life.”
I made a mental note to kick Veronica when next I saw her.
“Ronnie exaggerates. I had to be away for over a month in the middle of my second year at Oxford, on some rather distasteful family business, and when I didn’t talk about it later, rumours started.” The truth was considerably more complex and deadly than that, but so far I had kept my name from the newspapers. “Then a couple of months later I was injured in an accident, and that seems to have changed the rumours to fact. You know how it works. The truth is, I’m just a student. Not an ordinary Oxford student, perhaps, but a student nonetheless. My mother was English, father American, both dead. A house in Sussex, a few friends in London, and an interest in feminism and theology.”
“A long standing interest. Tell me honestly, Mary: What do you think of what you’ve seen and heard?”
I started to give her a polite answer, then saw in her eyes that this was no light conversation on her part, but a very serious question. I put down my cup and frowned at it for a minute, putting together a response that was honest but not too revealing. She waited, and then I picked up the exquisite hand-spun glass that had held my wine.
“About ten years after the crucifixion of Jesus,” I began, “there was born a Jew named Akiva. He was a simple man, a goatherd who didn’t even learn to read until he was a grown man, yet he became one of Judaism’s greatest rabbis. Akiva, like Jesus, taught best in brief epigrams and barbed stories. He also, incidentally, brought in a number of reforms regarding the status of women, but that is beside the point. I shall answer your question with one of his remarks. ‘Poverty,’ he said, ‘is as becoming to the daughter of Israel as a red strap against the neck of a white horse.’ ” I put the costly glass down on the gleaming linen tablecloth and ate the last of my tiny, intense berries.
“You don’t approve of wealth,” she said.
“I’m not a socialist.”
“In the Temple, then.”
“I speak of the aesthetic beauty of poverty; you take it as a personal criticism.”
“You feel uneasy,” she decided, “at the misuse of funds. I do understand. Were it strictly up to me, I would take the gifts given me and feed my sisters. However, there is Biblical precedent for using the expensive oil rather than selling it, as Judas would have wished.”
“Using it as an ointment to prepare the body for burial,” I commented. “Not as a perfume for daily life. The parallel is faulty.” She studied me intently, puzzled and more than a bit angry.
“It is a difficult thing,” she said abruptly. “A certain amount of show and glitter is necessary, in order to be taken seriously by the sorts of people I believe we must reach. The image of ourselves as fanatics can only harm our cause. It is a balancing act—to walk proudly before men and humble one’s self before God. Power and luxury are great temptations, Mary. Humility, discipline, self-abnegation are the only ways to remain pure to the cause.”
Her words startled me, or rather, the way they were said. Margery Childe had seemed to me the soul of rational humanism, and although I had seen evidence of strong religious feelings, had heard Veronica’s account of this woman’s mystical trance, I had not been witness to such unbridled passion until now. For a brief and unsettling moment, her eyes gleamed with fervour and she sat forward as if to seize my shoulders; then it passed and she deflected an equally brief moment of confusion into reaching for the coffeepot and refilling our cups.
“You’ve touched on the topic for this evening, you know.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. Power, we call it, but as that sounds so very aggressive, I often present the idea as ‘eliminating powerlessness’ when I speak to outside groups. You’ll hear a great deal of energy, even anger, at our Saturday meetings. As I said to you the other night, the Vote is acting as a great deceiver, fooling women into thinking that the powers we took over for the duration of the War remain in our hands. In truth, the rights of women to own property, decide what their children will do, divorce themselves from a cruel or demeaning marriage, and a thousand other human rights held predominantly by males have developed little since the last century. We aim to see that changed. The suffrage movement is in disarray, aimless, splintered; I believe that we in the Temple can step in and pull the pieces together again.”
“Through legislation?”
“Supporting proposed changes, yes, through educating voters and convincing members of Parliament. But we need women in Parliament—many women.”
“You propose to stand for election yourself, then?”
“A seat is coming available in north London within the next two years. I have my eye on it, yes.” Something in my manner must have communicated my doubts. “You seem dubious.”
“I think you may be underestimating the misgivings the voting public will have with the idea of a ‘lady minister’ standing for office. In America, you might get away with it, but here?”
“I don’t agree. We English are a sensible race, ready to overlook such minor foibles as an odd choice of religion or an inappropriate sex if the candidate is obviously the best one for the job. And after all, I’ve made a specialty of wooing sceptical males.” She flared her eyebrows and I chuckled with her.
She talked a bit more about politics, about the coming march on Parliament and a bill concerning divorcement soon to come up for its first reading, about the as-yet-underexploited usefulness of newspapers for exposing gross inequities in a variety of laws, showing as they did the human face of the problems at hand, and about the challenge of building a public face and future constituency without compromising herself. She might well have lectured me all night had Marie not come in, looking, as usual, disapproving.
“Goodness,” exclaimed Margery, “look at the time! Mary, I am sorry, but I must run. It was lovely to have such a nice long chat. I look forward to the next one. Will you stay for the meeting tonight?”
“Indeed.”
“Good. Even if you’re not politically inclined, you’ll find it interesting. There are a number of very fine minds and hearts working in the Temple, and Saturday nights are their chance to speak out and be heard. However, I’m afraid it’s time for me to excuse myself. Thank you for coming this evening. I look forward to our session on Monday. And… Mary? I’ll keep in mind the red strap.”
I went to the hall and took a seat in the back row, though Veronica would have welcomed me in the Circle’s box, and I tried my best to make sense of the proceedings. I am not, however, as Margery had put it, politically inclined, and much of what was discussed so vehemently was more foreign to me than the politics of ancient Rome. I slipped away while the opposing packs were still in full voice, then, lost in thought, walked across half of London to my club.
I thought of Margery Childe and about the mystics I had been reading about. I thought of Rabbi Akiva, and particularly about another dictum of his: that any nonessential words in a given passage must have a special significance, one not immediately obvious, yet of potentially great import. He was speaking of the interpretation of Scripture, but there was a broader truth in his dictum, one that Freud had recognised as well, and I could not help but wonder: Why had Margery so emphatically brought the ideas of discipline and self-abnegation into a discussion of poverty? The streets of London gave me no satisfactory answer.
TEN
Sunday, 2 January-
Monday, 3 January
—Jean Racine (1639-1699)
