The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, page 13
“Since Emily’s verse gave you so much pleasure,” said she quietly, “I thought perhaps you might like to look at these.” She held out two note-books, similar in size and make-up to Emily’s.
I took the proffered treasure with surprise, and looked inside. “How long have you been writing poetry?”
“For years and years: the whole time I was at Thorp Green, and for a long while before that. I have filled three other copy-books.”
“Why did you never say?”
“I used to feel as Emily does—that they were my private musings, for my eyes alone. But when I heard you say that hers ought to be published, I could not help but wonder—I suppose I have always wondered—if my poems had any merit at all. Would you be willing to read them, and tell me?”
Touched by her modesty, and delighted by her willingness to share, I read her poems at once. I spent all day at it, and was surprised and impressed by what I found. Loving Anne as dearly as I did, I could not be but a partial judge; yet I thought that her verses, too, had a sweet, sincere pathos of their own. If not quite as brilliant as Emily’s, they were equally worthy of publication.
As I contemplated what my sisters had been doing—that they had been writing secret poetry of such excellence—I felt a sudden surge of excitement, mingled with a hint of shame. I had written poetry, too, once upon a time; it resided, along with countless stories and novelettes, in a series of tattered boxes buried in my bureau. Almost all my life, writing had been my greatest joy and comfort: a place to express my happiest feelings, and my solace in times of pain. Although I had long burned to see my work in print, I had had no idea how to make that dream a reality; and since Anne came home in June, I had not written a single creative word.
Now, a sudden, renewed ambition burned within me: a desperate longing which I could not ignore. I waited until that evening, when my sisters and I were alone together in the dining-room, to bring up the subject. I was knitting a pair of stockings; Anne was sewing her grey-figured silk frock, newly dyed at Keighley; Emily was ironing.
“Anne showed me some poems she has written,” I said casually, my eyes intent upon my knitting. “They are quite good.”
“I know,” replied Emily, as she expertly worked the hot iron over a night-shirt.
“I wrote poetry myself, a few years past,” I added.
“I read Charlotte’s poems,” interjected Anne. “They are lovely.”
“I do not pretend that my work compares in any way to either of yours,” I continued, “but it occurred to me that we might, the three of us, publish a small collection.”
Emily blew out a contemptuous breath. “Are we never to hear the end of this?”
“Have we not, since early childhood, all cherished the dream of one day becoming published authors?”
“I have,” admitted Anne.
A blush crept across Emily’s countenance, betraying what she could not hide, but she pressed her lips in a tight line. “No.”
“We relinquished the dream years ago, when the necessity of earning a living intervened. Now that we are all back home together, perhaps it is possible—if we put our minds to it—for dream and necessity to be combined. If we were to each choose our very best efforts, I believe they would make up a substantial volume of poetry, which we could sell for a good price.”
“A ludicrous idea,” retorted Emily. “My best poems are about Gondal. They would mean nothing to the public.”
“I disagree. They are universal works in theme and execution. You would have only to title them, and amend the text a very little—perhaps change a few names here and there—to make them wholly accessible to any one.”
“That is true,” said Anne; for she had persuaded Emily to allow her to read the Gondal note-book, and had been equally moved.
“I doubt we could make any money from a book of poetry,” argued Emily. “It would simply be an exercise to feed your vanity. Why cannot you both be content, as we have always been, to write to please ourselves? Why this sudden avidity for renown?”
“I do not seek renown,” I replied. “In truth, I do not care if I ever see my name in print. It is the work itself I wish to share—not just mine, but all of ours.”
“Why?” demanded Emily.
I realised I had never asked myself that question. “I suppose, after reading and admiring the works of others all my life, and feeling compelled for so many years to produce efforts of my own, I would like to discover—as Anne said, this morning—if they have any merit at all.”
“So you wish to receive validation of some sort,” retorted Emily, “from the world at large? You want to know if others—strangers—think our writing is any good?”
