begin to fly, after Amy's disclosure over the coffee-cups. I had not long to wait.
Within three days Mrs Pringle broached the subject, obliquely, and with nauseating self-righteousness.
I was alone in the classroom after school. The children had gone home, and Miss Jackson had pedalled off towards Beech Green. Mrs Pringle, trudging through to the infants' room, with two brooms under one arm and a dust pan clutched across her stomach, stopped, ostensibly to pick a toffee paper from the floor, but in fact to impart and receive any news of Miss Jackson's affairs.
'Seems to have settled down nicely, she do,' said Mrs Pringle, in such dulcet tones that I was instantly on my guard. 'I like to see a girl happy.'
I made a non-committal noise and continued to look for a form which the office had told me (with some irritability) I had been asked to return three weeks ago. It did not appear to be in the drawer allotted—on the whole—to forms.
'A good day's work when Miss Jackson moved in with Miss Clare,' went on Mrs Pringle, raising her voice slightly. 'Not that she wasn't well looked after with you, I don't doubt,' she said, with the air of one telling a white lie, 'but she do look a bit more cheerful. Plumper too!' she added, with some malice, annoyed that I still turned over my papers busily.
'I didn't starve her, you know,' I observed mildly, opening the gummed paper drawer. The thing must be somewhere!
Mrs Pringle gave a high forced laugh.
'The very idea! We all knows that—but Miss Clare seems to suit her best, and of course, being young she's soon finding friends.'
'Naturally,' I said shortly, slamming in the gummed paper drawer, and opening the one with the log books and catalogues from educational publishers. It looked like being a hopeless search.
Mrs Pringle began to close in upon her subject.
'Not that I'm one to criticise. It's not my place, as I said to my husband when he repeated some gossip he'd heard about her down at "The Beetle" last night-but we've all got our own ideas, and say what you like, there's still such a thing as class.'
The form was not to be found in the log book drawer. I armed myself with a ruler, and set about getting into the drawer which holds envelopes full of cardboard money, packets of raffia needles, a set of archaic reading cards embellished with pictures of bearded men, ladies with bustles and little girls in preposterous hats and buttoned boots, and various other awkward objects known to all school teachers. By pulling the drawer open a crack, thrusting in the ruler upon the seething mass within, and bearing down heavily, it was just possible to jerk it open. (Every teacher who is not soullessly efficient has at least one drawer like this. I have several.)
Mrs Pringle warmed to her theme as I struggled.
'She's got all the world before her. A young girl like that, speaks nice, been to college, can read and write—why, she could have anyone! They do say there's someone interested. Someone, I won't say a gentleman, because that he isn't, not by any manner of means! But we all hope that that young thing won't have her head turned, and by someone no better than he should be.'
I felt that it was time to speak.
'Mrs Pringle, do try and scotch any gossip about Miss Jackson. She's quite old enough to choose her own friends.'
'Ah! but do her parents know who she's going round with? Their only daughter, I understand.' Her tone grew lugubrious, and she assumed the pious look that the choir boys mimic behind her back.
'Their one tender chick,' she continued, with an affecting tremor in her voice. I thought of Miss Jackson's sturdy frame and attempted to keep my face straight. 'How would you like it, if she was your daughter? Think now, if she was!'
I did. But not for long.
'Look, Mrs Pringle,' I replied, 'I think you're all making far too much of Miss Jackson's innocent affairs. She is in Miss Clare's care—and mine, for that matter—and writes regularly to her parents, and
Within three days Mrs Pringle broached the subject, obliquely, and with nauseating self-righteousness.
I was alone in the classroom after school. The children had gone home, and Miss Jackson had pedalled off towards Beech Green. Mrs Pringle, trudging through to the infants' room, with two brooms under one arm and a dust pan clutched across her stomach, stopped, ostensibly to pick a toffee paper from the floor, but in fact to impart and receive any news of Miss Jackson's affairs.
'Seems to have settled down nicely, she do,' said Mrs Pringle, in such dulcet tones that I was instantly on my guard. 'I like to see a girl happy.'
I made a non-committal noise and continued to look for a form which the office had told me (with some irritability) I had been asked to return three weeks ago. It did not appear to be in the drawer allotted—on the whole—to forms.
'A good day's work when Miss Jackson moved in with Miss Clare,' went on Mrs Pringle, raising her voice slightly. 'Not that she wasn't well looked after with you, I don't doubt,' she said, with the air of one telling a white lie, 'but she do look a bit more cheerful. Plumper too!' she added, with some malice, annoyed that I still turned over my papers busily.
'I didn't starve her, you know,' I observed mildly, opening the gummed paper drawer. The thing must be somewhere!
Mrs Pringle gave a high forced laugh.
'The very idea! We all knows that—but Miss Clare seems to suit her best, and of course, being young she's soon finding friends.'
'Naturally,' I said shortly, slamming in the gummed paper drawer, and opening the one with the log books and catalogues from educational publishers. It looked like being a hopeless search.
Mrs Pringle began to close in upon her subject.
'Not that I'm one to criticise. It's not my place, as I said to my husband when he repeated some gossip he'd heard about her down at "The Beetle" last night-but we've all got our own ideas, and say what you like, there's still such a thing as class.'
The form was not to be found in the log book drawer. I armed myself with a ruler, and set about getting into the drawer which holds envelopes full of cardboard money, packets of raffia needles, a set of archaic reading cards embellished with pictures of bearded men, ladies with bustles and little girls in preposterous hats and buttoned boots, and various other awkward objects known to all school teachers. By pulling the drawer open a crack, thrusting in the ruler upon the seething mass within, and bearing down heavily, it was just possible to jerk it open. (Every teacher who is not soullessly efficient has at least one drawer like this. I have several.)
Mrs Pringle warmed to her theme as I struggled.
'She's got all the world before her. A young girl like that, speaks nice, been to college, can read and write—why, she could have anyone! They do say there's someone interested. Someone, I won't say a gentleman, because that he isn't, not by any manner of means! But we all hope that that young thing won't have her head turned, and by someone no better than he should be.'
I felt that it was time to speak.
'Mrs Pringle, do try and scotch any gossip about Miss Jackson. She's quite old enough to choose her own friends.'
'Ah! but do her parents know who she's going round with? Their only daughter, I understand.' Her tone grew lugubrious, and she assumed the pious look that the choir boys mimic behind her back.
'Their one tender chick,' she continued, with an affecting tremor in her voice. I thought of Miss Jackson's sturdy frame and attempted to keep my face straight. 'How would you like it, if she was your daughter? Think now, if she was!'
I did. But not for long.
'Look, Mrs Pringle,' I replied, 'I think you're all making far too much of Miss Jackson's innocent affairs. She is in Miss Clare's care—and mine, for that matter—and writes regularly to her parents, and
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