I can with truth declare that I expected nothing. And I got nothing … I was sure that the book would fail, and it did fail most absolutely … I have Mr Newby’s agreement with me, in duplicate, and one or two preliminary notes; but beyond that I did not have a word from Mr Newby. I am sure that he did not wrong me in that he paid me nothing. It is probable that he did not sell fifty copies of the work; – but of what he did sell he gave me no account.100
Despite his low expectations, Trollope nevertheless felt that he had been ill served by Newby and, the following year, he took his next book elsewhere.101
Charlotte’s complaints about Newby’s dilatory behaviour led William Smith Williams to offer to take over the publication of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, but Emily and Anne were obstinate in their determination to go their own way. By the middle of November they had received the final proof-sheets, so publication at last seemed imminent.102 Though Emily and Anne’s desire to achieve success independently of their sister was laudable, it was somewhat misguided. Newby had only begun to give serious attention to the publication of their novels when he realized that there was reflected glory – not to mention money – to be made from the magical name of Bell. The mystery surrounding the sex and identity of Currer Bell would fuel interest in his own publication of works by Ellis and Acton Bell and, as circumstances would swiftly prove, he was not averse to manipulating the truth in order to gain maximum publicity and sales.
At the beginning of December 1847, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were finally published – or so their authors were obliged to deduce from the fact that they received their six publication copies. Despite the length of time the books had been in the press, Emily and Anne were mortified to discover that almost all the errors that they had so painstakingly corrected in the proof-sheets appeared unchanged in the final copies.103
If, in sticking with Newby, Emily and Anne had hoped to assert their mental and literary independence from Charlotte, they were soon to be disillusioned. The reviewers, aided by Newby’s judicious advertising, were not slow to realize the connection between the three Bells and to draw comparisons between their works. The appearance of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey only reinforced what was gradually becoming a consensus of critical opinion on the ‘low tone of behaviour’ in the Bells’ books. Unfortunately, one of the earliest reviews was in the Spectator, which had first raised the question in reviewing Jane Eyre and now returned to the attack. The reviewer disapprovingly drew particular attention to the affinity between the writers: ‘In each, there is the autobiographical form of writing; a choice of subjects that are peculiar without being either probable or pleasing; and considerable executive ability, but insufficient to overcome the injudicious selection of the theme and matter.’ The Athenaeum soon followed with its own sour comment: ‘The Bells seem to affect painful and exceptional subjects: – the misdeeds and oppressions of tyranny – the eccentricities of “woman’s fantasy”.’104
Wuthering Heights, as the more dramatic of the two new works, attracted by far the greater proportion of comment and the same criticisms recur again and again. Some of these were justified. The Atlas, for instance, was not alone in declaring that the book ‘sadly wants relief,’ but then went on to overstate its case: ‘There is not in the entire dramatis personae a single character which is not utterly hateful or thoroughly contemptible.’105 There was a constant litany of complaint about the brutality and violence of some of the scenes and about the use of expletives, which, contrary to custom, Emily had written out in full rather than indicated by a dash.106 The reviewers searched in vain for a moral to the story, the most charitable judgement being that in the Britannia: ‘We do not know whether the author writes with any purpose; but we can speak of one effect of his production. It strongly shows the brutalizing influence of unchecked passion.’107
Despite the baffled reaction of some of the critics, there was still much to encourage Emily in their reviews. The Britannia offered the perceptive comment that Ellis Bell’s creations ‘strike us as proceeding from a mind of limited experience, but of original energy, and of a singular and distinctive cast’. At least two critics were enthralled almost against their will. An American reviewer wrote in the Literary World:
Fascinated by strange magic we read what we dislike, we become interested in characters which are most revolting to our feelings, and are made subject to the immense power, of the book … we are spell-bound, we cannot choose but read.108
The critic in Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper concurred.
Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book, – baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about 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.
Though, ‘very puzzled and very interested’ by a book which he finally left to his readers to decide upon, this critic nevertheless foresaw a great future for the author. ‘We are quite confident that the writer of Wuthering Heights wants but the practised skill to make a great artist; perhaps, a great dramatic artist.’ Even the fault-finding G.W. Peck, who characterized it as ‘a coarse, original, powerful book’, was obliged to concede that ‘if the rank of a work of fiaion is to depend solely on its naked imaginative power, then this is one of the greatest novels in the language’.109
Though most reviewers seem to have been intrigued by Wuthering Heights and, even when overtly hostile, dedicated many column inches to its discussion, they tended completely to overlook Agnes Grey. The few who referred to it did so only to remark on the fact that it lacked the power of Wuthering Heights and was ‘more agreeable’ in subject matter and treatment. Generally, however, the notices were dismissive. ‘Some characters and scenes are nicely sketched in it’, observed the Britannia, ‘but it has nothing to call for special notice.’ The Atlas was even worse, describing Agnes Grey as ‘a somewhat coarse imitation of one of Miss Austin’s [sic] charming stories … It leaves no painful impression on the mind – some may think it leaves no impression at all.’110
With such reviews the Brontë sisters had to be content. On the whole, despite the adverse comments, their first forays into novel writing had attracted more attention and been better received than they might have expected.
