Plot

After Miss Brodie mistakenly concludes that one of her students, the beautiful young Rose, is a poor, neglected orphan, she lavishes her with attention, causing jealousy and resentment among the other girls.

Episode "Rose," written by Alick Rowe (screen credit), opens one sunny spring morning in April, 1930, with Miss Brodie alone in her classroom, grading essay booklets. She looks at the booklet she is holding with disappointment and says to herself "Rose Stanley. Forsooth," and drops it into the "done" pile.

Rose has been in the class from the beginning of the series, seated beside one of the windows, but Miss Brodie has never paid Rose any special notice, nor has Rose shown any special attraction to Miss Brodie. Rose has been merely one of the girls in the class - until the events of this episode.

Miss Brodie's students are down the hall in the music-room, taking a singing lesson from Mr. Lawson, a white-bearded elderly man quite cheerful and enthusiastic about music. The girls stand in ranks before him, holding sheets of music and singing as he plays the piano. He opens the window, praising spring, and turns to the girls: "in the spring a young man's thoughts turn to love - and so too young girls, even an old man who is past his prime." He calls Rose to the front of the class - apparently for no other reason than she is the tallest girl in the room, and thus the easiest for all the girls to see as an example - and, using Rose as an example, commands that the girls thrust out their chests to sing fuller and stronger. This triggers gales of giggles, because the girls are quite conscious of their developing breasts, and this posture emphasizes them. Mr. Lawson, free-associating on the name "Rose," then mentions several songs and poems that happen to have Rose in the title, such as "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose," and William Blake's poem "O Rose thou art sick," but he does not single-out Rose as an especially good singer, nor does he single her out for any personal attention, other than using her as a posture-example, and her name as a reason to mention songs and poems with the name Rose.

The girls arrive back at Miss Brodie's giggling and excited, because Mr. Lawson had led them in a pronunciation exercise, "Simple Simon Shakes His Pepper-Pot," which they found quite silly. None of them say that Mr. Lawson had singled out Rose. Miss Brodie comments "if only I had had you girls at 7 years of age," then takes command and settles the class by noting she has been reading their essays. She immediately singles out Rose - for criticism: "Rose Stanley, your head is full of cars. I am not much interested in the combustion engine. The combustion engine does not make heroines." "No, Miss Brodie," Rose replies.

In gym class, Sandy and Jenny discuss Rose, noting that Mr. Lawson likes Rose, and that the painting teacher, Mr. Lloyd, had earlier commented that Rose has a fine profile. They speculate on "why do they all [meaning the men] like Rose," and conclude that it is because Rose has two boy cousins, ages 12 and 14, and a father - making three men in Rose's life - but no mother, because Rose's mother had died several years before. Being around boy cousins, unlike having brothers, teaches a girl how to catch the attention of men, they think, and they decide to seek an invitation to Rose's house, in hopes of meeting the cousins.

Meanwhile, lower school head the strict Miss Gaunt calls on Miss Brodie, once again alone in her classroom, because her girls are at gym. Miss Gaunt is concerned that Mr. Lawson had gotten the girls too excited during his singing-lesson. Miss Brodie brushes this aside, and after Miss Gaunt has left, laughs at Miss Gaunt's concerns.

Back in gym class, the girls have now been divided into teams of four each, to run a relay-race. Sandy and Jenny have formed a team with Rose, and with Mary McGregor, whom they ignore and push-around, while Rose tells them of course they can come to tea on Saturday, and she does not need her father's permission to invite them. The fact that Rose has the authority to invite friends to her house, without asking a parent's permission, impresses Sandy and Jenny, who do not have such power in their own homes. Sandy and Jenny ask if the two cousins will be there, and Rose says, of course. Rose also mentions that her father has arranged for her to have private piano lessons with Mr. Lawson.

The next day, Miss Gaunt confronts Mr. Lawson in his piano-teaching room, complaining that "the girls are of a vulnerable age" and that he must not "stir their imaginations." Mr. Lawson bridles at this criticism.

Outside at recess, Sandy and Jenny amongst the other girls are talking, when Miss Brodie happens by, and stops to talk to them, finishing by saying "I will see you Saturday at tea," in her flat. It appears Miss Brodie has come to expect them every Saturday at her flat, without special invitation. Sandy and Jenny apologize that they did not know she expected them, and "we can't come - we are going to tea with Rose," but they can come the following Saturday. Miss Brodie is slightly taken aback by this, then says: "Rose must possess qualities of which I am presently unaware." As Miss Brodie turns to go, who runs up but Rose, who stops and says "Good afternoon, Miss Brodie." "Good afternoon, Rose," says Miss Brodie, slowly, and Rose trots past her to Sandy and Jenny, smiling as the three girls greet her. Miss Brodie slowly turns her head to look intently at Rose, Sandy, and Jenny chatting eagerly together, then leaves.

