CHAPTER III
THE DANCE
I
A FORTNIGHT after Christmas a bomb, partly of apprehension, partly of delight, fell upon the Cole family—an invitation to a dance in the house of Mrs. Mulholland, of Cleek.
The invitation arrived at breakfast, and the children would in all probability have known nothing at all about it had it not been in an envelope addressed to “Miss Cole.” Helen, therefore, opened it, and, never having received anything like it before, thought at first that it was a grown-up invitation to a grown-up tea party. She was flattered by this, of course, but it was not until the word “dancing” caught her eye that she realized the true significance of the invitation.
MISS COLE
MISS MARY COLE
MASTER JEREMY COLE
MRS. JAMES MULHOLLAND
AT HOME,
JANUARY 10, 1895
DANCING, 6.30-10. THE MANOR HOUSE,
CLEEK.
“Dancing!” She adored it. At the High School she was recognized as the best dancer of all the younger girls. She was! She knew she was! She was adorable, fascinating, wonderful when she danced. She was! She knew she was!
She gave her mother the invitation and in a voice trembling with emotion said: “Oh, mother, may we go? May we?”
Mary and Jeremy, who saw that they also were concerned in this mysterious affair, stopped eating.
Mrs. Cole looked at the card. “Mrs. Mulholland! How good of her! And she really hardly knows us! We’ve only exchanged calls.”
“Mrs. Mulholland! That’s the woman out at Cleek,” said Aunt Amy, who always liked to feel that she was the real directress of the Cole family affairs. “Has she asked the children to a party?”
“Yes—to a dance on the tenth!”
“Well, of course they can’t go,” said Aunt Amy decisively. “Cleek’s much too far.”
Now it happened that on that particular morning Mr. Cole was feeling considerably irritated by his sister-in-law. He often felt like this and spent many half-hours in wondering why his sister-in-law and his brother-in-law—neither of them at all sympathetic to him—occupied his house. And then he remembered that his sister-in-law at least shared in the expenses of the family, and that without that share finances would be difficult.
But this morning even this thought did not overcome his dislike of his sister-in-law. He was ready to contradict anything that she said.
He looked over the top of his egg at his wife. “I don’t see why they shouldn’t go. We can have a cab from Poole’s.”
Aunt Amy, who, like Mrs. Norris, was very careful with other people’s money, burst out:
“But think, Herbert—all the expense of a cab! And it will have to wait to take them back again. And Poole’s charges go up and up. I’m sure the children will do very nicely at home.”
How gladly at that moment would Helen, Mary and Jeremy have put poison in Aunt Amy’s tea or stabbed her in the back with a bread-knife! However, little as they realized it, she was doing everything to help their cause.
Mr. Cole, looking at Aunt Amy very severely, said:
“Thank you, Amy, but that’s my affair. Poor as we are, we can still afford a cab. I think it will be good for the children to go. Mrs. Mulholland’s kindness must not be rejected.”
At that moment in came Uncle Samuel, late and unshaven as usual, and the conversation was not continued. The affair was settled by the kindness of a neighbour, Mrs. Carstairs, who, having been also invited to take her small boy, offered to share a cab and chaperon the Cole children.
No child of to-day can possibly conceive what it was to us children in the old days in Polchester to be invited to a dance. For the grown-ups in Polchester there were a great many balls—more, perhaps, than there are to-day—but for the children there was very little—some afternoon parties, perhaps one pantomime, little more.
To the Cole children an evening dance—a dance out of Polchester with a drive at both ends of it—was wonder beyond wonder. Life was instantly at the merest murmur of its name transformed into something exquisite, rainbow-coloured, fantastical.
Helen’s transports were all selfish. She was not a bad girl did you grant her her devastating egotism; she cared for her family, she was neither vindictive nor mean, not too greedy, and not too vain; but she drove towards her purpose with the cold, clean-cut assurance of a steel knife cutting paper—and that purpose was the aggrandisement and public splendour of Helen Cole.
