e helping two small children to play
at. And when Viola and Jevons ought to have been telling the men what
things were to go into which room and where, they ran back into the
garden to see what flowers they would plant in it and where.

Then they took me to look all over the house. It was an absurd house. Of
its four rooms there was one in front that served as a dining-room and a
drawing-room and a boudoir for Viola, and there was a kitchen at the
back, and a bedroom over the front room, and Jevons's study was over the
kitchen. 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. Jevons had a
passion for beautiful old things, for old rosewood bureaus and chests of
drawers with brass handles. She pointed out the brass handles.

I felt that the poor child was showing me her absurd house and telling me
all these things because there wasn't and there hadn't been, and perhaps
there never would be anybody else to tell them to. I thought of the
mother and the four sisters down at Canterbury and of the other two who
were married, who had been married so differently. There was something
queer, something wrong about it all. I believe the very workmen felt that
it was so and were sorry for her.

When they had all gone away at six o'clock Jevons and I took our coats
off and settled down for three solid hours to the serious work of moving
furniture, while Viola tried to find the china, to wash it, and sorted
all the linen and the blankets. And at nine o'clock we dined on bacon
that Jevons fried over the gas-stove in the kitchen and cocoa that Viola
and I made in a white-and-pink jug we found in the bath; it was a buxom,
wide-pouting jug with an expression that Jevons said reminded him of his
mother's sister who had brought him up. He said that jug was all that
Viola would be allowed to see of his relations.

I was left with Viola in the kitchen to wash up while Jevons finished
what he called his man's job upstairs.

She took advantage of his absence to implore me to go down to Canterbury
and make it right for her with her people. She said they'd believe
anything I told them and there wasn't anything they wouldn't do for me.