润物无声 英文名著｜第6章

Miss Mackay, the headmistress, never gave up pumping the Brodie set. She knew it was useless to do so directly, her approach was indirect, in the hope that they would be tricked into letting fall some piece of evidence which could be used to enforce Miss Brodie's retirement. Once a term, the girls went to tea with Miss Mackay.

But in any case there was now very little they could say without implicating themselves. By the time their friendship with Miss Brodie was of seven years' standing, it had worked itself into their bones, so that they could not break away without, as it were, splitting their bones to do so.

"You still keep up with Miss Brodie?" said Miss Mackay, with a gleaming smile. She had new teeth.

"Oh, yes, rather . . ."

"Yes, oh yes, from time to time . . ."

Miss Mackay said to Sandy confidentially when her turn came round — because she treated the older girls as equals, which is to say, as equals definitely wearing school uniform — "Dear Miss Brodie, she sits on under the elm, telling her remarkable life story to the junior children. I mind when Miss Brodie first came to the school, she was a vigorous young teacher, but now — " She sighed and shook her head. She had a habit of putting the universal wise saws into Scots dialect to make them wiser. Now she said, "What canna be cured maun be endured. But I fear Miss Brodie is past her best. I doubt her class will get through its qualifying examination this year. But don't think I'm criticising Miss Brodie.

She likes her wee drink, I'm sure. After all, it's nobody's business, so long as it doesn't affect her work and you girls."

"She doesn't drink," said Sandy, "except for sherry on her birthday, half a bottle between the seven of us."

Miss Mackay could be observed mentally scoring drink off her list of things against Miss Brodie. "Oh, that's all I meant," said Miss Mackay.

The Brodie girls, now that they were seventeen, were able to detach Miss Brodie from her aspect of teacher. When they conferred amongst themselves on the subject they had to admit, at last, and without doubt, that she was really an exciting woman as a woman. Her eyes flashed, her nose arched proudly, her hair was still brown, and coiled matriarchally at the nape of her neck. The singing master, well satisfied as he was with Miss Lockhart, now Mrs. Lowther and lost to the school, would glance at Miss Brodie from under his ginger eyebrows with shy admiration and memories whenever he saw her. One of her greatest admirers was the new girl called Joyce Emily Hammond who had been sent to Blaine School as a last hope, having been obliged to withdraw from a range of expensive schools north and south of the border, because of her alleged delinquency which so far had not been revealed, except once or twice when she had thrown paper pellets at Mr. Lowther and succeeded only in hurting his feelings. She insisted on calling herself Joyce Emily, was brought to school in the morning by a chauffeur in a large black car, though she was obliged to make her own way home; she lived in a huge house with a stables in the near environs of Edinburgh. Joyce Emily's parents, wealthy as they were, had begged for a trial period to elapse before investing in yet another set of school uniform clothing for their daughter. So Joyce Emily still went about in dark green, while the rest wore deep violet, and she boasted five sets of discarded colours hanging in her wardrobe at home besides such relics of governesses as a substantial switch of hair cut off by Joyce Emily's own hand, a post office savings book belonging to a governess called Miss Michie, and the charred remains of a pillow‐case upon which the head of yet another governess called Miss Chambers had been resting when Joyce Emily had set fire to it.

The rest of the girls listened to her chatter, but in general she was disapproved of not only because of her green stockings and skirt, her shiny car and chauffeur, but because life was already exceedingly full of working for examinations and playing for the shield. It was the Brodie set to which Joyce Emily mostly desired to attach herself, perceiving their individualism; but they, less than anybody, wanted her. With the exception of Mary Macgregor, they were, in fact, among the brightest girls in the school, which was somewhat a stumbling‐block to Miss Mackay in her efforts to discredit Miss Brodie.

