by Hugh Walpole
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 laughin
g 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.
III
Tea over, they all trooped out into the garden again. The evening light now painted upon the little green lawn strange trembling shadows of purple and grey; the old red garden wall seemed to have crept forwards, as though it would protect the house and the garden from the night; and a sky of the faintest blue seemed, with gentle approval, to bless the quiet town fading into dusk beneath it. Over the centre of the lawn the sun was still shining, and there it was warm and light. But from every side the shadows stealthily crept forward. A group of children played against the golden colour, their white dresses patterns that formed figures and broke and formed again. The Cathedral bell was ringing for evensong, and its notes stole about the garden, and in and out amongst the children, as though some guardian spirit watching over their safety counted their numbers.
Jeremy, feeling rather neglected and miserable, stood in the shadow near the oak on the farther side of the lawn. He did not want to play with those little girls, and yet he was hurt because he had not been asked. The party had been a most miserable failure, and a year ago it would have been such a success. He did not know that he was standing now, in the middle of his eighth year, at the parting of the ways; that only yesterday he had been a baby, and that he would never be a baby again. He did not feel his independence — he felt only inclined to tears and a longing, that he would never, never confess, even to himself, that someone should come and comfort him! Nevertheless, even at this very moment, although he did not know it, he, a free, independent man, was facing the world for the first time on his own legs. His mother might have realised it had she been there — but she was not. Mary, however, was there, and in the very middle of her game, searching for him, as she was always doing, she found him desolate under the shadow of the oak. She slipped away, and, coming up to him with the shyness and fear that she always had when she approached him, because she loved him so much and he could so easily hurt her, said:
“Aren’t you coming to play, Jeremy?”
“I don’t care,” he answered gruffly.
“It isn’t any fun without you.” She paused, and added: “Would you mind if I stayed here too?”
“I’d rather you played,” he said; and yet he was comforted by her, determined, as he was, that she should never know it!
“I’d rather stay,” she said, and then gazed, with that melancholy stare through her large spectacles that always irritated Jeremy, out across the garden.
“I’m all right,” he said again; “only my stocking tickles, and I can’t get at it — it’s the back of my leg. I say, Mary, don’t you hate the Dean’s Ernest?”
“Yes, I do,” she answered fervently, although she had not thought about him at all — enough for her that Jeremy should hate him! Then she gasped: “Here he comes—”
He was walking towards them with a swagger of his long yellow neck and his thin leggy body that Jeremy found especially offensive. Jeremy “bristled,” and Mary was conscious of that bristling.
“Hallo!” said Ernest.
“Hallo!” said Jeremy.
“What rot these silly games are!” said Ernest. “Why can’t they have something decent, like cricket?”
Jeremy had never played cricket, so he said nothing. “At our school,” said Ernest, “we’re very good at cricket. We win all our matches always—”
“I don’t care about your school,” said Jeremy, breathing through his nose.
The Dean’s Ernest was obviously surprised by this; he had not expected it. His pale neck began to flush.
“Look here, young Cole,” he said, “none of your cheek.”
This was a new dialect to Jeremy, who had no friends who went to school. All he said, however, breathing more fiercely than before, was: “I don’t care—”
“Oh, don’t you?” said Ernest. “Now, look here—” Then he paused, apparently uncertain, for a moment, of his courage. The sight of Mary’s timorous anxiety, however, reassured him, and he continued: “It’s all right for you, this sort of thing. You ought to be in the nursery with your old podge-faced nurse. Kids like you oughtn’t to be allowed out of their prams.”
“I don’t care,” said Jeremy again, seeing in front of him the whole family of the Reverend Dean. “Your school isn’t much anyway, I expect, and I’m going to school in September, and I’ll wear just the same things as you do and—”
He wanted to comment upon the plain features of Ernest’s sisters, but his gentlemanly courtesy restrained him. He paused for breath, and Ernest seized his advantage.
“You have to have an old aunt to look after you anyway — an ugly old aunt. I wouldn’t have an old aunt always hanging over me— ‘Now, Jeremy dear—’ ‘Blow your nose, Jeremy dear—’ ‘Wipe your feet, Jeremy dear.’ Look at the things she wears and the way she walks. If I did have to have an aunt always I’d have a decent one, not an old clothes bag.”
What happened to Jeremy at the moment? Did he recollect that only a few hours before he had been hating Aunt Amy with a fine frenzy of hatred? For nearly a week he had been chafing under her restraint, combating her commands, defying her orders. He had been seeing her as everything that the Dean’s Ernest had but now been calling her. Now he only saw her as someone to be defended, someone who was his, someone even who depended on him for support. He would have challenged a whole world of Deans in her defence.
He said something, but no one could hear his words; then he sprang upon the startled Ernest.
It was not a very distinguished combat; it was Jeremy’s first battle, and he knew at that time nothing of the science of fighting. The Dean’s Ernest, in spite of his term at school, also knew nothing — and the Dean’s Ernest was a coward...
It lasted but a short while, for Mary, after the first pause of horrified amazement (aware only that Ernest was twice as big as her Jeremy), ran to appeal to authority. Jeremy himself was aware neither of time nor prudence. He realised immediately that Ernest was a coward, and this realisation filled him with joy and happiness. He had seized Ernest by his long yellow neck, and, with his other hand, he struck at eyes and cheeks and nose. He did not secure much purchase for his blows because their bodies were very close against one another, but he felt the soft flesh yield and suddenly something wet against his hand which must, he knew, be blood. And all the time he was thinking to himself: “I’ll teach him to say things about Aunt Amy! Aunt Amy’s mine! I’ll teach him! He shan’t touch Aunt Amy! He shan’t touch Aunt Amy!...”
Ernest meanwhile kicked and kicked hard; he also tried to bite Jeremy’s hand and also to pull his hair. But his own terror handicapped him; every inch of his body was alarmed, and that alarm prevented the freedom of his limbs. Then when he felt the blood from his nose trickle on to his cheek his resistance was at an end; panic flooded over him like water. He broke away and flung himself howling on to the ground, kicking his legs and screaming:
“It isn’t fair! He’s bitten me! Take him away! Take him away!”
Jeremy himself was no beautiful sight. His hair was wild, his white navy collar crumpled and soiled, the buttons of his tunic torn, his stocking down, and his legs already displaying purple bruises. But he did not care; he was well now; he was no longer unhappy.
He had beaten Ernest and he was a man; he had risen victorious from his first fight, and Authority might storm as it pleased. Authority soon arrived, and there were, of course, many cries and exclamations. Ernest was led away still howling; Jeremy, stubborn, obstinate, and silent, was also led away.... A disgraceful incident.
Aunt Amy, of course, was disgusted. Coul
dn’t leave the boy alone one minute but he must misbehave himself, upset the party, be the little ruffian that he always was. She had always said that his mother spoiled him, and here were the fruits of that foolishness. How could she ever say enough to Miss Maddison? Her delightful party completely ruined!... Shocking!... Shocking!... Too terrible!. .. And Ernest, such a quiet, well-behaved little boy as a rule. It must have been Jeremy who...
While they were waiting in the decent dusk of Miss Maddison’s sitting-room for a cleaned and chastened Jeremy, Mary touched her aunt’s arm and whispered in her nervous voice:
“Aunt Amy — Jeremy hit Ernest because he said rude things about you.”
“About me! Nonsense, child.”
“No, but it was, really. Ernest said horrid things about you, and then Jeremy hit him.”
“About me? What things?”
“That you were ugly,” eagerly continued Mary — never a tactful child, and intent now only upon Jeremy’s reputation— “and wore ugly clothes and horrid things. He did really. I heard it all.”