The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (28 page)

A wave of protest rose up amongst the congregants, male and female alike. Mr. Nicholls left the podium amidst boos and catcalls. After the service, people huddled in groups in the churchyard and lane, loudly voicing their complaints. My sisters and Ellen and I were about to head back to the house, when Sylvia Malone strode up with a fierce expression on her face.

“Oh! That Mr. Nicholls!” Sylvia cried. “I’d sure and for certain loathe the sight of him to-day, if I didn’t do so already!”

“I understand Mr. Nicholls’s point about the laundry,” said Anne. “The practice has always seemed disrespectful to me.”

“You would never see laundry hung out to dry in the Birstall churchyard,” agreed Ellen.

“Do you have trees in Birstall?” asked Sylvia.

“We do,” replied Ellen.

“Well, there’s barely a tree to speak of in
this
township,” said Sylvia heatedly, “so we can’t very well put up a laundry line, can we? Where are we supposed to dry our wet clothes now, I ask
you? Oh! How I wish that Mr. Nicholls would go back to Ireland where he belongs, and never return!”

Many parishioners echoed this view, expressing a desire, when Mr. Nicholls left on his annual, month-long holiday to Ireland, that he should not trouble himself to re-cross the Channel.

“This is not a feeling that ought to exist between shepherd and flock,” I told Anne with a disgruntled sigh, after Mr. Nicholls’s departure.

“It will all blow over in time,” replied Anne with quiet assurance.

Anne’s words proved true. The women of the community soon took to hanging their laundry over their own stone walls, or over the wall along Church Lane, which provided an equally fine meeting place.

That same summer, good news at long last occurred on the publishing front. Thomas Newby, the head of a small London firm, expressed a desire to publish Anne’s
Agnes Grey
and Emily’s
Wuthering Heights
together as a three-volume set—
Wuthering Heights
being a work of such length, they said, that it required two volumes of its own. To my disappointment, no interest was expressed in my novel
The Professor,
which was declared “deficient in startling incident and thrilling excitement.”

My sisters were beside themselves with joy. I was delighted for them, but at the same time cautious; for the offer came only on condition that the authors paid for publication themselves, by advancing the sum of £50. We had already suffered a most disappointing experience with a self-funded publication, and I worried that no more good would come of this venture, particularly since only 350 copies were to be printed, at a fee that would nearly impoverish my sisters. After so many rejections, however, Emily and Anne were so relieved to have an offer of any kind, that they immediately complied.

This singling out of
The Professor
for rejection was a real blow. I was about to shove the cherished but dejected manuscript into my bottom drawer, when I recalled that there was one
last publishing house on my list, to whom I had not yet applied: the firm of Smith, Elder & Co, of Cornhill, London. Although I knew my work had little hope of being accepted on its own, being too short for publication at one volume, I decided to send it to them anyway. I blush to admit it now, but in my naivete—(paper being so expensive—and having nothing else readily at hand)—I wrapped the manuscript in the same paper in which our works had previously been submitted and returned, simply scoring out the addresses of the other publishers, and adding the new.

I then went back to steadfastly copying out
Jane Eyre.
In due course, I received a reply from Smith, Elder & Co. I opened the envelope in dreary anticipation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, thanking me for my submission, and intimating that said publishers were not disposed to publish my manuscript. Instead, to my surprise, I took out a letter of two pages.

The letter was from a Mr. William Smith Williams, the literary advisor at Smith, Elder & Co. Mr. Williams declined, indeed, to publish
The Professor
for “business reasons,” although he insisted that it had “great literary power.” He then went on to discuss its merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered me better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done. He added that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention.

I re-read the letter four times, my fingers trembling.

In great excitement, I wrote back to Smith & Elder to explain that I had a brand-new “work in three volumes” very nearly ready for submission, in which I had endeavoured to impart a more vivid interest than belonged to the previous one.

I wrote like the wind. At the end of August, I sent off the completed manuscript of
Jane Eyre
to Cornhill—and sat back to wait for their reply. I did not have long to wait; although at the time, those two weeks seemed the longest of my life.

Every day, I watched like a hawk from the dining-room window for the arrival of the postman. Since Tabby was now too
deaf and lame to carry out more than the most simple kitchen tasks, it remained one of her few and most precious delights in life to accept and sort our mail; I would not take that pleasure from her; so I stood, with bated breath, listening as her halting steps sounded from the front door to papa’s study, hoping against hope that she would turn back into the dining-room, and bring me a missive of my own.

