The day after Thackeray’s dinner party, Charlotte had to undergo another ordeal. George Smith had persuaded her that she ought to have her portrait painted and had undertaken to pay for sittings with George Richmond, the celebrated society artist. A former pupil of Henry Fuseli, whose pictures Charlotte had copied with such care and detail as a girl, Richmond enjoyed a busy practice, taking four sitters a day, many of them the leading literary figures of the time. His style was pre-eminently suited to Charlotte, as his standard portraits were simple, quiet and subtly flattering likenesses in a mix of coloured chalks, chiefly black, white and red.52
It is a measure of George Smith’s persuasive charm and Charlotte’s liking for him that she allowed him to overcome her initial reluctance towards having a portrait made of what, she was all too well aware, were neither beautiful nor attractive features. When she arrived at the studio, she was in a state of heightened nerves and great anxiety. It needed little to push her over the brink and that little was the wretched hairpiece. George Richmond was puzzled when she removed her hat to see what he took to be a pad of brown merino on her head and, unable to imagine what its purpose was, asked her to remove it. Not surprisingly, Charlotte burst into tears of mortification.53 Richmond took this to be a symptom of his famous sitter’s overwrought state, and Charlotte was prohibited from seeing the portrait until it was complete. When she was finally allowed to see the finished work, she again burst into tears, exclaiming that it was so like her sister Anne.54 For once, there was some justice in this remark. Since living in Belgium, Charlotte had abandoned her fussy, ringleted hairstyle, which had not suited the plainness of her features. Now she wore her hair parted down the centre and swept back simply over her ears into a chignon at the back, the effect being to slim down the broadness of her face and forehead; the artist himself supplied the fullness which she lacked in reality and which the hairpiece had so signally failed to redress. Richmond captured the beauty of her large hazel eyes, her one redeeming feature, and played down the size of her prominent nose and mouth. With subtle shadowing, too, and by turning her face slightly to one side, he reduced the squareness of her lower jaw. The resulting portrait was like and not like, a faithful reproduction of the separate features but a more harmonious rendering of the whole. As Mary Taylor was later to comment on seeing the portrait reproduced in Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, ‘It must upset most people’s notions of beauty to be told that the portrait at the beginning is that of an ugly woman. I do not altogether like the idea of publishing a flattered likeness. I had rather the mouth and eyes had been nearer together, and shown the veritable square face and large disproportionate nose.’55
However nerve-racking for Charlotte the sessions with George Richmond had been, at least they pre-empted further demands for her portrait. She was able to turn down an offer from John Everett Millais, for instance, on the grounds that she was engaged to Richmond. Her attraction for Millais, apart from her remarkably fine eyes, was that she fulfilled his idea of what a woman of genius should look like: she ‘looked tired with her own brains’ he commented, memorably.56 Though it was undoubtedly a relief to Charlotte not to have to undergo the intense personal scrutiny of a portrait painter again, one cannot help wondering what the Pre-Raphaelite painter of romantic beauties would have made of Charlotte Brontë.
