Part 7 (1/2)
All here is pretty much as usual.... The only events of my life consist in that little change occasional letters bring. I have had two from Miss W---- since she left Haworth, which touched me much.
She seems to think so much of a little congenial company, a little attention and kindness. She says she has not for many days known such enjoyment as she experienced during the ten days she stayed here. Yet you know what Haworth is--dull enough. Before answering X----'s letter from Australia I got up my courage to write to ---- and beg him to give me an impartial account of X----'s character and disposition, owning that I was very much in the dark on these points and did not like to continue correspondence without further information. I got the answer which I enclose. Since receiving it I have replied to X---- in a calm, civil manner. At the earliest I cannot hear from him again before the spring.
December, 1851.
I hope you have got on this last week well. It has been very trying here. Papa so far has borne it unhurt; but these winds and changes have given me a bad cold; however, I am better now than I was. Poor old Keeper (Emily's dog) died last Monday morning, after being ill one night. He went gently to sleep; we laid his old faithful head in the garden. Flossy is dull, and misses him.
There was something very sad in losing the old dog; yet I am glad he met a natural fate. People kept hinting that he ought to be put away, which neither Papa nor I liked to think of. If I were near a town, and could get cod-liver oil fresh and sweet, I really would most gladly take your advice and try it; but how I could possibly procure it at Haworth I do not see.... You ask about ”The Lily and the Bee.” If you have read it, you have effected an exploit beyond me. I glanced at a few pages, and laid it down hopeless, nor can I now find courage to resume it. But then, I never liked Warren's writings. ”Margaret Maitland” is a good book, I doubt not.
At this point the illness of which she makes light in these letters increased to such an extent as to alarm her father, and at last she consented to lay aside her work and allow herself the pleasure and comfort of a visit from her friend. The visit was a source of happiness whilst it lasted; but when it was over the depression returned, and there was a serious relapse. Something of her sufferings at this time--whilst ”Villette” was still upon the stocks--will be gathered from the following letter, dated January 1852:
I wish you could have seen the coolness with which I captured your letter on its way to Papa, and at once conjecturing its tenor, made the contents my own. Be quiet. Be tranquil. It is, dear Nell, my decided intention to come to B---- for a few days when I _can_ come; but of this last I must positively judge for myself, and I must take my time. I am better to-day--much better; but you can have little idea of the sort of condition into which mercury throws people to ask me to go from home anywhere in close or open carriage. And as to talking--four days ago I could not well have articulated three sentences. Yet I did not need nursing, and I kept out of bed. It was enough to burden myself; it would have been misery to me to have annoyed another.
March, 1852.
The news of E. T.'s death came to me last week in a letter from M----, a long letter, which wrung my heart so in its simple, strong, truthful emotion, I have only ventured to read it once. It ripped up half-scarred wounds with terrible force--the death-bed was just the same--breath failing, &c. She fears she will now in her dreary solitude become ”a stern, harsh, selfish woman.” This fear struck home. Again and again I have felt it for myself; and what is _my_ position to M----'s? I should break out in energetic wishes that she would return to England, if reason would permit me to believe that prosperity and happiness would there await her.
But I see no such prospect. May G.o.d help her as G.o.d only can help!
To another friend she writes as follows, in reply to an invitation to leave Haworth for a short visit:
March 12th, 1852.
Your kind note holds out a strong temptation, but one that _must be resisted_. From home I must not go unless health or some cause equally imperative render a change necessary. For nearly four months now (_i.e._ since I first became ill) I have not put pen to paper; my work has been lying untouched, and my faculties have been rusting for want of exercise; further relaxation is out of the question, and _I will not permit myself to think of it_. My publisher groans over my long delays; I am sometimes provoked to check the expression of his impatience with short and crusty answers. Yet the pleasure I now deny myself I would fain regard as only deferred. I heard something about your purposing to visit Scarborough in the course of the summer; and could I by the close of July or August bring my task to a certain point, how glad should I be to join you there for a while!... However, I dare not lay plans at this distance of time; for me so much must depend, first, on Papa's health (which throughout the winter has been, I am thankful to say, really excellent), and, second, on the progress of work--a matter not wholly contingent on wish or will, but lying in a great measure beyond the reach of effort, or out of the pale of calculation.
As the summer advanced her sufferings were scarcely abated, and at last, in search of some relief, she made a sudden visit by herself to Filey, inspired in part by her desire to see the memorial-stone erected above her sister's grave at Scarborough.
Filey Bay, June, 1852.
MY DEAR MISS ----,--Your kind and welcome note reached me at this place, where I have been staying three weeks _quite alone_. Change and sea-air had become necessary. Distance and other considerations forbade my accompanying Ellen to the South, much as I should have liked it had I felt quite free and unfettered. Ellen told me some time ago that you were not likely to visit Scarborough till the autumn, so I forthwith packed my trunk and betook myself here. The first week or ten days I greatly feared the seaside would not suit me, for I suffered almost incessantly from headache and other hara.s.sing ailments; the weather, too, was dark, stormy, and excessively--_bitterly_--cold. My solitude under such circ.u.mstances partook of the character of desolation; I had some dreary evening hours and night vigils. However, that pa.s.sed. I think I am now better and stronger for the change, and in a day or two hope to return home. Ellen told me that Mr. W---- said people with my tendency to congestion of the liver should walk three or four hours every day; accordingly, I have walked as much as I could since I came here, and look almost as sunburnt and weather-beaten as a fisherman or a bathing-woman, with being out in the open air. As to my work, it has stood obstinately still for a long while; certainly a torpid liver makes a torpid brain. No spirit moves me. If this state of things does not entirely change, my chance of a holiday in the autumn is not worth much; yet I should be very sorry not to meet you for a little while at Scarborough. The duty to be discharged at Scarborough was the chief motive that drew me to the east coast. I have been there, visited the churchyard, and seen the stone. There were five errors; consequently I had to give directions for its being re-faced and re-lettered.
