“Will there be any?”
“Well, for example, the rent. The landlord is a most odious man. I abhor the thought of tackling him. You, I am sure, will manage anything of that sort better than I. Yes. Most certainly. You have an air.”
A few words weekly seemed a small price to pay for freedom from the mysteries of cleaning and catering, and Miriam agreed to pay the rent, to call next door and pay it; keeping Sheffield away from the house.
Miss Holland went on talking as if to herself. Expostulating. It was a mistake, she concluded, to drop domesticity. She preferred to keep her hand in, while safeguarding sufficient leisure for reading and so on.
Miriam saw her keeping house, dressmaking, and yet free to wander abroad in the sunlight, and to come home, full of the life and brightness of London, to rest and read, with her feet up, “to counteract the strain upon the heart, of the upright posture” following the example of “those sensible Americans who discuss business with their feet on the mantelshelf.” She judged unconventionalities according as they did or did not serve the cause of hygiene.
“Much” she finished hurriedly, as if to avoid further postponing anything Miriam might be going to say, “Much can be done with a damp duster.”
Miriam wondered whether, after all, housework might not hold some strange charm. Something that was lacking in a life lived altogether in the world of men; altogether on the surface of things. Always, in relation to household women, she felt herself a man. Felt that they included her with a half-contemptuous indulgence, in the world of men. Some of them, those to whom the man’s world was still an exciting mystery, were a little jealous and spiky.
As if encouraged by silence, Miss Holland pursued her theme.
“I have a horror of becoming an official woman. It is, I think, a most obnoxious type. It abounds. In London it is to be met wherever women are in positions of responsibility. Real or fancied. And it is on the increase. There have, of course, always been official women. Even in rural districts, where, most unfortunately, they have but one sphere of activity. We used to call them the curates-in-charge.”
Vicarage humour at first hand. Miriam laughed suitably; ensconced, an eavesdropper.