But he was miserable.Hamlet came up from the nether regions where he had spent the night,showing his teeth,wagging his tail,and even rolling on the cockatoos.Jeremy paid no attention.The weight in his heart grew heavier and heavier.He watched,from under his eyelids,the Jampot.In a moment she must go into Helen's room.But she did not.She stayed for a little arranging the things on the breakfast-table--then suddenly,without a word,she turned into Jeremy's bedchamber.His heart began to hammer.There was an awful pause;he heard from miles away Mary's voice:"Do do that button,Helen,I can't get it!"and Helen's "Oh,bother!"Then,like Judgment,the Jampot appeared again.She stood in the doorway,looking across at him.
"You 'ave not cleaned your teeth,Master Jeremy,"she said."The glass isn't touched,nor your toothbrush.You wicked,wicked boy.So it's a liar you've become,added on to all your other wickedness.""I forgot,"he muttered sullenly."I thought I had."She smiled the smile of approaching triumph.
"No,you did not,"she said."You knew you'd told a lie.It was in your face.All of a piece--all of a piece."The way she said this,like a pirate counting over his captured treasure,was enraging.Jeremy could feel the wild fury at himself,at her,at the stupid blunder of the whole business rising to his throat.
"If you think I'm going to let this pass you're making a mighty mistake,"she continued,"which I wouldn't do not if you paid me all the gold in the kingdom.I mayn't be good enough to keep my place and look after such as you,but anyways I'm able to stop your lying for another week or two.I know my duty even though there's them as thinks I don't."She positively snorted,and the excitement of her own vindication and the just condemnation of Jeremy was such that her hands trembled.
"I don't care what you do,"Jeremy shouted."You can tell anyone you like.I don't care what you do.You're a beastly woman."She turned upon him,her face purple."That's enough,Master Jeremy,"she said,her voice low and trembling."I'm not here to be called names by such as you.You'll be sorry for this before you're much older.You see."There was then an awful and sickly pause.Jeremy seemed to himself to be sinking lower and lower into a damp clammy depth of degradation.What must this world be that it could change itself so instantly from a place of gay and happy pleasure into a dim groping room of punishment and dismay?
His feelings were utterly confused.He supposed that he was terribly wicked.But he did not feel wicked.He only felt miserable,sick and defiant.Mary and Helen came in,their eyes open to a crisis,their bodies tuned sympathetically to the atmosphere of sin and crime that they discerned around them.
Then Mr.Cole came in as was his daily habit--for a moment before his breakfast.
"Well,here are you all,"he cried."Ready for to-night?No breakfast yet?Why,now ."Then perceiving,as all practised fathers instantly must,that the atmosphere was sinful,he changed his voice to that of the Children's Sunday Afternoon Service--a voice well known in his family.
"Please,sir,"began the Jampot,"I'm sorry to 'ave to tell you,sir,that Master Jeremy's not been at all good this morning.""Well,Jeremy,"he said,turning to his son,"what is it?"Jeremy's face,raised to his father's,was hard and set and sullen.
"I've told a lie,"he said;"I said I'd cleaned my teeth when Ihadn't.Nurse went and looked,and then I called her a beastly woman."The Jampot's face expressed a grieved and at the same time triumphant confirmation of this.
"You told a lie?"Mr.Cole's voice was full of a lingering sorrow.
"Yes,"said Jeremy.
"Are you sorry?"
"I'm sorry that I told a lie,but I'm not sorry I called Nurse a beastly woman.""Jeremy!"
"No,I'm not.She is a beastly woman."
Mr.Cole was always at a loss when anyone defied him,even though it were only a small boy of eight.He took refuge now in his ecclesiastical and parental authority.
"I'm very distressed--very distressed indeed.I hope that punishment,Jeremy,will show you how wrong you have been.I'm afraid you cannot come with us to the Pantomime to-night."At that judgement a quiver for an instant held Jeremy's face,turning it,for that moment,into something shapeless and old.His heart had given a wild leap of terror and dismay.But he showed no further sign.He simply stood there waiting.
Mr.Cole was baffled,as he always was by Jeremy's moods,so he continued:
"And until you've apologised to Nurse for your rudeness you must remain by yourself.I shall forbid your sisters to speak to you.
Mary and Helen,you are not to speak to your brother until he has apologised to Nurse.""Yes,Father,"said Helen "Oh,Father,mayn't he come to-night?"said Mary.
"No,Mary,I'm afraid not."
A tear rolled down her cheek."It won't be any fun without Jeremy,"she said.She wished to make the further sacrifice of saying that she would not go unless Jeremy did,but some natural caution restrained her.
Mr.Cole,his face heavy with sorrow,departed.At the dumb misery of Jeremy's face the Jampot's hear--in reality a kind and even sentimental heart--repented her.
"There,Master Jeremy,you be a good boy all day,and I dare say your father will take you,after all;and we won't think no more about what you said to me in the 'eat of the moment."But Jeremy answered nothing;nor did he respond to the smell of bacon,nor the advances of Hamlet,nor the flood of sunlight that poured into the room from the frosty world outside.
A complete catastrophe.They none of them had wanted to see this thing with the urgent excitement that he had felt.They had not dreamt of it for days and nights and nights and days,as he had done.Their whole future existence did not depend upon their witnessing this,as did his.