Volume I Part 9 (1/2)
Notwithstanding this youthful frankness of mind, however, Agnes had by this time lost in a great measure that very childish look which distinguished her at the time her appearance so little pleased the fastidious taste of Miss Compton. She was still indeed in very good health, which was indicated by a colour as fresh, and almost as delicate too, as that of the wild rose; but her rapid growth during the last two years had quite destroyed the offensive ”roundness,” and her tall, well-made person, gave as hopeful a promise as could be wished for of womanly grace and beauty. The fair face was already the very perfection of loveliness; and had the secretly proud Miss Compton seen her as she walked in her deep heavy mourning beside her wide-spreading aunt to church, on the Sunday when that lady first restored herself to the public eye, she might perchance have thought, that not only was she worthy to inherit Compton Basett and all its acc.u.mulated rents, but any other glory and honour that this little earth of ours could bestow.
A feeling of strong mutual affection between the parties, led both the Wilmot family and Agnes to pet.i.tion earnestly that the few weeks which remained of the stipulated (and already paid for) five years, might be completed; and Mrs. Barnaby, though it was really somewhat against her inclination, consented.
But though she had not desired this renewed absence of her niece, the notable widow determined to put it to profit, and set about a final arrangement of all her concerns with an activity that proved good Mr.
Barnaby quite right in not having troubled her with any a.s.sistant executor.
She soon contrived to learn who it was who wished to succeed her ”dear Barnaby,” and managed matters so admirably well as to make the eager young man pay for the house, furniture, shop, &c. &c., about half as much again as they were worth, cleverly contriving, moreover, to retain possession for three months.
This important business being settled, she set herself earnestly and deliberately to consider what, when these three months should be expired, she should do with her freedom, her money, herself, and her niece. In deciding upon this question, she called none to counsel, for she had sense enough to avow to herself that she should pay not the slightest attention to any opinion but her own. In silence and in solitude, therefore, she pondered upon the future; and, to a.s.sist her speculations, she drew forth from the recesses of an old-fas.h.i.+oned bureau sundry doc.u.ments and memoranda relative to the property bequeathed to her by her husband.
It was evident that her income would now somewhat exceed four hundred a-year, and this appeared to her amply sufficient to a.s.sist the schemes already working in her head for future aggrandizement, but by no means equal to what she felt her beauty and her talents gave her a right to hope for.
”It is, however, a handsome income,” thought she, ”and such a one as, with my person, may, and must, if properly made use of, lead to all I wis.h.!.+”...
Mrs. Barnaby had once heard it said by a clever man, that human wishes might oftener be achieved, did mortals better know how to set about obtaining them.
”First,” said the oracle, ”let him be sure to find out what his wishes really are. This ascertained, let him, in the second place, employ all his acuteness to discover what is required for their fulfilment.
Thirdly, let him examine himself and his position, in order to decide how much he, or it, can contribute towards this. Fourthly, let him subtract the sum of the capabilities he possesses from the total of means required. Fifthly, let him learn by, with, and in his heart of hearts, what it is that const.i.tutes the remainder; and sixthly, and lastly, let him gird up the loins of his resolution, and start forth DETERMINED to acquire them. Whoso doeth this, shall _seldom_ fail.”
In the course of her visitings, military friends.h.i.+ps and all included, Mrs. Barnaby, even in the small arena of Silverton, had heard several wise things in her day; but none of them ever produced such lasting effect as the words I have just quoted. They touched some chord within her that vibrated, ... not indeed with such a thrill as they might have made to ring along the nerves of a fine creature new to life, and emulous of all things good and great, but with a little sharp twitch, just at that point of the brain where self-love expands itself into a mesh of ways and means, instinct with will, to catch all it can that may be brought home to glut the craving for enjoyment; and so pregnant did they seem to her of the only wisdom that she wished to master, that her memory seized upon them with extraordinary energy, nor ever after relinquished its hold.
Little, however, could it profit her at the time she heard it; but she kept it, ”like an ape in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, to be last swallowed.”
It was upon these words that she now pondered. Her two elbows set on the open bureau, her legs stretched under it, her lips resting upon the knuckles of her clasped hands, and her eyes fixed in deep abstraction on the row of pigeonholes before her, she entered upon a sort of self-catechism which ran thus:--
_Q._ What is it that I most wish for on earth?
_A._ A rich and fas.h.i.+onable husband.
_Q._ What is required to obtain this?
_A._ Beauty, fortune, talents, and a free entrance into good society.
_Q._ Do I possess any of these?... and which?
_A._ I possess beauty, fortune, and talents.
_Q._ What remains wanting?
_A._ A free entrance into good society.
”TRUE!” she exclaimed aloud, ”it is that I want, and it is that I must procure.”
Notwithstanding her sanguine estimate of herself, the widow, when she arrived at this point, was fain to confess that she did not exactly know how this necessary addition to her ways and means was to be acquired.
Beyond the town of Silverton, and a thinly inhabited circuit of a mile or two round it, she had not a personal acquaintance in the world. This was a very perplexing consideration for a lady determined upon finding her way into the first circles, but its effect was rather to strengthen than relax her energies.
There was, however, one person, and she truly believed one only in the wide world, who might, at her first setting out upon her progress, be useful to her. This was a sister of Mr. Barnaby's, married to a clothier, whose manufactory was at Frome, but whose residence was happily at Clifton near Bristol. She had never seen this lady, or any of her family, all intercourse between the brother and sister having of late years consisted in letters, not very frequent, and the occasional interchange of presents,--a jar of turtle being now and then forwarded by mail from Bristol, and dainty quarters of Exmoor mutton, and tin pots of clouted cream, returned from Silverton.
Nevertheless Mrs. Peters was her sister-in-law just as much as if they had lived next door to each other for the last five years; and she had, of course, a right to all the kindness and hospitality so near a connexion demands.