Jeremy by Hugh Walpole

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.