The next day in class, Miss Brodie discusses the famous actress Sybil Thorndike, commenting that, wearing her orange dress which was appropriate for attending the theater, she attended a performance of Shaw's 1924-1925 hit play "Saint Joan" with Thorndike in the title role, in London. [The historical basis is accurate: "Saint Joan," with Thorndike as Joan, played London in 1924, March 26 to Oct. 25 at the New Theatre, 244 performances, and in 1925, Jan. 14 to May 9 at the Regent Theatre, 132 performances. Miss Brodie would have been 34 or 35 years old.]

Miss Brodie closes: "Soon you will have specialists," referring to the upper-school class system of different teachers for different subjects. "But now you have the fruits of my prime. They will be with you all your lives - take nourishment from them."

As she dismisses the class, Miss Brodie stops Rose: "Rose, you will remain." Miss Brodie reveals that now knows that Rose will be shifting piano teachers, and Rose explains that her private teacher's schedule is less convenient that studying with Mr. Lawson after school. Miss Brodie asks who are Rose's best friends, but then, without allowing Rose to answer, notes that Jenny and Sandy will be taking tea with her on Saturday, and then asks "What are your interests?"

Rose enthusiastically answers "I like cars, Miss Brodie, and Meccano [a popular construction-engineering set sold in the 1920s and 1930s with the slogan "engineering for boys"], and machines of all sorts."

Miss Brodie disapproves: "You must turn to the arts, Rose. A car will carry a body until the fuel runs out. Great art provides a lifetime of nourishment."

Miss Brodie questions Rose about her family background. Miss Brodie's ignorance concerning Rose's personal situation derives from the fact that Miss Brodie arrived in Edinburgh only four months ago, after years of being away; and the customs of schooling in the 1920s and 1930s did not include the numerous parent-teacher meetings and receptions that are quite common today. In the 1920s and 1930s, parents had very little involvement with their children's schools or with their teachers. Thus, Miss Brodie does not know anything about the families of any of her students, except so far as she has taken a special interest in a particular student - which she has never done before, with Rose.

Miss Brodie's ignorance also is enabled by the fact that all the girls wear identical uniforms, without any personal clothes that would signal different levels of personal wealth. The point of the uniforms is that the students ought not to be able to signal - or be forced to expose - the higher or lower social and economic levels from which their families come.

Rose says that her mother died 6 years ago; her aunt keeps house for her; she has no sisters or brothers; and her father is a cobbler. Miss Brodie asks if Rose has a bedroom, to which Rose says yes; we learn later that Miss Brodie has asked this peculiar question because the word "cobbler," that Rose has used, has led Miss Brodie to conclude that Rose lives in the humblest of tiny one-room cobbler's cottages, motherless, in the meanest poverty, and under the iron rule of a strict and heartless aunt. Miss Brodie considers for a moment:

"I believe you have instinct, Rose. Instinct is often achieved through suffering." Miss Brodie asks Rose to stand straighter, examining Rose's profile, and then produces a postcard from her desk: it is actress Sybil Thorndike in her role of Saint Joan.

Miss Brodie instructs Rose: "Observe her noble mien and carriage. Take this picture home and affix it to your bedroom wall. Look at it on waking each morning, and when you go to sleep. It is to Sybil Thorndike's noble mien and carriage that you are to aspire." Miss Brodie invites Rose to ask her a question, and after a moment Rose asks about the poet William Blake, because Mr. Lawson had touched on a Blake poem, "O Rose thou art sick," when he was free-associating on the word Rose during the Monday singing lesson. Miss Brodie pulls her personal copy of Blake from her desk and hands it to Rose, saying she is to read only the Songs of Innocence "as they will make you merry in your loss." Miss Brodie then instructs Rose that after reading poems, Rose must balance the book on her head and walk ten paces: "This will help you aspire to your great model's [Thorndike] noble carriage." Miss Brodie closes:

"We shall talk again. You must look on me as your friend."

Outside the classroom, Sandy and Jenny, having noticed that Miss Brodie had held Rose behind, have been waiting for Rose to emerge. Sandy eagerly snatches the Blake poem book to find the poem "O Rose thou art sick," and on reading it (a short 8 lines), jumps to the conclusion it is about sexual intercourse, when in fact it is considered one of Blake's most enigmatic poems, with no clear meaning.

Rose arrives home, a spacious house with many rooms and floors - plainly not the home of a humble "cobbler." After a short few moments trying to walk with "noble mien," Rose looks at herself in the mirror, and after a spending a second looking at herself with "noble mien," suddenly sticks her tongue out at herself, and plops down the book and Thorndike postcard on the side table. Her father and two boy-cousins arrive, and the aunt asks why he has come home earlier than usual. "Sales are down at the factory. Nobody is buying our boots." Further conversation reveals that Rose's father, far from being a humble cobbler, is the owner of a large shoe-and-boot factory, employing many men. Evidently, Rose has learned to describe him as a "cobbler" to avoid the appearance of putting on airs of superiority, and that her father is actually one of the wealthy industrialists of Edinburgh, and she the heiress to a fortune.

