Romancing Miss Bronte (30 page)

“I detest that kind of thing. You know I do,” she said, standing before his desk one morning with her hands clenched at her waist. She dreaded having to defy him; it made her stomach twist in knots.

“You will go, Charlotte. I wish it so.”

“I shall not be lionized, Papa,” she replied with quiet firmness. “George Smith and his mother were very respectful of my wishes, and everything was done very quietly and in good taste when I stayed with them. Sir James has no intention of being half so moderate in his expectations of me.”

“You were in mourning last fall. That was quite different. By May you’ll be out of mourning.”

“Papa, I’d rather walk on burning coals.”

“I won’t be contradicted, daughter,” he threatened. He took up his magnifying glass and resumed reading the newspaper. “Now leave me. I have work to do, and all this arguing is making my blood pressure rise.”

The only bit of brightness in the picture was the prospect of a shopping expedition to Leeds with Ellen to purchase a new wardrobe. Now that she had a little money of her own and was free to wear something other than black, Charlotte quite enjoyed a day of visiting milliners and bootmakers, indulging in French kid gloves and store-bought camisoles, new fans and colorful parasols. Brussels had taught her the importance of finely tailored gowns, and she had acquired a simple, Quaker-like elegance that suited her. Even out of mourning she kept to the more somber tones, like dove-tinted mauve and moss green. Yet the small things baffled her, like the choice between a black or a white lace mantle, or whether a pink silk lining in her bonnet would seem too frivolous.

The hairpiece was Ellen’s idea, a plait of brown merino wool that would give a little volume to her thin hair. They returned to their room at the inn in Leeds that afternoon, and Charlotte sat on a chair while Ellen wound the braid around the top of her head.

“Your father is absolutely right to insist,” Ellen mumbled as she drew a hairpin from her mouth and jabbed it into Charlotte’s skull. “He’s doing it for your own good. You sink into depression at home. You must get away.” She held up a mirror for Charlotte to inspect the hairpiece. “There. How does that look?”

Hesitantly, Charlotte explored the crown of hair with her fingers.

“It’s all the fashion now,” Ellen said.

Once Charlotte had examined her reflection from all angles, a smile swept over her broad face. “It does look rather nice, doesn’t it?”

Ellen collapsed onto the bed. Then, with a sudden exclamation, she shot up and went to her cloak on the coat rack. Fishing in a pocket, she pulled out a packet tied with ribbon. “Here. George’s letters.”

Charlotte took the packet from her with a quiet smile and slipped it into her skirt pocket. She had been sending George’s letters on to Ellen to read.

“So, now you’ll stop boring me with all your silly hints,” Charlotte said. “You see in what light he views me.”

“I see that you’re on first-name basis,” Ellen said slyly. “And I think I detect a certain undercurrent there, even if you prefer to ignore it.”

“Ellen, I’m eight years older and without the slightest claim to beauty.”

Ellen leaned forward and snatched the hand mirror away from Charlotte. “I wish there were no mirrors in the world. Then you’d stop going on that way about yourself.”

“I don’t need mirrors, Nell. I see myself reflected in the eyes of others.”

For once, fate worked in Charlotte’s favor. Just a few days before she was due to leave, the hard-driven Sir James suffered a total nervous collapse. When George learned that Charlotte’s visit to London had been canceled, he instructed his mother to invite her to stay in their grand new residence near the highly desirable Hyde Park Gardens. Within the week, Charlotte found herself back in the Smiths’ home, bent over books of fabric samples with Mrs. Smith and her three daughters, listening to them debate between a blue floral and a bird of paradise design for the chintz morning room curtains.

It was May, and everything about London was different and splendid. George bent his schedule to accompany her wherever she wished to go. They took open carriage rides along Rotten Row at the fashionable hour
when all London society came out to be seen. Hidden behind the deep hood of her spring bonnet, so tiny she might have been mistaken for a child, she gazed upon the scenes she had so often imagined as a little girl. Ladies in veiled riding hats and flowing green habits vied for the crowd’s attention; red-coated hussars on horseback paraded along the lanes, stealing the hearts of a score of marriageable girls up from the country. Powerful and ambitious men demonstrated their skill driving matched pairs of spirited horses. It was London’s dazzling vanity fair, and none of it was lost on her quick eye.

