"We can try,"said Jeremy."I heard Aunt Amy say the other day that she didn't think it was right for children to see acting,and Mother always does the opposite to what Aunt Amy says,so p'r'aps it will be all right.I wish Hamlet could go,"he added.
"Don't be silly!"said Helen.
"It isn't silly,"Jeremy said indignantly."It's all about a cat,anyway,and he'd love to see all the rats and things.He wouldn't bark if we told him not to,and I held his collar.""If Aunt Amy sat next him he would,"said Mary.
"Oh,bother Aunt Amy,"said Jeremy.
After this Helen needed a great deal of urging;but she heard that Lucy and Angela,the aforesaid daughters of the Dean,were going,and the spirit of rivalry drove her forward.
It happened that the Dean himself one day said something to Mr.Cole about "supporting a very praiseworthy effort.They are presenting,Iunderstand,the proceeds of the first performance to the Cathedral Orphanage."Helen was surprised at the readiness with which her request was granted.
"We'll all go,"said Mr.Cole,in his genial,pastoral fashion.
"Good for us .good for us .to see the little ones laugh .good for us all."
Only Uncle Samuel said "that nothing would induce him--"
II
I pass swiftly over Christmas Eve,Christmas Day,and the day after,although I should like to linger upon these sumptuous dates.Jeremy had a sumptuous time;Hamlet had a sumptuous time (a whole sugar rat,plates and plates of bones,and a shoe of Aunt Amy's);Mary and Helen had sumptuous times in their own feminine fashion.
Upon the evening of Christmas Eve,when the earth was snow-lit,and the street-lamps sparkled with crystals,and the rime on the doorsteps crackled beneath one's feet,Jeremy accompanied his mother on a present-leaving expedition.The excitement of that!The wonderful shapes and sizes of the parcels,the mysterious streets,the door-handles and the door-bells,the glittering stars,the maidservants,the sense of the lighted house,as though vou opened a box full of excitements and then hurriedly shut the lid down again.
Jeremy trembled and shook,not with cold,but with exalting,completely satisfying happiness.
There followed the Stocking,the Waits,the Carols,the Turkey,the Christmas Cake,the Tree,the Presents,Snapdragon,Bed.There followed Headache,Ill-temper,Smacking of Mary,Afternoon Walk,Good Temper again,Complete Weariness,Hamlet sick on the Golden Cockatoos,Hamlet Beaten,Five minutes with Mother downstairs,Bed.
Christmas was over.
From that moment of the passing of Boxing Day it was simply the counting of the minutes to "Dick Whittington."Six days from Boxing Day.Say you slept from eight to seven--eleven hours;that left thirteen hours;six thirteen hours was,so Helen said,seventy-eight.Seventy-eight hours,and Sunday twice as long as the other days,and that made thirteen more;ninety-one,said Helen,her nose in the air.
The week dragged along,very difficult work for everybody,and even Hamlet felt the excitement and watched his corner with the Jampot's sewing machine in it with more quivering intensity than ever.The Day Before The Day arrived,the evening before The Day,the last supper before The Day,the last bed before The Day.Suddenly,like a Jack-in-the-Box,The Day itself.
Then the awful thing happened.
Jeremy awoke to the consciousness that something terrific was about to occur.He lay for a minute thinking--then he was up,running about the nursery floor as though he were a young man in Mr.Rossetti's poetry shouting:"Helen!Mary!Mary!Helen!It's Dick Whittington!Dick Whittington!"On such occasions he lost entirely his natural reserve and caution.
He dressed with immense speed,as though that would hasten the coming of the evening.He ran into the nursery,carrying the black tie that went under his sailor-collar.
He held it out to the Jampot,who eyed him with disfavour.She was leaving them all in a week and was a strange confusion of sentiment and bad temper,love and hatred,wounded pride and injured dignity.
"Nurse.Please.Fasten it,"he said impatiently.
"And that's not the way to speak,Master Jeremy,and well you know it,"she said."'Ave you cleaned your teeth?""Yes,"he answered without hesitation.It was not until the word was spoken that he realised that he had not.He flushed.The Jampot eyed him with a sudden sharp suspicion.He was then and ever afterwards a very bad hand at a lie.
He would have taken the word back,he wanted to take it back--but something held him as though a stronger than he had placed his hand over his mouth.His face flamed.
"You've truly cleaned them?"she said.
"Yes,truly,"he answered,his eyes on the ground.Never was there a more obvious liar in all the world.
She said no more;he moved to the fireplace.His joy was gone.There was a cold clammy sensation about his heart.Slowly,very slowly,the consciousness stole upon him that he was a liar.He had not thought it a lie when he had first spoken,now he knew.
Still there was time.Had he turned round and spoken,all might still have been well.But now obstinacy held him.He was not going to give the Jampot an opportunity for triumphing over him.After all,he would clean them so soon as she went to brush Helen's hair.
In a moment what he had said would be true.