A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [84]
In the end, the day went as any other Thursday, Margery disappearing into her study at five o’clock for a prolonged meditation, then, after her “love” talk, again retreating upstairs, alone but for Marie.
I spent a large part of all daylight hours in the Temple, and at night I worked late at my inadequate but ornate desk in the glass and steel flat. I did go up to Oxford on the Wednesday to consult with an increasingly agitated Duncan (who greeted me at his door waving a telegram from the Americans, who had blithely informed him that six European colleagues were to join us, as well), and I met Holmes twice in a clandestine manner, once on Monday and again on Thursday, after he returned from Scotland (where he had escorted Veronica and Miles to their lodge) and before his intended return to Sussex on Friday. The Monday meeting was with Lestrade and Tomlinson, and it ended with them disgruntled and me in possession of a telephone number—to which I promised I should report regularly and which they guaranteed would upon request produce an instant and surreptitious support force.
Life was schizophrenic, but not distressingly so, for I found myself enjoying my work in the Temple, discovered myself surrounded not by brittle aristocrats born with silver on their tongues and Debrett’s in their veins, but by intelligent, hardworking women whose reserve hid shyness more often than it did condescension. It was a pleasure to work with quick minds, and one afternoon I joined in with glee when a speech-writing committee asked me for ideas. Several of my suggestions made their way into speeches given by Margery and others, particularly phrases from my childhood heroine, Abigail Adams: “All men would be tyrants if they could” met with great approval, as did “Arbitrary power [over wives], like all hard things, is easily broken.” To accompany a speech on the idea that power corrupts, I suggested: “By taking our place in the thrones of power, we save the nation from the touch of corruption, men as well as women.” For a speech to ecclesiastical wives, I suggested: “Drunk on power, and the grace of sobriety.” And one Margery adopted for a Saturday night talk was: “Power without love is death; love without power is sterility.” I had a grand time, found myself showered with dinner invitations, and wondered if I had found for myself a new profession in the world of speech writing, or perhaps advertising.
Friday afternoon found me in a stuffy, centrally-heated room with five beginning readers, their heads bent over the newly printed primers, fingers prising meaning from the marks on the paper, eyes squinting, lips sounding out each hieroglyphic before speaking it. Three grey heads, a brown, and a white blonde, bent down, laboriously giving birth first to one word, then the next, so slowly that any possible meaning was lost long before the sentence had reached an end. We had been trudging on for nearly an hour, my students and I, and I was craving the stimulus of tea or coffee or even fresh air when abruptly the brown head raised itself and I was looking straight into two startled eyes.
She looked back instantly at the page, removed her finger from the line, and, seizing the book in both hands, spoke in a single, flowing sentence.
“The boy has a cup of tea for his mother,” she read, and repeated it, then looked up again and laughed, her eyes shining with the suddenly comprehended magic of the written word. Her teeth were mostly gums, she smelt of unwashed wool, her hair lay lank, and her skin wanted milk and fruit, but for the moment, she was beautiful. Veronica Beaconsfield knows what she is about here, I thought to myself, and took the work-roughened hand and squeezed it hard.
At 4:30, I went downstairs to the