Jeremy | Page 7

alluded to her as "the
ludicrous Cole child," they told awed little stories about the infant's
mental capacities, and concluded comfortably, "I'm glad Alice (or Jane
or Matilda or Anabel) isn't clever like that. They overwork when they
are young, and then when they grow up--"
Meanwhile Mary led her private life. She attached herself to no one but
Jeremy; she was delicate and suffered from perpetual colds; she
therefore spent much of her time in the nursery reading, her huge
spectacles close to the page, her thin legs like black sticks stuck up on
the fender in front of the fire or curled up under her on the
window-seat.
Very different was Helen. Helen had a mass of dark black hair, big
black eyes with thick eye-lashes, a thin white neck, little feet, and
already an eye to "effects" in dress. She was charming to strangers, to
the queer curates who haunted the family hall, to poor people and rich
people, to old people and young people. She was warm-hearted but not
impulsive, intelligent but not clever, sympathetic but not sentimental,
impatient but never uncontrolled. She liked almost everyone and almost
everything, but no one and nothing mattered to her very deeply; she
liked going to church, always learnt her Collect first on Sunday, and
gave half her pocket- money to the morning collection. She was
generous but never extravagant, enjoyed food but was not greedy. She
was quite aware that she was pretty and might one day be beautiful, and
she was glad of that, but she was never silly about her looks.
When Aunt Amy, who was always silly about everything, said in her
presence to visitors, "Isn't Helen the loveliest thing you ever saw?" she
managed by her shy self- confidence to suggest that she was pretty, that
Aunt Amy was a fool, and life was altogether very agreeable, but that
none of these things was of any great importance. She was very good
friends with Jeremy, but she played no part in his life at all. At the
same time she often fought with him, simply from her real deep

consciousness of her superiority to him. She valued her authority and
asserted it incessantly. That authority had until last year been
unchallenged, but Jeremy now was growing. She had, although she did
not as yet realise it, a difficult time before her.
Helen and Mary advanced with their presents, laid them on the
breakfast-table, and then retreated to watch the effect of it all.
"Shall I now?" asked Jeremy.
"Yes, now," said Helen and Mary.
There were three parcels, one large and "shoppy," two small and bound
with family paper, tied by family hands with family string. He grasped
immediately the situation. The shoppy parcel was bought with mother's
money and only "pretended" to be from his sisters; the two small
parcels were the very handiwork of the ladies themselves, the same
having been seen by all eyes at work for the last six months, sometimes,
indeed, under the cloak of attempted secrecy, but more often--because
weariness or ill-temper made them careless--in the full light of day.
His interest was centred almost entirely in the "shoppy" parcel, which
by its shape might be "soldiers"; but he knew the rules of the game, and
disregarding the large, ostentatious brown-papered thing, he went
magnificently for the two small incoherent bundles.
He opened them. A flat green table-centre with a red pattern of roses, a
thick table-napkin ring worked in yellow worsted, these were revealed.
"Oh!" he cried, "just what I wanted." (Father always said that on his
birthday.)
"Is it?" said Mary and Helen.
"Mine's the ring," said Mary. "It's dirty rather, but it would have got
dirty, anyway, afterwards." She watched anxiously to see whether he
preferred Helen's.

He watched them nervously, lest he should be expected to kiss them.
He wiped his mouth with his hand instead, and began rapidly to talk:
"Jampot will know now which mine is. She's always giving me the
wrong one. I'll have it always, and the green thing too."
"It's for the middle of a table," Helen interrupted.
"Yes, I know," said Jeremy hurriedly. "I'll always have it too--like
Mary's--when I'm grown up and all. . . . I say, shall I open the other one
now?"
"Yes, you can," said Helen and Mary, ceasing to take the central place
in the ceremony, spectators now and eagerly excited.
But Mary had a last word.
"You do like mine, don't you?"
"Of course, like anything."
She wanted to say "Better than Helen's?" but restrained herself.
"I was ever so long doing it; I thought I wouldn't finish it in time."
He saw with terror that she meditated a descent upon him; a kiss was in
the air. She moved forward; then, to