Brontës (128 page)

The news that ‘Currer Bell' had visited Harriet Martineau spread like wildfire. Lucy Martineau's already exaggerated version of Charlotte's life – ‘This is her 1st visit to London, & she lives in a most retired part of
England, never seeing any body, & her Father has not slept out of his \own/ house for the last 20 years' – was further garbled in the telling, though at least the Martineaus preserved the secret of Charlotte's name. Thackeray, however, despite the delicate discretion he had shown at their first meeting, did not, and so Charlotte Brontë was unmasked before the literary coteries of London.
⁷⁴

‘I get on quietly –', Charlotte told her father, ‘most people know me I think, but they are far too well-bred to shew that they know me – so that there is none of that bustle or that sense of publicity I dislike.'
⁷⁵
On the last night of her visit, the Smiths held another dinner party in her honour to which they invited seven gentlemen, including the five literary critics of
The Times, Athenaeum, Examiner, Spectator
and
Atlas
. Charlotte had fortified herself morally and physically for the occasion by lunching with the Wheelwrights so that she was able to await the eight o'clock dinner with resignation. Nevertheless, when it came to actually facing the ‘literary Rhadamanthi … Men more dreaded in the world of letters than you can conceive' over dinner, she abandoned the prominent place set for her at the bottom of the table and went to sit next to the comforting and protective Mrs Smith.
⁷⁶

Among the eminent critics present were John Forster, editor of
The Examiner
, and Henry Chorley, the literary and musical reviewer of the
Athenaeum
, but it was the presence of someone from
The Times which
must have caused Charlotte most anguish.
The Times
had published its review on 7 December, while she was in London, and it was one of the most overtly hostile she had yet received. Describing
Shirley
as very clever, as a matter of course', the reviewer had then gone on to lambast the story as ‘commonplace and puerile', the characters as ‘creatures of the author's brain – certainly not of our every-day world' and the dialogue as ‘such as no mortal lovers ever spoke, or, we trust, ever will speak in Miss Currer Bell's books again'. At the end of an extremely sarcastic notice, the critic had dismissed the book as ‘at once the most high flown and the stalest of fictions'. Not surprisingly, the morning that this review appeared
The Times
unaccountably disappeared from the Smiths' morning room. Charlotte was not to be fooled, and quietly insisted that Mrs Smith should show her the paper. Mrs Smith took up her work while Charlotte read the review, but she could not help observing the tears stealing down her guest's face and falling into her lap.
⁷⁷
Later, telling Miss Wooler about her dinner with the critics, Charlotte remarked with something like contempt, ‘some of them had been very
bitter foes in print but they were prodigiously civil face to face –; these gentlemen seemed infinitely grander, more pompous, dashing, shewy than the few authors I saw…'
⁷⁸
She liked John Forster, who would later, and without her knowledge, play such an important part in her life, but described the distance between his ‘loud swagger' and Thackeray's ‘simple port' as being like the distance between Shakespeare's writing and Macready's acting. It was Henry Chorley, however, who fascinated her: he was a ‘peculiar specimen' and she was unsure whether to react to him with utter contempt and aversion or, for the sake of latent good, to forgive his obvious evil. ‘One could well pardon his unpleasant features, his strange voice – even his very foppery and grimace – if one found these disadvantages connected with living talent and any spark of genuine goodness – If there is nothing more than acquirement, smartness and the affectation of philanthropy –', she added sardonically, ‘Chorley is a fine creature.'
⁷⁹

One of the good things to emerge from this meeting with her critics was that Charlotte lost her awe of them. Having met them, observed their own failings and found them to be mortal after all, she would in future no longer feel any obligation to be bound by their judgement. The evening passed off better than she had expected. She was able to endure the unaccustomed length of the dinner ‘quite courageously' and was not too overwrought to converse. It was only when she got to bed and was unable to sleep that she discovered how much their presence and conversation had excited her. Next day she was so worn out that, having said her farewells to the Smiths and set off for home, she was obliged to break her journey overnight at Derby and spend the night at an inn.
⁸⁰
She reached home on Saturday afternoon, 15 December, to find her father and the servants all well. On the Monday morning she wrote her thank-you letters to Laetitia Wheelwright, Mrs Smith and, most especially, George Smith. After telling him how much his mother's ‘considerate attention and goodness' had enhanced her visit, she added:

As to yourself – what can I say? Nothing. And it is as well: words are not at all needed: very easy is it to discover that with you to gratify others is to gratify yourself; to serve others is to afford yourself a pleasure. I hope this may long be the case, and I wish the Leigh Hunts and the Jameses may never spoil your nature. I suppose you will experience your share of ingratitude and encroachment – but do not let them alter you. Happily they are the less likely to do this because you are half a Scotchman and therefore must have inherited a fair share
of prudence to qualify your generosity, and of caution to protect your benevolence.

Currer Bell bids you farewell for the present

CB–
⁸¹

This curiously formal letter, so different in style and tone from the ones sent to his mother and Laetitia Wheelwright, was obviously carefully drafted before being sent and is all the more revealing for that, suggesting an anxiety to please and impress. The use of her ‘Currer Bell' pseudonym was significant too, for, as we shall see, George Smith was the only one of her correspondents with whom she continued to use it consistently. The masculine
nom-de-plume
freed her from the constraints that would normally be expected in letters between a young unmarried man and woman and enabled her to write in a flirtatious way wholly inappropriate to the spinster daughter of a clergyman.

The easy and teasing relationship that had developed between George Smith and his authoress during her fortnight in London was amply illustrated in the letters which followed. On 26 December, for instance, she wrote:

My dear Sir

Your note reminded me of the ‘cross portrait'; it is exceedingly wayward. You shall have the full benefit of the character you give of yourself; I am willing to look on you as a ‘hard-headed and close-fisted man of business', only – remember – your conduct must be consistent with the claim you prefer to these epithets; if you are ‘close-fisted', shut your hand against Currer Bell, give him no more books …
⁸²

George Smith's ‘man of business' image was to be a shared joke which would recur frequently in future correspondence. The whole basis of their new intimacy was revealed in the same letter: ‘one should study human Nature under all aspects', Charlotte told her publisher, ‘one should see one's friends, for instance, in Cornhill as well as in Westbourne-Place; one should hear them discuss “discounts” and “per-centages” as well as converse at their own fireside'. As a sample of this intimacy, she gave him a tongue-in-cheek description of the proceedings of what she archly called a group of gentlemen commissioned to choose ladies' bonnets for East Indian exportation.

You do not know the anecdote, but it is quite authentic, and the little circumstance to which it refers took place in the City – not far from C—h—ll. The bonnets were carefully chosen, and subsequently – with a conscientious desire to have all right – they were
tried
on. and judgement duly passed as to their merits. Imagination cannot resist the impulse to picture this scene – it rises before her, and she looks at it with delighted eyes. She sees a back-room crowded with bonnet-boxes; she sees three umpires whom she knows well; P— stands in the back-ground waiting to pack. Opinions vary and tastes differ just sufficiently to give interest to the discussion. A gentianella blue satin is found most becoming to Mr T—y—r; Mr W—m's artist's eye finds a \special/ charm in the rich tint of a ‘chapeau grenat' (anglice a garnet-coloured velvet bonnet) while Mr G—e S—th divides his preference between the prettiest little pink drawn-silk and the neatest white chip with a single drooping ostrich feather.

Here ensues the packing scene –. P— is now the principal figure – and he is beheld – not without anguish – applying to fabrics of satin, velvet, chip and straw those principles of compression and compactness on which he acts with such skill and success in the stowage of books and stationary.

