“I think there’s something in what our Miss Matheson says,” Siepmann said, grinning. “That’s what I like so much about Talks. You can take these delightful little risks. And I daresay a bit of controversy builds more of an audience, what?”
“I can’t say I’ll ever be keen on controversy,” Reith said, though he was smiling. “But I suppose so long as we keep a steady hand on it, we should manage. And the Times has been very favorable to Mr. Forster, so he can’t be all bad.”
“What do you think of his work?” Hilda asked him, her voice a study in innocent interest. Reith wrinkled his nose.
“I haven’t time to read all these modern novels; you know that,” Reith scolded. “And especially not if they’re written by that sort.” He glared at Hilda’s bookshelves, groaning under the weight of work by that sort. “These people are supposed to go to prison, not be given book contracts!”
“Yes, there is something very Byzantine about our justice system,” Hilda agreed. Reith only sniffed and strode out the door, nodding to Siepmann.
“Ah, never a dull moment here in Talks, is it?” Siepmann said. “Glad I could help, Miss Matheson. We’re all in it together—isn’t that right?”
Hilda waited till they were both long gone before she sat down and sighed.
“Why does the DG get so aerated about . . . well, everything?” Maisie asked. “I suppose his intentions are decent enough, but—”
“Yes.” Hilda lit a cigarette. “His spleen is in the right place.”
Spleen seemed all the trend suddenly. Maisie could shrug at it in some places, like the Telegraph, but took it far more personally when yet another letter searching for Edwin Musgrave was answered with a sharp rebuke at her lack of information. She felt her own spleen rumbling when the Lion told the Fascists that the BBC didn’t understand how people needed things to be simple, so they didn’t have to think too hard. Maisie longed to ask how people who had no brains could possibly think too hard, but figured this was a question best left unasked, despite her interest in seeing their spleens explode.
“They’re still not talking about anything illegal,” Ellis said to Maisie and Hilda. They were convened in the study in a building neither Ellis nor Hilda deigned to identify. “Ask every third person on Oxford Street and they’ll tell you the BBC is a load of Bolshevist propaganda. Every next third person will insist it’s a government mouthpiece.”
The interviews Maisie still wished to conduct, using that traveling microphone.
Hilda looked over Maisie’s notes, one hand idly twisting up her onyx necklace, the other holding a cigarette. She was smoking more these days.
“It’s certainly gratifying to know we’ve done such good work,” Hilda said. “Barely a blink ago the papers were swearing the BBC was a fad that wouldn’t last. Now entire political factions want to bend us to their will. Nothing says you’ve arrived like a conspiracy. Except maybe a death threat.”
“Most people are never that bored,” Ellis muttered.
Maisie studied their pile of propaganda. More pamphlets, articles cut from German newspapers with notes in English, a two-volume book by Hitler claiming to be autobiography, but mostly just what Phyllida would call “political blether,” and a lot of letters from Vernon Bartlett whose contents did not make it into his Way of the World Talks. There were also scribbled sections of letters from Vita, in Berlin. Maisie wanted to ask if she was acting as a spy as well, but was uneasy about venturing into any discussion that might touch on the word, “Shall!!”
“Vita tells me a great deal that doesn’t find its way into the papers,” Hilda said.
Maisie blushed at the name “Vita” being spoken out loud. She sneaked a glance at Ellis, but if he knew anything in particular about that name, his mostly bored expression didn’t reveal it.
“She has noticed much in the way of a cosmopolitan atmosphere, and a great influence from Hollywood and even Asia in entertainments. But she’s also observed more than once a club primarily attracting homosexuals being attacked by thugs.”
“Hardly surprising,” Ellis muttered.
“But then we have all this propaganda, from these Nazis—”
“A marginalized group of mostly laughable idiots, as I understand,” Ellis interrupted.
“Yes, and Vita and Harold agree with you. But Harold, in his capacity as diplomat, notes that some political circles agree with the concern over interest in Bolshevism and, of course, everyone’s favorite specters, trade unions and media. These circles would also like to see a more traditional Germany rise again. And increasingly there are those murmuring that given the opportunity, they’d lend support to whoever can help make it happen. And everyone thinks Germany is being stifled and robbed by the British and French, and is not to be borne.”
“Yes, even your economist friend Keynes said that,” Ellis pointed out. “And on the BBC no less. One would think the Fascists would appreciate him.”