“Church workers.”
“They are the bane of a parish. Work, yes. That they most certainly do, to the accompaniment of loud complaints on the score of other people’s inactivity. Implying, of course, that they themselves hold a monopoly of intelligence and efficiency. Whereas the truth is to be found in their inability to attract helpers or to collaborate with those who really desire to take part in the work. These women are actuated solely by personal ambition, the desire to run the parish and to be openly recognised as doing so. Nothing less will content them. Nothing less. It is a most perturbing spectacle. And I, for one, have no hesitation in admitting that I am driven to the conclusion that authority is harmful to women. They grow so hard. So coldly self-important and dictatorial.”
Miriam knew she would want to run the parish, choose the music, edit the vicar’s mind, lecture the parishioners.
“In London many of them are social workers. They spend their time on committees. But not in service. They quell.”
She handled her statements as she had handled the pile of green material, pouncing, taking disdainful hold. Her sentences were sallies, each one leaving her voice halted on an interval of deprecating sounds. Her voice came from a height. She must be standing, poised, in her light way, for movement. Talking as if to herself, assuming a lack of interest. Yet the air was full of her shy desire for response.
“They must be holy terrors.”
“I fear,” chuckled Miss Holland, “that I am not completely convinced of their holiness.”
“I’ve never met any of these women. Avoid women on the whole. But I daresay I should be that type myself if I weren’t too lazy to achieve a position.”
“Believe me, you could never be official. You are much too artistic.”
Miriam was too disappointed to feel flattered. There was no illumination here. Exposing herself before the tribunal, she had been judged in a class of which the judge knew nothing. Compared to Miss Holland, she might perhaps be called artistic. But it was grievous to be supplied already with a false reputation. To be imagined as cultured in a way that was respected in vicarages.