I will not detail the incidents of that morning.The episodes that were on other mornings games were today tortures.There was the Torture of Losing Things,the Torture of Not Hearing,the Torture of Many Noises,the Torture of Sudden Alarm,the Torture of Outright Defiance,the Torture of Expressed Contempt.When twelve struck and the children were free,Miss Jones was not far from a nervous panic that can be called,without any exaggeration,incipient madness.The neuralgia tore at her brain,her own self-contempt tore at her heart,her baffled impotence bewildered and blinded her.She did not leave the schoolroom with the children,but went to the broad window-sill and sat there looking out into the dreary prospect.
Then,suddenly for no reason except general weakness and physical and spiritual collapse she began to cry.
Jeremy was considered to have a cold,and was,therefore,not permitted to accompany his mother and sisters on an exciting shopping expedition,which would certainly lead as far as old Poole's,the bookseller,and might even extend to Martins',the pastrycook,who made lemon biscuits next door to the Cathedral.He was,therefore,in a very bad temper indeed when he returned sulkily to the schoolroom.He stood for a moment there unaware that there was anybody in the room,hesitating as to whether he should continue "A Flat Iron for a Farthing"or hunt up Hamlet.Suddenly he heard the sound of sobbing.He turned and saw Miss Jones.
He would have fled had flight been in any way possible,but she had looked up and seen him,and her sudden arrested sniff held them both there as though by some third invisible power.He saw that she was crying;he saw her red nose,mottled cheeks,untidy hair.It was the most awful moment of his young life.He had never seen a grown-up person cry before;he had no idea that they ever did cry.He had,indeed,never realised that grown-up persons had any active histories at all,any histories in the sense in which he and Mary had them.They were all a background,simply a background that blew backwards and forwards like tapestry according to one's need of them.His torture of Miss Jones had been founded on no sort of realisation of her as a human being;she had been a silly old woman,of course,but just as the battered weather-beaten Aunt Sally in the garden was a silly old woman.
Her crying horrified,terrified,and disgusted him.It was all so dreary,the horrible weather outside,the beginning of a cold in his head,the schoolroom fire almost out,everyone's bad temper,including his own,and this sudden horrible jumping-to-life of a grown-up human being.She,meanwhile,was too deeply involved now in the waters of her affliction to care very deeply who saw her or what anyone said to her.She did feel dimly that she ought not to be crying in front of a small boy of eight years old,and that it would be better to hide herself in her bedroom,but she did not mind--she COULD not mind--her neuralgia was too bad.
"It's the neuralgia in my head,"she said in a muffled confused voice.That he could understand.He also had pains in his head.He drew closer to her,flinging a longing backward look at the door.
She went on in convulsed tones:
"It's the pain--awake all night,and the lessons.I can't make them attend;they learn nothing.They're not afraid of me--they hate me.
I've never really known children before--"
He did not know what to say.Had it been Mary or Helen the formula would have been simple.He moved his legs restlessly one against the other.
Miss Jones went on:
"And now,of course,I must go.It's quite impossible for me to stay when I manage so badly--"She looked up and suddenly realised that it was truly Jeremy."You're only a little boy,but you know very well that I can't manage you.And then where am I to go to?No one will take me after I've been such a failure."The colour stole into his cheeks.He was immensely proud.No grown-up person had ever before spoken to him as though he was himself a grown-up person--always laughing at him like Uncle Samuel,or talking down to him like Aunt Amy,or despising him like Mr.
Jellybrand.But Miss Jones appealed to him simply as one grown-up to another.Unfortunately he did not in the least know what to say.The only thing he could think of at the moment was:"You can have my handkerchief,if you like.It's pretty clean--"But she went on:"If my brother had been alive he would have advised me.He was a splendid man.He rowed in his college boat when he was at Cambridge,but that,of course,was forty years ago.He could keep children in order.I thought it would be so easy.Perhaps if my health had been better it wouldn't have been so hard.""Do your pains come often?"asked Jeremy.
"Yes.They're very bad."
"I have them,too,"said Jeremy."It's generally,I expect,because I eat too much--at least,the Jampot used to say so.They're in my head sometimes,too.And then I'm really sick.Do you feel sick?"Miss Jones began to pull herself together.She wiped her eyes and patted her hair.
"It's my neuralgia,"she said again."It's from my eyes partly,I expect."
"It's better to be sick,"continued Jeremy,"if you can be--"She flung him then a desperate look,as though she were really an animal at bay.