The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, page 33
Oh! How quiet the parsonage was. The rooms, once so full of drama and life, were all empty and silent; all day long, the only sound was the ticking of the clock. When I dared to venture out, the resounding chip, chip of the stone-cutter’s recording chisel, as he engraved the endless headstones for Haworth parish, was such a painful reminder of my own fresh grief that it sent me scurrying back inside. I felt like a prisoner in solitary confinement, with only a church and a gloomy graveyard for my prospect. I began to thirst for other society, but at the same time, I doubted my capability of pleasing or deriving pleasure from it. For a full week, I was incapable of performing any useful occupation, and could not lift a pen for any more formidable task than the writing of a few lines to an indulgent friend.
At length, after an inner struggle, I rallied. The struggle came on a dim June morning; my first thought upon awakening had been a dour repetition of the same grim words that had plagued me all week: “Your youth is past. You shall never marry. The two human beings who understood you, and whom you understood, are gone. Solitude, Remembrance, and Longing are to be almost your sole companions all day through. At night you shall go to bed with them; they will long keep you sleepless; to-morrow, you shall wake to them again, and every day thereafter, for the rest of your life.”
I wallowed for a few tearful moments in this state of self-pity, when a new voice spoke up with sudden force—a sweeter, purer voice—the voice of an angel, who sounded (I thought) like Anne: “Lonely sufferer, these are dark days indeed; but there are thousands who suffer more than you. Yes, you are lonely, but you are not alone; yes, you have lost most of those you loved, but you still have one near relative left, who is very dear to you. Yes, you reside in an isolated moorland parish, but you are no desperate old maid, without hope or motive; nor are you like the raven, weary of surveying the deluge and without an ark to return to. No! You have hope! You have motive! Labour must be the cure, not sympathy! Labour is the only radical cure for rooted sorrow!”
I sat up in bed, my heart pounding as I threw off the covers and dried my eyes. My new-found course was clear. To ease my grief and loneliness, I must go back to work.
My novel Shirley had been almost two-thirds completed when my brother died and my sisters became ill. I had barely looked at it since. It was hard going now, trying to write in unaccustomed isolation; it seemed useless to attempt to create what there no longer lived an Ellis and Acton Bell to read. I dearly missed their congenial, bantering support; and at first the whole book, with every hope founded on it, seemed to fade to vanity and vexation of spirit.
At length, however, the occupation of writing became a boon to me; it took me out of dark and desolate reality to an unreal but happier region. I could pour out my own feelings onto the page, with words wrung straight from the pain at the aching centre of my heart; but I could be kinder to my own characters than God had been to me. I could strike my fictional Caroline with a fever, take her into the Valley of the Shadow to the very brink of death, and then—like the powerful Genius Tallii60 of my childhood—I could restore her to health, find her a longed-for, long-lost relative, and give her in marriage to the man she loved.
You can write nothing of value unless you give yourself wholly to the theme, and when you so give yourself, you lose appetite and sleep—it cannot be helped; and so it was with Shirley. I put great effort into the novel, completing it at the end of August 1849; again, the book was rushed into print, appearing in late October. It was for the most part well received by the press and public, though not with such acclaim as Jane Eyre. It seemed that those who had spoken disparagingly of Jane Eyre liked Shirley a little better than its predecessor; while those who were most charmed with Jane Eyre, were—ironically—(despite certain critics’ stern admonitions to avoid melodrame in future) disappointed at not again finding the same level of excitement and stimulus. What I did not foresee was the way in which my new book would change my life:
Shirley took away, once and forever, my precious cover of anonymity.
In writing Jane Eyre, although I based the Lowood School and its populace on true events, those events had occurred so long ago, that a connection was not made to the author’s life. My new book changed all that.
