Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill

Author:Susan Hill [Hill, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Literary, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, Literary Criticism, European
ISBN: 9781446485217
Google: iSzznjym9oUC
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-06-27T08:38:39+00:00

Valentine Dancer.

Later, in pulling out my watch to wind it, I came upon the small card I had earlier tucked into my waistcoat pocket.

LADY QUINCEBRIDGE

PYRE

HISLEY BEECHES

BERKSHIRE

HISLEY 25

Her troubled face peering through the window of the railway carriage came to my mind, and, sitting in my armchair, beside the fire, I thought calmly over her peculiar warnings and the forebodings she had expressed to me, but could still make no more sense of them than of those from other quarters, nor, in these safe, agreeable surroundings, take them at all seriously. But I resolved to accept her invitation for Christmas nevertheless, because I had liked her, and, I suppose, been flattered, as well as grateful, but more, because I felt that the time had come to enter at least some way into English society and begin to make myself known there.

I had always been a generally abstemious man but, that evening, drank a glass more port than was sensible, half-dozing before the heat of the fire, so that, when I stood to go to bed, I felt momentarily light-headed. But the bedroom was colder and I opened the window wide, and the smell of the fresh, snow-filled night air quickly brought me to my senses and cleared my head. As I leaned out a little way a thick seam of snow fell in a flurry far down into the yard below.

Not a light showed, the buildings around me were silent. The sky had cleared and there were bright stars.

My Guardian had sometimes spoken to me when I was a boy, about his Cambridge days, and I had formed a picture in my mind, augmented by engravings and pictures in books, of ancient walls and inner courts, quiet places devoted to learning and also echoing with the eager voices and swift steps of young men, and perhaps, though I was not a clever or very bookish boy, I had secretly begun to long for them and the longing had never quite left me, but remained, secret and half-forgotten. Now, it was stirred alive again, for I recognised that the school had many of the features of the old universities, and I stood for a long time looking down into the snow-covered yard, remembering my Guardian, happy to be at last a part of such a world.

As I undressed, I speculated about Dr Valentine Dancer, whom I was to meet the next morning, and about the pile of black notebooks on my desk, and what was to fill them, and felt anticipation and satisfaction in equal measure. It had been a good day. I had much to look forward to. I counted myself a fortunate man.

But then a chill breeze blew suddenly across the yard, and through my open window, and I shivered, and closed it, ready, now, for bed and sleep.

As I turned, a gleam of light struck the mirror on the opposite wall, and I looked up to face, as I thought, my own reflection. But there was none, there was nothing but a blurred, dark outline.

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