When at last it came—when Tabby placed the envelope into my hands, from Smith & Elder to “Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Brontë, Haworth”—my heart nearly stopped.

“What be the matter, Miss?” cried Tabby in alarm. “Who’s ’at letter from? Why, ye be as white as a ghost!”

“It is nothing,” I said quickly (but loudly, so that she might hear.) Tabby’s eyesight had grown so poor, that it was all she could do to make out the name of a letter’s recipient, much less attempt to decipher the identity of its sender. “It is just an answer to an inquiry I made. I will read it upstairs.” I then darted up to my room, where I ripped open the envelope, and with throbbing pulse, I rapidly took in the words written therein:

I let out a shriek of excitement. Oh! It was too good to be true!

With sudden force, my door flew open and Emily rushed in. “What is wrong? What has happened?” With one look—the letter in my hand, the happiness written all over my face—Emily deduced at once what the missive must contain. “Do they want your book?”

“They will pay to publish! One hundred pounds!”

Emily—normally so staid, so placid, so matter-of-fact, when confronted by any situation in life, be it crisis or celebration—let out a scream, and threw her arms around me. An instant later, Anne blew in, eyes wide with fright, an expression which
changed to jubilation when she heard the news. “Charlotte! This is too wonderful!”

“One hundred pounds!” exclaimed Emily.

“To earn something of my own—it is everything I hoped for—and look!” I cried, showing them the letter. “They want the first right of refusal for my next two books, for which I am to receive another one hundred pounds each.”
⁵⁶

We cried out with such glee, that Martha poked her head in with concern, and even Branwell stumbled out of his room in a confused daze, wondering if something in the house had caught fire again. We were forced to grab our bonnets and race out onto the moors, where for several hours we behaved like silly school-girls, running and jumping up and down and hugging each other and emitting such great shrieks of laughter, that any one who saw us must have thought we had gone mad.

“Just think of it!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms wide, and gazing up with delight into the limitless expanse of blue heaven, “after all our hard work, after all the slaving and all the dreaming, we are all to be published at last, at the very same time!”

It was not until some years later, after I had met and become friends with my publisher, that I blushingly learned of the circumstances surrounding the acceptance of my novel. William Smith Williams, the first to read it, told me that he sat up half the night to finish the manuscript, and was enchanted; he then insisted that the head of the firm—the young and intelligent Mr. George Smith—read it for himself. Mr. Smith laughingly admitted that his colleague had evinced such high praises, he did not know how to believe him; but he, too, devoured the entire novel on a single Sunday, beginning after breakfast, cancelling an appointment to go riding with a friend into the country,
bolting his dinner, and unable to retire for the night until he had finished the book.

I knew none of this, of course, at the time. I had barely processed the notion that I was to
be published,
before the act itself took place.
Jane Eyre
was rushed into print, from acceptance to publication, in a dizzyingly brief six weeks—so quickly, that it came out a full two months before Emily’s and Anne’s books, even though theirs had been accepted by Thomas Newby long before mine.

First, however, a letter arrived from Smith & Elder suggesting “some minor revisions” to
Jane Eyre.

“They want me to excise the entire first section about Jane as a child at Gateshead,” I told my sisters in dismay, “and revise, trim, or remove all the chapters about Lowood School.”

“That is absurd. Those are important parts of the story,” maintained Emily, “and of great interest.”

“They establish Jane’s background and character,” agreed Anne. “They evoke one’s sympathy.”

“The publisher seems to think those scenes might prove too painful for some readers to peruse, and make the book too long.” I put down the letter, distraught. “Why did they buy the novel, if they do not like it? I cannot imagine having to go back to retrench or change it now. If I make any alterations, I fear that I shall only injure the narrative. Every word I wrote contributes to the whole; and every word was true.”

“Truth, I have to think, has a severe charm of its own,” said Anne.

“And yet, had I told
all
the truth of my experience at the Clergy Daughters’ School, I might indeed have made it far more exquisitely painful. As it is, I softened many particulars, to make the tale more pleasing.”

“I would not change a word,” insisted Emily. “Trust your instincts. Your book may suit the public taste far better than the publisher anticipates. Just write and tell them so.”