Charlotte’s supposedly short trip to London had been so extended that it was now nearly a month since she had left home. ‘My London visit has much surpassed my expectations this time’, Charlotte told Ellen, ‘I have suffered less and enjoyed more than before.’57 Just how much she had enjoyed her visit, and the company of George Smith in particular, Charlotte rather shamefacedly had to reveal to Ellen. Originally, she had agreed to go on to Brookroyd at the end of her stay in London. Now she had to explain that her visit to Ellen would be cut in half by an excursion with George Smith to Edinburgh. She knew that Ellen already had her suspicions about the relationship between herself and her publisher and that she would be shocked to the core that Charlotte could even consider so offending propriety by travelling in the company of an eligible young bachelor, so she went to great lengths to explain away her decision. George Smith had to fetch his youngest brother home from school in Scotland for the vacation. One evening he had announced his intention of taking his sister with him and then, the next evening, he proposed that Charlotte should meet them in Edinburgh to be shown the sights. ‘I concluded he was joking – laughed and declined – however it seems he was in earnest; being always accustomed to have his will, he brooks opposition ill. The thing appearing to me perfectly out of the question – I still refused – Mrs Smith did not at all favour it –’.58 Mrs Smith, it would seem, had also begun to suspect that there was a little too much friendliness between her precious eldest son and his prize authoress. Her benign surveillance, which Charlotte had once found so comforting when she was exposed to the presence of other gentlemen, had already been turned to ‘her cherished and valued son’ and she would actively discourage any increase in their intimacy.59
Mrs Smith may have been mistress of the house but George Smith was master of his mother. Having emphatically sided with Charlotte in opposing the plan, she was now persuaded to argue his case for him – or so Charlotte led Ellen to believe. Without explicitly denying the fact, or mentioning the word ‘marriage’, she suggested to Ellen that there was nothing between herself and George Smith.
Now I believe that George and I understand each other very well – and respect each other very sincerely – we both know the wide breach time has made between us – we do not embarrass each other, or very rarely –
The very fact that she called her publisher by his Christian name must have rung alarm bells with both Ellen and Mrs Smith. The difference in their ages – it was actually almost exactly eight years – and Charlotte’s lack of conventional beauty were not impediments to their intimacy; George Smith himself referred constantly to her fine eyes and his delight in her quick and clear intelligence.61 She, for her part, could not fail to be touched and flattered by the evident admiration of a handsome and clever young man who was one of the most eligible bachelors in literary London. Their correspondence over the past six months shows that they had fallen into a habit of easy raillery which was a convenient cover for any deeper emotions.
Charlotte left London and arrived safely at Brookroyd on 25 June. Writing to thank Mrs Smith for having had her as a guest for a month, Charlotte told her, quite truthfully, ‘I never remember to have enjoyed myself more in the same length of time.’62 Charlotte stayed with Ellen a bare week before leaving to join George and Eliza Smith in Scotland. The original plan had been that Charlotte would meet them in Glasgow and accompany them on a tour that would take them from Tarbet on Loch Lomond to Oban at the mouth of Loch Linnhe and then back through a portion of the Highlands to Edinburgh. However, after what one can only presume to have been two days of relentless pressure from Ellen, Charlotte regretfully agreed to give up the more adventurous part of the journey and simply join the Smiths for two days in the more civilized surroundings of Edinburgh.63
For the brief duration of Charlotte’s visit, George Smith had hired a driver ‘who knew every interesting nook and corner in Edinburgh, who was better read in Scottish history and the Waverley Novels than I was, and whose dry humour exactly suited Miss Brontë’. The visit became a homage to Walter Scott, whose works had been such an influence on the young Brontës. There were excursions to his house at Abbotsford and the ruined abbey he had restored at Melrose, and in Edinburgh to Scott’s monument as well as to Arthur’s Seat and the historic parts of the city. ‘I always liked Scotland as an idea’, Charlotte told Williams on her return, ‘but now, as a reality, I like it far better; it furnished me with some hours as happy almost as any I ever spent.’64 Writing to Laetitia Wheelwright ten da
