“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.
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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 17
While Sir Walter and Elizabeth were assiduously pushing their good fortune in Laura Place, Anne was renewing an acquaintance of a very different description.
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She had called on her former governess, and had heard from her of there being an old school-fellow 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.