Mary was the romantic one of the family, and this ball was as marvellous to her as were ever the coach and wand to Cinderella. Full of tremors, she nevertheless allowed her imagination full play. Soon Mrs. Mulholland, her house, her grounds, her family, her servants, were scattered with star-dust ablaze with diamonds, glittering with pearls and rubies. She sat for hours, motionless, picturing it.
Jeremy’s attitude was mixed. He was deeply excited, but hid his emotion from every one save Uncle Samuel, of whom in the strictest privacy he asked many searching questions. He had a habit just at this time, which was found irritating by his elders, of asking questions and himself answering them. As, for instance, “Will it be the same cab both ways? Yes.” “Will it be mostly girls that will be there? No.”
“If you know the answers to the questions, what do you ask them for?” said Uncle Samuel.
But he didn’t know the answers to his questions; it was a habit into which he had fallen. He would try and stop it. Uncle Samuel gave him his view of dances in general; it was a poor one. Jeremy, who was adoring his uncle just now, tried to feel superior.
“Uncle Samuel says dances are rotten,” he announced to Helen.
“Mother says you’re not to use that word,” said Helen.
Nevertheless in his heart he was excited—desperately.
II
The Day arrived—which for a whole week it had seemed that it would never have strength sufficient to do. All the afternoon they were being dressed. The young assistant of Mr. Consett, the hairdresser, came up to attend to Helen and Mary. This had never happened before. The dresses of Helen and Mary were alike, white silk, with pink ribbons. Helen looked lovely with her black hair, big black eyes and thick eyelashes, her slender white neck, tall slim body and lovely ankles. She was one upon whom fine clothes settled with a sigh of satisfaction, as though they knew that they were in luck. With Mary it was precisely the opposite; the plainer you dressed her the better. Fine clothes only accentuated her poor complexion, dusty hair and ill-shaped body. Yes, Helen looked lovely. Even Jeremy would have noticed it had he not been absorbed by his own clothing. For the first time in his life he was wearing a white waistcoat; he was, of course, uncomfortably clean. He hated the sticky feeling in his hair, the tightness of his black shoes, the creaking of his stiff white shirt—but these things must be. Had he only known it, his snub nose, his square, pugnacious face, and a certain sturdy soundness of his limbs gave him exactly the appearance of a Sealyham puppy—but Sealyhams were not popular thirty years ago. Hamlet smelt the unusual cleanliness of his master and was excited by it. He stuck closely to his heels, determining that if his master were going away again, this time he would not be left behind, but would go too. When, however, Poole’s cab really arrived, he was given no chance, being held, to his infinite disgust, in the bony arms of Aunt Amy.
All the grown ups were there to watch Jeremy go, and Mrs. Hounslow and Minnie the parlour-maid in the background. Mr. Cole was smiling and looking quite cheerful. He felt that this was all his doing.
“Now, children,” cried Aunt Amy, as though it were her family, her cab and her party, “mind you enjoy yourselves and tell Mrs. Carstairs that mother doesn’t want you to stay too late. …”
They were to pick up Mrs. Carstairs, who lived higher up the terrace, who was a nice rosy-faced woman, a widow with a small boy called Herbert. Because Herbert was their father’s name it had a solemn, grown-up air to the children, and they felt the contrast to be very funny indeed when a small, pale-faced mouse of a boy was piloted into the cab. He was so deeply smothered in shawls and comforters that there was little to be seen but a sharply peaked nose. He was, it seemed, a serious-minded child. Soon after getting into the cab he remarked: “I do hope that we all enjoy ourselves this evening, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Carstairs, although she was stout and jolly, was so nervous about the health of her only child that she made all the children nervous too.
“You aren’t feeling cold, Bertie darling, are you? … You haven’t got a headache, have you? Lean against mother, darling, if you’re tired. Are you tired?”
To all of which Herbert answered very solemnly:
“I am not, mother.”
He was, however, it seemed, a child with a considerable sense of humour, because he suddenly pinched Jeremy in the fatty part of his thigh, and then looked at him very severely as though challenging him to say anything about it, and it suddenly occurred to Jeremy that you had a great advantage if you looked old and solemn, because no one would ever believe anything wicked of you.
