One of our nicest old maids, Miss Maddison, gave every year what she called her “early summer party.” This was different from all our other parties, because it occurred neither in the summer nor in the winter, but always during those wonderful days when the spring first began to fade into the high bright colours, the dry warmth, the deep green shadows of the heat of the year. It was early in May that Miss Maddison had her party, and we played games on her little sloping green lawn, and peered over her pink-brick wall down on to the brown roofs of the houses below the Close, and had a tremendous tea of every kind of cake and every kind of jam in her wainscoted dining-room that looked out through its tall open windows on to the garden. Those old houses that run in a half-moon round the Close, and face the green sward and the great western door of the Cathedral, are the very heart of Polchester. Walking down the cobbled street, one may still to-day look through the open door, down the dusky line of the little hall, out into the swimming colour of the garden beyond. In these little gardens, what did not grow? Hollyhocks, pinks, tulips, nasturtiums, pansies, lilies of the valley, roses, honeysuckle, sweet-williams, stocks—I remember them all at their different seasons in that muddled, absurd profusion. I can smell them now, can see them in their fluttering colours, the great grey wall of the Cathedral, with its high carved door and watching saints behind me, the sun beating on to the cobbles, the muffled beat of the summer day, the sleepy noises of the town, the pigeons cutting the thin, papery blue into arcs and curves and circles, the little lattice-windowed houses, with crooked chimneys and shining doors, smiling down upon me. I can smell, too, that especial smell that belonged to those summer hours, a smell of dried blotting-paper, of corn and poppies from the fields, of cobble-stones and new-baked bread and lemonade; and behind the warmth and colour the cool note of the Cathedral bell echoed through the town, down the High Street, over the meads, across the river, out into the heart of the dark woods and the long spaces of the summer fields. I can see myself, too, toiling up the High Street, my cap on the back of my head, little beads of perspiration on my forehead, and my eyes always gazing into the air, so that I stumbled over the cobbles and knocked against doorsteps. All these things had to do with Miss Maddison's parly, and it was always her party that marked the beginning of them for us; she waited for the fine weather, and so soon as it came the invitations were sent out, the flower-beds were trimmed, the little green wooden seats under the mulberry tree were cleaned, and Poupee, the black poodle, was clipped.

It happened this year that Miss Maddison gave her party during the very week that Mr. and Mrs. Cole went to Drymouth. She sent out her invitations only three days before the great event, because the summer had come with so fine a rush. “Master Jeremy and the Misses Cole... Would they give Miss Maddison the pleasure...?” Yes, of course they would. Aunt Amy would take them.

On the morning of the great day Jeremy poured the contents of his watering-can upon Aunt Amy's head. It was a most unfortunate accident, arranged obviously by a malignant fate. Jeremy had been presented with a pot of pinks, and these, every morning, he most faithfully watered. He had a bright-red watering-can, bought with his own money, and, because it held more water than the pinks needed, he was in the daily habit of emptying the remnant in a glittering shower out of the pantry window on to the bed nearest the garden wall. Upon this morning someone called him; he turned his head; the water still flowed, and Aunt Amy, hatless and defenceless, received it as it tumbled with that sudden rush which always seizes a watering-can at its last gasp. Jeremy was banished into his bedroom, where he employed the sunny morning in drawing pictures of Aunt Amy as a witch upon the wallpaper. For doing this he was caned by Aunt Amy herself with a ruler, and at the end of the operation he laughed and said she hadn't hurt him at all. In return for this impertinence he was robbed, at luncheon, of his pudding—which was, of course, on that very day, marmalade pudding—and then, Mary being discovered putting some of hers into a piece of paper, to be delivered to him in due course, they were both stood in different corners of the room “until you say you're sorry.”

When the jingle arrived at three o'clock they had still not made this acknowledgment, and Jeremy said he never would, “not if he lived till he was ninety-nine.” At quarter past three Jeremy might have been seen sitting up very straight in the jingle, his face crimson from washing and temper. He was wearing his new sailor suit, which tickled him and was hot and sticky; he sat there devoting the whole of his energies to the business of hating Aunt Amy.

As I have said, he had never hated anyone before, and he was surprised at the glow of virtuous triumph that this new emotion spread over his body. He positively loved to hate Aunt Amy, and as Parkes, the pony, slowly toiled up the hill to the Cathedral, he sat stiff and proud with an almost humorous anger. Then, as they turned over the hot shining cobbles into the Close and saw the green trees swimming in the sun, he turned his mind to the party. What games would they play? Who would be there? What would there be for tea? He felt creeping over him the stiff shyness that always comes when one is approaching a party, and he wished that the first handshaking and the first plunge into the stares of the critical guests might be over. But he did not really care. His hatred of Aunt Amy braced him up; when one was capable of so fine and manly an emotion as this hatred, one need not bother about fellow-guests. Then the jingle stopped outside a house immediately opposite the great west-end door of the Cathedral; in the little hall Miss Maddison was standing, and from the glittering garden behind her the sun struck through the house into the shadowed street.

