I wanted her to be cheated somewhere.

She came down, of course, for the ceremony. I saw her through the bars of the visitors’ chapel, the Bird Cage as we called it. Sitting with the other parents and relations behind the bars, she looked more like a bright monkey than ever.

I forgot to watch her when the Bishop came in. I had never seen one with mitre and crozier before. I stared at his frilled cuffs and the great boat-shaped ring on his finger, as he laid his hand on each head.

The Chapel rang with the repetition of names. Apart from Geoffrey’s I only remember Peter Cherry Partingdon, because it tripped off the Bishop’s tongue so gaily.

I was glad to be out in the sun again after the service was over. I saw Geoffrey hurrying towards the Bird Cage to meet his aunt. She came down the steps showing all her teeth in a primitive smile.

As they passed me she nodded her head and said, “How are you, Welch ?” I hated the use of my surname by a so-called friend who was a woman. She should not have used any name if she did not want to call me Denton.

“I should have liked you to come back with us, Welch, but Geoffrey and I have so much to talk about that I’m afraid you would be bored,” she went on.

I knew what she meant; I felt angry and pleasantly martyred. This was the cross I had to bear for not helping Aunt Janet and for not being confirmed myself. She had had her way with Geoffrey, that ought to content her.

I raised my straw hat awkwardly. I hated being chivalrous to anyone, let alone Aunt Janet. As I turned back to the House I thought of Geoffrey between the paws of his monkey aunt.

I had to walk alone that afternoon. The early winter rains had soaked the ground until it was like squelching seaweed.

I decided to try to get into Foremark Church. It had always been locked before, but on a Sunday it might be open. If not, there was an Anchorite’s cave near by for me to explore again. Its doors and windows and columns had been dug out of the cliff side, I suppose, for some “ornamental” hermit, for it was in the grounds of Foremark Hall, a huge grey stone mansion brooding on the other side of a weed-grown lake.

The church was locked when I got there. I pulled and turned the big iron handles, feeling exasperated. The small doors were locked too, which made me determined to get in. I walked down the green avenue which led from the church to the house.

The gardens were well kept but the windows of the house were all shuttered. There was a small door under the stairs of the great portico. I rang the bell and waited. Footsteps rang in the stone passage and then a youngish woman appeared. Her hair was untidy and she seemed to have very little on under her brown overall, but she willingly went to get the key for me.

When she came back I asked her if the house was empty and whether she could show me over it.

“The housekeeper’s out and there’s nobody here, so I will if you like,” she answered.

I was delighted. She led me down the dark passage and then up a spiral staircase to the next floor.

“Nobody has lived here for twenty years, but it’s all been kept up,” she said, opening some shutters so that the afternoon sun fell on the wide-boarded floor and the slightly discoloured walls. I did not know what to look at, at first. There were lovely old portraits and mirrors and dark cupboards full of china.

We went from room to room, letting in the light. There was a gilded harpsichord in the long drawing-room, but it was locked and covered with a rug. The floor here must have been fairly new, for it was parquet, like a hotel. Sometimes there was a lighter coloured square on the wall and then the woman would tell me that the picture had been taken to the owner’s other house.

I saw everything, including the bathrooms and the water-closets. The baths were raised up on steps and had wide rims of polished mahogany. The water-closets had blue flowers printed inside the pans and cut-glass handles, the shot, golden-green colour of lubricating oil.

At last we reached the attics, which were divided into three parts: for the servants, the children and the bachelors. Most of the windows were oval.