His thoughts, however, of young Herbert were soon lost in the excitement of the adventure of the cab. Nothing that he had ever known was more wonderful than this, the rolling through the lighted town, the background so dark like the inside of a box, the tearing through the market-place now so silent and mysterious, down through North Street, over the Pol bridge, and so out into the country. The silence of the high road, rhythmed by the clamp-clamp of the horse’s hoofs, the mysterious gleam of white patches as the road was illumined by the light from the carriage lamps, the heavy thick-set hedges, watching as though they were an army of soldiers drawn up in solemn order to let the carriage pass through, the smell of the night mingled with the smell of the cab, the rattle of the ill-fitting windows, the excited, half-strangled breathing of Mary—all these together produced in Jeremy’s breast a feeling of exaltation, pride and adventure that was never to be forgotten.
They were all packed very closely together and bounced about like marionettes without self-control.
Jeremy said in a voice hoarse with bumping and excitement: “Shall I put my gloves on yet?” He had never had white gloves before.
Mrs. Carstairs said: “You might try them on, dear, and see. Be careful not to split them”—which, of course, he immediately did; not a very bad split and between the thumb and finger of the left hand, so that perhaps it would not be seen.
While with some concern he was considering this, they drove through park gates and along a wide drive. To Jeremy’s excited fancy silver birds seemed to fly past the windows and sheets of stars bend down and flash to the ground and rise swinging up to heaven again. They passed a stretch of water on their right, dark like a blind mirror, but with a crack of light that crossed it and then faded into splashing gold where the lamps and shining windows of the house reflected in it. They were there; other carriages also; children like ghosts passing up the stone steps, the great house so strangely indifferent.
He saw as he got out of the carriage dark spaces beyond the splash of light where the garden was hidden, cold and reserved and apart. It was like him to notice that, the only child that evening who saw.
Inside the house there was a sudden noise of laughter and voices and people moving, and two large footmen with white powdered hair waiting to take your coats. Without his coat, waiting for a moment alone, he felt shivery and shy and very conscious of his white waistcoat. Then he saw young Ernest, son of the Dean of Polchester, and Bill Bartlett and the Misses Bartlett, children of one of the canons, and Tommy Winchester, son of the precentor. He winked at Tommy, who was a fat, round boy with a face like an apple, but pretended not to see when Ernest caught his eye, because he hated Ernest, and having fought him once nearly two years ago, hoped very much to have the pleasure of fighting him again soon and licking him. He advanced into the big, shining, dazzling room, behind his two sisters, as on to a field of battle.
“The Misses Cole and Master Cole,” shouted a large stout man with a face like an oyster; and then Jeremy found himself shaking hands with a beautiful lady, all white hair, black silk and diamonds, and an old gentleman with an eyeglass; and then, before he knew it, he was standing against the wall with Mary and Helen surveying the scene.
As he watched, a sudden desperate depression fell upon him. It was all like a painted picture that he was outside; he was an outcast and Mary was an outcast and Helen. They had arrived at an interval between the dances, and the gleaming floor was like a great lake stretching from golden shore to golden shore. From the ceiling hung great clusters of light, throwing down splashes like dim islands, and every once and again some one would cross the floor very carefully, seeming to struggle to reach the islands, to pause there for a moment as though for safety. …
Against the wall, right round the ballroom, figures were ranged, some like Chinese idols, silent and motionless, others animated and excited. Voices rose like the noise of wind or rain.
Every one, even the Chinese idols, seemed to be at home and at their ease; only Jeremy and his sisters were cared for by no one. Then suddenly a stout, smiling woman appeared as though out of the floor, and behind her a very frightened boy. She spoke to Helen.
“You’re Helen Cole, are you not? Well, dear, here’s Harry Preston wants you to have a dance with him.” Then, turning to Mary: “Are you dancing the next, dear? No? We must alter that. Here’s Willie Richmond—Willie,” catching hold of a long and gawky boy, “you’re not dancing the next, are you? I’m sure Miss Cole will be delighted,”—then departed like a train that has picked up its passengers and is hurrying on to its next station.
