“My brothurr is up in the morning at five-thirty… My brothurr organised a…”

Sandy was thinking of the next instalment of Jane Eyre which Miss Brodie usually enlivened this hour by reading. Sandy had done with Alan Breck and had taken up with Mr. Rochester, with whom she now sat in the garden.

“You are afraid of me, Miss Sandy.”

“You talk like the Sphinx, sir, but I am not afraid.”

“You have such a grave, quiet manner, Miss Sandy — you are going?”

“It has struck nine, sir.”

A phrase of Miss Gaunt’s broke upon the garden scene: “Mr. Lowther is not at school this week.”

“So I hear,” Miss Alison said.

“It seems he will be away for another week at least.”

“Is he ill?”

“I understand so, unfortunately,” said Miss Gaunt.

“Miss Brodie is ailing, too,” said Miss Ellen.

“Yes,” said Miss Gaunt. “She too is expected to be absent for another week.”

“What is the trouble?”

“That I couldn’t say,” said Miss Gaunt. She stuck her needle in and out of her embroidery. Then she looked up at the sisters. “It may be Miss Brodie has the same complaint as Mr. Lowther,” she said.

Sandy saw her face as that of the housekeeper in Jane Eyre, watching her carefully and knowingly as she entered the house, late, from the garden where she had been sitting with Mr. Rochester.

“Perhaps Miss Brodie is having a love affair with Mr. Lowther,” Sandy said to Jenny, merely in order to break up the sexless gloom that surrounded them.

“But it was Mr. Lloyd who kissed her. She must be in love with Mr. Lloyd or she wouldn’t have let him kiss her.”

“Perhaps she’s working it off on Mr. Lowther. Mr. Lowther isn’t married.”

It was a fantasy worked up between them, in defiance of Miss Gaunt and her forbidding brother, and it was understood in that way. But Sandy, remembering Miss Gaunt’s expression as she remarked, “It may be Miss Brodie has the same complaint as Mr. Lowther,” was suddenly not sure that the suggestion was not true. For this reason she was more reticent than Jenny about the details of the imagined love affair. Jenny whispered, “They go to bed. Then he puts out the light. Then their toes touch. And then Miss Brodie… Miss Brodie…” She broke into giggles.

“Miss Brodie yawns,” said Sandy in order to restore decency, now that she suspected it was all true.

“No, Miss Brodie says, ‘Darling.’ She says———”

“Quiet,” whispered Sandy, “Eunice is coming.”

Eunice Gardiner approached the table where Jenny and Sandy sat, grabbed the scissors and went away. Eunice had lately taken a religious turn and there was no talking about sex in front of her. She had stopped hopping and skipping. The phase did not last long, but while it did she was nasty and not to be trusted. When she was well out of the way Jenny resumed:

“Mr. Lowther’s legs are shorter than Miss Brodie’s, so I suppose she winds hers round his, and———”