Algernon Blackwood

The Listener

Algernon Blackwood

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Sept. 4.—I have hunted all over London for rooms suited to my

income—£120 a year—and have at last found them. Two rooms, without

modern conveniences, it is true, and in an old, ramshackle building,

but within a stone’s throw of P— Place and in an eminently respectable

street. The rent is only £ 25 a year. I had begun to despair when at

last I found them by chance.

The chance was a mere chance, and unworthy of record. I had to sign

a lease for a year, and I did so willingly. The furniture from our old

place in Hampshire, which has been stored so long, will just suit

them.

Oct. 1.—Here I am in my two rooms, in the centre of London, and

not far from the offices of the periodicals, where occasionally I

dispose of an article or two. The building is at the end of a

cul-de-sac. The alley is well paved and clean, and lined chiefly with

the backs of sedate and institutional-looking buildings. There is a

stable in it. My own house is dignified with the title of “Chambers “.

I feel as if one day the honour must prove too much for it, and it will

swell with pride—and fall asunder. It is very old. The floor of my

sitting-room has valleys and low hills on it, and the top of the door

slants away from the ceiling with a glorious disregard of what is

usual.

They must have quarrelled—fifty years ago—and have been going

apart ever since.

Oct. 2.—My landlady is old and thin, with a faded, dusty face. She

is uncommunicative. The few words she utters seem to cost her pain.

Probably her lungs are half choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as

free from this commodity as possible, and has the assistance of a

strong girl who brings up the breakfast and lights the fire. As I have

said already, she is not communicative.

In reply to pleasant efforts on my part she informed me briefly

that I was the only occupant of the house at present. My rooms had not

been occupied for some years. There had been other gen-tlemen

upstairs, but they had left.

She never looks straight at me when she speaks, but fixes her dim

eyes on my middle waistcoat button, till I get nervous and begin to

think it isn’t on straight, or is the wrong sort of button altogether.

Oct.