The Brodie set, moreover, had outside interests. Eunice had a boy friend with whom she practised swimming and diving. Monica Douglas and Mary Macgregor went slum‐visiting together with bundles of groceries, although Mary was reported to be always making remarks like, "Why don't they eat cake?" (What she actually said was, "Well, why don't they send their clothes to the laundry?" when she heard complaints of the prohibitive price of soap.) Jenny was already showing her dramatic talent and was all the time rehearsing for something in the school dramatic society. Rose modelled for Teddy Lloyd and Sandy occasionally joined her, and was watchful, and sometimes toyed with the idea of inducing Teddy Lloyd to kiss her again just to see if it could be done by sheer looking at him insolently with her little eyes. In addition to these activities the Brodie set were meeting Miss Brodie by twos and threes, and sometimes all together after school. It was at this time, in nineteen‐thirtyseven that she was especially cultivating Rose, and questioning Sandy, and being answered as to the progress of the great love affair presently to take place between Rose and the art master.

So that they had no time to do much about a delinquent whose parents had dumped her on the school by their influence, even if she was apparently a delinquent in name only. Miss Brodie, however, found time to take her up. The Brodie girls slightly resented this but were relieved that they were not obliged to share the girl's company, and that Miss Brodie took her to tea and the theatre on her own.

One of Joyce Emily's boasts was that her brother at Oxford had gone to fight in the Spanish Civil War. This dark, rather mad girl wanted to go too, and to wear a white blouse and black skirt and march with a gun. Nobody had taken this seriously. The Spanish Civil War was something going on outside in the newspapers and only once a month in the school debating society. Everyone, including Joyce Emily, was anti‐Franco if they were anything at all.

One day it was realised that Joyce Emily had not been at school for some days, and soon someone else was occupying her desk. No one knew why she had left until, six weeks later, it was reported that she had run away to Spain and had been killed in an accident when the train she was travelling in had been attacked. The school held an abbreviated form of remembrance service for her.

Mary had gone to be a shorthand typist and Jenny had gone to a school of dramatic art. Only four remained of the Brodie set for the last year. It was hardly like being at school at all, there was so much free time, so many lectures and so much library research outside the school building for the sixth‐form girls that it was just a matter of walking in and out. They were deferred to and consulted, and had the feeling that they could, if they wished, run the place.

Eunice was to do modern languages, although she changed her mind a year later and became a nurse. Monica was destined for science, Sandy for psychology.

Rose had hung on, not for any functional reason, but because her father thought she should get the best out of her education, even if she was only going to the art school later on, or at the worst, become a model for artists or dress designers.

Rose's father played a big part in her life, he was a huge widower, as handsome in his masculine way as was Rose in her feminine, proudly professing himself a cobbler; that was to say, he now owned an extensive shoe‐making business.

Some years ago, on meeting Miss Brodie he had immediately taken a hearty male interest in her, as so many men did, not thinking her to be ridiculous as might have been expected, but she would have none of Mr. Stanley, for he was hardly what she would call a man of culture. She thought him rather carnal. The girls, however, had always guiltily liked Rose's father. And Rose, instinctive as she undoubtedly was, followed her instinct so far as to take on his hard‐headed and merry carnality, and made a good marriage soon after she left school. She shook off Miss Brodie's influence as a dog shakes pond‐water from its coat.

Miss Brodie was not to know that this would be, and meantime Rose was inescapably famous for sex and was much sought after by sixth‐form schoolboys and first‐year university students. And Miss Brodie said to Sandy: "From what you tell me I should think that Rose and Teddy Lloyd will soon be lovers." All at once Sandy realised that this was not all theory and a kind of Brodie game, in the way that so much of life was unreal talk and game‐planning, like the prospects of a war and other theories that people were putting about in the air like pigeons, and one said, "Yes, of course, it's inevitable." But this was not theory, Miss Brodie meant it. Sandy looked at her, and perceived that the woman was obsessed by the need for Rose to sleep with the man she herself was in love with; there was nothing new in the idea, it was the reality that was new. She thought of Miss Brodie eight years ago sitting under the elm tree telling her first simple love story and wondered to what extent it was Miss Brodie who had developed complications throughout the years, and to what extent it was her own conception of Miss Brodie that had changed.

