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TITLE: JEREMY
AUTHOR: HUGH WALPOLE
EBOOK: E02755 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

JEREMY
BY
HUGH WALPOLE

TO
BRUCE
FROM
HIS LOVING UNCLE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
   I  THE BIRTHDAY

  II  THE FAMILY DOG

 III  CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME

  IV  MISS JONES

   V  THE SEA-CAPTAIN

  VI  FAMILY PRIDE

 VII  RELIGION

VIII  TO COW FARM

  IX  THE AWAKENING OF CHARLOTTE

   X  MARY

  XI  THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

 XII  HAMLET WAITS

"It is due to him to say that he was
an obedient boy and a boy whose word
could be depended on . . ."

Jackanapes

CHAPTER I

THE BIRTHDAY

I

About thirty years ago there was at the top of the right-hand side
of Orange Street, in Polchester, a large stone house. I say "was";
the shell of it is still there, and the people who now live in it
are quite unaware, I suppose, that anything has happened to the
inside of it, except that they are certainly assured that their
furniture is vastly superior to the furniture of their predecessors.
They have a gramophone, a pianola, and a lift to bring the plates
from the kitchen into the dining-room, and a small motor garage at
the back where the old pump used to be, and a very modern rock
garden where once was the pond with the fountain that never worked.
Let them cherish their satisfaction. No one grudges it to them. The
Coles were, by modern standards, old-fashioned people, and the Stone
House was an old-fashioned house.

Young Jeremy Cole was born there in the year 1884, very early in the
morning of December 8th. He was still there very early in the
morning of December 8th, 1892. He was sitting up in bed. The cuckoo
clock had just struck five, and he was aware that he was, at this
very moment, for the first time in his life, eight years old. He had
gone to bed at eight o'clock on the preceding evening with the
choking consciousness that he would awake in the morning a different
creature. Although he had slept, there had permeated the texture of
his dreams that same choking excitement, and now, wide awake, as
though he had asked the cuckoo to call him in order that he might
not be late for the great occasion, he stared into the black
distance of his bedroom and reflected, with a beating heart, upon
the great event. He was eight years old, and he had as much right
now to the nursery arm-chair with a hole in it as Helen had.

That was his first definite realisation of approaching triumph.
Throughout the whole of his seventh year he had fought with Helen,
who was most unjustly a year older than he and persistently proud of
that injustice, as to his right to use the wicker arm-chair
whensoever it pleased him. So destructive of the general peace of
the house had these incessant battles been, so unavailing the
suggestions of elderly relations that gentlemen always yielded to
ladies, that a compromise had been arrived at. When Jeremy was eight
he should have equal rights with Helen. Well and good. Jeremy had
yielded to that. It was the only decent chair in the nursery. Into
the place where the wicker, yielding to rude and impulsive pressure,
had fallen away, one's body might be most happily fitted. It was of
exactly the right height; it made the handsomest creaking noises
when one rocked in it--and, in any case, Helen was only a girl.

But the sense of his triumph had not yet fully descended upon him.
As he sat up in bed, yawning, with a tickle in the middle of his
back and his throat very dry; he was disappointingly aware that he
was still the same Jeremy of yesterday. He did not know what it was
exactly that he had expected, but he did not feel at present that
confident proud glory for which he had been prepared. Perhaps it was
too early.

He turned round, curled his head into his arm, and with a half-
muttered, half-dreamt statement about the wicker chair, he was once
again asleep.

II

He awoke to the customary sound of the bath water running into the
bath. His room was flooded with sunshine, and old Jampot, the nurse
(her name was Mrs. Preston and her shape was Jampot), was saying as
usual: "Now, Master Jeremy, eight o'clock; no lying in bed--out--you
get--bath--ready."

He stared at her, blinking.

"You should say 'Many Happy Returns of the Day, Master Jeremy,'" he
remarked. Then suddenly, with a leap, he was out of bed, had crossed
the floor, pushed back the nursery door, and was sitting in the
wicker arm-chair, his naked feet kicking a triumphant dance.

"Helen! Helen!" he called. "I'm in the chair."

No sound.

"I'm eight," he shouted, "and I'm in the chair."

Mrs. Preston, breathless and exclaiming, hurried across to him.

"Oh, you naughty boy . . . death of cold . . . in your nightshirt."

"I'm eight," he said, looking at her scornfully, "and I can sit here
as long as I please."

Helen, her pigtails flapping on either shoulder, her nose red, as it
always was early in the morning, appeared at the opposite end of the
nursery.

"Nurse, he mustn't, must he? Tell him not to. I don't care how old
you are. It's my chair. Mother said--"

"No, she didn't. Mother said--"

"Yes, she did. Mother said--"

"Mother said that when--"

"Oh, you story. You know that Mother said--" Then suddenly a new,
stiffening, trusting dignity filled him, as though he had with a
turn of the head discovered himself in golden armour.

He was above this vulgar wrangling now. That was for girls. He was
superior to them all. He got down from the chair and stood, his head
up, on the old Turkey rug (red with yellow cockatoos) in front of
the roaring fire.

"You may have your old chair," he said to Helen. "I'm eight now, and
I don't want it any more . . . although if I do want it I shall have
it," he added.

He was a small, square boy with a pug-nosed face. His hair was light
brown, thin and stiff, so that it was difficult to brush, and
although you watered it, stood up in unexpected places and stared at
you. His eyes were good, dark brown and large, but he was in no way
handsome; his neck, his nose ridiculous. His mouth was too large,
and his chin stuck out like a hammer.

He was, plainly, obstinate and possibly sulky, although when he
smiled his whole face was lighted with humour. Helen was the only
beautiful Cole child, and she was abundantly aware of that fact. The
Coles had never been a good-looking family.

He stood in front of the fireplace now as he had seen his father do,
his short legs apart, his head up, and his hands behind his back.

"Now, Master Jeremy," the Jampot continued, "you may be eight years
old, but it isn't a reason for disobedience the very first minute,
and, of course, your bath is ready and you catching your death with
naked feet, which you've always been told to put your slippers on
and not to keep the bath waiting, when there's Miss Helen and Miss
Mary, as you very well know, and breakfast coming in five minutes,
which there's sausages this morning, because it's your birthday, and
them all getting cold--"

"Sausages!"

He was across the floor in a moment, had thrown off his nightshirt
and was in his bath. Sausages! He was translated into a world of
excitement and splendour. They had sausages so seldom, not always
even on birthdays, and to-day, on a cold morning, with a crackling
fire and marmalade, perhaps--and then all the presents.

Oh, he was happy. As he rubbed his back with the towel a wonderful
glowing Christian charity spread from his head to his toes and
tingled through every inch of him. Helen should sit in the chair
when she pleased; Mary should be allowed to dress and undress the
large woollen dog, known as "Sulks," his own especial and beloved
property, so often as she wished; Jampot should poke the twisted end
of the towel in his ears and brush his hair with the hard brushes,

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