The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (16 page)

I longed to write a novel.

Could it be that Branwell was right? I wondered with rising excitement. Could a novel, even from a new and unknown author, be a sought-after commodity? If so, perhaps I—a clergyman’s daughter, living in a remote hilltop village, with no connections to the literary world—might have a chance at some modicum of success, however modest. I did not sleep all night,
for thinking about the possibilities before me. I was anxious to look over my previous literary attempts, to see if any of them had merit. I had never completed a full-length novel before. My longest works to date were my Angrian stories; but I also had a new work in progress, which I had never shown to any one. Perhaps, I thought, I could take one of those works, as Branwell had done, and revise and extend it.

The next morning dawned grey and cold, but blessedly clear. After breakfast, when Anne and Emily left to take our customary walk, I said I thought I would stay in to write a letter. No sooner had they quit the premises, than I raced back upstairs to my chamber and unlocked the bottom drawer of my bureau: the same drawer that contained my rosewood box of letters from Monsieur Héger. Therein also resided a series of boxes of different sizes and shapes, which had begun their intentionally brief and disposable life with no other purpose than the delivery of various and sundry products; they now served as the sturdy repositories of my past creative works.

I removed one box and opened it. Within, lay a mountain of tiny, hand-sewn booklets, some no bigger than an inch across and two inches high, proportionate in size to the battalion of toy soldiers with which we had played as children. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I gently examined them. Paper had been so scarce in our household, that Branwell and I had constructed the miniature books from scraps of drawing paper, advertisements, sugar bags and the like. In order to fit the maximum number of words on each page, we had perfected an infinitesimally small hand, designed to look like book print. Posing as fictitious historians, poets, and politicians—all of the masculine gender, in imitation of those we had read (I was usually Lord Charles Wellesley)—we had written plays, short stories, magazines, and newspapers, along with scurrilous reviews of each other’s work. As I leafed through the pages, I was amazed that I could still read the microscopic print—if only when placed directly in front of my spectacles.

I replaced that box and rummaged through another. It con
tained innumerable bundles of larger, loose sheets of paper, tied with ribbon or string: some were diary papers; others were the “novelettes” of my later teens and early twenties, all written in the same miniature hand. As I glanced through them now, I smiled fondly at such titles as
The Duke of Zamorna, Henry Hastings, Caroline Vernon, Mina Laury, Albion and Marina, Stancliffe’s Hotel, The Secret, The Rivals, The Spell.

Some stories I recalled as clearly as if I had written them only yesterday; others were enigmas to me. I read over bits and pieces of each of them, eager to determine if they might be worthy of another look. To my dismay, I found them to be for the most part silly, ornamented, and redundant. Oh! How lurid were the topics I had indulged in! How awash were they in spelling errors and non-existent punctuation! Why had I focused so often on the sensational, on rash, illicit love affairs, and on illegitimate children? Yet I could not forget how many hours of undiluted pleasure these stories had afforded me in their composition. I replaced them cosily in their box with a smile, determined that there they should remain—relics of my past—the passionate, imaginative expressions of my younger self.

I hesitated before a third box, my pulse beating a sudden frenzy. Therein lay the exercise books from my two-year education in Brussels: the countless essays I had written in French, with Monsieur’s copious, emphatic, and instructive notes written in the margins. On how many occasions in the past two years had my eyes welled up with tears while perusing these documents, unable to forget that my Master’s hands had once been in contact with every page?

No,
I thought: this was no time for such reflections; they would only bring me pain.

I put the box away without opening it, and moved instead to the last receptacle. It contained a neat stack of pencil-written pages that comprised my most recent literary effort: twelve chapters of a work I had tentatively called
The Master.
I had sketched out a scheme for the tale while still in Brussels, but had not begun to write it until the previous autumn, after I re
turned. I had worked on the story in fits and starts until Anne and Branwell moved home, when I had locked it away.