During the year past Sandy had continued seeing the Lloyds. She went shopping with Deirdre Lloyd and got herself a folkweave skirt like Deirdre's. She listened to their conversation, at the same time calculating their souls by signs and symbols, as was the habit in those days of young persons who had read books of psychology when listening to older persons who had not. Sometimes, on days when Rose was required to pose naked, Sandy sat with the painter and his model in the studio, silently watching the strange mutations of the flesh on the canvas as they represented an anonymous nude figure, and at the same time resembled Rose, and more than this, resembled Miss Brodie. Sandy had become highly interested in the painter's mind, so involved with Miss Brodie as it was, and not accounting her ridiculous.

"From what you tell me I should think that Rose and Teddy Lloyd will soon be lovers." Sandy realised that Miss Brodie meant it. She had told Miss Brodie how peculiarly all his portraits reflected her. She had said so again and again, for Miss Brodie loved to hear it. She had said that Teddy Lloyd wanted to give up teaching and was preparing an exhibition, and was encouraged in this course by art critics and discouraged by the thought of his large family.

"I am his Muse," said Miss Brodie. "But I have renounced his love in order to dedicate my prime to the young girls in my care. I am his Muse but Rose shall take my place."

She thinks she is Providence, thought Sandy, she thinks she is the God of Calvin, she sees the beginning and the end. And Sandy thought, too, the woman is an unconscious Lesbian. And many theories from the books of psychology categorised Miss Brodie, but failed to obliterate her image from the canvases of one‐armed Teddy Lloyd.

When she was a nun, sooner or later one and the other of the Brodie set came to visit Sandy, because it was something to do, and she had written her book of psychology, and everyone likes to visit a nun, it provides a spiritual sensation, a catharsis to go home with, especially if the nun clutches the bars of the grille.

Rose came, now long since married to a successful business man who varied in his line of business from canned goods to merchant banking. They fell to talking about Miss Brodie.

"She talked a lot about dedication," said Rose, "but she didn't mean your sort of dedication. But don't you think she was dedicated to her girls in a way ?" "Oh yes, I think she was," said Sandy.

"Why did she get the push?" said Rose. "Was it sex?" "No, politics."

"I didn't know she bothered about politics."

"It was only a side line," Sandy said, "but it served as an excuse."

Monica Douglas came to visit Sandy because there was a crisis in her life. She had married a scientist and in one of her fits of anger had thrown a live coal at his sister. Whereupon the scientist demanded a separation, once and for all.

"I'm not much good at that sort of problem," said Sandy. But Monica had not thought she would be able to help much, for she knew Sandy of old, and persons known of old can never be of much help. So they fell to talking of Miss Brodie.

"Did she ever get Rose to sleep with Teddy Lloyd?" said Monica.

"No," said Sandy.

"Was she in love with Teddy Lloyd herself?"

"Yes," said Sandy, "and he was in love with her."

"Then it was a real renunciation in a way," said Monica.

"Yes, it was," said Sandy. "After all, she was a woman in her prime."

"You used to think her talk about renunciation was a joke," said Monica.

"So did you," said Sandy.

In the summer of nineteen‐thirty‐eight, after the last of the Brodie set had left Blaine, Miss Brodie went to Germany and Austria, while Sandy read psychology and went to the Lloyds' to sit for her own portrait. Rose came and kept them company occasionally.When Deirdre Lloyd took the children into the country Teddy had to stay on in Edinburgh because he was giving a summer course at the art school. Sandy continued to sit for her portrait twice a week, and sometimes Rose came and sometimes not.

One day when they were alone, Sandy told Teddy Lloyd that all his portraits, even that of the littlest Lloyd baby, were now turning out to be likenesses of Miss Brodie, and she gave him her insolent blackmailing stare. He kissed her as he had done three years before when she was fifteen, and for the best part of five weeks of the summer they had a love affair in the empty house, only sometimes answering the door to Rose, but at other times letting the bell scream on.