I did just that. Smith & Elder acceded to my wishes. Then, not understanding how quickly my publisher would proceed, I
left immediately for Brookroyd to enjoy a brief holiday with Ellen. To my astonishment, the day after my arrival in Birstall, Emily forwarded to me the first batch of proof pages of
Jane Eyre,
which I was required to proofread and return post-haste. Of necessity, I was obliged to conduct this operation in front of Ellen, sitting across from her in the same room. What a struggle it was to keep silent! Bound as I was by my vow to my sisters to keep our authorship a secret, I was obliged to pretend that I was working on some personal writing project of little importance. Ellen was canny enough to discern that something was up; but she honourably did not ask any questions, nor did she look to see to whom the parcel was addressed when we posted it back to London.

My novel debuted on the 16th of October. My first six, beautifully bound copies of
Jane Eyre, An Autobiography, Edited by Currer Bell
arrived on the 19th. If I had thought I felt great pleasure in seeing our book of rhymes in print, it was nothing compared to the elation that spread through me now. At last, my dream had come true: I held in my hands a published work of my very own: a tale which had sprung forth from my own experience and imagination, and was now, by the grace of God, the miracle of language, and the employment of the printing press, available for others to read!

I
had kept my expectations low with respect to
Jane Eyre
’s success. I knew that critics were capricious, and popular goodwill was difficult to attain and even harder to maintain. The public was not interested in authors they had not heard of, and could be fickle; yet I did
so very much desire
that it should do well, if only so as not to disappoint the sanguine hopes of my gracious publishers, who had taken so much trouble about the work.

Hidden away at Haworth, I read with great interest the reviews in the newspapers and journals which Mr. Williams forwarded to me. Many found nothing to criticise.

“‘A story of surpassing interest,” I read aloud to my sisters from the
Critic
that October, “‘which we can cordially recommend—It is sure to be in demand.’”

“Ha!” cried Emily. “I could have told you that.”

“‘This is an extraordinary book,’” I read, thrilled, in the
Era
a few weeks later. “‘Although a work of fiction, it is no mere novel, for there is nothing but nature and truth about it. We do not know its rival among modern productions. All the serious
novel writers of the day lose in comparison with Currer Bell.’ Oh! Such lofty praise; surely I do not deserve it.”

“But you do,” said Anne.

I was dazed by the litany of commendations sent to me over the ensuing months. Not all were favourable; some reviewers proclaimed
Jane Eyre
to be coarse and immoral, a criticism which I have yet to understand, and which cruelly stung; others criticised Mr. Rochester’s conduct as “hardly proper,” and found certain incidents incredible or improbable. To my relief, however, the overriding opinion was resoundingly positive. One critic even called it “decidedly the best novel of the season.” Mr. Smith wrote to inform me that demand was almost unprecedented; within three months of its appearance, all 2,500 copies had sold out, and
Jane Eyre
went into a second printing.

The question of my identity raised more than a few eyebrows. Numerous articles in the press, claiming to express the interest of the entire reading-world of England, clamoured to know:
who was Currer Bell
? Was it a real or assumed name? Was the book written by a man or a woman? Many little incidents in the book were verbally examined this way and that, in an attempt to answer this question of the author’s gender—and all in vain. I laughed at their conjectures, and delighted in my anonymity.

Very quickly, I established a regular correspondence with Mr. Smith and Mr. Williams, who, although as yet personally unknown to me (and who regarded me, at the time, as the embodiment of my masculine persona), treated me with a courtesy and kindness, an intellectual acumen, and an expressed belief in my abilities, which greatly added to my personal confidence and happiness. Knowing that I had no access to a good circulating library, my publishers began sending me boxes of all the newest and best books to read, which my sisters and I devoured one after another. In this expansion of my contemporary literary knowledge, and in my ongoing and thrilling exchange of thoughts and ideas with my publishers, I felt as if a window had been
opened, introducing light and life to the torpid retirement where I lived, and allowing me a glimpse of an entirely new and unknown world.

