was rotten of me. I’m sorry,” Phyllida said, misreading the meaning of Maisie’s expression. “I’m glad you had a good time, as you should. ‘All work and no play . . .’ or whatever damn thing it was someone once said.”
“Is it still work when you absolutely, totally, and completely love it?”
For once Phyllida didn’t have a quick response. She broke into a wide smile and ordered them more chips. It was such luxury, being able to buy a meal and not feeling you had to skimp on something else. They were still poor, but there was a division in London—the same division that existed everywhere, Maisie supposed—between the poor who had regular work and those who weren’t able to secure it. Those were the people the Poor Law forced into workhouses, another Victorian vestige, offering meager assistance and copious amounts of shaming.