Shirley was set in the past, against a backdrop of social and economic unrest, during the Luddite riots in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1811–12. However, I had modelled many of the characters on people who were nearly all still living in the close-knit communities of Birstall, Gomersal, and our own neighbouring parishes. Perhaps it was naive of me, but I entertained no fear of discovery. I was so little known, I thought it inconceivable that I should be identified with the work; that any one should suspect the quiet, unmarried daughter of Haworth’s parson of writing a novel, was the furthest thing from my mind. How wrong I turned out to be!
The unveiling of my secret began quietly. My correspondence from Smith & Elder occasionally arrived unsealed; it had been opened and examined, I suspected, at the Keighley post-office. Joe Taylor, to whom I had applied for advice in the writing of Shirley, had told so many people in Gomersal about my authorship, that when I visited Ellen there, I was met with a new deference and augmented kindness from people from all over the district.
The critic Mr. George Lewes, upon hearing from a former schoolfellow of mine who recognised the school in Jane Eyre as the Clergy Daughters’ School, and Currer Bell as Charlotte Brontë, announced that the author of Shirley was a spinster and the daughter of a clergyman, who lived in Yorkshire! The news spread to the London newspapers. Mr. Smith assured me that it was best to fight fire with fire, and so in December 1849 I went to London to stay with him and his mother, where I was formally introduced at a dinner party to the literary Rhadamanthi:61 the five most respected and dreaded critics in the world of letters. Although I trembled at first to meet these great men, I discovered them to be prodigiously civil when met face to face; and in perceiving their flaws, and finding them to be mortal after all, I lost my awe of them.
Mr. Nicholls was one of the first people in Haworth to learn of my authorship. It was a bright, brisk January day, just after the commencement of the new decade. A winter cold had kept me inside ever since my return from London. Now recovered, and bundled up in cloak, hat, and muff, I was taking advantage of a respite in the weather to walk a well-trodden path in the snowy churchyard, with no one else about. After some minutes, I heard the crunching of footsteps on the snow behind me. Mr. Nicholls approached and stopped before me, his hands jammed in his coat pockets, his cheeks bright red from the cold, and a peculiar, half-smiling, half-flustered look on his face.
“Miss Brontë.”
“Mr. Nicholls.”
He glanced at me, then away, then back at me again, in a look that was part awe, part shyness, part stunned disbelief. “I was hoping to see you. I wanted to congratulate you. I’ve learned from your father the most astonishing news—that you’ve had two books published.”
“Papa told you? I shall have to scold him, Mr. Nicholls; that was very wrong of him. It was meant to be a secret.”
“Why keep such an accomplishment a secret, Miss Brontë? Two books! You should be very proud. The moment he told me, I went out and got hold of a copy of Jane Eyre.”
I felt a strange fluttering in the pit of my stomach. “You have read it?”
“I read it in two sittings. I could not put it down.”
I felt a heat rise to my face and I looked away. I was pleased by his response, yet at the same time aghast. It was one thing to lay bare one’s soul under cover of anonymity; it was quite another when that safety shield was removed, exposing oneself, naked and open, to the world. Jane Eyre revealed some of my most personal thoughts and feelings with regard to love, morality, and a woman’s place in society; it revealed a side to my nature which (as an unmarried woman, and one whom Mr. Nicholls had admittedly called an old maid) I felt could be construed as the passionate ravings of a lovelorn spinster. Did Mr. Nicholls view me as such? I could not tell.
“I would never have guessed that you would be interested in reading such a novel, sir,” was my quiet reply.
“I was educated with the classics, I admit, and I’ve never read this sort of book before; nor have I ever read a book written by some one I know. It was a new and thrilling experience to read your story, Miss Brontë. It was—it is a very good book.”
“Thank you.”
He shook his head, awe-struck. “I understand your sisters are published, as well.”
“They are.”
“The whole Brontë family, a pack of authors! I wish I’d known it while they were alive. To think that all this was going on, right under my nose, and I never suspected it. At least this solves the great mystery, as to the purpose of all that writing paper you devoured.”