The small boy gazed distressfully at Helen, but she was quite equal to him, smiling with that sweet smile that was kept entirely for strangers or important visitors and saying:
“What is it? Oh, a polka. … That will be lovely. I do like polkas, don’t you?”
At that moment the band struck up, and in another instant the floor was covered with figures. The tall, gawky boy dragged off Mary, who had said not a word, but stared at him with distressed eyes through her spectacles.
Helen took absolute charge of her partner, moving away with such grace and elegance that Jeremy was suddenly proud of her and seemed to see her as she really was for the first time in his life.
Then he realized that he was alone, absolutely alone, stuck against the wall, a silly gawk, for all the world to look at and despise.
III
He set his chin, squared his shoulders, and tried to look as though he were there by preference. No one now paid any attention to him; the music swung on, and although he had never danced in his life, his toes kept time inside his shoes. He gazed haughtily around him, stared at the dancers as they passed him, and was miserable.
Then the stout lady who had carried off Mary and Helen suddenly appeared again and said:
“What! Not dancing? You’re Jeremy Cole, aren’t you? Come along. I’ll find you a partner.”
He was led away and precipitated at the feet of a very stout lady who stared at him in a frozen way and a frightened little girl. He had a programme in his hand and was going to ask her for some future polka, when the mountainous lady said in a deep bass voice:
“You’d better take her now. She’s been waiting long enough,” staring at the genial introducer as she spoke.
Jeremy led away his victim. He was acutely miserable, but the agony of stumbling, bumping and incoherent whirling did not last long because the band suddenly stopped, and before he knew it he was sitting on the steps of a staircase with his partner and staring at her.
She said not a word; then he saw that she was terrified and pity held him.
“Do you like dances?” he asked hoarsely.
“I’ve never been to one before,” she answered in a convulsive whisper, looking as though she were about to cry.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Five, Pemberton Terrace, Polchester,” she answered breathlessly.
“Was that your mother?”
“No. Auntie.”
“How many aunts have you?”
“Five.”
“What a lot! I’ve only one, and it’s quite enough. How many uncles have you?”
“I haven’t got an uncle.”
“I have—a splendid one. Do any of your aunts paint?”
“Auntie Maude does.”
“What does she paint?”
“I don’t know.”
He felt this conversation so stupid that he looked at her in disgust. What was it about girls? Why was there something the matter with all of them? If this was what dances were, he didn’t want any more of them. And it was just then, at that most distressing moment, that the wonderful, the never-to-be-forgotten event occurred. Some one was coming down from the stairs above them and wanted to pass them.
A voice said softly: “Do you mind? Thank you so much.”
Jeremy rose and then looked up. He was staring at the most beautiful lady he had ever conceived of—indeed, far more than he had ever conceived of, because his dreams had not hitherto been of beautiful ladies. He had never thought of them at all. She was very tall and slender, dressed in white; she had black hair and a jewel blazing in the front of it. But more than everything was her smile, the jolliest, merriest, twinkliest smile he had ever seen. He could only smile too, standing against the banister to let her pass. Perhaps there was something in his snub nose, and the way his mouth curled at the corners that struck her. She stopped.
“Enjoying yourself?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, staring at her with all his soul.
“Well, come on,” she said. “There’s the music beginning again.”
That appeal may have been made to the general stair-covered company, but he felt that it was to him.
“Come on,” he said to his partner. At the door of the ballroom he found, to his relief, the massive aunt. “Thank you so much for the delightful dance,” he said, bowing as he had seen others do; then he bolted.
Heaven was on his side because just inside the room, and standing for a moment alone, gazing happily about her, was the lovely lady. Could he? Did he dare? His heart was beating in his breast. His knees trembled. He felt as he did when he was summoned to old Thompson’s study. But the fear lest she should move away or some one should come and speak to her, drove him forward. He was at her side.
“I say,” he muttered huskily, “is anybody dancing with you just now?”
She swung round and looked down at him.
“Hallo!” she said. “It’s you!”
“Yes,” he answered, still choking. “I would like to dance with you.”
