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.
“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.
But he was miserable. Hamlet came up from the nether regions where he had spent the night, showing his teeth, wagging his tail, and even rolling on the cockatoos. Jeremy paid no attention. The weight in his heart grew heavier and heavier. He watched, from under his eyelids, the Jampot. In a moment she must go into Helen's room. But she did not. She stayed for a little arranging the things on the breakfast-table--then suddenly, without a word, she turned into Jeremy's bedchamber. His heart began to hammer. There was an awful pause; he heard from miles away Mary's voice: “Do do that button, Helen, I can't get it!” and Helen's “Oh, bother!”
Then, like Judgment, the Jampot appeared again. She stood in the doorway, looking across at him.
“You 'ave not cleaned your teeth, Master Jeremy,” she said. “The glass isn't touched, nor your toothbrush... You wicked, wicked boy. So it's a liar you've become, added on to all your other wickedness.”
“I forgot,” he muttered sullenly. “I thought I had.”
She smiled the smile of approaching triumph.
“No, you did not,” she said. “You knew you'd told a lie. It was in your face. All of a piece--all of a piece.”
The way she said this, like a pirate counting over his captured treasure, was enraging. Jeremy could feel the wild fury at himself, at her, at the stupid blunder of the whole business rising to his throat.
“If you think I'm going to let this pass you're making a mighty mistake,” she continued, “which I wouldn't do not if you paid me all the gold in the kingdom. I mayn't be good enough to keep my place and look after such as you, but anyways I'm able to stop your lying for another week or two. I know my duty even though there's them as thinks I don't.”