Part 6 (2/2)
I trust Papa is not worse; but he varies. He has never been down to breakfast but once since you left. The circ.u.mstance of having him to think about just now is good for me in one way; it keeps my thoughts off other matters which have been complete bitterness and ashes; for I do a.s.sure you a more entire crumbling away of a seeming foundation of support and prospect of hope than that which I allude to can scarcely be realised.
I have heard from X---- to-day, a quiet little note. He returned to London a week since on Sat.u.r.day. He leaves England next month.
His note concludes with asking whether he has any chance of seeing me in London before that time. I must tell him that I have already fixed June for my visit, and, therefore, in all human probability we shall see each other no more. There is still a want of plain mutual understanding in this business, and there is sadness and pain in more ways than one. My conscience, I can truly say, does not _now_ accuse me of having treated X---- with injustice or unkindness. What I once did wrong in this way I have endeavoured to remedy both to himself and in speaking of him to others. I am sure he has estimable and sterling qualities; but with every disposition--with every wish--with every intention even to look on him in the most favourable point of view at his last visit, it was impossible for me in my inmost heart to think of him as one that might one day be acceptable as a husband.... No, if X---- be the only husband fate offers to me, single I must always remain. But yet at times I grieve for him; and perhaps it is superfluous, for I cannot think he will suffer much--a hard nature, occupation, change of scene will befriend him.
I have had a long, kind letter from Miss Martineau lately. She says she is well and happy. Also I have had a very long letter from Mr. ----, the first for many weeks. He speaks of X---- with much respect and regret, and says he will be greatly missed by many friends. I discover with some surprise that Papa has taken a decided liking to X----. The marked kindness of his manner to him when he bade him good-bye, exhorting him to be ”true to himself, his country, and his G.o.d,” and wis.h.i.+ng him all good wishes, struck me with some astonishment at the time; and whenever he has alluded to him since, it has been with significant eulogy.... You say Papa has penetration. On this subject I believe he has indeed. I have told him nothing, yet he seems to be _au fait_ to the whole business. I could think at some moments his guesses go further than mine. I believe he thinks a prospective union, deferred for five years, with such a decorous, reliable personage, would be a very proper and advisable affair. However I ask no questions, and he asks me none; and if he did I should have nothing to tell him.
The summer following this affair of the heart witnessed another visit to London, where she heard Mr. Thackeray's lectures on the humourists.
How she enjoyed listening to her idol, in one of his best moods, need not be told. Some there are still living who remember that first lecture, when all London had a.s.sembled to listen to the author of ”Vanity Fair,” and the rumour suddenly ran round the room that the author of ”Jane Eyre” was among the audience. Men and women were at fault at first, in their efforts to distinguish ”Currer Bell” in that brilliant company of literary and social notabilities; but at last she was discovered hiding under the motherly wing of a chaperon, timid, blus.h.i.+ng, but excited and pleased--_not_ at the attention she herself attracted, but at the treat she had in prospect. One or two gentlemen sought and obtained introductions to her--amongst them Lord Carlisle and Mr. Monckton Milnes. They were not particularly impressed by the appearance or the speech of the parson's daughter. Her person was insignificant, her dress somewhat rustic, her language quaintly precise and formal, her manner odd and constrained. Altogether this was a woman whom even London could not lionise; somebody outwardly altogether too plain, simple, unpretending, to admit of hero-wors.h.i.+p.
Within there was, as we know, something entirely exceptional and extraordinary; but, like Lucy Snowe, she still kept her real self hidden under a veil which no casual friend or chance acquaintance was allowed to lift. It was but a brief visit to the ”Big Babylon,” and then back to Haworth, to loneliness and duty! In July, 1851, she writes from the parsonage to one of her friends as follows:
My first feeling on receiving your note was one of disappointment, but a little consideration sufficed to show me that ”all was for the best.” In truth it was a great piece of extravagance on my part to ask you and Ellen together; it is much better to divide such good things. To have your visit in prospect will console me when hers is in retrospect. Not that I mean to yield to the weakness of clinging dependently to the society of friends, however dear; but still as an occasional treat I must value and even seek such society as a necessary of life. Let me know then whenever it suits your convenience to come to Haworth, and, unless some change I cannot now foresee occurs, a ready and warm welcome will await you. Should there be any cause rendering it desirable to defer the visit, I will tell you frankly. The pleasures of society I cannot offer you; nor those of fine scenery. But I place very much at your command--the moors, some books, a series of quiet ”curling-hair-times,” and an old pupil into the bargain.