A new correspondence also began in an entirely unexpected quarter. The celebrated journalist, novelist, and dramatist George Henry Lewes, after publishing a generous review of
Jane Eyre,
wrote to Currer Bell (letters forwarded to me by Smith & Elder) exhorting me to “beware of melodrame” in my next book. This advice, while clearly well-intentioned, conflicted directly with what I had just experienced in my unsuccessful attempts to sell my less thrilling novel,
The Professor.
Mr. Lewes further advised that I should “follow the counsel that shines out of Miss Austen’s mild eyes,” a writer he claimed to be “one of the greatest artists, and one of the greatest painters of human character that ever lived.” I knew that Jane Austen had died the year after I was born; but although her works had again become popular of late, I was not familiar with them. Intrigued, I obtained a copy of
Pride & Prejudice
, which my sisters and I read at once.

“Did you not just
love
the book?” said Anne, as we went about our floury kitchen duties one baking-day.

“It is charming,” I replied. “I find Miss Austen shrewd and observant. At the same time, however, I find her writing subdued and contracted. One could never accuse her of windy wordiness. The novel is—how shall I put it—lacking in sentiment.”

“Understatement!” cried Emily, as she forcefully kneaded the bread dough. “Miss Austen describes almost
nothing.
There is no physical affection between her lovers, and not a spark of passion in the whole novel! She is no poet!”

“Can there
be
a great artist without poetry?” I mused. “The book is like a highly cultivated garden: with neat borders and delicate flowers, but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy—no open country—no fresh air—no blue hill—no bonny beck.”

“I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses,” said Emily.

“Well,
I
thought the characters delightful,” countered Anne, “and the story enjoyable and extremely clever.”

“I agree with your last point,” said I firmly. “Miss Austen
can
be most amusing and ironic, and she employs the most exquisite sense of means to an end that I have ever read.”

I did not tell my brother that my book had been published; he was too far gone, in any case, to notice or care. Now that I had met with some success, however, my sisters and I agreed that it was time to share the news with papa.

One afternoon in the first week of December, I brought into papa’s study a copy of
Jane Eyre
along with several reviews, including, in all fairness, one notice which was not terribly praiseworthy. Papa was sitting in his chair by the fire, resting his eyes after his early dinner, which he often preferred to eat alone. I stopped beside him.

“Papa: I have been writing a book.”

“Have you, my dear?”

“Yes, and I want you to read it.”

“I had better not.” (His eyes still closed.) “Your handwriting is too difficult for me to make out. I am afraid it will try my eyes too much.”

“But it is not in manuscript, papa. It is printed.”

“My dear!” Papa now looked up at me in alarm. “You should never have gone to such expense! It will almost surely be a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name!”

“I did not pay for the publication myself, papa, and I do not think it will be a loss. No more will you, if you will just let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it.” I sat down with him and read some of the reviews aloud. He professed great surprise and interest.

“But who is this Currer Bell? Why have you not put your own name on the book?”

“Papa, you know that it is common practice for authors to adopt a pseudonym—and I think that authoresses are liable to
be looked upon with more prejudice than their male counterparts.”

I gave him a copy of
Jane Eyre
and left him to read it. Later that day, when papa came into the dining-room where my sisters and I were having tea, he said, “Girls, do you know that Charlotte has been writing a book—and I think it is a better one than I expected.”

My sisters and I exchanged a glance; it was all we could do to keep straight faces.

“Indeed?” said Emily. “A
book
?”

“Yes,” said papa with enthusiasm. “Look here: it has already been published, three volumes in a fine binding, with paper of the highest quality, and a very clear type.”

“I am pleased that you approve of its physical attributes, papa,” I replied.

“Not only that,” continued papa, “the story has quite got my attention. I have been reading it all afternoon. I see what all the critics are raving about.”

“You will have to show me this marvelous book, Charlotte,” said Emily, with a little sidelong glance.

“Perhaps I shall,” I replied, smiling at both the comical look on her face, and at papa’s praise. “But papa,” I added, “I have struggled thus far to keep my work unknown to others, and I prefer to keep it that way. Please promise me that you will keep my authorship a secret.”

“Why on earth should I do that? This is quite an accomplishment—a book published, and all of England singing its praises! Aren’t you proud?”

“I am, papa—but I have no interest in becoming a public figure. I wish to keep my work a secret in Yorkshire, in particular. I should die if a stranger showed up at our door unannounced, prying into my private life. Far worse: were I to be ever conscious, in my writing, that my book must be read by ordinary acquaintances, it would fetter me intolerably.”