ys later, Charlotte was still in danger of falling into her besetting sin of enthusiasm: ‘though the time was brief, and the view of objects limited, I found such a charm of situation, association and circumstance that I think the enjoyment experienced in that little space equalled in degree and excelled in kind all which London yielded during a month’s sojourn. Edinburgh compared to London is like a vivid page of history compared to a huge dull treatise on Political Economy – and as to Melrose and Abbotsford the very names possess music and magic.’65
On the return journey, Charlotte parted from the Smiths at York railway station, taking the next train to Leeds and going back to stay with Ellen Nussey at Brookroyd.66 It was now over five weeks since she had left Haworth or seen her father, who, understandably, was growing anxious for her return. She had, in fact, left at an extremely inconvenient time for, in her absence, the parsonage was being reroofed and major repairs undertaken. Writing to Ellen a full month after the work had begun, Patrick informed her that ‘after a host of labour amidst, decayed laths and rafters,
amidst all this bustle, both workmen, and servants, as well, as the more important Trustees – have acted in good will, fidelity, and harmony – I have often thought, that where it has been otherwise, it has been as much owing to the Employers, as the Employed – In general people can be more easily, led than driven, And respect, has a far more prevailing influence than fear –
Patrick discovered that one of the workmen was a Catholic. Instead of expressing disapproval, Patrick simply told him to keep up to his faith and he would be all right at the last.67
For someone who had so often insisted on the necessity of staying at home with her father, even when her sisters and brother were alive, Charlotte’s absence when her presence was so needed is difficult to explain. It was not simply that she was running away from her memories of her sisters which haunted her at home; it would seem that, despite herself, Charlotte was more than a little in love with George Smith. Having spent just three days travelling in his company, away from the duennaship of his mother, Charlotte returned in a state of almost total nervous collapse and took to her bed. The news, relayed by Ellen, threw Patrick into a panic. ‘It may be that she is labouring under one of her usual bilious attacks, and if so, she will I trust, through a merciful providence, speedily recover –’, he replied, adding urgently, ‘Should you see any feverish symptoms, call in the ablest Medical advice, for the expenses of which, I will be answerable – And lose no time – And write to me, soon, as soon as you can –’.68
In fact, it may well have been that Ellen exaggerated Charlotte’s illness; certainly she was at home within three days of receiving her father’s letter and was considerably annoyed to find all the household worked up into a ‘sad pitch of nervous excitement and alarm’ about her. At the foot of Bridgehouse Lane she had encountered John Greenwood, the Haworth stationer, staff in hand, about to set off to Brookroyd on Patrick’s orders to discover in person how Charlotte was. ‘I can’t deny but I was annoyed;’ Charlotte crisply informed Ellen, ‘there really being small cause for it all.’ She was soon to discover what really lay at the bottom of the panic. ‘I have recently found that Papa’s great discomposure had its origin in two sources – the vague fear of my being somehow about to be married to somebody – having “received some overtures” as he expressed himself – as well as in apprehension of illness.’69 There was an implicit reproof in these words. Only one person could have frightened Patrick into thinking either that Charlotte was on the point of marriage or that she was seriously ill. It would seem that Ellen, in one of her devious manoeuvres, had hinted in her letter to Patrick that something more momentous lay behind the impropriety of Charlotte’s trip with George Smith. This would also explain Patrick’s elliptical message in his reply: ‘Tell Charlotte to keep up her spirits – When, once more, she breathes the free exhilirating air of Haworth, it will blow the dust and smoke, and impure Malaria of London, out of
Inevitably, Charlotte was miserable on her return, contrasting the whirl of excitement in which the last six weeks had passed with the lonely monotony of life in Haworth. ‘I am beginning to get settled at home – but the solitude seems heavy as yet –’, Charlotte told Ellen, admitting too that she had put off writing to London to inform her friends of her return because she no longer had faith in the power of temporary excitement to do real good. ‘My present endeavours are directed towards recalling my thoughts, cropping their wings drilling them into correct discipline and forcing them to settle to some useful work:’ she informed Williams a couple of days later, ‘they are idle and keep taking the train down to London or making a foray over the Border, especially are they prone to perpetrate that last excursion—’. To George Smith himself she wrote a short note, refraining from a longer and more discursive letter because she was, somewhat mysteriously, ‘mindful of the “fitness of things” and of the effect of locality’ – perhaps an allusion to the perceived impropriety of their friendship.71
