Becoming Jane Eyre (22 page)

Now she must face the world, or at least her publishers. She must expose herself to strangers. Will they think her an impostor, not sufficiently learned or sufficiently grand?

They set out, venturing into the busy, confusing streets. They are surrounded by noise, bustle, strange city smells: London on a bright Saturday morning. People glance at their crumpled country clothes. In the glare, Charlotte already feels exposed. She thinks of sitting in the half dark and silence of her father’s room, the name of her heroine coming to her out of thin air as she straightened her father’s sheet. In a way she would prefer to be back there at his side, writing her book in the safe quiet. She clutches at Anne’s arm, glad to have her steady sister beside her with her good English face.

In the excitement and strangeness of it all, they get lost trying to find Cornhill Street. Eventually, Anne spots it. Now Charlotte hesitates, standing outside what seems to be a large bookstore. She thinks of Emily shutting the door on them, her closed and weary face, of Branwell sitting slumped over his glass of spirits, of her father coming into the room and telling her sisters she has written a book rather better than he had expected. Anne hovers beside her, seemingly similarly overcome with misgivings. “Perhaps we should just go home,” she suggests. There are tears in her blue eyes.

But Charlotte takes Anne’s arm and says, “Come, we have come all this way. We must go in.” They enter the cool shadows of the bookstore, where young men mill around busily, ignoring them. They go up to the high counter and approach a young clerk. He peers down at them from over the top of his glasses, looking somewhat suspicious at their appearance. Charlotte is suddenly uncomfortably aware of her dowdy dress, now creased, and of her bonnet with its brim bent, having suffered in the rain.

When the clerk inquires what he can do for them, in a tone implying they have no business being in this place, Charlotte speaks in such a low voice that he cannot hear what she says. When asked to speak up, she raises her voice, which now sounds horribly loud to her, and asks to see Mr. Smith. The clerk asks for their names. Charlotte looks at Anne, who shakes her head and then declines to give the information. She cannot bring herself to tell this stranger who they are. They are told to wait in a tone that is not encouraging.

They wander around looking at the books, many of which have been sent to her by this publisher. She picks up Darwin’s
Journal of Researches in Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H. M. S. Beagle
; a book with illustrations of South African zoology; Ruskin’s
Modern Painters
. She wonders if they will ever be ushered into Smith’s illustrious presence or will have to languish here ignominiously ignored, while the many young men and boys bustle around them, for the rest of the day. She is aware that their insignificant appearance, their out-of-date country dresses, and their refusal to give a name must not hasten the process.

George Smith is busy dictating a letter to a clerk when he is told that two ladies are waiting for him. “Who are they?” he asks. Despite his youth—twenty-four years old—he is exhausted, having been up early to come to work this Saturday morning. He frequently works twenty hours a day, having inherited his father’s business two years before. Money has been embezzled, his father’s affairs are in disarray, and he is obliged to provide for his mother and four younger siblings. Today he has been working since seven. He is hungry, too, not having had time for anything but the cup of tea his mother gave him at dawn. He thinks of the mutton chop that she likes to provide for her hungry son on his return home, with a cup of green tea. His stomach rumbles ominously. And now some unknown women have come to see him in the middle of the morning, while he is busy with a letter concerning his complicated affairs in India.

He suggests that the clerk tell them to return some other day, but the polite young man looks rather worried and says the women have already been waiting for a long while, and he suspects by their country clothes that they have come some distance to see Mr. Smith. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had taken a night train,” he says.

“Goodness me,” Mr. Smith says, and hopes they don’t have some dog-eared manuscript up their sleeves, something that has happened to him before. He sighs, “All right, then, bring them in. I’ll dispatch of them fast.”

The two women come in the door and stand timidly, side by side, not venturing into the room. Neither of them is young or pretty, and certainly their clothes are out of date. He is about to tell them he is a very busy man when one of them approaches and hands him a letter, which he can see is in his own hand. He looks at it and realizes it is one he has written to his best-selling author Currer Bell, who has all of London buzzing with discussions on whether the author is a man or a woman and whether the three books that came out under the name Bell were written by one or several men, or perhaps even by a woman.

He looks at the diminutive woman and asks rather sharply how she came by the letter and why she now returns it. Has she stolen it, or merely found it in the gutter? What does she hope to gain by bringing it to him? Is this some sort of blackmail? He looks at her in the clear morning light of his sunny office and sees something like a grin on her face, a flash of amusement in what he now realizes behind the glasses are large, intelligent eyes.

“You sent it to me—,” she says with a little laugh, putting her hand to her breast for emphasis.

Can this be, is it possible that this little woman is the author of
Jane Eyre
? The woman motions to her sister and adds, “We are three sisters, you see.” George Smith stares at her, taking in the tiny hands, which she waves delicately in the air, the glow of the hair and skin.

