A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [51]
“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