“Well, you shall,” she said, and suddenly picked him up and whisked him round. What happened after that he never knew. Once, years before, he had escaped from home, gone to the Polchester Fair and ridden on the merry-go-round, ridden on a wonderful coal-black horse all alone under the stars. Something like that earlier experience was this exquisite happiness, delicious movement in which the golden walls, the blazing lights, the glittering, shining floor had their parts. His feet kept no time, they seemed scarcely to touch the floor, but as the music dipped and swung, so he also, floating like a bird, falling like the dying strain of a song, rising like the flight of a star. Suddenly it ceased; he came to earth, breathless, hot and most wonderfully happy. She led him away, holding his hand, to a corner where there was a palm and a little tinkling fountain; they seemed to be quite by themselves.
“Was that all right?” she asked, laughing and fanning herself with a great fan of white feathers.
He could not speak; he gulped and nodded.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He told her.
She smiled. “Jeremy. That’s a pretty name.” He blushed with pleasure. “Do you go to school yet? I expect you’re good at football.”
How wonderful of her to know that, to ask about the one game that was near his heart. He told her eagerly about it, how he had played half-back twice for the school and had been kicked in the eye and hadn’t cared, and how next year he hoped to be the regular half-back because Trefusis, who had been half for three years, was going to Eton, and he was very young to be half; he’d only be eleven then—and if he stayed on until he was thirteen
I’m afraid that he boasted a little.
“Have you got any brothers and sisters?” she asked him.
He told her all about Mary and Helen, and his mother and father and Aunt Amy and Uncle Samuel—especially about Uncle Samuel. And while he talked he stared and stared and stared, never taking his eyes from her face for a single moment. She was laughing all the time and suddenly she said:
“Shall I tell you something, Jeremy?”
He nodded his head.
“This is the very happiest day of my life. I’m so happy that it’s all I can do not to sing.”
“I’m very happy too,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d like dances till you came, but now they’re splendid.”
The cruel music suddenly began, and there, standing in front of them, was a tall, dark man, very fine and straight. The lady rose.
“This is Jeremy,” she said. “And this is Major”
Jeremy didn’t catch the name. He would wish to hate him for taking her away had he not looked so fine, just, in short, what Jeremy would like to look when he grew up.
“I tell you what,” the lady said, turning round. “Jeremy, you shall take me down to supper. Yes, he shall, Michael. After all, it’s their evening, not ours. Four dances from this. That’s right. Number eleven. Got it? Good-bye.”
She was gone, and Jeremy was staring around him as though in a dream.
IV
Four dances from now! What should he do meanwhile? To dance with anyone else would be desecration. Suddenly Tommy Winchester appeared.
“I say,” he wheezed in his funny voice like a miniature organ-blower’s. “Have you been down to supper yet? I’ve been down four times. You should see the ices they’ve got.”
Ices after the experience he’d been having! Nevertheless he was interested.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“Down there,” said Tommy, pointing to some stairs. “That’s the back stairs, and you can go down as often as you please and nobody sees.”
At that moment there came round the corner the supercilious figure of the Dean’s Ernest. He was very elegant, more elegant—as Jeremy was forced to confess—than himself would ever be.
“Hallo, you fellows,” said Ernest. He was twelve, and was going next year to Rugby. It was irritating the way that he was always a year ahead of Jeremy in everything. “I call it pretty rotten,” he said, smoothing his gloves. “The band’s not first class and the floor’s awful.”
“Well, I think it’s splendid,” said Jeremy.
“Oh, do you?” said Ernest scornfully. “You would! Ever been to a dance before?”
“Yes, lots,” said Jeremy, and it is to be hoped that Heaven will forgive him that lie.
“Well, it’s my belief that it’s his first,” said Ernest confidentially to Tommy. “What a kid like that’s doing away from his nurse I can’t think.” Nevertheless he moved away, because Jeremy had grown remarkably thick and sturdy during the last year, and had already in Polchester a pugnacious reputation.
