“Maybe yes, and maybe no. What's rude to one ain't rude to another”—out of which answer she could make nothing at all.
In the schoolroom she sustained complete defeat. At the very outset she was baffled by Miss Jones. She had always despised Miss Jones as a poor unfortunate female who was forced to teach children in her old age because she must earn her living—a stupid, sentimental, cowed, old woman at whom the children laughed. She found now that the children instead of laughing at her laughed with her, formed a phalanx of protection around her and refused to be disobedient. Miss Jones herself was discovered to have a dry, rather caustic, sense of humour that Aunt Amy felt to be impertinence, but could not penetrate.
“And is that really how you teach them history, Miss Jones? Not quite the simplest way, surely... I remember an excellent governess whom we once had—”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Jones, gently, “you would give them a history lesson yourself, Miss Trefusis. I would be so glad to pick up any little hints—”
“I have, of course, no time,” said Aunt Amy hurriedly, “but, speaking generally, I am afraid I can't approve altogether of your system.”
“It isn't very good, I'm afraid,” said Miss Jones weakly. “The children would be glad, I know, to have a few hints from you if you could spare a moment—”
Jeremy, who was listening, giggled, tried to turn the giggle into a sneeze and choked.
“Jeremy!” said Aunt Amy severely.
“Oh, do look, Aunt Amy!” cried Mary, always Jeremy's faithful ally, “all your hairpins are dropping out!”
She devoted herself then to Jeremy and worried him in every possible way, and after two days of this he hated her with a deep and bitter hatred, very different from that earlier teasing of Miss Jones. That had sprung from a sudden delicious discovery of power, and had been directed against no one. This was a real personal hatred that children of a less solid and tenacious temperament than Jeremy would have been incapable of feeling.