“Yes.”
Anne admitted that she shared the same desire.
“It would be thrilling,” I added, “to think that people we have never met were reading works that sprang from our imagination; that via tiny ink marks on a page, the thoughts and images of our invention were conveyed from our minds to theirs. If, in reading, they felt some small measure of the pleasure I had in writing, it would prove a great reward.”
I saw a flicker of concurrence in Emily’s eyes; I knew that, deep down, she felt exactly as I did, although she could not admit it. If only, I thought, I could fan that spark to flame!
“What if others do not care for your work? Have you considered that?” asked Emily. “What if they despise your best efforts and call you a fool? How will you feel then?”
“If I agree with their assessment,” replied Anne, “I shall feel chastened and educated, and I will endeavour to improve. If I disagree, I’ll know they did not understand what I wrote, and I will disregard what they said.”
“That is easier said than done,” responded Emily with a frown. “Critics can be both harsh and cruel. More than one author of merit, I believe, has sunk under the mortification of bad notices. It is particularly hard, it seems to me, for women; from what I have read, authoresses are looked upon with great prejudice.”
“I have noticed that,” said I. “Critics sometimes do, in their reviews, use the weapon of sex or personality for their chastisement—or for their reward, a flattery which is not true praise.”
“Well, I refuse to subject myself to that scrutiny,” declared Emily.
“If Emily does not wish to participate, you and I might still publish a book of poems, Charlotte. We do not have to put our names on it.”
My pulse quickened at this notion. “Good idea. I should be most thankful for the sheltering shadow of an incognito.”
“We do not even have to reveal our gender,” added Anne. “We could each adopt a nom de plume. That is, if you do not think our writing is too decidedly feminine.”
“I do not see how any one could tell our sex from either the style or content of our work. Men do often write as women, and vice versa.”
“What name would you choose?” inquired Anne.
“I have no idea,” said I, with rising excitement, “but—”
“Are you picking pen names, now?” interrupted Emily, exasperated. “What do you two know about publishing a book? Not a thing! How would we even go about it?”
My mind seized on the word we in Emily’s last sentence, and I smiled. “I do not know. I shall seek advice, I suppose.”
Although Emily would not openly reconcile herself to our poetry book project for several more days, she listened in keenly on my conversations with Anne on the subject, and injected a comment or two. At last, one cold and wet October evening, after all the household was in bed, as Anne and I sat reading our poems at the dining-room table, Emily marched into the room.
“All right,” said she, pulling up a chair and plunking two note-books onto the table, “I will participate in this folly—on one condition.”
“Oh, Emily!” exclaimed Anne, her eyes bright. “I am so glad.”
“What condition?” I asked warily.
“That we keep the entire enterprise a secret. Papa is beset by so many difficulties, I do not wish to worry him further, nor do I wish to raise his hopes, lest the venture should prove to be a failure. In the event the book is a success, secrecy will be crucial to preserving our anonymity.”
“I agree,” I replied.
“What about Branwell?” said Anne. “May we tell him, at least? He has written some wonderful poetry over the years. He might like to make a contribution.”
“Do you really imagine that our brother could keep silent about something like this?” responded I, bristling. “And when would we tell him about it? When he is storming about the house, enraged because no one will give him a shilling? When he is lying bleary-eyed on the sofa, too ill to speak? Or when he is on his knees, sobbing like a three-year-old about his darling Mrs. Robinson?”
“He is despicable of late, no question,” agreed Anne with a sigh, “but he is the only one of us who has been published.”
“Yes,” said I, “but this book will require hard work. After we revise and copy out our poems, we shall have a great many letters to write; if we are fortunate enough to secure a publisher, there will be decisions to make, and proofs to read. I doubt Branwell could stay sober long enough to be of any use in the process.”
“Even if he did,” added Emily, “knowing Branwell, he might try to take the project away from us, insisting that—as he is the man—he knows how to do everything best.”