“I say,” said Tommy, who seemed to have been long ago forced by his appearance of good-natured chubbiness into the rôle of perpetual peacemaker, “you can get to the supper down there,” pointing to the stairs. “You should see the ices they’ve got. I’ve been four times.”
“Have they?” said the Dean’s Ernest, his sallow countenance freshening. “Can you get down that way?”
“You bet!” said Tommy.
“Come on, then.” They disappeared.
Jeremy was rather distressed by this encounter. Ernest had had the last word. He wished that he had been able to say “Sucks to you!” which, in addition to being the cry of the moment, was applicable to almost every occasion. Never mind. The opportunity would undoubtedly return. Such an episode should not cloud his happiness.
He seemed to be moving, clouded by the great white fan that she had used. That hid him from the rest of the world. He did indeed dance with Helen (and would have danced with Mary could he have found her); he danced also with a little girl with spots; but in these dances he was blinded and stunned with the light from Juno’s eyes. It was an utterly new experience to him. He could compare it with nothing at all save the day when Stevens, the football captain, had said he “had stood it well over his eye,” and once when he had gone to have a tooth out and the dentist hadn’t taken it after all. And this again was different from those. It was like hot coffee and summer lightning and chestnuts bursting as they fell from the autumn trees; not that he made those comparisons consciously, of course.
Most of all it was like a dream, the most wonderful of all his nights. The third dance was over. He must go and find her.
V
He stepped along the floor, looking about him from side to side; he thought he saw her, started forward, and felt some one touch him on the arm. He turned round. Mary was at his shoulder.
“Hallo!” he said. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Oh, Jeremy, do wait a moment.” She looked at him piteously.
“Well, what is it?”
“Come out here for a moment. Please do.”
He did not want to hurt her, but this pause was an agony to him.
“What is it?” he asked crossly when they were in the hall outside the ballroom.
“Oh, Jeremy, it’s all so horrid. Do dance with me. One little boy danced with me and then his mother tried to make him dance again and he wouldn’t, and I’m sure it wasn’t my fault, because I danced much better than he did. And then Herbert said he could dance and he couldn’t, and we fell down and he didn’t seem to mind at all; but I minded because every one laughed and I tore my dress. And there hasn’t been anybody to dance with for ever so long, and Helen’s been dancing all the time. … Oh, Jeremy, do dance with me! I do love dancing so, and you haven’t danced with me all the evening.”
It was true that he had not, but oh! how he wished her at the other end of England at that moment! She looked so foolish with her hair all over the place and her dress untidy, her sash pulled round the wrong way and her stockings wrinkled. And every moment was precious. She would be looking for him, wondering where he was, thinking him mean thus to break his promise when she had given him so especial a favour.
At that thought he started away.
“No, no, Mary. Later on we’ll have a dance, two if you like. But not now. I can’t, really.”
But Mary was desperate.
“Oh, Jeremy, you must! I can’t sit there any more and be looked at by every one. Oh, please, Jeremy. I’ll give you my mother-of-pearl box, if you will.”
“I don’t want your old box,” he said gruffly. He looked at her, looked away, looked back at her, said:
“All right, then. Come on.”
His heart was like lead. The evening was ruined for him, and not only the evening, but perhaps his whole life. And yet what was he to do? Mary would cry if he left her. She had had a miserable evening. Something in him was touched, as it always was, by her confident belief that he, and he alone in all the world, could always put things right. It was just his cursed luck! His evening was ruined; he hoped that after this they would go home.
They had what seemed to him the most miserable of dances, but he could see that Mary was what Uncle Samuel called “seventh heavened.” She bounced about, stamping her heels on Jeremy’s toes, bumping into him, suddenly pushing back her wild hair from her frenzied face, giving little snorts of pleasure, humping her shoulders, tossing her head. Round and round they went, dancing what they imagined to be a polka, Jeremy with his face grimly set, agonized disappointment in his heart. When it was over they sat out on the stairs and Mary panted her thanks.
“That was—lovely, Jeremy—we do dance—well together—don’t we? That was the nicest—I’ve ever had—I do hope—we’ll have another.”
“I expect it’s awfully late,” said Jeremy gloomily. “We’ll be going home soon.”