As for Jane Eyre, its runaway success must have seemed barely credible. Early in December Charlotte was ‘glad and proud’ to receive a bank bill for one hundred pounds from Smith, Elder & Co.111 with the prospect of more to come as she was already having to prepare a second edition of the novel for the press, a mere two months after publication of the first. Apart from some minor emendations, Charlotte wanted to take the opportunity of a new edition to add a preface acknowledging her thanks to the public, ‘the select Reviewers … who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger’ and her publishers. Nevertheless, and this was undoubtedly the real reason for writing a preface, she could not resist answering those ‘timorous or carping’ critics who had designated Jane Eyre an ‘improper’ book. ‘I would remind them of certain simple truths’, she began.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is – I repeat it – a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.112
Though the writing of the preface might have eased Charlotte’s ‘heart-ache’ at hearing the novel called ‘godless’ a
nd ‘pernicious’, it would perhaps have been wiser to have simply ignored the critics; certainly Charlotte later regretted its enthusiastic tone and wished she had written it in a cooler mood.113 Indeed, it is surprising that Smith, Elder & Co. allowed Charlotte to betray her naivety in this way. One can only assume that in the rush to bring out a second edition before the first was sold out, her publishers did not pay much attention to the preface. In so doing they allowed her to commit a cardinal error – one which was to expose her to even more malicious gossip and critical unpleasantness. They allowed her to dedicate the second edition of Jane Eyre to her literary hero, William Makepeace Thackeray.114 What those in London knew, but Charlotte could not know, was the tragedy of Thackeray’s life: in 1840, after only four years of marriage, his wife had gone insane and had to be incarcerated for her own safety. The parallels with Mr Rochester were obvious and made all the more pronounced because in Vanity Fair, which was then making its first appearance in serial form, Thackeray had created the scheming, ambitious and heartless Becky Sharp who, like Jane Eyre, had begun life as a humble governess and raised herself by marriage with her employer. The dedication in Jane Eyre therefore lent credence to speculation already rife in London that ‘Currer Bell’ had been a governess in Thackeray’s family and that the novel was based upon the truth. Charlotte was mortified when she discovered her mistake, particularly when Thackeray himself wrote to inform her and yet thanked her for ‘the greatest compliment I have ever received in my life’:
Well may it be said that Fact is often stranger than Fiction! … Of course I knew nothing whatever of Mr Thackeray’s domestic concerns: he existed for me only as an author: … I am very, very sorry that my inadvertent blunder should have made his name and affairs a subject for common gossip.
The very fact of his not complaining at all – and addressing me with such kindness – notwithstanding the pain and annoyance I must have caused him – increases my chagrin. I could not half express my regret to him in my answer, for I was restrained by the consciousness that that regret was just worth nothing at all – quite valueless for healing the mischief I had done.115
Despite the acute misery caused by the fact that her intended compliment had gone so badly awry, there was much to look forward to in the coming year. Jane Eyre was going into its second edition and her publishers were anxiously waiting for her to decide on her next book. Emily and Anne had got their first books in print and were both working on a second novel. With every prospect that they would in future be able to earn their livings in the only way that had ever been congenial, the Brontë sisters could face the new year with equanimity.