“Which, in his present state of mind, would prove disastrous,” said I. “For once, I would like to do something that is just ours; to prove that three women, working together, can accomplish something worthwhile and wonderful, with no men involved. What do you say?”
“I say yes,” exclaimed Anne and Emily together.
With great excitement, we began to prepare our little volume. We chose nineteen poems of mine, and twenty-one each by Emily and Anne. We agreed from the outset that we should submit the manuscript as the work of three pseudonymous authors, and gave great consideration to the choice of pen names.
“If we cannot be Brontës, do let us have a name that at least begins with a B,” said Anne.
We considered and rejected “Baker” as too provincial, “Byron” as too grand, “Bennett” as too Welsh, “Buchanan” as too Scottish, and “Brown” as too dull. Anne suggested “Bewley,” but Emily thought that sounded too much like the bleat of a wounded animal, and the names “Bolster,” “Bigler,” and “Blenkinsop” only reduced us to tears of laughter.
We gave serious thought to our choice of Christian names, as well. We did not want to declare ourselves women, but at the same time, we did not wish to assume names too positively masculine, as that would be an outright lie.
“There are many names that are unspecific as to gender,” said I.
“I intend to choose a name that begins with the same first letter as my Christian name,” declared Anne.
“Let us all do that,” said I. “Let us be perfectly, cleverly alliterative.”
We offered up for scrutiny every ambiguous-sounding Christian name we could think of that began with C, E, and A. At any given point in time, we might have become “Cameron, Elliot, and Aubrey Brook,” “Cassidy, Eustace, and Ashton Beech,” or “Chase, Emery, and Adrian Bristol.”
At length, we settled on Currer, Ellis, and Acton for our Christian names. At the end of October, we were still engaged in heavy debate about our surname, when all the most prominent members of our community gathered to celebrate the installation of our new peal of bells.
The original bells in our church tower had been old and comparatively small, the first dating from 1664, the other two added in the 1740s. Papa, wishing to improve their sound and status, and to make it possible for Haworth’s team of ringers to engage in the new fashion of change-ringing competitions, had, that spring, organised a committee to raise a subscription to replace the three old bells with a peal of six. In two months, the money had been raised, enabling him to place an order for the casting of the bells with Mr. Mears of London. The new bells had only just been installed in the tower, and all those who contributed had been invited to an early dinner at the Black Bull Inn, which was to be followed by a bell-ringing ceremony.
My brother, thankfully, arrived sober to the dinner, and remained so for a good hour at least before he had to be carried home. Papa gave a brief welcoming speech to the assembled crowd, and thanked them for their support. John Brown, the sexton, a stout man in his early forties, followed with a litany of testaments in praise of papa’s contributions to the community, with special appreciation for this latest achievement. As my sisters and I enjoyed the hearty meal of cold ham, parsley potatoes, and various vegetables, we listened with pride to the enthusiastic comments from our neighbours.
“You’ve done a wonderful thing, Mr. Brontë,” declared Mr. Malone, the Irishman who ran one of the four beer-houses in the village, as he came over from the next table to shake papa’s hand. “We can hold our heads up now against the folk in Keighley and Bradford, for truly we have got one of the best sets of bells in all of Yorkshire.”
“So we have, Mr. Malone,” replied papa proudly.
Mrs. Malone leaned towards me and murmured, “A wonder it is, that even with his infirmity, your father continues to work so tirelessly on behalf of the community.”
“My father is a remarkable man,” I agreed.
“Our new curate is a good man, too,” said their daughter Sylvia, a plump, cheerful twenty-five-year-old with auburn curls and a freckled complexion. I had attempted over the years to strike up a conversation with Sylvia at the annual church teas, but as she had never been to school, had no interest in reading, and mainly liked to discuss her interest in and dissatisfaction with all the eligible bachelors in the community, I had never found much common ground between us. Her eyes now darted to a table on the other side of the room, where Mr. Nicholls sat engrossed in lively conversation with his friends Mr. Grant and Mr. Bradley, the curate of nearby Oakworth. “I see Mr. Nicholls every now and then, walking your dogs across the moor,” continued Sylvia with a wide smile. “He is so tall and good-looking.”
“Mr. Nicholls gives a fine reading in church,” observed Mrs. Malone.
“The children at the Day school and Sunday school seem to like him very much,” said Mr. Malone.
“It seems that Mr. Nicholls has taken over the parson’s duties in the parish most capably,” added Mrs. Malone. “Is it true that he handles almost everything now, except the giving of the Sunday sermon?”
“Yes,” I replied coolly. Every morning, I knew, Mr. Nicholls taught religious instruction at the National School; every afternoon, he visited the poor and the sick. He now performed the majority of the marriages, baptisms, and burials in the community; enrollment at the Sunday school had greatly increased under his sway; he led all three Sunday services; and he assisted papa up the stairs to the high pulpit to deliver the weekly sermon—one of the few obligations not impeded by papa’s near blindness, since papa had always made a practice of speaking extemporaneously, with an uncanny sense of timing that enabled him to finish after precisely thirty minutes. “Mr. Nicholls discharges his duties well,” I added.
“It must be a great relief to Mr. Brontë, to have some one on whom he can rely so completely,” said Sylvia.
“Indeed,” said I. As the Malones turned back to their meal, I sighed and said to my sisters in a low tone, “I do wish people would not go on and on so about the virtues of Mr. Nicholls.”
“All they said is true,” insisted Anne. “With Branwell’s indisposition and papa’s disability, I do not know how we should get on without Mr. Nicholls. We are fortunate to have him.”
“I know; and I admit, I am beginning to think a little better of him than I did previously. He has been helpful to us in times of need; for that I am very grateful—but at the same time, it is upsetting to be obliged to be grateful to a man like that.”
“A man like what?” asked Anne. “He is always very polite to me.”
“Did you not see the way Mr. Nicholls lost his temper last Sunday, just because that poor Quaker wore his hat in the church? Mr. Nicholls gave that parishioner such a black, dark look, and spoke to him so harshly, I believe the man may never attend services again.”
“After services,” interjected Emily, “I overheard Mr. Nicholls talking about Dissenters in the most insulting manner. He has no patience or respect for any one who does not follow his High Church views.”
“Mr. Nicholls is rather unreasonable on that subject,” admitted Anne, “and he can be rather harsh and insensitive at times—but I still like him—and I feel certain he likes you, Charlotte.”
“Why do you keep saying so? He made very plain what he thinks of me, that night at tea.”
“That was months ago, Charlotte,” said Anne softly. “You must find it in your heart to forgive him. Have you not noticed the look in Mr. Nicholls’s eyes, every time he has brought Branwell home? And the way he has been staring at you all through dinner?”
I glanced across the room; to my dismay, Mr. Nicholls was looking in my direction. Unaccountably, I blushed, and averted my eyes. “He is not looking at me; he is looking at all of us.”
After the cakes and pies had been served, and a great quantity of tea and coffee had been consumed, papa announced that we should gather in the churchyard for the ringing of the bells. Chattering excitedly, the crowd all donned their hats, coats, shawls, and gloves, then filtered outside the inn and surrounded the adjacent church. In the brisk chill of late afternoon, we all stood with eyes focused on the tower, waiting in a fervour of anticipation as the hour drew near.
Then it came: the sudden and joyous clash of the six new bells, ringing out from high above. A hush fell on the crowd as the bells pealed four times in quick succession; then, as the day’s special treat, the bellringers launched into the program they had been practising all week: a rousing musical performance that lasted a full quarter of an hour, its mighty and varied notes resounding through the air with a pleasing musicality. At its conclusion, the crowd erupted into cheers and applause.
“Are they not magnificent!” I exclaimed.