Soon the music began again and at the bottom of the stairs, to Jeremy’s immense relief, they met Mrs. Carstairs with the serious-faced Herbert.
“That’s right, Mary, dear,” Mrs. Carstairs said. “I’ve been looking for you. It’s time we went down to supper. Herbert shall take us down. Have you had supper, Jeremy?”
He muttered some excuse and was off. With beating heart he searched the crowds. Nowhere. Nowhere. He searched the fast-emptying ballroom, then the hall; then, with tears in his eyes and a choked, strangling in his throat, was turning back, when he caught sight of the diamond star high above the other heads, and the lovely soft black hair and the jolly smile.
“Traitor!” she said. “You forgot, after all.”
“No, I didn’t forget. It was my sister.”
But there was no time for explanation.
“Did you go with some one else to supper?”
“Yes; I’ve had supper.”
“Oh!” He half turned away. A tear was near its fall. “I suppose you couldn’t”
“Yes, I could.” She twirled him round. “I can have any number of suppers. I can have supper all day and supper all night. Come along. You shall take me down in style. I put my arm through yours like that—see? No, the right. Now we lead the way. Who’s coming down to supper?”
His pride and his happiness! Who shall describe them? His back was so straight as they walked down the stairs that he almost fell backwards. The supper-room was a clatter of noise, but he was not so proud but that he was suddenly hungry—wildly, savagely hungry. She piled his plate with things, watching him, laughing at him.
“Nobody’s cut the cake yet,” she cried. “You shall cut it, Jeremy!”
An old stout servant with white hair, who had been watching her with smiling eyes, brought a huge castle, with towers and battlements and flags, and placed it in front of her. She made Jeremy stand on his chair. She gave him a great knife and showed him where to cut. Every one at the other tables stopped eating and turned round to see. Then they shouted and clapped.
“One, two, three!” he cried, and cut into the cake.
Then they all cheered.
“Bravo,” she said. “You did that very well. Now Janet will cut the rest. You must have a piece and I must have a piece. Perhaps one of us will get the ring or the thimble.”
And, miracle of miracles, he got the ring, the silver ring! She put it on his finger herself. He flushed, his lip trembled. He felt that he wanted everything to end just then, at that moment—for nothing more ever to happen again.
When he had had three ices, one after the other, she decided that supper was over. They walked out of the room as they had walked into it, in stately fashion, her arm through his.
Then at the top of the stairs there was Mrs. Carstairs.
“Come, Jeremy dear,” she said. “It’s time to go home. The carriage is there.”
He saw that the tall major was also there.
“Hullo, young ’un,” he said. “Had a good supper?”
He nodded his head. But he had eyes only for her.
“I’m glad I got that ring,” he whispered, “because you put it on my finger. And I’ll never take it off till I die.”
“Not even when you wash?” she asked, laughing.
“I won’t wash that finger,” he said.
The major put his hand on his shoulder.
“Here, I’ve got a secret for you. Shut your eyes.” Jeremy shut them. The major’s hands were at his white waistcoat pocket. “Now don’t you look till you’re on your way home. And I’ll tell you something. You’ve shown excellent taste to-night. You couldn’t have shown better if you were a hundred.”
She bent down and kissed him.
“Good night,” she said. “Will you write and tell me about the football?”
“You bet your life,” he answered, staring at her. That was the favourite oath just then at Thompson’s.
She laughed again. Then, bending down, whispered in his ear dramatically: “If I’m ever in trouble and need you, will you come, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face.
She kissed him again.
VI
They were all in the cab rolling homewards. He felt in his pocket; something there in paper. He could tell by the feel of it that it was a sovereign or a shilling. Cautiously he lifted it to the light of the lodge gates.
It was Gold.
He sighed with satisfaction—but the real thing was the silver ring. He sat there, making calculations.
“Mrs. Carstairs,” he said suddenly, “if I have threepence a week for eight years, and save it all, could I have enough to be married?”
There was no answer. She was apparently sleeping—so he added sotto voce:
“And perhaps father will give me sixpence a week after I’m fifteen.”