At that moment, I heard the bark of the dogs and the slam of the kitchen door; my sisters had returned from their walk. I quickly returned my pages to their hiding-place and issued downstairs. I passed the remainder of the day in a state of such distraction, that I dropped a perfectly good dusting rag into the fire, and added coffee to the teapot instead of tea. Emily accused me of becoming prematurely senile; Anne suggested that I might need new spectacles; but all I could think about was my story.

The chapters that took place in Brussels—the few that I had completed—had proved particularly satisfying to write, and I had been sorry to set the work aside. The act of committing my memories to the page, of describing the people and places I knew and loved—or hated—even under the thin veil of fiction, had been both invigorating and comforting. It had made me feel closer to the person I could not banish from my thoughts; it had helped to pass the long, lonely evenings after my household had retired, and sleep would not come for me.

At the time, I had considered the project as one of countless stories destined for the storage box; I now viewed the composition in a new light. To finish it, even to the length of a single volume, would require a great deal of work; but if I
did
finish—would it make an interesting and saleable novel? The thought filled me with both excitement and trepidation. If I was to work on that story again, Anne and Emily would no doubt become aware of it; in fact, I would welcome their advice and counsel. The setting, however, was my school in Belgium; the hero, however idealised, was patterned after Monsieur Héger. Surely my sisters would recognise that. With that recognition, would they also see through my words, to the longing that lay behind them? In sharing this tale, would I not also be sharing the secrets of my heart that I had struggled so carefully to hide, and had so consistently denied?

That night, when every one else was asleep, I stole down into
the dining-room and read over the manuscript that I had so far written. It was very rough; yet, I thought with mounting enthusiasm, the work seemed to have
some
merit. More importantly, I had revealed no overt expressions of feeling with regards to my hero. My heart pounding, I crept silently back upstairs, stowed my pages in my bureau, and crawled into bed beside Anne. My secret was safe, I decided, as I stared into the darkness; I
could
work on this book, even with my sisters’ knowledge. Thus decided, I could hardly wait to inform them of my intentions.

It rained all morning. By early afternoon, the storm broke, and we three set out to traverse—at great risk to our shoes—the damp, solitary sweep of the moors, with Flossy and Keeper bounding happily beside us. A thick, grey canopy of clouds yet hung overhead, although the sun peeked out hopefully in spots, and a white gleam of sky hung at the very edges of the misty horizon.

“Branwell told me something very interesting yesterday,” said I as we rambled along.

“Branwell?” remarked Emily, in mock surprise. “He actually said something lucid?”

“He did.” I stopped and breathed deeply of the brisk, moisture-laden November air, delighting in the feel of the crisp breeze on my cheeks, and admiring the view: mile upon mile of grey-green heath, dissected here and there by low stone fences, with no other living creatures in sight except wild sheep, and no sounds but their frequent bleating, the whoosh of the wind and the cries of wild birds.

“Well?” said Emily, looking back, for she and Anne were already ten steps ahead of me, “are you going to tell us, or must we guess?”

I laughed and hurried to join them. “Branwell maintains that, in the present state of the publishing and reading world, a novel is the most saleable article.”

“A novel?” Anne replied, an odd look on her face.

“He said an author might be offered two hundred pounds for such a work.”

“Who can trust
anything
Branwell says,” commented Emily sceptically. “He lies so often now. Every word that comes out of his mouth, I fear, is an invention to hide a transgression, or to puff up his vanity.”

“He may be right about this,” said I. “I admit, I know nothing about the business of publishing, but the reading of novels
does
seem to be increasing in both esteem and popularity. I was particularly glad to hear that, because—” I hesitated, then plunged ahead: “Now that our poetry book is ready for submission, I thought I might try to write a novel.”

“Oh?” said Emily. “I thought you had given up that sort of writing to focus on what is
practical
and
prudent.
‘The imagination should be pruned and trimmed,’ you said. ‘The countless illusions of early youth should be cleared away’—I believe those were your words.”

“I did say that, and I meant it. Instead of a romance or adventure, I want to write something that is real, plain, true, and homely. My hero would be no Duke of Zamorna, but a school-teacher: a man who works his way through life, as I have seen real men work through theirs.”