“Well then, so be it,” agreed papa with a deep sigh, “but I think it a great shame. How I should love to share this news with
my colleagues. Mr. Nicholls, I’m certain, would be thrilled if he knew!”

“Mr. Nicholls?” said I, a sudden heat rising to my face. “Mr. Nicholls has no interest in literature, papa. I assure you, he would not care a fig about this. Please
promise me
you will not tell him.”

Expressing great reluctance, Papa gave me his promise.

My sisters’ publisher, Mr. Thomas Newby, sadly did not operate in the businesslike and gentlemanlike manner of Messrs. Smith and Elder. Emily and Anne suffered from the effects of exhausting delays, procrastination, and broken promises; yet they refused to move their work to Smith & Elder, insisting that they did not wish to impinge on my success.

To further add to my sisters’ distress, when, in mid-December, their novels did at last appear—published together under their pseudonyms as a three-volume set, with
Wuthering Heights
comprising the first two volumes and
Agnes Grey
the third—the books were cheaply bound in a grey pasteboard cover. Instead of gilding, the titles and authors’ names were simply printed in black ink on a tiny, cheap white paper square, glued to the cloth spine—the only strip of cloth in the entire production. The title-page of volume one misleadingly announced “Wuthering Heights, a Novel by Ellis Bell, in Three Volumes,” as if Anne’s work did not exist; and the books abounded in errors of the press. Nearly all of the mistakes that Emily and Anne had taken such pains to correct in the proof-sheets, remained unchanged in the final edition.

More troubling, however, was the way the books were received by the critics. The review of
Wuthering Heights
in the
Atlas
in January was so derogatory that I was almost afraid to show it to Emily, but it only drew from her a scornful laugh.

“‘There is not in the entire
dramatis personae
a single character which is not utterly hateful or thoroughly contemptible,’” Emily read aloud one snowy afternoon from where she lay on the hearth rug by the fire, Keeper lazily stretched out at her
side. “Oh! I
knew
I should have never offered my book for publication.” She threw the journal back at me in disgust.

“The
Britannia
praised
Wuthering Heights,
” said I. “They said your writing shows an ‘original energy.’”

“They also said it struck them as ‘proceeding from a mind of limited experience,’” retorted Emily.

“You must concede, that much is true,” said Anne, who sat on the sofa dutifully sewing, with Flossy asleep beside her. “None of us has much life experience to speak of.”

“What is experience to imagination?” cried Emily. “And why do they keep complaining that there is no purpose or moral to the story? Must every book have a moral? Is there not value in examining the brutalising power and effect of unhindered passion?”

“There is, and others have said so,” I replied. “Have you forgotten the
Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly
review?”

“He called it a strange book, baffling all criticism,” answered Emily tartly.

“He
also
said,” (I quoted) “‘it is impossible to begin and not finish it. We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before.’”

“I hardly call that praise,” scoffed Emily.

“You should be pleased, Emily, that your book has even been noticed,” commented Anne quietly.

I looked at Anne with a silent pang. Anne’s book had been all but ignored in the press. The few critics who did mention
Agnes Grey
only remarked that it lacked the power of
Wuthering Heights,
but was “more agreeable” in subject matter and treatment. “Upon reflection,” I said consolingly, “it was not perhaps the best idea to present your works in tandem, as they are separate stories, and so very different in nature.”

“The critics have no power over me,” declared Anne resolutely. “I wrote from my heart. That is all that matters; and in my mind, I have already moved on to my new book.”

“I still say, had
Agnes Grey
been published on its own, it could be more fully appreciated for the sweet and gentle tale it
is. I fear that it has been overshadowed by Emily’s more violent and dramatic story.”

“We
both
lie in the shadow of your book, Charlotte,” said Emily simply. “
Jane Eyre
is the darling of critics and readers alike.
It
can do no wrong.”

“That is not true,” I replied—but before I could go on, Emily rose to her knees, slid in front of me, and took my hands in hers, gazing at me with profound affection.

“Pray, do not let the dismal reception of our novels affect your own enjoyment of
your
triumph, Charlotte.
Jane Eyre
is a wonderful book, and we are both very proud of you.”

Unlike the critics, papa—upon learning that all three of his daughters had been published—was universally enthusiastic in his delight and praise.