And before that evening I had looked on Mr. Vigors with supreme
indifference! What importance he now assumed in my eyes! The lady with
whom I had seen him was doubtless the new tenant of that house in which
the young creature by whom my heart was so strangely moved evidently had
her home. Most probably the relation between the two ladies was that
of mother and daughter. Mr. Vigors, the friend of one, might himself be
related to both, might prejudice them against me, might--Here, starting
up, I snapped the thread of conjecture, for right before my eyes, on the
table beside which I had seated myself on entering my room, lay a card
of invitation:--
MRS. POYNTZ.
At Home,
Wednesday, May 15th.
Early.
Mrs. Poyntz,--Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, the Queen of the Hill? There, at her
house, I could not fail to learn all about the new comers, who could
never without her sanction have settled on her domain.
I hastily changed my dress, and, with beating heart, wound my way up the
venerable eminence.
I did not pass through the lane which led direct to Abbots’ House (for
that old building stood solitary amidst its grounds a little apart
from the spacious platform on which the society of the Hill was
concentrated), but up the broad causeway, with vistaed gaslamps; the
gayer shops still-unclosed, the tide of busy life only slowly ebbing
from the still-animated street, on to a square, in which the four main
thoroughfares of the city converged, and which formed the boundary of
Low Town. A huge dark archway, popularly called Monk’s Gate, at the
angle of this square, made the entrance to Abbey Hill. When the arch was
passed, one felt at once that one was in the town of a former day. The
pavement was narrow and rugged; the shops small, their upper stories
projecting, with here and there plastered fronts, quaintly arabesque.
An ascent, short, but steep and tortuous, conducted at once to the old
Abbey Church, nobly situated in a vast quadrangle, round which were
the genteel and gloomy dwellings of the Areopagites of the Hill. More
genteel and less gloomy than the rest--lights at the windows and flowers
on the balcony--stood forth, flanked by a garden wall at either side,
the mansion of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz.
As I entered the drawing-room, I heard the voice of the hostess; it
was a voice clear, decided, metallic, bell-like, uttering these words:
“Taken Abbots’ House? I will tell you.”