Fruit? Why hadn't Mrs. Cole brought fruit? She might so easily have done so, and she had never thought about it. They themselves were rather tired of fruit, and so—
“I'm afraid we've no fruit, but an egg-sandwich—”
“Eggs need salt, don't you think? Not that it matters in the very least, but so that you shouldn't think me fussy. Really, dear Mrs. Cole, I never felt less hungry in my life. Just a drop of milk and I'm perfectly satisfied.”
“Jeremy shall run up to the farm for the milk. You don't mind, Jeremy dear, do you? It's only a step. Just take this sixpence, dear, and say we'll send the jug back this afternoon if they'll spare one.”
Jeremy did mind. He was enjoying his luncheon, and he was gazing at Charlotte, and he was teasing Hamlet with scraps—he was very happy. Nevertheless, he started off.
So soon as he left the sands the noise of the sea was shut off from him, and he was climbing the little green path up which the Scarlet Admiral had once stalked.
Suddenly he remembered—in his excitement about Charlotte he had forgotten the Admiral. He stood for a moment, listening. The green hedge shut off the noise of the sea—only above his head some birds were twittering. He fancied that he heard footsteps, then that beyond the hedge something was moving. It seemed to him that the birds were also listening for something. “Well, it's the middle of the afternoon, anyway.” He thought to himself, “He never comes there—only in the morning or evening,” but he hurried forward after that, wishing that he had called to Hamlet to accompany him. It was a pleasant climb to the farm through the green orchard, and he found at the farm door an agreeable woman who smiled at him when she gave him the milk. He had to come down the hill carefully, lest the milk should be spilt. He walked along very happily, humming to himself and thinking in a confused summer afternoon kind of manner of Charlotte, Hamlet, Mrs. Le Page and himself. “Shall I give her the thimble or shan't I? I could take her to the pools where the little crabs are. She'd like them. I wonder whether we're going to bathe. Mrs. Le Page will look funny bathing...” Then he was in the green lane again, and at once his discomfort returned to him, and he looked around his shoulder and into the hedges, and stopped once and again to listen. There was no sound. The birds, it seemed, had all fallen to sleep. The hedges, he thought, were closer about him. It was very hot here, with no breeze and no comforting sound of the sea. “I wonder whether he really does come,” he thought. “It must be horrid to see him—coming quite close.” And the thought of the Fool also frightened him. The Fool with his tongue out and his shaking legs, like the idiot who lived near the Cathedral at home. At the thought of this Jeremy suddenly took to his legs and ran, covering the top of his jug with his hand; then, when he came out on to the strip of grass that crossed the top of the beach, he stopped, suddenly ashamed of himself. Scarlet Admirals! Scarlet Admirals! How could there be Scarlet Admirals in a world that also contained so blazing a sun, so blue a sea, and the gorgeous realities of the Le Page family. He arrived at the luncheon party hot and proud and smiling, so cheerful and stolid and agreeable that even Mrs. Le Page was compelled to say, “Really, Mrs. Cole, that's a very nice little boy of yours. Come here, little Jeremy, and talk to me!” How deeply he hated being called “little Jeremy” only Mary and Helen knew. Their eyes flew to his face to see how he would take it. He took it very well. He sat down beside Mrs. Le Page, who very gracefully and languidly sipped at her glass of milk.
“How old are you, Jeremy dear?” she asked him.
“Eight,” he answered, wriggling.
“What a nice age! And one day you'll go to school?”