His eyes twinkled so gaily, that I could not help but smile; then he laughed out, and I found myself laughing along with him. “I still feel very badly about that affair,” said I, in between bursts of merriment. “It was so kind of you to go all the way to Bradford to procure paper for us in our hour of need; yet I was so pig-headed, I could not appreciate it.”
“No harm done. That was long ago. I look forward to reading your other book, by the way, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Would you consider loaning me a copy?”
This request filled me with new-found anxiety, and brought another blush to my cheeks. I had written many scenes in Shirley that came from personal experience, and I had included a trio of self-important, buffoonish curates, based on the clergymen in my neighbourhood—two of whom were Mr. Nicholls’s particular friends. I had also briefly introduced a character who was Mr. Nicholls’s mirror image at the end. As my feelings towards Mr. Nicholls had softened considerably of late, I had portrayed him in a far better light than his colleagues; still, I was concerned about his reaction.
“I would be happy to loan you the book, sir, but I should warn you: when I wrote Shirley, I could not conceive that anyone in my neighbourhood would ever read it. It seems that I was foolish in that regard. You may find certain characters and events in the book a bit—familiar. I hope I did not offend.”
“Duly noted. Now when can I have it?”
I gave him the book. The next day, his landlady Mrs. Brown told me she seriously thought Mr. Nicholls had gone wrong in the head, for she had heard him alone in his room, giving vent to great roars of laughter, clapping his hands, and stamping his feet on the floor. The evening after that, when Mr. Nicholls came to see papa, I heard him reading aloud all the scenes about the curates; he read the scene about the wayward dog and the frightened curate twice, laughing his head off.
Afterwards, he knocked at the door to the dining-room, where I sat reading. I bade him come in; he entered and said hello.
“Would you care to sit, sir?”
“Regrettably, I cannot stay. I wanted to return your novel, and thank you for the loan.” He laid the book on the dining table. “It is a delightful book, Miss Brontë.”
I thanked him. As he made no move to leave, yet seemed to wish to say more, I prompted eagerly, “Please feel free to share any thoughts you may have about the novel, sir. Not all the critics have appreciated it. I no longer have any one, save papa and my publishers, with whom to discuss such matters, and I am most interested in your opinion.”
He fell silent for a moment, then said, “Well: I am no expert in these things, but I don’t know what the critics could find to complain about. I thought it well done. I liked your descriptions of the Yorkshire country-side. I recognised Keeper in your ‘Tartar.’ You captured Mr. Grant and Mr. Bradley to perfection. I’ve never laughed so hard in all my life! I intend to order my own copy.”
“I could hardly ask for a better recommendation.”
After some further hesitation, he added, “Would it be presumptuous of me to inquire, Miss Brontë—by any chance—am I meant to be your Mr. Macarthey?”
My cheeks grew warm. “I admit I did have you in mind, sir, when I wrote that little piece about him at the end.” At his laugh, I added, “Believe me, I should never have written it, had I thought you would read it.”
“Well I am honoured,” said he triumphantly, “to find myself in your book, however small my part might be.”
A few days later, I was writing a letter when Martha rushed in from the kitchen, puffing and blowing and much excited.
“Oh ma’am, I’ve heard sich news!”
“What about?” said I, but I could guess what was coming.
“Please ma’am ye’ve been an’ written two books—th’ grandest books ’at ever was seen! My father has heard it at Halifax an’ Mr. George Taylor an’ Mr. Greenwood an’ Mr. Merrall at Bradford—they’re going t’ have a meeting at th’ Mechanics’ Institute an’ t’ settle about ordering ’em!”
I calmed Martha down and sent her off, then fell into a cold sweat. Jane Eyre and Shirley to be read by John Brown, our sexton—and no doubt every man and woman in Haworth—God help, keep, and deliver me!
