should be above the fretful vanity that lays traps for a compliment. Yes; the time has come in your life and your career when you would do well to marry. I give my consent to that,” she added with a smile as if in jest, and a slight nod as if in earnest. The knitting here went on more decidedly, more quickly. “But I do not yet see the person. No! ‘T is a pity, Allen Fenwick” (whenever Mrs. Poyntz called me by my Christian name, she always assumed her majestic motherly manner),—“a pity that, with your birth, energies, perseverance, talents, and, let me add, your advantages of manner and person,—a pity that you did not choose a career that might achieve higher fortunes and louder fame than the most brilliant success can give to a provincial physician. But in that very choice you interest me. My choice has been much the same,—a small circle, but the first in it. Yet, had I been a man, or had my dear Colonel been a man whom it was in the power of a woman’s art to raise one step higher in that metaphorical ladder which is not the ladder of the angels, why, then—what then? No matter! I am contented. I transfer my ambition to Jane. Do you not think her handsome?”
“There can be no doubt of that,” said I, carelessly and naturally.
“I have settled Jane’s lot in my own mind,” resumed Mrs. Poyntz, striking firm into another row of knitting. “She will marry a country gentleman of large estate. He will go into parliament. She will study his advancement as I study Poyntz’s comfort. If he be clever, she will help to make him a minister; if he be not clever, his wealth will make her a personage, and lift him into a personage’s husband. And, now that you see I have no matrimonial designs on you, Allen Fenwick, think if it will be worth while to confide in me. Possibly I may be useful—”
“I know not how to thank you; but, as yet, I have nothing to confide.”
While thus saying, I turned my eyes towards the open window beside which I sat. It was a beautiful soft night, the May moon in all her splendour. The town stretched, far and wide, below with all its numberless lights,—below, but somewhat distant; an intervening space was covered, here, by the broad quadrangle (in the midst of which stood, massive and lonely, the grand old church), and, there, by the gardens and scattered cottages or mansions that clothed the sides of the hill.
“Is not that house,” I said, after a short pause, “yonder with the three gables, the one in which—in which poor Dr. Lloyd lived—Abbots’ House?”
I spoke abruptly, as if to intimate my desire to change the subject of conversation. My hostess stopped her knitting, half rose, looked forth.
“Yes. But what a lovely night! How is it that the moon blends into harmony things of which the sun only marks the contrast? That stately old church tower, gray with its thousand years, those vulgar tile-roofs and chimney-pots raw in the freshness of yesterday,—now, under the moonlight, all melt into one indivisible charm!”
As my hostess thus spoke, she had left her seat, taking her work with her, and passed from the window into the balcony. It was not often that Mrs. Poyntz condescended to admit what is called “sentiment” into the range of her sharp, practical, worldly talk; but she did so at times,—always, when she did, giving me the notion of an intellect much too comprehensive not to allow that sentiment has a place in this life, but keeping it in its proper place, by that mixture of affability and indifference with which some high-born beauty allows the genius, but checks the presumption, of a charming and penniless poet. For a few minutes her eyes roved over the scene in evident enjoyment; then, as they slowly settled upon the three gables of Abbots’ House, her face regained that something of hardness which belonged to its decided character; her fingers again mechanically resumed her knitting, and she said, in her clear, unsoftened, metallic chime of voice, “Can you guess why I took so much trouble to oblige Mr. Vigors and locate Mrs. Ashleigh yonder?”
“You favoured us with a full explanation of your reasons.”
“Some of my reasons; not the main one. People who undertake the task of governing others, as I do, be their rule a kingdom or a hamlet, must adopt a principle of government and adhere to it. The principle that suits best with the Hill is Respect for the Proprieties. We have not much money; entre nous, we have no great rank. Our policy is, then, to set up the Proprieties as an influence which money must court and rank is afraid of. I had learned just before Mr. Vigors called on me that Lady Sarah Bellasis entertained the idea of hiring Abbots’ House. London has set its face against her; a provincial town would be more charitable. An earl’s daughter, with a good income and an awfully bad name, of the best manners and of the worst morals, would have made sad havoc among the Proprieties. How many of our primmest old maids would have deserted tea and Mrs. Poyntz for champagne and her ladyship! The Hill was never in so imminent a danger. Rather than Lady Sarah Bellasis should have had that house, I would have taken it myself, and stocked it with owls.
“Mrs. Ashleigh turned up just in the critical moment. Lady Sarah is foiled, the Proprieties safe, and so that question is settled.”
“And it will be pleasant to have your early friend so near you.”
Mrs. Poyntz lifted her eyes full upon me.
“Do you know Mrs. Ashleigh?”
“Not in the least.”
“She has many virtues and few ideas. She is commonplace weak, as I am commonplace strong. But commonplace weak can be very lovable. Her husband, a man of genius and learning, gave her his whole heart,—a heart worth having; but he was not ambitious, and he despised the world.”
“I think you said your daughter was very much attached to Miss Ashleigh? Does her character resemble her mother’s?”
I was afraid while I spoke that I should again meet Mrs. Poyntz’s searching gaze, but she did not this time look up from her work.
“No; Lilian is anything but commonplace.”
“You described her as having delicate health; you implied a hope that she was not consumptive. I trust that there is no serious reason for apprehending a constitutional tendency which at her age would require the most careful watching!”
“I trust not. If she were to die—Dr. Fenwick, what is the matter?”
So terrible had been the picture which this woman’s words had brought before me, that I started as if my own life had received a shock.
“I beg pardon,” I said falteringly, pressing my hand to my heart; “a sudden spasm here,—it is over now. You were saying that—that—”
“I was about to say-” and here Mrs. Poyntz laid her hand lightly on mine,—“I was about to say that if Lilian Ashleigh were to die, I should mourn for her less than I might for one who valued the things of the earth more. But I believe there is no cause for the alarm my words so inconsiderately excited in you. Her mother is watchful and devoted; and if the least thing ailed Lilian, she would call in medical advice. Mr. Vigors would, I know, recommend Dr. Jones.”
Closing our conference with those stinging words, Mrs. Poyntz here turned back into the drawing-room.
I remained some minutes on the balcony, disconcerted, enraged. With what consummate art had this practised diplomatist wound herself into my secret! That she had read my heart better than myself was evident from that Parthian shaft, barbed with Dr. Jones, which she had shot over her shoulder in retreat. That from the first moment in which she had decoyed me to her side, she had detected “the something” on my mind, was perhaps but the ordinary quickness of female penetration. But it was with no ordinary craft that the whole conversation afterwards had been so shaped as to learn the something, and lead me to reveal the some