There is a third scene – the unpacking at Calcutta or elsewhere – but from hence Imagination turns her face with dismay and covers her eyes with her wings
⁸³

Writing again to George Smith on 15 January, Charlotte teasingly forbore to thank him for sending a replacement copy of a book that had been lost in the post. ‘I leave the correction of such proceedings to the “man-of-business” within you', she told him, ‘on the “close-fisted” Head of the Establishment in Cornhill devolves the duty of reprimanding Mr G—e S—th; they may settle accounts between themselves – while Currer Bell looks on and wonders but keeps out of the melée.' Assuring him that Caroline Helstone had no original and was ‘a native of Dreamland, and as such can have neither voice nor presence except for the fancy', she added, ‘N.B. that last sentence is not to be read by the “Man of business”; it sounds much too bookish.'
⁸⁴
Clearly the relationship with George Smith, even when conducted only by letter, added a much-needed sparkle to Charlotte's life.

The return from London inevitably brought on a depression of spirits, not least because it fell only a few days before the first anniversary of Emily's death. In the past Charlotte had always doubled her pleasure from excursions into society by faithfully describing all she had seen and heard to Emily.
⁸⁵
That pleasure was now denied her, but she had seen and done so much that she
needed a receptive female companion to whom she could confide her impressions and opinions, relive her experiences and chat inconsequentially. She therefore turned to Ellen, asking her to come over to Haworth as soon as possible and offering to send the Haworth gig to collect her from Keighley station so that she need not walk the final four miles.
⁸⁶

The day before Charlotte wrote to Ellen, Patrick, whose thoughts must also have been preoccupied with the anniversary of his daughter's death on the morrow, wrote a hymn affirming his faith in God and His Church. Though the Christmas message of new life and hope must have been peculiarly poignant in the light of his recent bereavements, Patrick's faith never wavered:

Then welcome with pleasures profound

The joys which the season commands.

Let Christ and His love be our theme,

Let earth with its cares pass away,

Let heavenly thoughts be our dreams,

And practice our duty by day.

Patrick had the first five verses of the hymn printed for use in the Christmas services at church and also sent a complete copy to the
Leeds Intelligencer
, where the lines were published under his initials on 22 December.
⁸⁷

Ellen arrived five days later for a stay of three weeks.
⁸⁸
The friends had much to talk about, for as well as all the excitement of Charlotte's London visit there was the distinct prospect of a marriage between mutual friends, Joe Taylor and Amelia Ringrose. Amelia's original engagement to Ellen's brother, George, had been reluctantly broken off when it became evident that he was unlikely either to regain his sanity or to return from Dr Belcombe's asylum near York. For the last two months, Joe Taylor had been paying her an increasing amount of attention, much to Charlotte's amusement. ‘Take notice – you will see more of Mr Joe', she had written in one of her brief letters to Amelia, without disclosing that Joe had actually written to her asking her opinion of Miss Ringrose. She had replied with a ‘faithful opinion', but had refrained from asking why he wanted it. ‘I said she was what I called truly amiable, actively useful – genuinely good-natured – sufficiently sensible – neither unobservant nor without discrimination \but/
Not
highly intellectual, brilliant or profound.'
Whether Charlotte's opinion carried any weight or not, the two had become informally engaged by the beginning of December, leading Charlotte to say, ‘I do not like to think about it – I shudder sometimes.'
⁸⁹
She was therefore extremely put out when, virtually unannounced, Joe Taylor arrived for dinner one day shortly after her return from London. The ostensible purpose of his visit was to invite Charlotte to spend Christmas in Birmingham with the Dixons, the Taylors' cousins who had befriended Charlotte in Brussels. In fact he was about to go to Hull to ask Amelia's father formally for his consent to their marriage and, knowing that Mr Ringrose was a notoriously difficult character, he wanted Charlotte's advice on how to proceed. As he left he promised to return while Ellen was staying at Haworth to let them know the outcome of his visit.
⁹⁰

Writing to Williams on 3 January 1850, Charlotte apologized for her tardy response to his letter: ‘just now I am enjoying the treat of my friend Ellen's society and she makes me indolent and negligent – I am too busy talking to her all day to do anything else'. ‘When I first saw Ellen I did not care for her –', Charlotte confessed to Williams,