During that time he painted a little, and she said: "You are still making me look like Jean Brodie." So he started a new canvas, but it was the same again.

She said: "Why are you obsessed with that woman? Can't you see she's ridiculous?"

He said, yes, he could see Jean Brodie was ridiculous. He said, would she kindly stop analysing his mind, it was unnatural in a girl of eighteen.

Miss Brodie telephoned for Sandy to come to see her early in September. She had returned from Germany and Austria which were now magnificently organised.

After the war Miss Brodie admitted to Sandy, as they sat in the Braid Hills Hotel, "Hitler was rather naughty," but at this time she was full of her travels and quite sure the new regime would save the world. Sandy was bored, it did not seem necessary that the world should be saved, only that the poor people in the streets and slums of Edinburgh should be relieved. Miss Brodie said there would be no war. Sandy never had thought so, anyway. Miss Brodie came to the point: "Rose tells me you have become his lover."

"Yes, does it matter which one of us it is?"

"Whatever possessed you?" said Miss Brodie in a very Scottish way, as if Sandy had given away a pound of marmalade to an English duke.

"He interests me," said Sandy.

"Interests you, forsooth," said Miss Brodie. "A girl with a mind, a girl with insight. He is a Roman Catholic and I don't see how you can have to do with a man who can't think for himself. Rose was suitable. Rose has instinct but no insight."

Teddy Lloyd continued reproducing Jean Brodie in his paintings. "You have instinct," Sandy told him, "but no insight, or you would see that the woman isn't to be taken seriously."

"I know she isn't," he said. "You are too analytical and irritable for your age."

The family had returned and their meetings were dangerous and exciting. The more she discovered him to be still in love with Jean Brodie, the more she was curious about the mind that loved the woman. By the end of the year it happened that she had quite lost interest in the man himself, but was deeply absorbed in his mind, from which she extracted, among other things, his religion as a pith from a husk. Her mind was as full of his religion as a night sky is full of things visible and invisible.

She left the man and took his religion and became a nun in the course of time.

But that autumn, while she was still probing the mind that invented Miss Brodie on canvas after canvas, Sandy met Miss Brodie several times. She was at first merely resigned to Sandy's liaison with the art master. Presently she was exultant, and presently again enquired for details, which she did not get.

"His portraits still resemble me?" said Miss Brodie.

"Yes, very much," said Sandy.

"Then all is well," said Miss Brodie. "And after all, Sandy," she said, "you are destined to be the great lover, although I would not have thought it. Truth is stranger than fiction. I wanted Rose for him, I admit, and sometimes I regretted urging young Joyce Emily to go to Spain to fight for Franco, she would have done admirably for him, a girl of instinct, a———"

"Did she go to fight for Franco?" said Sandy.

"That was the intention. I made her see sense. However, she didn't have the chance to fight at all, poor girl."

When Sandy returned, as was expected of her, to see Miss Mackay that autumn, the headmistress said to this rather difficult old girl with the abnormally small eyes, "You'll have been seeing something of Miss Brodie, I hope. You aren't forgetting your old friends, I hope."

"I've seen her once or twice," said Sandy.

"I'm afraid she put ideas into your young heads," said Miss Mackay with a knowing twinkle, which meant that now Sandy had left school it would be all right to talk openly about Miss Brodie's goings‐on.

"Yes, lots of ideas," Sandy said.

"I wish I knew what some of them were," said Miss Mackay, slumping a little and genuinely worried. "Because it is still going on, I mean class after class, and now she has formed a new set, and they are so out of key with the rest of the school, Miss Brodie's set. They are precocious. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," said Sandy. "But you won't be able to pin her down on sex. Have you thought of politics?"

Miss Mackay turned her chair so that it was nearly square with Sandy's. This was business.

"My dear," she said, "what do you mean? I didn't know she was attracted by politics."

"Neither she is," said Sandy, "except as a side interest. She's a born Fascist, have you thought of that?"

"I shall question her pupils on those lines and see what emerges, if that is