The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark [21]
— in those months when her obsession with Mr. Lowther's food had just begun — the girls were free to roam up the big stairs, hand-in-hand with awe, and to open the doors and look into the dust-sheeted bedrooms and especially into two rooms that people had forgotten to furnish properly, one of which had nothing in it but a large desk, not even a carpet, another of which was empty except for an electric light bulb and a large blue jug. These rooms were icy cold, whatever the time of year. On their descending the stairs after these expeditions, Mr. Lowther would often be standing waiting for them, shyly smiling in the hall with his hands clasped together as if he hoped that everything was to their satisfaction. He took roses from the bowl and presented one each to the girls before they went home. Mr. Lowther never seemed quite at home in his home, although he had been born there. He always looked at Miss Brodie for approval before he touched anything or opened a cupboard as if, really, he was not allowed to touch without permission. The girls decided that perhaps his mother, now four years dead, had kept him under all his life, and he was consequently unable to see himself as master of the house. He sat silently and gratefully watching Miss Brodie entertain the two girls whose turn it was to be there, when she had already started on her project of fattening him up which was to grow to such huge proportions that her food-supplying mania was the talk of Miss Ellen and Miss Alison Kerr, and so of the Junior school. One day, when Sandy and Jenny were on the visiting rota, she gave Mr. Lowther, for tea alone, an admirable lobster salad, some sandwiches of liver paste, cake and tea, followed by a bowl of porridge and cream. These were served to him on a tray for himself alone, you could see he was on a special diet. Sandy was anxious to see if Mr. Lowther would manage the porridge as well as everything else. But he worked his way through everything with impassive obedience while she questioned the girls: "What are you doing in the art class just now?" "We're at work on the poster competition." "Mr. Lloyd — is he well?" "Oh yes, he's great fun. He showed us his studio two weeks ago." "Which studio, where? At his house?" — although Miss Brodie knew perfectly well. "Yes, it's a great long attic, it———" "Did you meet his wife, what was she like? What did she say, did she give you tea? What are the children like, what did you do when you got there?..." She did not attempt to conceal from her munching host her keen interest in the art master. Mr. Lowther's eyes looked mournful and he ate on. Sandy and Jenny knew that similar questions had been pressed upon Mary Macgregor and Eunice Gardiner the previous week, and upon Rose Stanley and Monica Douglas the week before. But Miss Brodie could not hear enough versions of the same story if it involved Teddy Lloyd, and now that the girls had been to his house — a large and shabby, a warm and unconventional establishment in the north of Edinburgh — Miss Brodie was in a state of high excitement by very contact with these girls who had lately breathed Lloyd air. "How many children?" said Miss Brodie, her teapot poised. "Five, I think," said Sandy. "Six, I think," said Jenny, "counting the baby." "There are lots of babies," said Sandy. "Roman Catholics, of course," said Miss Brodie, addressing this to Mr. Lowther. "But the littlest baby," said Jenny, "you've forgotten to count the wee baby. That makes six." Miss Brodie poured tea and cast a glance at Gordon Lowther's plate. "Gordon," she said, "a cake." He shook his head and said softly, as if soothing her, "Oh, no, no." "Yes, Gordon. It is full of goodness." And she made him eat a Chester cake, and spoke to him in a slightly more Edinburgh way than usual, so as to make up to him by both means for the love she was giving to Teddy Lloyd instead of to him. "You must be fattened up, Gordon," she said. "You must be two stone the better before I go my holidays." He smiled as best he could at everyone in turn, with his drooped head and slowly moving jaws. Meanwhile Miss Brodie said: "And Mrs. Lloyd