The three children promptly charge upstairs to a project-room to continue working on a large meccano construction-system crane already well started. They call Rose's father to join them, who arrives carrying the Blake poem book. "What shall you do with this, Rose?" he asks, balancing the book on her head as she kneels beside the large crane. Rose snatches the book off her head:

"We'll use it for a load for the crane to lift," she says, putting the book into the platform suspended by a chain from the tip of the projecting meccano crane-arm.

Friday afternoon at school, as Rose is receiving her first after-school piano-lesson from Mr. Lawson, Miss Brodie enters to give two more books to Rose "before I am away for the week-end": the romantic novels "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre." Rose thanks her and leaves, while Miss Brodie stays to talk to Mr. Lawson, commenting that she is impressed that "a humble cobbler" has had the vision to pay for his daughter to have personal piano lessons.

Mr. Lawson corrects her: Rose's father is not a cobbler, he owns a shoe-factory employing 30 men, which was the most profitable business in Edinburgh until a downturn in business last year or two. Rose Stanley lives in a large house in fashionable Queen's Square.

"But is it not under the stern government of some female relative?" asks Miss Brodie. Mr. Lawson chuckles: "It is under the stern government of none other than Rose Stanley herself." Rose's easy-going aunt, mother of the two boy-cousins, lives nearby, and the two families practically live as one. Miss Brodie is puzzled: "But I was under the impression - "

"That she was a waif of the storm?" interrupts Mr. Lawson. "No, Miss Brodie, I am afraid you have created a Rose straight out of the pages of a Bronte novel."

The Saturday tea at Rose's home begins with the two girls, Sandy and Jenny, eyeing the two boys with doubt and uncertainty - and the boys looking back at them with expressions of a kind of puzzled horror. The five children go upstairs to the project room, to run several wind-up motorized trains over a criss-crossing track: each has a role as a switch-operator or trainmaster or stationmaster, which completely baffles Sandy and Jenny.

Jenny picks-up a train and recoils: "It's got oil on it." One of the boys snaps "Rose doesn't mind the oil," and Rose glances over at him with a shy smile.

Jenny can't get her train to start, while Sandy has no idea what she is doing. The result: two trains crash into a third train, and the older boy complains rudely about the "daft stationmaster," meaning Sandy, who didn't push the right switches. Rose is uncomfortable through all of this: embarrassed that her friends could not do anything competent with the trains, and embarrassed that her cousins were so tactless. The two boys are utterly unromantic, the two girls utterly un-technological; Rose is caught in the middle. Rose's father arrives, quite urbane and comfortable talking to the girls, while the boys squirm to leave.

In the next scene, Rose and her father are alone, the father going over papers. Rose inquires, and he explains these are cost and income figures from his shoe factory: "I'm trying to figure out why nobody is buying our boots." "The boots are too dear [expensive]," Rose responds, to which her father says so too are machines and the salaries of the workers. "We should sell some of that old equipment," says Rose; "you're probably right," replies her father.

In the classroom next morning, before Miss Brodie has entered, Rose is surrounded by most of the other girls, who are accusing her of being a "teacher's pet." Sandy and Jenny are not visible among this group. Miss Brodie enters, dispersing the group, but it is clear that Rose has been under some attack. No one will explain except Sandy, who sharply says "they've been calling Rose a teacher's pet, and its not fair!" (Jenny is not shown anywhere in this scene.) Miss Brodie becomes truly angry, denouncing prejudice, victimization, and "mob rule:" there shall be no "mob rule" among the "crème-de-la-crème." Miss Brodie demolishes each instance the girls cite of "special treatment" that Rose has received from herself, Mr. Lawson the music teacher, and Mr. Lloyd the art teacher, and then asks Rose "is there anyone here whom you have offended deliberately?" to which Rose, in tears, replies "No, Miss Brodie."

"Those with instinct can speak only the truth," pronounces Miss Brodie, declaring she believes Rose.

At tea next Saturday in her flat, Miss Brodie hosts Sandy, Jenny - and Rose. Jenny asks "Has Rose come because she has instinct? Will she come next Saturday?"

Miss Brodie declares "I have the feeling Rose will do as she wishes. Rose is a creature of instinct who will one day be a great lover." Sandy looks up sharply at this comment, and Miss Brodie continues: "Do not look so surprised - she has the gift of supplying the needs of others."

Monday morning, outside the music room, Miss Gaunt hears Miss Brodie's class singing to piano accompaniment. She looks in - and is surprised to see that Miss Brodie is the one at the piano, while Mr. Lawson stands in front of the girls, conducting the singing. Mr. Lawson exhorts the girls: "Shoulders back! Look at Miss Brodie - take her for your study! A woman of noble mien!" Miss Brodie nods her acknowledgement to Mr. Lawson with a smile. On this the episode ends.