"Good God!" I cried. "But this is dreadful! As a clergyman I cannot approve his habit of seducing young women, but as a son I must observe that in this particular instance the revenge extracted by the young women seems out of all proportion to his offence. And were these bloodthirsty young women never brought to justice?"

"Alas, no," said John Hollyshoes. "And now I must beg that we cease to speak of a subject so very unpleasant to my family feelings. Tell me instead why you fixed upon this odd notion of being Italian."

I told him how it had been my grandfather's idea. From my own dark looks and what his daughter had told him he thought I might be Italian or Spanish. A fondness for Italian music caused him to prefer that country. Then he had taken his own name, George Alexander Simon, and fashioned out of it a name for me, Giorgio Alessandro Simonelli. I told how that excellent old gentleman had not cast off his daughter when she fell but had taken good care of her, provided money for attendants and a place for her to live and how, when she died of sorrow and shame shortly after my birth, he had brought me up and had me educated.

"But what is most remarkable," said John Hollyshoes, "is that you fixed upon that city which – had Thomas Fairwood ever gone to Italy – was precisely the place to have pleased him most. Not gaudy Venice, not trumpeting Rome, not haughty Florence, but Genoa, all dark shadows and sinister echoes tumbling down to the shining sea!"

"Oh! But I chose it quite at random, I assure you."

"That," said John Hollyshoes, "has nothing to do with it. In choosing Genoa you exhibited the extraordinary penetration which has always distinguished our family. But it was your eyesight that betrayed you. Really, I was never so astonished in my life as I was when you remarked upon the one or two specks of dust which clung to the baby's wrapper."

I asked after the health of his son.

"Oh! He is well. Thank you. We have got an excellent wet-nurse – from your own parish – whose milk agrees wonderfully well with the child."

Oct. 20th., 1811.

In the stable-yard at Upperstone House this morning the Miss Gathercoles were preparing for their ride. Naturally I was invited to accompany them.

"But, my dear," said Mrs Edmond to the eldest Miss Gathercole, "you must consider that Mr Simonelli may not ride. Not everyone rides." And she gave me a questioning look as if she would help me out of a difficulty.

"Oh!" said I. "I can ride a horse. It is of all kinds of exercise the most pleasing to me." I approached a conceited-looking grey mare but instead of standing submissively for me to mount, this ill-mannered beast shuffled off a pace or two. I followed it – it moved away. This continued for some three or four minutes, while all the ladies of Upperstone silently observed us. Then the horse stopt suddenly and I tried to mount it, but its sides were of the most curious construction and instead of finding myself upon its back in a twinkling – as invariably happens with John Hollyshoes's horses – I got stuck halfway up.

Of course the Upperstone ladies chose to find fault with me instead of their own malformed beast and I do not know what was more mortifying, the surprized looks of Miss Gathercole and Miss Marianne, or the undisguised merriment of Kitty.

I have considered the matter carefully and am forced to conclude that it will be a great advantage to me in such a retired spot to be able to ride whatever horses come to hand. Perhaps I can prevail upon Joseph, Mrs Gathercole's groom, to teach me.

Nov. 4th., 1811.

Today I went for a long walk in company with the five Miss Gathercoles. Sky as blue as paint, russet woods, fat white clouds like cushions – and that is the sum of all that I discovered of the landscape, for my attention was constantly being called away to the ladies themselves. "Oh! Mr Simonelli! Would you be so kind as to do this?"; or "Mr Simonelli, might I trouble you to do that?"; or "Mr Simonelli! What is your opinion of such and such?" I was required to carry picnic-baskets, discipline unruly sketching easels, advise upon perspective, give an opinion on Mr Coleridge's poetry, eat sweet-cake and dispense wine.

I have been reading over what I have written since my arrival here and one thing I find quite astonishing – that I ever could have supposed that there was a strong likeness between the Miss Gathercoles. There never were five sisters so different in tastes, characters, persons and countenances. Isabella, the eldest, is also the prettiest, the tallest and the most elegant. Henrietta is the most romantic, Kitty the most light-hearted and Jane is the quietest; she will sit hour after hour, dreaming over a book. Sisters come and go, battles are fought, she that is victorious sweeps from the room with a smile, she that is defeated sighs and takes up her embroidery. But Jane knows nothing of any of this – and then, quite suddenly, she will look up at me with a slow mysterious smile and I will smile back at her until I quite believe that I have joined with her in unfathomable secrets.

Marianne, the second eldest, has copper-coloured hair, the exact shade of dry beech leaves, and is certainly the most exasperating of the sisters. She and I can never be in the same room for more than a quarter of an hour without beginning to quarrel about something or other.

Nov. 16th., 1811.

John Windle has written me a letter to say that at High Table at Corpus Christi College on Thursday last Dr Prothero told Dr Considine that he pictured me in ten years' time with a worn-out slip of a wife and a long train of broken-shoed, dribble-nosed children, and that Dr Considine had laughed so much at this that he had swallowed a great mouthful of scalding-hot giblet soup, and returned it through his nose.

Nov. 26th., 1811.

No paths or roads go down to John Hollyshoes' house. His servants do not go out to farm his lands; there is no farm that I know of. How they all live I do not know. Today I saw a small creature – I think it was a rat – roasting over the fire in one of the rooms. Several of the servants bent over it eagerly, with pewter plates and ancient knives in their hands. Their faces were all in shadow. (It is an odd thing but, apart from Dando and the porcupine-faced nurse, I have yet to observe any of John Hollyshoes's servants at close quarters: they all scuttle away when ever I approach.)

John Hollyshoes is excellent company, his conversation instructive, his learning quite remarkable. He told me today that Judas Iscariot was a most skilful beekeeper and his honey superior to any that had been produced in all the last two thousand years. I was much interested by this information, having never read or heard of it before and I questioned him closely about it. He said that he believed he had a jar of Judas Iscariot's honey somewhere and if he could lay his hand upon it he would give it to me.

Then he began to speak of how my father's affairs had been left in great confusion at his death and how, since that time, the various rival claimants to his estate had been constantly fighting and quarrelling among themselves.

"Two duels have been fought to my certain knowledge," he said, "and as a natural consequence of this two claimants are dead. Another – whose passion to possess your father's estate was exceeded only by his passion for string quartets – was found three years ago hanging from a tree by his long silver hair, his body pierced through and through with the bows of violins, violoncellos, and violas like a musical Saint Sebastian. And only last winter an entire houseful of people was poisoned. The claimant had already run out of the house into the blizzard in her nightgown and it was only her servants that died. Since I have made no claim upon the estate, I have escaped most of their malice – though, to own the truth, I have a better right to the property than any of them. But naturally the person with the best claim of all would be Thomas Fairwood's son. All dissension would be at an end, should a son arise to claim the estate." And he looked at me.