George pointed out the people worth noting, discreetly whispering names in her ear, adding little anecdotes that put a smile on her face. Charlotte was cautious never to breathe a word of this in her letters to her father or Ellen; it would have shocked them to know how much these jaunts pleased her.

That year the Royal Academy had a fine exhibit, with a Landseer portrait of her hero the Duke of Wellington and a new work by John Martin—which she did mention to her father. George teased her mercilessly about her idol worship of Wellington; especially to please her, he arranged a Sunday stroll when he knew the old man would be coming out of chapel. After walking past the duke, he spun her around and trotted her across the street, and they were able to cut back up a path and pass him again in the gardens. Then they collapsed on a bench to catch their breath, both of them laughing like childish pranksters. In George’s company, bathed in his playful attentions, Charlotte reclaimed the vivacity she had buried with Heger.

Thackeray called one Saturday morning and stayed for two hours, and she went to his home to dine the following evening. That dinner was the only failed moment of her visit. She arrived in her chaste high-collared dress to find a room full of sophisticated society ladies, many in low-cut gowns with softly cleaved bosoms, and she was soon wishing she were at the Zoological Gardens among the lions and leopards. One particularly striking young beauty diverted George’s gaze throughout the evening, and Charlotte—who was painfully observant of these things—
found herself sinking into a chilly silence, quite incapable of making conversation except with the quiet governess who was supervising Thackeray’s young daughters. The evening was a disaster—the room dim and smoky from the oil lamps, Charlotte constrained and unbrilliant, the others breathlessly expectant. As soon as Charlotte left, Thackeray took up his hat and sneaked out to his club, abandoning his disappointed guests to gossip about how poor Charlotte’s braided hairpiece was so obviously false. Years later, some would recall it as the dullest evening of their life.

She and George argued over only one thing: her portrait. He proposed the idea one evening after the opera. Neither of them were inclined to sleep, and his mother—who had slept through most of the performance—now sat snoring in her armchair, with her chin resting comfortably on her chest.

George sat with his legs stretched out, necktie dangling from one hand and a glass of brandy in the other.

“Richmond is the artist who did Harriet Martineau’s portrait. The one you admired at her home. And I will bear the expense myself.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I see no need to have my portrait made. Who would want such a thing in their home?”

He belted out such a laugh that it startled his mother from her sleep. She muttered something nonsensical and immediately dozed off again.

“See,” Charlotte said, with her taut little smile that both scolded and sparred. “She agrees with me.”

“Mother doesn’t have a vote in this one,” he replied, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “I won’t let you squirm your way out.”

“Truthfully, my dear father would be the only person who would derive any pleasure from such a portrait, and after he’s gone, what would I possibly do with it?”

George slung his necktie onto the table, then sat up and crossed his legs. There was a thoughtful pause before he spoke. “And if I told you I wanted it for myself? That I wanted a portrait of my famous authoress,
whose genius rescued my business when I feared it might fail and whose courage has been an inspiration to me personally. What would you say to that?”

Charlotte braved the intensity of his blue eyes, holding that sweet moment as long as possible. “Would it really displease you so if I were to refuse?” she asked softly.

“It would.”

“All right then.”

An impassive butler greeted them at the door, led them up a narrow staircase, and deposited them in a small alcove, where they waited while Richmond finished another sitting. During those few moments, Charlotte’s courage nearly failed her. Watching her, George could see the struggle being waged behind those intense hazel-brown eyes. She withdrew her gloves and fidgeted with them in her lap, glancing anxiously toward the wide double doors. She looked as if she might bolt at any second, and George reached for her hand to calm her. She started, as if jolted by an electric shock. Her palms were hot and moist.

“He’ll be out in a minute,” George said soothingly, trying to think of something that might distract her.

But at that moment the door flew open and Richmond stood there. He was a good-looking man of middle age, slender, with fine-boned, aristocratic features.