The sea-air did her good; but she was still unable to carry her great work forward, in spite of the urgent pressure put upon her by those who in this respect merely expressed the impatience of the public.
Haworth, July, 1852.
I am again at home, where (thank G.o.d) I found all well. I certainly feel much better than I did, and would fain trust that the improvement may prove permanent.... The first fortnight I was at Filey I had constantly recurring pain in the right side, and sick headache into the bargain. My spirits at the same time were cruelly depressed--prostrated sometimes. I feared the miseries and the suffering of last winter were all returning; consequently I am now indeed thankful to find myself so much better.... You ask about Australia. Let us dismiss the subject in a few words, and not recur to it. All is silent as the grave. Cornhill is silent too; there has been bitter disappointment there at my having no work ready for this season. Ellen, we must not rely upon our fellow-creatures--only on ourselves, and on Him who is above both us and them. My _labours_, as you call them, stand in abeyance, and I cannot hurry them. I must take my own time, however long that time may be.
August, 1852.
I am thankful to say that Papa's convalescence seems now to be quite confirmed. There is scarcely any remainder of the inflammation in his eyes, and his general health progresses satisfactorily. He begins even to look forward to resuming his duty ere long, but caution must be observed on that head. Martha has been very willing and helpful during Papa's illness. Poor Tabby is ill herself at present with English cholera, which complaint, together with influenza, has lately been almost universally prevalent in this district. Of the last I have myself had a touch; but it went off very gently on the whole, affecting my chest and liver less than any cold has done for the last three years.... I write to you about yourself rather under constraint and in the dark; for your letters, dear Nell, are most remarkably oracular, dropping nothing but hints which tie my tongue a good deal. What, for instance, can I say to your last postscript? It is quite sibylline. I can hardly guess what checks you in writing to me. Perhaps you think that as _I_ generally write with some reserve, you ought to do the same. _My_ reserve, however, has its origin not in design, but in necessity. I am silent because I have literally _nothing to say_. I might, indeed, repeat over and over again that my life is a pale blank, and often a very weary burden, and that the future sometimes appals me; but what end could be answered by such repet.i.tion, except to weary you and enervate myself? The evils that now and then wring a groan from my heart lie in my position--not that I am a _single_ woman and likely to remain a _single_ woman, but because I am a lonely woman and likely to be _lonely_. But it cannot be helped, and therefore _imperatively must be borne_, and borne, too, with as few words about it as may be. I write this just to prove to you that whatever you would freely _say_ to me you may just as freely write. Understand that I remain just as resolved as ever not to allow myself the holiday of a visit from you till _I_ have done my work. After labour, pleasure; but while work was lying at the wall undone, I never yet could enjoy recreation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SIMILE LETTER OF CHARLOTTE BRONTe.]
Slowly page after page of ”Villette” was now being written. The reader sees from these letters that the book was composed in no happy mood.
Writing to her publisher a few weeks after the date of the last letter printed above, she says: ”I can hardly tell you how I hunger to hear some opinions beside my own, and how I have sometimes desponded and almost despaired, because there was no one to whom to read a line, or of whom to ask a counsel. 'Jane Eyre' was not written under such circ.u.mstances, nor were two-thirds of 's.h.i.+rley.' I got so miserable about it that I could bear no allusion to the book. It is not finished yet; but now I hope.” But though her work pressed so incessantly upon her, and her feverish anxiety to have it done weighed so heavily upon her health and spirits, she could still find time to answer her friend's letters in a way which showed that her interest in the outer world was as keen as ever:
September, 1852.
Thank you for A----'s notes. I like to read them, they are so full of news, but they are illegible. A great many words I really cannot make out. It is pleasing to hear that M---- is doing so well, and the tidings about ---- seem also good. I get a note from ---- every now and then, but I fear my last reply has not given much satisfaction. It contained a taste of that unpalatable commodity called _advice_--such advice, too, as might be, and I dare say was, construed into faint reproof. I can scarcely tell what there is about ---- that, in spite of one's conviction of her amiability, in spite of one's sincere wish for her welfare, palls upon one, satiates, stirs impatience. She _will_ complacently put forth opinions and tastes as her own which are _not_ her own, nor in any sense natural to her. My patience can really hardly sustain the test of such a jay in borrowed plumes. She prated so much about the fine wilful spirit of her child, whom she describes as a hard, brown little thing, who will do nothing but what pleases himself, that I hit out at last--not very hard, but enough to make her think herself ill-used, I doubt not. Can't help it. She often says she is not ”absorbed in self,” but the fact is, I have seldom seen anyone more unconsciously, thoroughly, and often weakly egotistic. Then, too, she is inconsistent. In the same breath she boasts her matrimonial happiness and whines for sympathy. Don't understand it. With a paragon of a husband and child, why that whining, craving note? Either her lot is not all she professes it to be, or she is hard to content.
In October the resolute determination to allow herself no relaxation until ”Villette” was finished broke down. She was compelled to call for help, and to acknowledge herself beaten in her attempt to crush out the yearning for company: