The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, page 28
Over the past year, although I had had almost daily contact of some kind with Mr. Nicholls, it had always been brief, and we had rarely exchanged more than a few words. However, unlike our dissolute brother, and the simple, dutiful servants in our household, Mr. Nicholls was an intelligent, questioning, and observant man; this made it a challenge to keep our secret from him. On numerous occasions, Mr. Nicholls arrived at the parsonage at the same time as the post, when correspondence and parcels from our publishers in London were delivered. These mysterious bundles aroused curiosity in Mr. Nicholls’s eyes, but my sisters and I always disappeared with our booty without a word of explanation.
One such morning in late January, when I heard Tabby call out, “Another parcel for ye, Miss Charlotte!” I came running to the front door, to find Mr. Nicholls returning the dogs from his walk. To my embarrassment, Tabby handed the package to me in Mr. Nicholls’s presence. “Quite th’ popular lady ye are, Miss! Who is it, keeps sending ye all them books from London?”
“A friend,” I replied quickly, colouring as I tried to hide the return direction from Mr. Nicholls.
A week later, when I brought papa and Mr. Nicholls their tea, Mr. Nicholls asked my father why he gave such prominent placement in his study to the books by the Bells. Without missing a beat, papa answered that he merely admired their work. I was grateful to papa for his discretion, as was Emily, who continued to insist, sine qua non, on anonymity. I could see, by Mr. Nicholls’s reaction, that he did not question the reply; nor did he express any interest in reading the works in question. I felt certain, at the time, that the notion of a woman penning a novel would have been astonishing to Mr. Nicholls—and the notion that the Bells were in fact three women, and the daughters of his parson, would have been the furthest thing from his mind.
I had long been an ardent admirer of William Makepeace Thackeray’s work, and his newest effort, Vanity Fair, was a particular favourite of mine. When, not long after the publication of Jane Eyre, that worthy gentleman wrote in praise of my novel, I was so astonished, and so grateful for his generous tributes, that I dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to him—an act which caused an unexpected furour.
“Oh no!” I cried, racing into the dining-room, where Emily and Anne were both vigorously brushing Flossy’s long, silky coat. “I have just heard from Mr. Thackeray, apprising me of the most surprising and distressing circumstances. Apparently it is public knowledge—although it was entirely unknown to me—that Mr. Thackeray, like my Mr. Rochester, had a mad wife whom he had been obliged to put away.”
“You are joking,” said Emily, putting down the dog’s brush.
“I wish I were. A report is circulating in the press that Jane Eyre was written by a governess in Mr. Thackeray’s family, and that is why Currer Bell dedicated ‘his’ book to him.”
“Oh dear,” murmured Anne. “What an unfortunate coincidence.”
“Well may it be said that fact is often stranger than fiction,” said I, as I sank onto the sofa with a sigh. “Mr. Thackeray’s letter is so noble, and so uncomplaining; but to think that my inadvertent blunder has made him a subject for common gossip—oh! It is too awful.”
The incident provoked a slew of comments in the press, calling further attention to the three mysterious Bells. Curiosity was aroused, not only by their undetermined sex, and by the content of their novels—(the “eccentricities of woman’s fantasy” complained one critic)—people were now beginning to wonder if the Bells were not in fact one and the same person! Were Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights, they asked, in fact early and less successful efforts by the author of Jane Eyre?
At first, Emily, Anne, and I just laughed at such speculations. As time wore on, however, and the prattle of the press continued, I found it less and less amusing. Emily tried to hide her pangs of disappointment at the savage reviews of her work behind a mask of resolute indifference and endurance; yet I knew what she truly felt, and I minimised my own achievement in every way I could. At the same time, whenever I heard my book praised, I felt chastened by a mixture of doubt and fear. I had poured all the best of me into Jane Eyre. Could I write another book that would be as well received?
The winter of 1848 was particularly severe, with a cruel east wind that whistled in from the moors. My brother and sisters and I all suffered from the influenza or a very bad cold twice over within the space of a few short weeks. Anne was the only one with whom it stayed long or did much mischief; in her case it was attended with distressing cough and fever, which left her chest weak, and brought on a severe recurrence of the asthma that had troubled her since childhood. For two days and nights, her difficulty of breathing was so painful and pronounced that I feared for her life. Anne bore it as she did all affliction: with heroic endurance and without one complaint, only sighing now and then when nearly worn-out.
Winter passed into spring, and all the while, I struggled to settle on a subject for my next novel. My publishers suggested that I adopt the installment technique employed by both Dickens and Thackeray, but I refused, insisting that I could not think of submitting a work for publication until I had written the last word of the last chapter, and was entirely satisfied with the whole that had preceded it; as such, I would stick steadfastly to the three-volume form. I submitted a plan for a manner in which I might rework The Professor, jettisoning the entire first part and revising and expanding the latter, but this was met with a polite and firm refusal. I made three different commencements on a new book, but they all displeased me. For a time, I was greatly stymied.
