The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark [19]
came well over her knees. Mr. Lloyd showed his pictures from an exhibition of Italian art in London. He had a pointer with which he indicated the design of the picture in accompaniment to his hoarse voice. He said nothing of what the pictures represented, only followed each curve and line as the artist had left it off — perhaps at the point of an elbow, and picked it up — perhaps at the edge of a cloud or the back of a chair. The ladies of the Primavera, in their netball-playing postures, provided Mr. Lloyd with much pointer work. He kept on passing the pointer along the lines of their bottoms which showed through the drapery. The third time he did this a collective quiver of mirth ran along the front row of girls, then spread to the back rows. They kept their mouths shut tight against these convulsions, but the tighter their lips, the more did the little gusts of humour escape through their noses. Mr. Lloyd looked round with offended exasperation. "It is obvious," said Miss Brodie, "that these girls are not of cultured homes and heritage. The Philistines are upon us, Mr. Lloyd." The girls, anxious to be of cultured and sexless antecedents, were instantly composed by the shock of this remark. But immediately Mr. Lloyd resumed his demonstration of artistic form, and again dragged his pointer all round the draped private parts of one of Botticelli's female subjects, Sandy affected to have a fit of spluttering coughs, as did several girls behind her. Others groped under their seat as if looking for something they had dropped. One or two frankly leant against each other and giggled with hands to their helpless mouths. "I am surprised at you, Sandy," said Miss Brodie. "I thought you were the leaven in the lump." Sandy looked up from her coughs with a hypocritical blinking of her eyes. Miss Brodie, however, had already fastened on Mary Macgregor who was nearest to her. Mary's giggles had been caused by contagion, for she was too stupid to have any sex-wits of her own, and Mr. Lloyd's lesson would never have affected her unless it had first affected the rest of the class. But now she was giggling openly like a dirty-minded child of an uncultured home. Miss Brodie grasped Mary's arm, jerked her to her feet and propelled her to the door where she thrust her outside and shut her out, returning as one who had solved the whole problem. As indeed she had, for the violent action sobered the girls and made them feel that, in the official sense, an unwanted ring-leader had been apprehended and they were no longer in the wrong. As Mr. Lloyd had now switched his equipment to a depiction of the Madonna and Child, Miss Brodie's action was the more appreciated, for no one in the class would have felt comfortable at being seized with giggles while Mr. Lloyd's pointer was tracing the outlines of this sacred subject. In fact, they were rather shocked that Mr. Lloyd's hoarse voice did not change its tone in the slightest for this occasion, but went on stating what the painter had done with his brush; he was almost defiant in his methodical tracing of lines all over the Mother and the Son. Sandy caught his glance towards Miss Brodie as if seeking her approval for his very artistic attitude and Sandy saw her smile back as would a goddess with superior understanding smile to a god away on the mountain tops. It was not long after this that Monica Douglas, later famous for mathematics and anger, claimed that she had seen Mr. Lloyd in the act of kissing Miss Brodie. She was very definite about it in her report to the five other members of the Brodie set. There was a general excited difficulty in believing her. "When?" "Where?" "In the art room after school yesterday." "What were you doing in the art room?" said Sandy who took up the role of cross-examiner. "I went to get a new sketch pad." "Why? You haven't finished your old sketch pad yet." "I have," said Monica. "When did you use up your old sketch pad?" "Last Saturday afternoon when you were playing golf with Miss Brodie." It was true that Jenny and Sandy had done nine holes on the Braid Hills course