“That sounds promising,” said Anne.

“It sounds
boring,
” rejoined Emily, “incredibly so. Yet if that is what you wish to write, Charlotte, do not think about it or talk about it;
do it
.”

“I have been!” I blurted. “I started working on the story last autumn. With applied effort, I believe I can turn it into a one-volume novel.”

“Good,” said Emily. A small silence fell, as we tramped along.

Then Anne murmured quietly and simply: “I am writing a novel, too.”

“Are you? Since when?” I asked.

Anne’s courage seemed to fail her; her cheeks turned crimson
as she averted her gaze and said softly, “I began it a few years ago, at Thorp Green. I have been working at it, now and again, whenever I find the time. I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you would laugh at me; you said such writing was frivolous.”

“I am sure you would never write anything frivolous, Anne. What is your book about?”

“I call it
Passages in the Life of an Individual.
It is about a young woman’s trials and tribulations as a governess, and the young curate she loves from afar.”

I had barely a second to process this information, when Emily said:

“I have been writing a novel, too.”

I stared at my sisters in great surprise: Anne, with her blushing modesty and quiet grace; and Emily, who had matter-of-factly mentioned her endeavour as if it were the most ordinary of accomplishments. “You have
both
been writing novels?”

“It began as a reworking of several of my Gondal stories,” explained Emily, “but it seems to have taken the shape of a novel.”

“How far along are you?” I asked.

“It is hard to say; perhaps two-thirds of the way through. I have written twenty chapters so far.”

“Twenty chapters!” I cried, flabbergasted. “Emily, that is wonderful! What about you, Anne?”

“I have a first attempt completed,” Anne admitted, “but I am not at all satisfied. I intend to rework the manuscript extensively.”

I laughed out loud. The discovery that my sisters, whose only literary ambition I had thought to be poetry, had so outdistanced me in this regard, was a source of some mortification; at the same time, I was filled with pure, electrified delight. It was as if a gauntlet had been dropped before me, laying out an irresistible challenge.

We stopped on the crest of a ridge, overlooking the vast waste of heath and the distant hills beyond, which seemed rolled in a sullen mist. A sudden peal of thunder sounded, followed by
a flash of lightning; fitting portents, I thought, for the uncertain future ahead of us; for it seemed at that moment as if we stood on the very brink of an adventure as wild, stormy, and unpredictable as the threatening tempest.

“Perhaps we can all be published authors together,” I said, brimming with excitement and determination. “But before that can happen, I see I have a great deal of work to do, if I am to catch up with the two of you.”

Now that the truth was out, my sisters and I were no longer required to write by stealth, at least with regard to each other. We continued the routine we had employed in the production of our poetry book: we sped through our chores and limited our daily walks; when an hour or two of quiet presented themselves of a morning or an afternoon, we locked ourselves in the dining-room or in our bedrooms, and applied our energies diligently to the writing of our respective tales. Every evening, immediately after prayers, when every one else was asleep, we reconvened in the dining-room to continue our work until midnight.

We did not worry that our activity would attract undue attention in the household. Tabby and Martha already considered us rather eccentric; and papa and Branwell thought nothing of it, since we had been scribbling stories in a similar manner ever since we were children. Emily and Anne had already made great progress on the pencil drafts of their books; I had far more work to do; but we all chose to go back and edit from the beginning, so that we could become equally acquainted with each other’s work.

Once or twice a week, as certain points in our respective narratives were reached, we took time out from writing to read parts aloud—an activity of great and stirring interest to us all. A discussion followed; or rather, I should say, an argument: we shared our thoughts, and challenged and appraised our works in progress, in a spirit of absolute equality and frankness—all the while unsparing in our criticisms, and often erupting into heated discussions regarding style and content. Tired of sitting, we often
conducted this verbal battle on our feet, striding single file round and round the dining-table—a habit I had learned from my days at Roe Head School, when Miss Wooler used to lead us girls on similar indoor strolls, which she claimed “improved the circulation and heightened the mental faculties.”