Jeremy's public manners were, when he pleased, quite beautiful—“the true, old-fashioned courtesy,” gushing friends of the Cole family used to say. He was preparing to be very polite now, when suddenly the voice of the Dean's Ernest ordering people about in the garden struck upon his ear. He had not seen the Dean's Ernest for nearly three months, for the very good reason that that gentleman had been experiencing his first term at his private school. Last year young Ernest and Jeremy had been, on the whole, friendly, although Ernest, who was nine, and strong for his age, had always patronised. And now? Jeremy longed to inform his friend that he also shortly would proceed to school, that in another six months' time there would be practically no difference between them. Nevertheless, at the present moment there was a difference... Ernest had a whole term to his credit.

New arrivals gently insinuated the Cole family into the garden. Helen, proud and cold, Mary, blinking and nervous, stood pressed close together whilst other little girls stared and giggled, moved forward and then backward again, until suddenly Canon Lasker's Emily, who was fifteen and had such long legs that she was known as “the Giraffe,” came up and said: “Isn't it hot! Do you play croquet? Please-do! I'll have—the—blue ball...” And the Coles were initiated.

Meanwhile, Aunt Amy had said: “Now, Jeremy, dear, run about and make friends.” Which so deeply infuriated him that he choked. Oh! supposing the Dean's Ernest had heard her!...

And he had! A mocking voice behind him said: “Now, Jeremy, dear—”

Jeremy turned round and beheld the Dean's Ernest mockingly waiting his retort. And he could not retort. No words would come, and he could only stand there, his cheeks flushed, aware that Ernest had grown and grown during those three months, that he wore a straw hat with a black-and-red ribbon upon it, that round his long ugly neck was a stiff white collar, and across his waistcoat a thick silver watch-chain.

“Hallo!” said Jeremy.

“Hallo!” said the new Ernest scornfully.

A long pause.

Then Ernest, turning on his heel, said to someone behind him: “Let's get away from all these girls!” The tears burnt in Jeremy's eyes, hot and salt. He clenched his fists and gazed upon a garden that swam in a mist of tears and sunlight. He felt a sudden strange impulse of family affection. He would like to have gathered behind him his father and mother, Mary, Helen, Hamlet, Uncle Samuel—yes, and even Aunt Amy, and to have advanced not only upon Ernest, but upon the whole Dean's family. It would have given him great pleasure to have set his teeth into the fat legs of the Dean himself; he would gladly have torn the hat from the head of Mrs. Dean... Upon Ernest there was no torture he would not employ.

He would get even; he resolved that before he left that house he would have his revenge.

Kind Miss Maddison, tripping along and seeing him as a pathetic little boy in a sailor suit without guile or malice, swept him into an “I spy” party composed for the most part of small girls who fell down and cried and said they would go home.

Jeremy, hiding behind a tree, watched the thin back of Ernest as it lifted itself autocratically above two small boys who looked up to him with saucer-eyes. Ernest was obviously talking about his school. Jeremy, lost in the contemplation of his vengeance, forgot his game, and was taken prisoner with the greatest of ease. He did not care. The afternoon was spoilt for him. He was not even hungry. Why could he not go to school to-morrow, and then challenge Ernest to combat? But he might challenge Ernest without going to school... He had never fought a real fight, but the sight of his enemy's thin, peaky body was encouraging.

“Now, Jeremy, dear,” said Miss Maddison, “it's your turn to hide...”

Soon they all went in to tea. Everyone was thoroughly at home by this time, and screamed and shouted quite in the most natural manner in the world. The long table stretched down the whole room, almost from wall to wall; the sunlight played in pools and splashes upon the carpet and the flowers and the pictures. There was every sort of thing to eat—thin bread-and-butter rolled up into little curly sandwiches, little cakes and big cakes, seed cakes and sugar cakes, and, of course, saffron buns, jam in little shining dishes, and hot buttered toast so buttery that, it dripped on to your fingers.

Jeremy sat next to Mary, and behind him hovered Aunt Amy. Only half an hour ago how this would have angered him! To have her interfering with him, saying: “Not two at a time, Jeremy,” or “Pass the little girl the sugar, Jeremy—remember your manners.” or “Not so big a piece, Jeremy.” But now—he did not know... She was one of the family, and he felt as though the Dean's Ernest had scorned her as well as himself. Also Mary. He felt kind to Mary, and when she whispered “Are you enjoying it, Jeremy?” he answered “Yes; are you?” Not because he was really enjoying it, but because he knew that she wanted him to say that.

He could see Ernest from where he sat, and he knew that Ernest was laughing at him. He remembered that he had given Ernest three splendid marbles, just before his departure to school, as a keepsake. How he wished that he had kept them! He would never give Ernest anything again except blows. Mary might be tiresome sometimes, but she was his sister, and he greatly preferred her as a girl to Ernest's sisters. He could see them now, greedy, ugly things...

“Now, Jeremy, wipe your mouth,” said Aunt Amy.

He obeyed at once.