“You are the author of
Jane Eyre
?” he gasps. “You?” He stares at her, taking her in for himself and also, he is aware, for posterity. He is already writing his memoirs, an account of this meeting, noticing the head that seems too big for the little body, the uneven teeth. He wants to know all about her figure, her dress, her tiny, narrow shoes. He wants to touch her, feel if she is real. This small, frail person, hardly five feet tall, with these dainty hands and feet, has written a large, strong book that has already made him a great deal of money.

“Yes,” she says in a voice that is bell-like, like the name she has assumed. “Yes, I am.”

“Goodness! Great goodness!” he says. He claps his hands, announcing, “We will have to have a dinner party! We will have to introduce you to all of London! My mother and sisters will be delighted. Wait until they see you! Wait until Mr. Thackeray hears about this!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

C
harlotte declines this invitation to be shown off to the famous
literati
of London but accepts one to go to the opera that night, under yet another pseudonym. She and Anne will be the Misses Brown. Despite a headache and in her plain, high-collared country attire, she goes up the crimson, carpeted steps, up and up, at the Royal Opera House, surrounded by a throng of chattering, laughing, elegantly dressed people. Like the ladies and gentlemen in her own and her brother’s stories from long ago or someone in a fairy tale, she goes through the throng on the arm of her youthful and fine-faced publisher. Despite her unease she glances up shyly at his creamy complexion, his dark, close-trimmed side whiskers, and—what pleases her most—his cleft chin.

Her first impression of him was not particularly f avorable. He had looked her up and down so carefully, staring at her under the bright light of the skylight in his office, rather like a fishwife eyeing a fish to determine its freshness. Now, his large, dark eyes glance at her face quickly and then scan the crowd. With buoyant step he walks beside her, in his full evening dress. He talks fast in his mellow voice, makes little jokes, waves his white-gloved hands in the air, rather like a magician who has conjured this all up just for her, her personal Prospero. He is attempting good-naturedly to put her at ease. Beside him trip his two tall sisters in their low-cut taffetas and ribands, and cruising ahead, rather like a stately ship, his serene and portly mother goes on with ponderous step.

Though Charlotte is aware of the supercilious stares and the puzzlement and disconcertedness of his mother and sisters, she is amused by the contrast between her modest appearance and George Smith’s studied polite-ness. She has made him a lot of money, and he cannot wait, she suspects, to tell the world the secret, that he has on his arm the author of the celebrated
Jane Eyre
, that this little plain woman at his side has written the big book they are all talking about.

They enter a box near the stage where they have excellent seats. Despite her protests, Mr. Smith insists that she and her sister sit in the front row.

“I want you to be able to see it all: both the stage and the audience,” he whispers in her ear. So they sit bolt upright on either side of his formidable mother in her mauve dress, her tortoiseshell spectacles tucked into a fold at her considerable bosom. Mr. Smith, flanked by his tall sisters, sits in the row behind like a pale flower.

His mother turns to the older sister, the one who wears spectacles, and peers at the playbill shortsightedly. She says, “We are so glad you could both come with us this evening, my dear,” but she wonders why on earth her son has asked these two plain country creatures to accompany them to the opera. She calculates how much the excellent seats in the box he has taken for all of them must have cost. What extravagance! Surely the firm, though it is going from strength to strength under her son’s expert guidance, is not doing so well as to afford this? Why has he gone to such trouble and expense?

Indeed, she would not have come out this evening at all had her son not insisted. He had rushed home late, looking flustered, excited, his cheeks uncustomarily flushed. He refused to eat any dinner, not even the tempting thick mutton chop she had had the servants prepare for him. “You should eat, George, otherwise you might faint,” she said.

Instead, he had said breathlessly, “There is someone I very much want you to meet, Mama.” When she had pleaded fatigue, he added, “It is very important to me—well, to all of us—you will see,” with a little mysterious smile. He had ordered the carriage, told them to dress for the opera, and set off with them to collect the mysterious guests.

He hinted at some secret he had promised to keep, which led her to expect something else entirely: a great beauty, perhaps, or a great fortune, or a celebrated writer he was about to publish, someone brilliant and amusing, perhaps even the great Thackeray himself. Instead, there are these two subdued and plain creatures, who are acting now rather like two children at a birthday party.

She smiles at the younger one, who is the prettier of the two, with her fair hair and blue eyes. She has something vulnerable and appealing about her, but surely her son is not interested in either of these women romantically? They must be in their early thirties. Obviously two impecunious women, in their ill-fitting dresses, considerably older than her son, with a certain distinction of manner and a shyness bordering on haughtiness—she will give them that, but of the faded variety. They look like proud governesses, the sort of put-upon ones of whom lively children would take advantage.

“You must excuse us, for we are not used to such pleasures in our hill-village home,” one of the Misses Brown—if that is really her name—says and smiles at her. Mrs. Smith notices the fine eyes behind the spectacles, with their odd, slightly superior, amused gaze. What is it that amuses her so? And what is her source of superiority?

“Is it your first visit to London, my dear?” she asks. She doesn’t remember where George said the women come from, some small, bleak place in the North.

“No, no. We have been here before.”

“And when were you last here, may I ask, Miss Brown?’