But she didn’t understand why she had to rank them.
He pulled her toward him and kissed her a long time. She could feel his body melting into hers. Then she realized that in fact he was blind drunk, and it was all she could do to pour him into a cab, where he gave the directions and waved her off, not seeming to remember that this was a long goodbye.
It wasn’t until she was mulling it all over on the way home that she realized he hadn’t told her he cared more for her than his work.
He hadn’t said he loved her.
She didn’t tell Phyllida what had happened, and if Phyllida noticed that there were no letters from Simon over the next few days, she didn’t mention it. Maisie had thought he would still write, but she kept seeing the look in his eyes when he surmised that she cared more about the BBC than him.
What she would like would be to talk to Hilda. In a neutral place, free from the demands of work, Hilda composed Maisie’s idea of a favorite aunt, someone very much your champion who could also listen and counsel to great satisfaction. Maybe over tea and cakes.
There was just the matter of finding free time.
“Yes, yes, will give it a think, not a chance, good,” Hilda said, running down a list of people Maisie had compiled as potential speakers. “And we’re meeting with the governors in the New Year. I think they’ll give us another bump in hours. We’ll see how this series goes over.” She was having lunch with E. M. Forster, who had agreed to do a broadcast, and his initial series of thoughts were so fine, Hilda decided it should be an open-ended series.
“I don’t think the DG will be keen,” Fielden said, bringing his own list of upcoming candidates for a series on scientific innovation throughout the 1920s.
“Mr. Forster is well considered; that’s all he’ll care about,” Hilda grunted, stabbing at her curls with a comb. “I think this lipstick is too bright. What do you think?” she asked Maisie.
“Forster won’t notice,” Fielden put in.
“I think it’s cheerful,” Maisie said. “You need that on a rotten day like this.” Fielden shrugged. He was used to everyone pretending like he hadn’t spoken.
Hilda glanced at her watch. “Goodness, that was a long meeting. I’ll have to take a cab. Miss Musgrave, you’ll greet Miss Woolf when she comes in, won’t you?” After that rehearsal, Maisie wasn’t surprised Hilda was lukewarm toward Virginia Woolf, but the whole thing seemed odd. It wasn’t like Hilda to shrug off writers. Especially as Miss Woolf was good friends with Vita.
But I had a hard time getting through To the Lighthouse, too.
It was Vera, the new head typist’s birthday, and Phyllida was joining in the festivities. The rest of the staff was at lunch, so only Maisie and Fielden remained in the department. Maisie loved when it was quiet like this, and she could lose herself in thinking. The next debate in Questions for Women Voters was: “Should Boys and Girls Have the Same Education?” and Maisie was keen to interview the speaker for girls, the head of Cheltenham. “Oh, good Lord, I’ll have to hide in the broom cupboard all morning,” Beanie had wailed. Why shouldn’t boys and girls have the same education? The real question should be about the rich versus the poor—that would be something, all right. Someone would say the poor have to leave school at twelve because we need the laborers and then someone else will say that’s awfully classist, and maybe we’ll finally get Parliament to take up the issue of schools, and wouldn’t that be something, too?
Her legs kicked back and forth of their own accord as she wrote. Phyllida’s status as the most outspoken avowed radical in Talks was being challenged.
“I don’t suppose the copy of Woolf’s newest magnum opus is to be found?” Fielden called from his desk.
“It is. I suppose you want me to fetch it for you?” Maisie asked. Fielden’s icy stare only made her snicker as she went into Hilda’s office.
The usual tower of books. Maisie ran her finger down the spines. Poetry, poetry, something called The Well of Loneliness (rather a poignant title), All Quiet on the Western Front (Reith was on the warpath over all the anti-war screeds getting so much credence these days), something in German Maisie couldn’t read, and there it was, Orlando. She slipped it from the pile and straightened all the other books. Ooh, hallo, a Bartlett script! She picked it up and started to read, then noticed a BBC interoffice memo underneath it. Or rather, she noticed it was turned over. A venal sin, of which the all-capped DO NOT WRITE ON THIS SIDE commandment marching three times down the sheet was a fierce reminder. But under the top DO NOT WRITE ON THIS SIDE, Hilda had scribbled, “Shall!!”
Maisie, though exultant in Hilda’s nose-tweaking, obediently turned the page over.
But it wasn’t a memo; it was a letter. A personal letter. “Dearest Vita.” Dearest. Vita.