Domestic strife

Monday, December 30th., Bath Spa Hotel, Bath.

If truth be told I am here to get away from my wife. I regard myself as a quiet, peaceable sort of chap, but if I stayed in Essex much longer I might do her serious damage. It is all getting to be too much for me to bear.

The bone of contention at the moment is Lockyer, the gardener. I don't know why but she dislikes him and wants to get rid of him. In fact she has been scheming to get rid of him for some time. I think myself that he is too assertive a character for her, too inclined to say what he thinks and to do what he considers best, even when it goes against her wishes. I like him for more or less the same reasons.

He has been fighting in France and has just recently returned. When he was called up Marguerite wanted me to take advantage of the situation to dismiss him. Think of that! I positively refused to do so. No man of honour and decency could have contemplated such a thing. Now she wants me to terminate his job at Comarques which would mean of course his leaving Thorpe and breaking up his home. Some reward for going through all the discomforts and dangers of a soldier's life at the Front. She is trying to blackmail me by saying that she will refuse to do her domestic duties unless I comply with her wishes. Well, I shall give no ground and we shall see who has the greater will. If my wife, aged 40, chooses to behave like a girl of 14 I shall have to respond accordingly.

I intend to stay here for at least another week. The spa facilities are excellent and the water appears to agree with my digestion.

I wrote to George Moore last week to, amongst other things, tell him that it was the first chapters of "A Mummer's Wife" which opened my eyes to the romantic nature of the district that I had bindly inhabited for over 20 years. He is indeed the father of all my Five Towns books and stories.