Her chastened mood did not outlast the month. At the end of July two boxes arrived at the parsonage. The larger one, addressed to Patrick, contained Richmond’s portrait of Charlotte, the smaller one a framed portrait of the Duke of Wellington for Charlotte. Patrick’s first reaction was to think that Charlotte’s portrait made her look too old, though he acknowledged that the expression was ‘wonderfully good and life-like’. Writing to thank George Smith, however, he confessed that the picture improved upon acquaintance: ‘Without ostentatious display, with admirable tact and delicacy, he has produced a correct, likeness, and succeeded, in a graphic representation of mind, as well as matter … I may be partial, and perhaps, somewhat enthusiastic, in this case’, he declared with pride, ‘but in looking on the picture … I fancy I see strong indications, of the Genius, of the Author, of “Shirley”, and “Jane Eyre”.’72 Only one person actually disapproved of the portrait and that was Tabby, who tenaciously maintained that it was not like and was too old-looking, ‘but, as she, with equal tenacity, asserts that the Duke of Wellington’s picture is a portrait of “the Master” (meaning Papa), I am afraid not much weight is to be ascribed to her opinion’, Charlotte laughingly told George Smith.73
The portrait of Wellington was equally welcome at the parsonage, since father and daughter both hero-worshipped the original. ‘I esteem it a treasure’, Charlotte pronounced, while Patrick affirmed that it came the nearest of all portraits he had seen ‘to my preconceived idea of that great man’. Patrick promised to keep the two portraits amongst his most highly valued treasures, regretting only ‘that some are missing, who, with better taste and skill, than I have, would have fully partaken of my joy’.74 George Smith had refused to accept any thanks for the pictures, so Charlotte had signed her letter, ‘I am yours very thanklessly (according to desire)’ and had received a mock-stern rebuke in reply, pointing out that it was merely good business sense to keep his authors happy. Charlotte was unable to let this pass.
The manner of doing a kind – or – if you will – merely a just action, the degree of pleasure that manner imparts, the amount of happiness derived from a given source – these things cannot indeed be handled, paid away and bartered for material possessions as money can, but they colour our thoughts and leaven our feelings – just as the sunshine of a warm day, or the impressions of delight left by fine scenery might do. We may owe as deep a debt for golden moments as can ever be incurred for golden coin.75
For the most part, Charlotte was able to keep her correspondence with George Smith light-hearted, though she was coming under increasing pressure from her father and Ellen, both of whom seem to have been expecting that George Smith would propose. In some anguish, Charlotte wrote to Ellen begging her not to broach the subject any more.
It is the undisguised and most harassing anx
iety of others that has fixed in my mind thoughts and expectations which must canker wherever they take root … I have had to entreat Papa’s consideration on this point – indeed I have had to command it – my nervous system is soon wrought on – I should wish to keep it in rational strength and coolness – but to do so I must determinedly resist the kindly meant, but too irksome expression of an apprehension for the realization or defeat of which I have no possible power to be responsible.76
The reaction which set in following the excitement of her visits to London, Brookroyd and Edinburgh soon became an oppressive gloom. ‘I cannot describe what a time of it I had after my return from London – Scotland &c.’, Charlotte later told Ellen, ‘there was a reaction that sunk me to the earth – the deadly silence solitude, desolation
About this time, Charlotte received an unexpected visit from a group of grandees. She had just declined an invitation to Harden Grange, the Bingley home of William Busfeild Ferrand, a wealthy landowner, Justice of the Peace and former Member of Parliament for Knaresborough. Two or three days later Mrs Ferrand turned up at the parsonage with a large number of ladies and gentlemen, including two members of the Young England party in the House of Commons, Lord John Manners, ‘tall, stately – black-haired and whiskered’, who bore a timely gift of a brace of pheasants for Patrick, and George Smythe, ‘not so distinguished-looking – shy and a little queer—’.78 Both Manners and Smythe had literary pretensions, but the visit seems to have been prompted as much by curiosity to see ‘Currer Bell’ in her own home as by a desire to meet the author herself.
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