In my youth, I had been possessed by the need to record my vivid imaginings. Then, as with Jane Eyre, scribbling had been my joy and my tonic; entire weeks had passed in the blink of an eye while I was writing; I wrote because I could not help it. Now—to my dismay—the very success I had dreamt of, and the business-oriented expectation that came with it, had taken away some of the joy from the enterprise. The eminent writers of the day possessed a knowledge of the world, I felt, such as I could lay no claim to; in my view, this gave their writings an importance and a variety far beyond what I could offer. I felt a great responsibility to produce another excellent work. I did trust that I had the power to write; but I found it was not every day, nor even every week, that I could write what was worth reading.
At length, I settled on a topic. Notwithstanding the success of Jane Eyre, I was anxious to avoid a repetition of the charges of melodrame and improbability that had been levelled at me by some reviewers. The place in society of the unmarried woman was constantly and increasingly in my mind. At the same time, I was intrigued by the notion of writing a historical novel, and papa had told me many fascinating stories about the volatile conditions during the Luddite riots in the woollen and cotton industries in Yorkshire during the Regency era. With this in mind, I began to research and write Shirley.
Emily also began a new book of her own, although she refused to share what she was working on. “I do not know if I wish to publish again,” explained Emily, when we met around the dining-table for one of our evening discussions that spring. “Even if I do, I work best in solitude. I wrote the greater part of the first draft of Wuthering Heights that way. I have a new book in progress; that is all I am willing to say at present. I shall show it to you if and when I am satisfied with it.”
Anne, in spite of her weakening health, had been sitting stooped over her desk night and day for more than a year, hard at work on her second book, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. So committed was Anne to the project, that it was only with difficulty that Emily and I could prevail upon her to take a walk, or induce her to converse.
“It is not good for you to lead such a sedentary life,” I warned her, on a particularly glorious day in May. “You need the exercise, Anne. Come out with us!”
“I am almost done copying out my novel,” insisted Anne. “Mr. Newby is expecting it. I want to finish.”
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a daring novel, depicting a courageous woman who leaves her drunkard, dissolute husband in order to earn her own living, and to rescue her son from his bad influence. I applauded Anne’s effort and her craft, and felt it was a powerful and well-written book; however, I thought the choice of subject a mistake.
“Your rich drunkard is not Branwell,” I told her, “even if his drunkenness is clearly Branwell’s. This painstaking rendering of his decay is disturbing to read, and the amorality of many of your central characters” (who were involved in adulterous affairs, like those she had witnessed at Thorp Green), “is, I fear, not something the public will take to readily. Think how they criticised me, for creating a character like Mr. Rochester—even though all of his affairs were in his past, and he regretted them.”
“Yes, but Charlotte, if you had to do it over again, would you have written it any differently?”
I hesitated. “No, I suppose not.”
“Your own publishers said that parts of Jane Eyre were too painful to read, and would alienate the public—and they were proved wrong. I believe it will be the same with my book. I feel it is my duty to tell this story. If, in my writing, I can do some good—if I can save one young woman from making the kind of foolish mistake that Helen makes in my story—I shall feel that I have achieved my goal.”
Anne loyally gave her completed manuscript to her unscrupulous editor, Mr. Newby, from whom she secured better terms than she had for her first book: she was to receive £25 on publication and a further £25 on the sale of 250 copies, with payments increasing with the rate of sales. However, when Mr. Newby brought out The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in June 1848, he advertised it with a certain tricky turn in its wording, implying that it was by the same author (in the singular) of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Worse yet, he offered it on these terms to Harper’s, the American firm that had published Jane Eyre in January (where it had a great run), and with whom my publisher had already made an agreement for Currer Bell’s next novel.
“This is intolerable!” I cried, when I received a letter from Smith & Elder, apprising me of these underhanded dealings. “Mr. Smith is all alarm, suspicion, and wrath! He asks: was I aware that all this was going on? Did I submit my next novel to Harper’s, without his knowledge? Of course I did not! How could he even dream I would do such a thing? How could Mr. Newby perpetrate such a lie?”
“I have written to Mr. Newby repeatedly on this subject,” said Anne, greatly vexed, as she sank down on the rocking chair in the dining-room, where I had imparted the news. “I insisted that the works of the Bells are the production of three different authors.”
“Yet Mr. Newby has written to Harper’s,” I exclaimed incredulously, “affirming that to the best of his belief, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were all written by the same person!”
“He wants the public and the trade to believe he has got hold of Currer Bell,” said Emily in disgust. “He is trying to cheat Smith & Elder by securing the American publisher’s bid. You were right, Charlotte. He is a despicable man! I am sorry that I ever gave my book to him.”
“Now Smith & Elder are questioning my loyalty and honesty, as well as my very identity,” said I, pacing back and forth before the hearth. “We must do something at once, to prove to my publisher that we are three separate persons, and we must confront Mr. Newby with his falsehood.”
“How?” said Anne.
“There is only one way. They must see us in the flesh. We must go to London in person—all three of us—without delay.”
“To London!” cried Anne, with a thrilled and terrified expression.
“If we go in person,” argued Emily, “all our efforts at anonymity are lost. They will learn that we are women.”
“What shame is there in revealing the truth?” I replied heatedly. “Our books have already been published and long since reviewed. Let the public know that we are of the nobler sex!”
