“Not a bit like poor Jim.”
She sighed—a tribute which the doctor supposed to be extorted by convention, since no one aware of the peculiarities that had characterized the mauvais sujet of the Aviolet family could reasonably wish to see his memory perpetuated in his boy. Perhaps, however, the Aviolets did not wish little Cecil to resemble his mother, either. Dr. Lucian had not seen Mrs. Jim Aviolet, but he knew that Jim’s marriage abroad had been looked upon at the time as the crowning folly of a career that had been thickly peppered with follies throughout. Nor had Jim’s death redeemed Jim’s life, although it had the effect—to the doctor’s mind wholly desirable—of causing Sir Thomas Aviolet to offer a home to his daughter-in-law and only grandchild.
They had arrived from Ceylon a month earlier, and, so far as Dr. Lucian was aware, he was the first person in the neighbourhood whose curiosity was to be gratified by an introduction.
He followed Lady Aviolet’s squat, heavy-footed figure up the stairs and along passages so thickly carpeted that their footfalls were inaudible.
Passing through a green baize-covered door, they passed into a chillier region of stairs covered with oil-cloth and pitch-pine cupboards redolent of polish. A pink-sprigged paper covered the walls instead of oak panelling.
“You’ve not seen the nurseries for many years; I think not since Ford and Jim were up here?”
“Not since they both had measles. Jim was only ten years old.”
The doctor remembered that earlier occasion, and his own preference for the scapegrace Jim who had flatly refused to take his medicine while his elder brother Ford, far less ill, had lain with exemplary patience working out chess-problems in bed, and obediently swallowing nauseous draughts.
Lady Aviolet knocked at the door of the room that had been the night nursery, and went in.
“Here is Dr. Lucian, Rose—my daughter-in-law.”