The word spread like wild-fire. I no longer walked invisible. Soon the entire village was clamouring to read my books, making great fools of themselves over Shirley in particular. They cast lots for the three copies on loan at the Mechanics’ Institute, fining borrowers a shilling per diem if they kept the volumes longer than two days. Ellen wrote to tell me that Shirley was experiencing a similar interest in her own district, many of whose inhabitants recognised themselves, and were thrilled to find the Yorkshire people and country-side portrayed in print by one of their own. Even the local curates—poor fellows!—showed no resentment, each characteristically finding solace for his own wounds in crowing over his brethren.
It would be mere nonsense and vanity to repeat any more of what I heard at the time, particularly since the positive was balanced by an equal weight of negative from the press. Nevertheless, I was grateful for our neighbours’ enthusiasm, as it was a source of reviving pleasure to my aging father, whose pride in my work now knew no bounds.
One morning, an incident happened which curiously touched me. Papa put into my hands a little packet of old, yellowed letters.
“Charlotte,” said he gently and gravely, “it occurred to me that you might like to see these. They are your mother’s letters.”
“My mother’s letters?” I replied in great surprise.
“She wrote them to me before we were married. I have always treasured them. You may read them if you like.” With that, he left the room.
My mother’s letters! I had had no idea that such letters existed. I understood at once what must have inspired papa to share them with me, after all these years: in reading about my character Caroline’s longing for her mother in Shirley, he no doubt recognized the depth of loss I had sustained when my own mother died at such a young age. My stomach quavered as I opened the first fragile epistle; my heart gave a little leap when I beheld the delicate, unfamiliar handwriting on the pages therein. How strange it was to peruse now, for the first time, the records of a mind whence my own sprang! How sad and sweet it was to find that mind of a truly fine, pure, and elevated order! There was a rectitude, a refinement, a constancy, a modesty, and a sense of gentleness about them, that was indescribable—and a sense of humour, too—she addressed my father as “Dear saucy Pat.” Oh! I thought, as tears sprang into my eyes, how dearly I wished that she had lived, and that I could have known her!
When I returned the precious documents to papa, I thanked him for his generosity and sensitivity in sharing them with me.
“She was a dear and wonderful woman, and you are a lot like her, Charlotte,” said he, as he squeezed my hand affectionately. “You are my solace and my comfort now; I do not know how I should survive without you.”
“You will never have to, papa,” I promised.
My life over the next three years was a strange amalgam of solitude and society. I used part of my earnings to do a little interior remodelling in the parsonage, widening the dining-room and bed-chamber above, adding curtains here and there and refurbishing upholstery. Restless and unable to commit to a theme for a new book, I made several visits to London, where I was wined and dined at the home of Mr. Smith and met several prominent writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray. I visited the city’s many attractions, and I saw the celebrated actor Macready in Othello and Macbeth.
At the urging of Mr. Smith (“you are a famous author now, Miss Brontë,” said he; “it is de rigueur to have one’s likeness painted”) I reluctantly had my portrait done by the fashionable artist George Richmond—a subtle drawing in coloured chalk which Mr. Smith sent to our house, along with a framed portrait of my childhood hero, the Duke of Wellington, as a gift for me. I thought my picture a flattered likeness, which more resembled my sister Anne than myself. Tabby insisted that it made me look too old; but as she, with equal tenacity, asserted that the Duke of Wellington’s picture was “a portrait o’ th’ Maister” (meaning papa), not much weight could be ascribed to her opinion.
Martha said, “Th’ eyes be very like. ’Tis like ye’re staring down at me, ma’am, forming an opinion like, an’ looking at me through an’ through, right t’ me very soul.”
Papa proudly hung my portrait over the fire-place in the dining-room, pronouncing it a correct likeness. “It captures you entirely,” said he with an uncharacteristic grin. “Such a wonderfully good and life-like expression! It succeeds, as well, as a graphic representation of both mind and matter. I fancy I see within it strong indications of the author and the genius.”
“I fancy I see strong indications of bias in your opinion,” said I with a laugh.