“Ah!” he said as Charlotte rose to greet him. “Miss Brontë! This is indeed an honor! A very great honor!”

He led them into his studio, and as she slipped her spectacles into her pocket and untied her bonnet, she gave herself a stern little lecture and vowed not to let her nerves get the better of her.

She turned to find Richmond scrutinizing her with that intense objectifying look she had seen in the eyes of artists. She managed a smile and then removed her bonnet.

“What is that thing?” Richmond asked, striding toward her with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his smock.

“What?” Charlotte asked nervously.

“On your head,” he replied, his eyes boring down on her with a perplexed frown.

Her hand shot to the braided crown of hair.

“Your fur hat. Could you remove it?” he asked.

She turned a mortified look on George and immediately broke into tears.

“It’s a hairpiece,” George whispered to him. “Rather difficult to remove, I should think.”

“Ah!” Richmond said. “I see.” He cleared his throat. “Well, not to worry, Miss Brontë, we can work around it.”

But he could see the nervous state she was in, and he summoned the maid, who took Charlotte away.

“I say, she’s a sensitive little thing, isn’t she?” Richmond said.

“Very. Particularly about her appearance.”

“Ah, well, in that case, I think it best that she not see the work in progress. She can view it when it’s finished.”

“I am in perfect agreement, sir.”

Charlotte returned a short while later, the hairpiece gone, looking pale and exhausted. She managed a brave, timid smile and offered a heartfelt apology.

She returned the following day for a final sitting. When he had finished, Richmond beckoned her to come forward and see the work. Subtle shading had improved the square jaw and broad nose and softened the irregular mouth, but the focus was on her intensely expressive eyes. In those dark pools he had captured her sweetness and melancholy, and hinted at the well of anxiety beneath the gentle façade. It was Charlotte, and yet not like her at all. Little did he know that, with his talent for quiet flattery, he had evoked a whisper of her sister Anne, who had always been the prettiest of the three.

George had a unique effect on Charlotte. With his boyish exuberance and charm, he was able to draw smiles and wit from her like a magnet, and somewhere along the continuum of her visit she laid down her defenses.
Strolling down the street side by side with her hand wound through his arm, she would press her shoulder against him. Facing each other in the carriage, she would lean forward, place her hands on his knees, look up into his eyes, and talk away with sparkling frankness. They never lacked for words, and their silences were full of unspoken complicity. She fell in love with him not only for himself, but for how he made her feel when she was with him. She was loose and alive inside. If he had been so inclined, she would have allowed him to kiss her.

They returned one afternoon from an excursion and found George’s mother and his youngest sister in the drawing room, Mrs. Smith busy with her embroidery and Isabella sprawled on her stomach before the window, copying illustrations of horses into her sketch pad.

“George, come and see what I’ve drawn,” Isabella said brightly as she sat back on her heels.

But George was murmuring in a low voice to Charlotte, who broke away from him with a scolding glance and crossed the room toward the little girl. “What have you drawn, Bella? May I see?”

“Mother,” George announced, “I’ve asked Charlotte to come up to Scotland with me next month when I go to fetch Alick home from school.”

Charlotte twirled around in midstride and said lightly, “He’s only joking.”

“I daresay he is,” Mrs. Smith chimed in.

“I am certainly not joking.”

When his mother heard that tone of voice, her head shot up.

“Bella, dearest, take your sketch pad up to the nursery,” she said as she swiftly put away her needlework.

“But Mama …” Bella whined.

“Bella?” she said sternly. The girl gathered up her pencils and chalks and sulked out.

George, busy checking his watch against the clock on the mantel, ignored the brewing tempest at his back. When he had pocketed the watch, he said, “I thought we’d take a little side trip up to the Highlands.
Charlotte, you could meet us in Glasgow in two weeks’ time, and from there …” He went on, planning the itinerary, dropping the names of Scottish watering places Charlotte had visited only in her dreams.

Charlotte had taken refuge in the chair opposite his mother. When George finished, she turned a raised eyebrow to his mother and said, “I do think your son is serious.”