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He gave himself three months. I supposed he meant to pay her in. Three weeks later I heard that Jevons was actually living up in Hampstead in the same house as Viola. I didn't hear it from Viola, but from my man, Pavitt, who had it from his sister-in-law. And what Pavitt came to tell me was that Mr. Jevons had been ill. I went up to Hampstead that afternoon to see him.
Then you leave off looking at them yourself. And if one does hit you in the eye you feel as if it referred to somebody else, and after that you don't feel anything more." It wasn't brilliant, but the wonder was he found anything to say at all. I was thankful when Pavitt came in to tell us that dinner was served. It delivered us from Jimmy's attitudes.
She was eager, like a child that has got off at last, after irritating delay. I closed the door against her precipitate flight. I said I thought we could settle that here, over the telephone. And I settled it. Having settled it, I sent Pavitt, my man, to get rooms for her that afternoon in Hampstead, with his sister-in-law, in a house overlooking the Heath.
"Are you quite sure, Pavitt? He called the day I left." "Yes, sir, I remember his calling the day you left. It's only just come back to me that he called again, three days after, I think it was. I told him you was gone to Belgium, and he said that was all he wanted. He didn't leave no message, else I should have remembered. It was the young gentleman's likeness to Mrs.
I had fixed that early hour for it because I wanted to get it done with. I wasn't going to have my morning murdered with violence when it was two hours old; neither did I intend it to be poisoned by the thought of this interview hanging over me at the end. I had just sent for Pavitt, my man, and told him that if Miss Thesiger called he was on no account to let her in.
I thought she was going to marry you." And then "How she can stick him I can't think. D'you mind, old man, if I go to bed? No, I don't want any whisky and soda, thanks." It was Pavitt, of all people, who threw a light on it when he brought the whisky. "Beg your pardon, sir," said Pavitt, "but I believe I never told you that the Captain called here one day when you was in Belgium."
Beside Reggie's accomplishment he looked mean and pitiful and a little vulgar. God forgive me for putting it down, but that is how he looked. And once or twice, under the strain of it, he dropped an aitch with the most disconcerting effect. I often wonder what Pavitt thought of that family party.
I said I couldn't promise her chintz curtains and a green door and an orange Angora cat with green eyes, but I thought she would be fairly comfortable with Mrs. Pavitt. She was. She told me a week later that the Hampstead rooms had chintz curtains and there was a Persian kitten too. A blue Persian, with yellow eyes. There was. But I didn't tell her who put them there.
I said, on the contrary, his memory for Jevons was perfect, and he looked at me charmingly and laughed. While he was laughing Viola came in. She had Jevons with her. It was evident that neither of them was prepared for Reggie Thesiger. They had let themselves in with a latch-key and come straight upstairs without encountering Mrs. Pavitt.
Viola said there were six rooms if you counted the pantry and the bathroom, and they were going to put a settee in Jimmy's study that would turn into a bed when anybody came to stay. And Mrs. Pavitt knew a nice woman who would come in and scrub for them, and sleep in the kitchen when they weren't there. They showed me the little bits of furniture they'd got.
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