“No!” cried Emily. “I cannot allow that. I never would have agreed to publish in the first place, had I thought there was any chance of giving up my privacy.”
“Then we will only tell our publishers,” said I, “and make sure they do not reveal our secret to any one else. Will that do?”
Emily heaved a sigh. “If you must go to London in person, then go—but I want no part of it. This is all about your book, Anne, and your name, Charlotte. Two authors will prove your point quite as well as three; but Ellis Bell shall remain a man, and he shall stay home.”
The outing proved to be an exciting adventure. It was Anne’s first visit to London (she had never left Yorkshire in her life), and only my second. I had spent three thrilling days touring London’s most famous sights with papa and Emily en route to Belgium six years earlier, but I had taken no time to stop there before my last voyage.
Anne and I immediately packed a small trunk, sent it to Keighley, apprised papa of our plans, and boldly set out that very afternoon after tea. It was the 7th of July. We walked to the train station through a thunderstorm; we got to Leeds, and were whirled up by the night train to London. We arrived—after a sleepless night—at eight o’clock in the morning at the Chapter Coffee-House in Paternoster Row, where I had stayed before. We washed ourselves, ate some breakfast, and set off in queer inward excitement to find 65 Cornhill.
For Anne, who had been in delicate health all year, the long journey and the walk through town proved both exciting and taxing. I thought she looked very pale when we arrived, although she insisted she was fine. Smith & Elder, it turned out, was housed in a large bookseller’s shop, in a street almost as bustling as the Strand. We went in and walked up to the counter. It was a Saturday—a full working-day—and there were a great many young men and lads here and there in the small room. I said to the first I could accost: “May I see Mr. Smith?”
He hesitated, looked a little surprised, and asked for our names. I declined to give them, explaining that we had come to see the publisher on a private matter. He bade us to sit down and wait. As we waited, my apprehension grew; what would Mr. George Smith think of us? He had no idea we were coming; he had believed, for the past eleven months of our association, that Currer Bell was a man; and my sister and I did not, I knew, make a very impressive picture, both being so small of stature, and attired as we were in our homemade, provincial dresses and bonnets.
At length a tall, handsome, gentlemanly young man came up to us. “Did you wish to see me, ma’am?” said he dubiously.
Anne and I stood. “Is it Mr. Smith?” I said in surprise, looking up through my spectacles at a dark-eyed, dark-haired youth of twenty-four, with a pale complexion and a trim, athletic figure, who appeared far too young and far too good-looking to be the head of a publishing house.
“It is.”
I put his own letter into his hand, directed to Currer Bell. Mr. Smith looked at it, and then at me again. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
I laughed at his perplexity; after a moment, as a silent, astonished recognition crossed his countenance, I said, “I am Miss Brontë. I am also Currer Bell, the author of Jane Eyre. This is my sister, Miss Anne Brontë—otherwise known as Acton Bell. We have come from Yorkshire to put to rest any doubts you may have about our identities, and our authorship.”
Fifteen
You are the Bells?” exclaimed Mr. Smith, absolutely stunned. “But I thought—I assumed you were three brothers!”
“We are three sisters!” I replied—instantly regretting the avowal, for in those four hastily spoken words, I had inadvertently broken my promise to Emily. “I am pleased that you thought as you did, sir,” I went on quickly, “for that is indeed the impression we wished to impart.”
Mr. Smith let out a great laugh, a mixture of surprise and apparent delight. “And what of Ellis Bell?”
“He could not come with us.” I rapidly launched into a brief explanation of the situation with Mr. Newby, anathematising Newby with undue vehemence.
“Your charges are all well-founded,” said Mr. Smith. “We call Newby’s establishment the ‘Nubian Desert.’ Manuscripts and correspondence can languish there for an eternity. Will you be so good as to wait a moment? There is some one to whom I must introduce you.” He hurried out and promptly returned with a pale, mild, stooping gentleman of fifty: Mr. William Smith Williams. It was a great pleasure finally to meet the other man with whom I had been corresponding with such intimate regularity for nearly a year.
There followed a great shaking of hands, and an hour or more of talk as we sat in Mr. Smith’s bright little office (only large enough to hold three chairs and a desk, but ceiled with a great skylight.) The young Mr. Smith was the most loquacious, while Mr. Williams and Anne said almost nothing at all. Mr. Williams had a nervous hesitation in speech, and seemed to have a difficulty in finding appropriate language in which to express himself, which threw him into the background in conversation; but I knew with what intelligence he could write, so I could not undervalue him.
I also liked Mr. Smith immediately. I saw that he was a pleasant, practical, intelligent, and shrewd man of business; and he was gracious and generous as well. Once he recovered from his initial shock at learning the true identities of Currer and Acton Bell, he responded gallantly, by inviting us to stay at his house—an invitation I declined.
“We only intend to stay in town for the night, Mr. Smith. We will return home to-morrow.”
“Oh, no; that is impossible, Miss Brontë,” rejoined Mr. Smith, from his seat behind his desk. “You have come all this way, you must stay a few days at least. Is this your first time in London? Have you seen its sights?”
“I have been here once before, and saw a great deal. My sister has not.”
