Persuasion
well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is
what I call good company.”
“You are mistaken,” said he gently, “that is not good company; that is
the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and
with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are
essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in
good company; on the contrary, it will do very well. My cousin Anne
shakes her head. She is not satisfied. She is fastidious. My dear
cousin” (sitting down by her), “you have a better right to be
fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer? Will
it make you happy? Will it not be wiser to accept the society of those
good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages of the
connexion as far as possible? You may depend upon it, that they will
move in the first set in Bath this winter, and as rank is rank, your
being known to be related to them will have its use in fixing your
family (our family let me say) in that degree of consideration which we
must all wish for.”
“Yes,” sighed Anne, “we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!”
then recollecting herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added,
“I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken to
procure the acquaintance. I suppose” (smiling) “I have more pride than
any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be so
solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may be very
sure is a matter of perfect indifference to them.”
“Pardon me, dear cousin, you are unjust in your own claims. In London,
perhaps, in your present quiet style of living, it might be as you say:
but in Bath; Sir Walter Elliot and his family will always be worth
knowing: always acceptable as acquaintance.”
“Well,” said Anne, “I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome
which depends so entirely upon place.”
“I love your indignation,” said he; “it is very natural. But here you
are in Bath, and the object is to be established here with all the
credit and dignity which ought to belong to Sir Walter Elliot. You talk
of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish to
believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated, would have
the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem a little
different. In one point, I am sure, my dear cousin,” (he continued,
speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room) “in one
point, I am sure, we must feel alike. We must feel that every addition
to your father’s society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use
in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him.”
He looked, as he spoke, to the seat which Mrs Clay had been lately
occupying: a sufficient explanation of what he particularly meant; and
though Anne could not believe in their having the same sort of pride,
she was pleased with him for not liking Mrs Clay; and her conscience
admitted that his wishing to promote her father’s getting great
acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.
CHAPTER XVII.
While Sir Walter and Elizabeth were assiduously pushing their good
fortune in Laura Place, Anne was renewing an acquaintance of a very
different description.
She had called on her former governess, and had heard from her of there
being an old schoolfellow in Bath, who had the two strong claims on
her attention of past kindness and present suffering. Miss Hamilton,
now Mrs Smith, had shewn her kindness in one of those periods of her
life when it had been most valuable. Anne had gone unhappy to school,
grieving for the loss of a mother whom she had dearly loved, feeling
her separation from home, and suffering as a girl of fourteen, of
strong sensibility and not high spirits, must suffer at such a time;
and Miss Hamilton, three years older than herself, but still from the
want of near relations and a settled home, remaining another year at
school, had been useful and good to her in a way which had considerably
lessened her misery, and could never be remembered with indifference.
Miss Hamilton had left school, had married not long afterwards, was
said to have married a man of fortune, and this was all that Anne had
known of her, till now that their governess’s account brought her
situation forward in a more decided but very different form.
She was a widow and poor. Her husband had been extravagant; and at his
death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully
involved. She had had difficulties of every sort to contend with, and
in addition to these distresses had been afflicted with a severe
rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs, had made her for
the present a cripple. She had come to Bath on that account, and was
now in lodgings near the hot baths, living in a very humble way, unable
even to afford herself the comfort of a servant, and of course almost
excluded from society.
Their mutual friend answered for the satisfaction which a visit from
Miss Elliot would give Mrs Smith, and Anne therefore lost no time in
going. She mentioned nothing of what she had heard, or what she
intended, at home. It would excite no proper interest there. She only
consulted Lady Russell, who entered thoroughly into her sentiments, and
was most happy to convey her as near to Mrs Smith’s lodgings in
Westgate Buildings, as Anne chose to be taken.
The visit was paid, their acquaintance re-established, their interest
in each other more than re-kindled. The first ten minutes had its
awkwardness and its emotion. Twelve years were gone since they had
parted, and each presented a somewhat different person from what the
other had imagined. Twelve years had changed Anne from the blooming,
silent, unformed girl of fifteen, to the elegant little woman of
seven-and-twenty, with every beauty except bloom, and with manners as
consciously right as they were invariably gentle; and twelve years had
transformed the fine-looking, well-grown Miss Hamilton, in all the glow
of health and confidence of superiority, into a poor, infirm, helpless
widow, receiving the visit of her former protegee as a favour; but all
that was uncomfortable in the meeting had soon passed away, and left
only the interesting charm of remembering former partialities and
talking over old times.
Anne found in Mrs Smith the good sense and agreeable manners which she
had almost ventured to depend on, and a disposition to converse and be
cheerful beyond her expectation. Neither the dissipations of the
past—and she had lived very much in the world—nor the restrictions of
the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have closed her
heart or ruined her spirits.
In the course of a second visit she talked with great openness, and
Anne’s astonishment increased. She could scarcely imagine a more
cheerless situation in itself than Mrs Smith’s. She had been very fond
of her husband: she had buried him. She had been used to affluence: it
was gone. She had no child to connect her with life and happiness
again, no relations to assist in the arrangement of perplexed affairs,
no health to make all the rest supportable. Her accommodations were
limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom behind, with no
possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which
there was only one servant in the house to afford, and she never
quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath. Yet, in spite
of all this, Anne had reason to believe that she had moments only of
languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment. How could
it be? She watched, observed, reflected, and finally determined that
this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only. A submissive
spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply
resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of
mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily
from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of
herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of
Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which,
by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost
every other want.
There had been a time, Mrs Smith told her, when her spirits had nearly
failed. She could not call herself an invalid now, compared with her
state on first reaching Bath. Then she had, indeed, been a pitiable
object; for she had caught cold on the journey, and had hardly taken
possession of her lodgings before she was again confined to her bed and
suffering under severe and constant pain; and all this among strangers,
with the absolute necessity of having a regular nurse, and finances at
that moment particularly unfit to meet any extraordinary expense. She
had weathered it, however, and could truly say that it had done her
good. It had increased her comforts by making her feel herself to be in
good hands. She had seen too much of the world, to expect sudden or
disinterested attachment anywhere, but her illness had proved to her
that her landlady had a character to preserve, and would not use her
ill; and she had been particularly fortunate in her nurse, as a sister
of her landlady, a nurse by profession, and who had always a home in
that house when unemployed, chanced to be at liberty just in time to
attend her. “And she,” said Mrs Smith, “besides nursing me most
admirably, has really proved an invaluable acquaintance. As soon as I
could use my hands she taught me to knit, which has been a great
amusement; and she put me in the way of making these little
thread-cases, pin-cushions and card-racks, which you always find me so
busy about, and which supply me with the means of doing a little good
to one or two very poor families in this neighbourhood. She had a large
acquaintance, of course professionally, among those who can afford to
buy, and she disposes of my merchandise. She always takes the right
time for applying. Everybody’s heart is open, you know, when they have
recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of
health, and Nurse Rooke thoroughly understands when to speak. She is a
shrewd, intelligent, sensible woman. Hers is a line for seeing human
nature; and she has a fund of good sense and observation, which, as a
companion, make her infinitely superior to thousands of those who
having only received ‘the best education in the world,’ know nothing
worth attending to. Call it gossip, if you will, but when Nurse Rooke
has half an hour’s leisure to bestow on me, she is sure to have
something to relate that is entertaining and profitable: something that
makes one know one’s species better. One likes to hear what is going
on, to be _au fait_ as to the newest modes of being trifling and silly.
To me, who live so much alone, her conversation, I assure you, is a
treat.”
Anne, far from wishing to cavil at the pleasure, replied, “I can easily
believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they
are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieties of human
nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in
its follies, that they are well read; for they see it occasionally
under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting.
What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested,
self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation:
of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A
sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Smith more doubtingly, “sometimes it may, though I fear
its lessons are not often in the elevated style you describe. Here and
there, human nature may be great in times of trial; but generally
speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a