The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark [42]
see what sort of a group portrait I could make of you." Sandy thought this might be an attempt to keep the Brodie set together at the expense of the newly glimpsed individuality of its members. She turned on him in her new manner of sudden irritability and said, "We'd look like one big Miss Brodie, I suppose." He laughed in a delighted way and looked at her more closely, as if for the first time. She looked back just as closely through her little eyes, with the near-blackmailing insolence of her knowledge. Whereupon he kissed her long and wetly. He said in his hoarse voice, "That'll teach you to look at an artist like that." She started to run to the door, wiping her mouth dry with the back of her hand, but he caught her with his one arm and said: "There's no need to run away. You're just about the ugliest little thing I've ever seen in my life." He walked out and left her standing in the studio, and there was nothing for her to do but to follow him downstairs. Deirdre Lloyd's voice called from the sitting-room. "In here, Sandy." She spent most of the tea time trying to sort out her preliminary feelings in the matter, which was difficult because of the children who were present and making demands on the guest. The eldest boy, who was eight, turned on the wireless and began to sing in mincing English tones, "Oh play to me, Gipsy" to the accompaniment of Henry Hall's band. The other three children were making various kinds of din. Above this noise Deirdre Lloyd requested Sandy to call her Deirdre rather than. Mrs. Lloyd. And so Sandy did not have much opportunity to discover how she was feeling inside herself about Teddy Lloyd's kiss and his words, and to decide whether she was insulted or not. He now said, brazenly, "And you can call me Teddy outside of school." Amongst themselves, in any case, the girls called him Teddy the Paint. Sandy looked from one to the other of the Lloyds. "I've heard such a lot about Miss Brodie from the girls," Deirdre was saying. "I really must ask her to tea. D'you think she'd like to come?" "No," said Teddy. "Why?" said Deirdre, not that it seemed to matter, she was so languid and long-armed, lifting the plate of biscuits from the table and passing them round without moving from the low stool on which she sat. "You kids stop that row or you leave the room," Teddy declared. "Bring Miss Brodie to tea," Deirdre said to Sandy. "She won't come," Teddy said, " — will she, Sandy?" "She's awfully busy," Sandy said. "Pass me a fag," said Deirdre. "Is she still looking after Lowther?" said Teddy. "Well, yes, a bit———" "Lowther," said Teddy, waving his only arm, "must have a way with women. He's got half the female staff of the school looking after him. Why doesn't he employ a housekeeper? — He's got plenty of money, no wife, no kids, no rent to pay, it's his own house. Why doesn't he get a proper housekeeper?" "I think he likes Miss Brodie," Sandy said. "But what does she see in him?" "He sings to her," Sandy said, suddenly sharp. Deirdre laughed. "Miss Brodie sounds a bit queer, I must say. What age is she?" "Jean Brodie," said Teddy, "is a magnificent woman in her prime." He got up, tossing back his lock of hair, and left the room. Deirdre blew a cloud of reflective smoke and stubbed out her cigarette, and Sandy said she would have to go now. Mr. Lowther had caused Miss Brodie a good deal of worry in the past two years. There had been a time when it seemed he might be thinking of marrying Miss Alison Kerr, and another time when he seemed to favour Miss Ellen, all the while being in love with Miss Brodie herself, who refused him all but her bed-fellowship and her catering. He tired of food, for it was making him fat and weary and putting him out of voice. He wanted a wife to play golf with and to sing to. He wanted a honeymoon on the Hebridean island of Eigg, near Rum, and then to return to Cramond with the bride. In the midst of this dissatisfaction had occurred Ellen Kerr's finding of a nightdress of quality folded under the pillow next to Mr. Lowther's in that double bed on which, to make matters worse,