A House to Let | Page 3

no more. I had seen all this on my first visit, and I had remarked to
Trottle, that the lower part of the black board about terms was split
away; that the rest had become illegible, and that the very stone of the
door-steps was broken across. Notwithstanding, I sat at my breakfast
table on that Please to Remember the fifth of November morning,
staring at the House through my glasses, as if I had never looked at it
before.
All at once--in the first-floor window on my right--down in a low
corner, at a hole in a blind or a shutter--I found that I was looking at a
secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it
shine; but, I saw it shine and vanish.
The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting there
in the glow of my fire--you can take which probability you prefer,
without offence--but something struck through my frame, as if the
sparkle of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It
had such an effect upon me, that I could not remain by myself, and I
rang for Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for her, to keep her in
the room. After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place
with my glasses on, moving my head, now so, and now so, trying
whether, with the shining of my fire and the flaws in the window-glass,
I could reproduce any sparkle seeming to be up there, that was like the
sparkle of an eye. But no; I could make nothing like it. I could make
ripples and crooked lines in the front of the House to Let, and I could
even twist one window up and loop it into another; but, I could make
no eye, nor anything like an eye. So I convinced myself that I really
had seen an eye.
Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and it

troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. I don't
think I was previously inclined to concern my head much about the
opposite House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the house; and I
thought of little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I
talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this, I fully
believe now, there was a good Providence. But, you will judge for
yourself about that, bye-and-bye.
My landlord was a butler, who had married a cook, and set up
housekeeping. They had not kept house longer than a couple of years,
and they knew no more about the House to Let than I did. Neither
could I find out anything concerning it among the trades-people or
otherwise; further than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been
empty, some said six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did
let, they all agreed, and it never would let.
I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states
about the House; and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in a flurry,
that was always getting worse. Towers's prescriptions, which I had
brought to London with me, were of no more use than nothing. In the
cold winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter rain, in
the white winter snow, the House was equally on my mind. I have
heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit's haunting a house; but I have
had my own personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit; for that
House haunted mine.
In all that month's time, I never saw anyone go into the House nor
come out of the House. I supposed that such a thing must take place
sometimes, in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning; but,
I never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains drawn
when it came on dark, and shutting out the House. The Eye then began
to shine in my fire.
I am a single old woman. I should say at once, without being at all
afraid of the name, I am an old maid; only that I am older than the
phrase would express. The time was when I had my love-trouble, but, it
is long and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven rest his blessed
head!) when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can
remember, been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love
for them, that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have