Ellen may have told you that I spent a month in London this summer. When you come you shall ask what questions you like on that point, and I will answer to the best of my stammering ability. Do not press me much on the subject of the Crystal Palace. I went there five times, and certainly saw some interesting things, and the _coup d'oeil_ is striking and bewildering enough. But I never was able to get up any raptures on the subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling place; and after all, its wonders appeal too exclusively to the eye, and rarely touch the heart or head. I make an exception to the last a.s.sertion in favour of those who possess a large range of scientific knowledge. Once I went with Sir David Brewster, and perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine.
X.
”VILLETTE.”
With the autumn of 1851 another epoch in the life of Charlotte Bronte was ushered in. She began to write ”Villette.” Something has already been said of the true character of that marvellous book, in which her own deepest experiences and ripest wisdom are given to the world. Of the manner in which it was written her readers know nothing. Yet this, the best-beloved child of her genius, was brought forth with a travail so bitter that more than once she was tempted to lay aside her pen and hush her voice for ever. Every sentence was wrung from her as though it had been a drop of blood, and the book was built up bit by bit, amid paroxysms of positive anguish, occasioned in part by her own physical weakness and suffering, but still more by the torture through which her mind pa.s.sed as she depicted scene after scene from the darkest chapter in her own life, for the benefit of those for whom she wrote. It is from her letters that at this time also we get the best indications of what she was pa.s.sing through. Few, perhaps, reading these letters would suppose that their writer was at that very time engaged in the production of a great masterpiece, destined to hold its own among the ripest and finest fruits of English genius. But no one can read them without seeing how true the woman's soul was, how deep her sympathy with those she loved, how keen her criticisms of even the dull and commonplace characters around her, how vivid and sincere her interest in everything which was pa.s.sing either in the great world which lay afar off, or in the little world the drama of which was being enacted under her own eyes. Even the ordinary incidents mentioned in her letters, the chance expressions which drop from her pen, have an interest when we remember who it is that speaks, and at what hour in her life this speech falls from her.
September, 1851.
I have mislaid your last letter, and so cannot look it over to see what there is in it to answer; but it is time it was answered in some fas.h.i.+on, whether I have anything to say or not. Miss ----'s note is very like her. All that talk about ”friends.h.i.+p,” ”mutual friends,” ”auld lang syne,” &c., sounds very like palaver. Mrs.
---- wrote to me a week or a fortnight since--a well-meaning, amiable note, dwelling a good deal, excusably perhaps, on the good time that is coming. I mean, to speak plain English, on her expectation of soon becoming a mother. No doubt it is very natural in her to feel as if no woman had ever been a mother before; but I could not help inditing an answer calculated to shake her up a bit. A day or two since I had another note from her, quite as good as usual, but I think a trifle nonplussed by the rather unceremonious fas.h.i.+on in which her terrors and the expected personage were handled.... It is useless to tell you how I live. I endure life; but whether I enjoy it or not is another question.
However, I get on. The weather, I think, has not been very good lately; or else the beneficial effects of change of air and scene are evaporating. In spite of regular exercise the old headaches and starting, wakeful nights are coming upon me again. But I _do_ get on, and have neither wish nor right to complain.
October, 1851.
I am not at all intending to go from home at present. I have just refused successively, Miss Martineau, Mrs. Gaskell, and Mrs.
Forster. I could not go if I would. One person after another in the house has been ailing for the last month and more. First Tabby had the influenza, then Martha took it and is ill in bed now, and I grieve to say Papa too has taken cold. So far I keep pretty well, and am thankful for it, for who else would nurse them all?
Some painful mental worry I have gone through this autumn; but there is no use in dwelling on all that. At present I seem to have some respite. I feel more disinclined than ever for letter-writing.... Life is a struggle.
November, 1851.
Papa, Tabby, and Martha are at present all better, but yet none of them well. Martha especially looks feeble. I wish she had a better const.i.tution. As it is, one is always afraid of giving her too much to do; and yet there are many things I cannot undertake myself; and we do not like to change when we have had her so long.
The other day I received the enclosed letter from Australia. I had had one before from the same quarter, which is still unanswered. I told you I did not expect to hear thence--nor did I. The letter is long, but it will be worth your while to read it. In its way it has merit--that cannot be denied--abundance of information, talent of a certain kind, alloyed (I think) here and there with errors of taste. This little man with all his long letters remains as much a conundrum to me as ever. Your account of the H---- ”domestic joys”
amused me much. The good folks seem very happy; long may they continue so! It somewhat cheers me to know that such happiness _does_ exist on earth.
November, 1851.
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