Chapter Nineteen
THE SHADOW IN THE HOUSE
The year 1848 dawned inauspiciously with a prevailing easterly wind, which always brought illness to the Brontë household. ‘We are all cut up by this cruel east wind’, Anne wrote to Ellen Nussey, ‘most of us, e.i. Charlotte, Emily, and I, have had the inf[l]uenza, or a bad cold instead, twice over within the space of a few weeks; Papa has had it once. Tabby has hitherto escaped it altogether.’ Excusing her ‘shabby little note’, Anne explained, ‘I have no news to tell you, for we have been nowhere, seen no one, and done nothing (to speak of) since you were here – and yet we contrive to be busy from morning to night.’1
Though Anne could write cheerfully enough, her father was in low spirits. He had had a particularly grim few months with Branwell, who had been ‘more than ordinarily troublesome and annoying of late – he leads papa a wretched life’. Branwell had ‘contrived by some means to get more money from the old quarter’ and had plunged back into his dissolute habits. In this he seems to have been ably assisted by J.B. Leyland, who had been commissioned to carve decorations for the new church being built at Oxenhope.2 This work no doubt provided an excuse for Branwell to visit Leyland in the company of John Brown, who worked closely with the sculptor. The three were soon spending Branwell’s money in the Halifax inns. Writing apologetically to Leyland in early January, Branwell struggled unconvincingly to justify his conduct. ‘I was really far enough from well when I saw you last week at Halifax’, he protested:
I was not intoxicated when I saw you last, Dear Sir, but I was so much broken down and embittered in heart that it did not need much extra stimulus to make me experience the fainting fit I had, after you left, at the Talbot, and another, more severe at
The accompanying sketch of‘The rescue of the
Branwell’s ‘fainting fits’ were almost certainly brought on by his excessive drinking and may have been a symptom of delirium tremens. Writing to Ellen at about the same time, Charlotte complained, ‘he is always sick, has two or three times fallen down in fits’. On one notorious occasion, Branwell even managed to set his bedclothes on fire while lying in a drunken stupor. Fortunately, Anne happened to be passing his open door and, realizing the danger, tried to rouse him. When she could not do so she ran to get Emily, who unceremoniously dragged her brother out of his bed, flung him into the corner and the blazing bedclothes into the middle of the room, dashed to the kitchen for a large can of water and doused the flames.5 When his children were small, Patrick had been deeply concerned about the dangers of fire, with candles, oil lamps and open fires in constant use in the house; now, with his son an irresponsible alcoholic, he insisted that in future Branwell should sleep in the same room as himself. In doing this, the seventy-year-old Patrick was making a rod for his own back: he was ‘harassed day and night’ by Branwell’s ‘intolerable conduct’. As Mrs Gaskell melodramatically described it, possibly on the authority of Martha Brown, the Brontës’ servant:
he had attacks of delirium tremens of the most frightful character; he slept in his father’s room, and he would sometimes declare that either he or his father should be dead before morning. The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their father not to expose himself to this danger; but Mr Brontë is no timid man, and perhaps he felt that he could possibly influence his son to some self-restraint, more by showing trust in him than by showing fear … In the mornings young Brontë would saunter out, saying, with a drunkard’s incontinence of speech, ‘The poor old man and I have had a terrible night of it; he does his best – the poor old man! but it’s all over with me;’ (whimpering) ‘it’s her fault, her fault’6
More prosaic, and infinitely more touching, is Patrick’s note in the margin of his copy of Graham’s Modern Domestic Medicine. Marking the section on ‘Insanity, or Mental Derangement’ with an asterisk, he wrote: ‘there is also “delirium tremens”, brought on, sometimes, by intoxication – the patient thinks himself haunted; by demons, sees luminous [?substans?], in his imagination, has frequent tremors of the limbs, If intox—n, be left off – this madness, will in general, gradually diminish &c.’ Reading the text, he obviously recognized his son’s symptoms: ‘unrestrained behaviour … an irritability which urges on the patient in an extravagant pursuit of something real or imaginary, to the ruin of himself, or annoyance of his friends; and ultimately leads him, if opposed in his disordered wishes, to acts of extreme violence’. Under the causes of insanity, Patrick could not fail to notice that the first of the ‘passions and emotions most productive of this complaint’ was love. Poignantly, however, and as if taking at least some of the responsibility for his son’s mental and physical breakdown on himself, the cause Patrick underlined was ‘hereditary disposition’. All he
could do now was pray for his son and repeat Charlotte’s hopeless comment: ‘what will be the ultimate end God knows –’.7
As if it was not enough to watch his only son killing himself through drink, Patrick had recently had to face a shocking tragedy involving one of his oldest friends, the Reverend Thomas Brooksbank Charnock, son of the former minister of Haworth. After taking a Master of Arts degree at Oxford, Charnock had returned to reside in the area and, having no parish of his own and being of independent means, he had frequently assisted Patrick by taking duties for him. At the end of October 1847, aged only forty-seven, he committed suicide by hanging himself in his dressing room. Though his reasons for doing so were not discovered, it was particularly distressing that a clergyman, whose faith in God alone should have given him hope, had been driven to such straits of desperation. Though it was too late to do anything for his old friend now, Patrick did what he could to preserve his dignity in death, taking the burial service in Haworth Church himself instead of delegating it to his curate.8
In the circumstances, it was not surprising that Patrick’s spirits were low at the beginning of 1848. Perhaps with the view of cheering him up, Emily and Anne persuaded Charlotte that it was now time to tell their father of her literary success. Reluctant at first, a small incident made up her mind for her: she overheard the postman asking Patrick where one Currer Bell could be living and his reply that there was no such person in the parish. Charlotte wrote in haste to Smith, Elder & Co., informing them that in future it would be better ‘not to put the name of Currer Bell on the outside of communications; if directed simply to Miss Brontë they will be more likely to reach their destination safely. Currer Bell is not known in this district and I have no wish that he should become known.’9 Then, taking a copy of Jane Eyre, some newspaper reviews and her courage into her hands, she ‘marched into his study’ and had the following conversation with him:
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