The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (8 page)

“I wonder, was it Rose who betrayed me?”

The whine in her voice—“… betrayed me, betrayed me”—bored and afflicted Sandy. It is seven years, thought Sandy, since I betrayed this tiresome woman. What does she mean by “betray”? She was looking at the hills as if to see there the first and unbetrayable Miss Brodie, indifferent to criticism as a crag.

After her two weeks’ absence Miss Brodie returned to tell her class that she had enjoyed an exciting rest and a well-earned one. Mr. Lowther’s singing class went on as usual and he beamed at Miss Brodie as she brought them proudly into the music room with their heads up, up. Miss Brodie now played the accompaniment, sitting very well at the piano and sometimes, with a certain sadness of countenance, richly taking the second soprano in “How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot,” and other melodious preparations for the annual concert. Mr. Lowther, short-legged, shy and golden-haired, no longer played with Jenny’s curls. The bare branches brushed the windows and Sandy was almost as sure as could be that the singing master was in love with Miss Brodie and that Miss Brodie was in love with the art master. Rose Stanley had not yet revealed her potentialities in the working-out of Miss Brodie’s passion for one-armed Teddy Lloyd, and Miss Brodie’s prime still flourished unbetrayed.

It was impossible to imagine Miss Brodie sleeping with Mr. Lowther, it was impossible to imagine her in a sexual context at all, and yet it was impossible not to suspect that such things were so.

During the Easter term Miss Mackay, the headmistress, had the girls in to tea in her study in small groups and, later, one by one. This was a routine of enquiry as to their intentions for the Senior school, whether they would go on the Modern side or whether they would apply for admission to the Classical.

Miss Brodie had already prompted them as follows: “I am not saying anything against the Modern side. Modern and Classical, they are equal, and each provides for a function in life. You must make your free choice. Not everyone is capable of a Classical education. You must make your choice quite freely.” So that the girls were left in no doubt as to Miss Brodie’s contempt for the Modern side.

From among her special set only Eunice Gardiner stood out to be a Modern, and that was because her parents wanted her to take a course in domestic science and she herself wanted the extra scope for gymnastics and games which the Modern side offered. Eunice, preparing arduously for Confirmation, was still a bit too pious for Miss Brodie’s liking. She now refused to do somersaults outside of the gymnasium, she wore lavender water on her handkerchief, declined a try of Rose Stanley’s aunt’s lipstick, was taking a suspiciously healthy interest in international sport and, when Miss Brodie herded her set to the Empire Theatre for their first and last opportunity to witness the dancing of Pavlova, Eunice was absent, she had pleaded off because of something else she had to attend which she described as “a social.”

“Social what?” said Miss Brodie, who always made difficulties about words when she scented heresy.

“It’s in the Church Hall, Miss Brodie.”

“Yes, yes, but social what? Social is an adjective and you are using it as a noun. If you mean a social gathering, by all means attend your social gathering and we shall have our own social gathering in the presence of the great Anna Pavlova, a dedicated woman who, when she appears on the stage, makes the other dancers look like elephants. By all means attend your social gathering. We shall see Pavlova doing the death of the Swan, it is a great moment in eternity.”

All that term she tried to inspire Eunice to become at least a pioneer missionary in some deadly and dangerous zone of the earth, for it was intolerable to Miss Brodie that any of her girls should grow up not largely dedicated to some vocation. “You will end up as a Girl Guide leader in a suburb like Corstorphine,” she said warningly to Eunice, who was in fact secretly attracted to this idea and who lived in Corstorphine. The term was filled with legends of Pavlova and her dedicated habits, her wild fits of temperament and her intolerance of the second-rate. “She screams at the chorus,” said Miss Brodie, “which is permissible in a great artist. She speaks English fluently, her accent is charming. Afterwards she goes home to meditate upon the swans which she keeps on a lake in the grounds.”

“Sandy,” said Anna Pavlova, “you are the only truly dedicated dancer, next to me. Your dying Swan is perfect, such a sensitive, final tap of the claw upon the floor of the stage …”

“I know it,” said Sandy (in considered preference to “Oh, I do my best”), as she relaxed in the wings.

Pavlova nodded sagely and gazed into the middle distance with the eyes of tragic exile and of art. “Every artist knows,” said Pavlova, “is it not so?” Then, with a voice desperate with the menace of hysteria, and a charming accent, she declared, “I have never been understood. Never. Never.”

Sandy removed one of her ballet shoes and cast it casually to the other end of the wings where it was respectfully retrieved by a member of the common chorus. Pausing before she removed the other shoe, Sandy said to Pavlova, “I am sure I understand you.”

“It is true,” exclaimed Pavlova, clasping Sandy’s hand, “because you are an artist and will carry on the torch.”

Miss Brodie said: “Pavlova contemplates her swans in order to perfect her swan dance, she studies them. That is true dedication. You must all grow up to be dedicated women as I have dedicated myself to you.”

A few weeks before she died, when, sitting up in bed in the nursing home, she learnt from Monica Douglas that Sandy had gone to a convent, she said: “What a waste. That is not the sort of dedication I meant. Do you think she has done this to annoy me? I begin to wonder if it was not Sandy who betrayed me.”

The headmistress invited Sandy, Jenny and Mary to tea just before the Easter holidays and asked them the usual questions about what they wanted to do in the Senior school and whether they wanted to do it on the Modern or the Classical side. Mary Macgregor was ruled out of the Classical side because her marks did not reach the required standard. She seemed despondent on hearing this.

“Why do you want so much to go on the Classical side, Mary? You aren’t cut out for it. Don’t your parents realise that?”

“Miss Brodie prefers it.”

“It has nothing to do with Miss Brodie,” said Miss Mackay, settling her great behind more firmly in her chair. “It is a question of your marks or what you and your parents think. In your case, your marks don’t come up to the standard.”

When Jenny and Sandy opted for Classical, she said: “Because Miss Brodie prefers it, I suppose. What good will Latin and Greek be to you when you get married or take a job? German would be more useful.”

But they stuck out for Classical, and when Miss Mackay had accepted their choice she transparently started to win over the girls by praising Miss Brodie. “What we would do without Miss Brodie, I don’t know. There is always a difference about Miss Brodie’s girls, and the last two years I may say
a marked
difference.”

Then she began to pump them. Miss Brodie took them to the theatre, the art galleries, for walks, to Miss Brodie’s flat for tea? How kind of Miss Brodie. “Does Miss Brodie pay for all your theatre tickets?”

“Sometimes,” said Mary.

“Not for all of us every time,” said Jenny.

“We go up to the gallery,” Sandy said.

“Well, it is most kind of Miss Brodie. I hope you are appreciative.”

“Oh, yes,” they said, united and alert against anything unfavourable to the Brodie idea which the conversation might be leading up to. This was not lost on the headmistress.

“That’s splendid,” she said. “And do you go to concerts with Miss Brodie? Miss Brodie is very musical, I believe?”

“Yes,” said Mary, looking at her friends for a lead.

“We went to the opera with Miss Brodie last term to see
La Traviata
” said Jenny.

“Miss Brodie is musical?” said Miss Mackay again, addressing Sandy and Jenny.

“We saw Pavlova,” said Sandy.

“Miss Brodie is musical?” said Miss Mackay.

“I think Miss Brodie is more interested in art, ma’am,” said Sandy.

“But music is a form of art.”

“Pictures and drawings, I mean,” said Sandy.

“Very enlightening,” said Miss Mackay. “Do you girls take piano lessons?”

They all said yes.

“From whom? From Mr. Lowther?”

They answered variously, for Mr. Lowther’s piano lessons were not part of the curriculum and these three girls had private arrangements for the piano at home. But now, at the mention of Mr. Lowther, even slowminded Mary suspected what Miss Mackay was driving at.

“I understand Miss Brodie plays the piano for your singing lessons. So what makes you think she prefers art to music, Sandy?”

“Miss Brodie told us so. Music is an interest to her but art is a passion, Miss Brodie said.”

“And what are
your
cultural interests? I’m sure you are too young to have passions.”

“Stories, ma’am,” Mary said.

“Does Miss Brodie tell you stories?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“What about?”

“History,” said Jenny and Sandy together, because it was a question they had foreseen might arise one day and they had prepared the answer with a brainracking care for literal truth.

Miss Mackay paused and looked at them in the process of moving the cake from the table to the tray; their reply had plainly struck her as being on the ready side.

She asked no further questions, but made the following noteworthy speech:

“You are very fortunate in Miss Brodie. I could wish your arithmetic papers had been better. I am always impressed by Miss Brodie’s girls in one way or another. You will have to work hard at ordinary humble subjects for the qualifying examinations. Miss Brodie is giving you an excellent preparation for the Senior school. Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge. I am happy to see you are devoted to Miss Brodie. Your loyalty is due to the school rather than to any one individual.”

Not all of this conversation was reported back to Miss Brodie.

“We told Miss Mackay how much you liked art,” said Sandy, however.

“I do indeed,” said Miss Brodie, “but ‘like’ is hardly the word; pictorial art is my passion.”

“That’s what I said,” said Sandy.

Miss Brodie looked at her as if to say, as in fact she had said twice before, “One day, Sandy, you will go too far for my liking.”

“Compared to music,” said Sandy, blinking up at her with her little pig-like eyes.

Towards the end of the Easter holidays, to crown the sex-laden year, Jenny, out walking alone, was accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith. He said, “Come and look at this.”

“At what?” said Jenny, moving closer, thinking to herself he had picked up a fallen nestling from the ground or had discovered a strange plant. Having perceived the truth, she escaped unharmed and unpursued though breathless, and was presently surrounded by solicitous, horrified relations and was coaxed to sip tea well sugared against the shock. Later in the day, since the incident had been reported to the police, came a wonderful policewoman to question Jenny.

These events contained enough exciting possibilities to set the rest of the Easter holidays spinning like a top and to last out the whole of the summer term. The first effect on Sandy was an adverse one, for she had been on the point of obtaining permission to go for walks alone in just such isolated spots as that in which Jenny’s encounter had taken place. Sandy was now still forbidden lone walks, but this was a mere by-effect of the affair. The rest brought nothing but good. The subject fell under two headings: first, the man himself and the nature of what he had exposed to view, and secondly the policewoman.

The first was fairly quickly exhausted.

“He was a horrible creature,” said Jenny.

“A terrible beast,” said Sandy.

The question of the policewoman was inexhaustible, and although Sandy never saw her, nor at that time any policewoman (for these were in the early days of the women police), she quite deserted Alan Breck and Mr. Rochester and all the heroes of fiction for the summer term, and fell in love with the unseen policewoman who had questioned Jenny; and in this way she managed to keep alive Jenny’s enthusiasm too.

“What did she look like? Did she wear a helmet?”

“No, a cap. She had short, fair, curly hair curling under the cap. And a dark blue uniform. She said, ‘Now tell me all about it.’”

“And what did you say?” said Sandy for the fourth time.

For the fourth time Jenny replied: “Well, I said, ‘The man was walking along under the trees by the bank, and he was holding something in his hand. And then when he saw me he laughed out loud and said, come and look at this. I said, at what? And I went a bit closer and I saw …’—but I couldn’t tell the policewoman what I saw, could I? So the policewoman said to me, ‘You saw something nasty?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ Then she asked me what the man was like, and …”

But this was the same story all over again. Sandy wanted new details about the policewoman, she looked for clues. Jenny had pronounced the word “nasty” as “nesty,” which was unusual for Jenny.

“Did she say ‘nasty’ or ‘nesty’?” said Sandy on this fourth telling.

“Nesty.”

This gave rise to an extremely nasty feeling in Sandy and it put her off the idea of sex for months. All the more as she disapproved of the pronunciation of the word, it made her flesh creep, and she plagued Jenny to change her mind and agree that the policewoman had pronounced it properly.

“A lot of people say nesty,” said Jenny.

“I know, but I don’t like them. They’re neither one thing nor another.”

It bothered Sandy a great deal, and she had to invent a new speaking-image for the policewoman. Another thing that troubled her was that Jenny did not know the policewoman’s name, or even whether she was addressed as “constable,” “sergeant,” or merely “miss.” Sandy decided to call her Sergeant Anne Grey. Sandy was Anne Grey’s right-hand woman in the Force, and they were dedicated to eliminate sex from Edinburgh and environs. In the Sunday newspapers, to which Sandy had free access, the correct technical phrases were to be found, such as “intimacy took place” and “plaintiff was in a certain condition.” Females who were up for sex were not called “Miss” or “Mrs.,” they were referred to by their surnames: “Willis was remanded in custody ... ,” “Roebuck, said Counsel, was discovered to be in a certain condition.”