She said, “Yes, it were a draughty ‘ouse.” I referred to the cats, and

she said they had been as long as she could remember. By way of

conclusion, she informed me that the house was over two hundred years

old, and that the last gentleman who had occupied my rooms was a

painter who “‘ad real Jimmy Bueys and Raffles ‘anging all hover the

walls”. It took me some moments to discern that Cimabue and Raphael

were in the woman’s mind.

Oct. 24.—Last night the son who is “somethink on a homnibus” came

in. He had evidently been drinking, for I heard loud and angry voices

below in the kitchen long after I had gone to bed. Once, too, I caught

the singular words rising up to me through the floor, “Burning from top

to bottom is the only thing that’ll ever make this ‘ouse right.” I

knocked on the floor, and the voices ceased suddenly, though later I

again heard their clamour in my dreams.

These rooms are very quiet, almost too quiet sometimes. On windless

nights they are silent as the grave, and the house might be miles in

the country. The roar of London’s traffic reaches me only in heavy,

distant vibrations. It holds an ominous note sometimes, like that of an

approaching army, or an immense tidal-wave very far away thundering in

the night.

Oct. 27.—Mrs. Monson, though admirably silent, is a foolish, fussy

woman. She does such stupid things. In dusting the room she puts all

my things in the wrong places. The ash-trays, which should be on the

writing-table, she sets in a silly row on the mantelpiece. The

pen-tray, which should be beside the inkstand, she hides away cleverly

among the books on my reading-desk.

My gloves she arranges daily in idiotic array upon a half-filled

bookshelf, and I always have to rearrange them on the low table by the

door. She places my armchair at impossible angles between the fire and

the light, and the tablecloth—the one with Trinity Hall stains—she

puts on the table in such a fashion that when I look at it I feel as

if my tie and all my clothes were on crooked and awry. She exasperates

me. Her very silence and meekness are irritating.

Sometimes I feel inclined to throw the inkstand at her, just to

bring an expression into her watery eyes and a squeak from those

colourless lips. Dear me! What violent expressions I am making use of!

How very foolish of me! And yet it almost seems as if the words were

not my own, but.had been spoken into my ear—I mean, I never make use

of such terms naturally.

Oct. 30.—I have been here a month. The place does not agree with

me, I think. My headaches are more frequent and violent, and my nerves

are a perpetual source of discomfort and annoyance.

I have conceived a great dislike for Mrs. Monson, a feeling I am

certain she reciprocates.