It was 1958. My uncle and aunt—who even then seemed old—had taken me up to Haworth House, the old Bronte residence, for a visit. I had been learning about William Thackeray at school, and since the Brontes were contemporaries of his it seemed a good opportunity to further my interest in these matters. My Uncle Mycroft was giving a lecture at Bradford University on his remarkable mathematical work regarding game theory, the most practical side of which allowed one to win at Snakes and Ladders every time. Bradford was near to Haworth, so a combined visit seemed a good idea.
We were led around by the guide, a fluffy woman in her sixties with steel-rimmed spectacles and an Angora cardigan who steered the tourists around the rooms with an abrupt manner, as though she felt that none of them could possibly know as much as she did, but would grudgingly assist to lift them from the depths of their own ignorance. Near the end of the tour, when thoughts had turned to picture postcards and ice cream, the prize exhibit in the form of the original manuscript of Jane Eyre greeted the tired museum-goers.
Although the pages had browned with age and the black ink faded to a light brown, the writing could still be read by the practised eye, the fine spidery longhand flowing across the page in a steady stream of inventive prose. A page was turned every two days, allowing the more regular and fanatical Bronte followers to read the novel as originally drafted.
The day that I came to the Bronte museum the manuscript was open at the point where Jane and Rochester first meet; a chance encounter by a stile.
‘—which makes it one of the greatest romantic novels ever written,’ continued the fluffy yet lofty guide in her oft-repeated monologue, ignoring several hands that had been raised to ask pertinent questions.
The character of Jane Eyre, a tough and resilient heroine, drew her apart from the usual heroines of the time, and Rochester, a forbidding yet basically good man, also broke the mould with his flawed character’s dour humour. Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Thackeray described it as “the master work of a great genius”. We continue on now to the shop where you may purchase picture postcards, commemorative plates, small plastic imitation Heathcliffs and other mementos of your visit. Thank you for—‘
One of the group had their hand up and was determined to have his say.
‘Excuse me,’ began the young man in an American accent. A muscle in the tour guide’s cheek momentarily twitched as she forced herself to listen to someone else’s opinion.
‘Yes?’ she enquired with icy politeness.
‘Well,’ continued the young man, ‘I’m kinda new to this whole Bronte thing, but I had trouble with the end of Jane Eyre.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Yeah. Like Jane leaves Thornfield Hall and hitches up with her cousins, the Rivers.’
‘I know who her cousins are, young man.’
‘Yeah, well, she agrees to go with this drippy St John Rivers guy but not to marry him, they depart for India and that’s the end of the book? Hello? What about a happy ending? What happens to Rochester and his nutty wife?’
The guide glowered.
‘And what would you prefer? The forces of good and evil fighting to the death in the corridors of Thornfield Hall?’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ continued the young man, beginning to get slightly annoyed. ‘It’s just that the book cries out for a strong resolution, to tie up the narrative and finish the tale. I get the feeling from what she wrote that she just kinda pooped out.’
The guide stared at him for a moment through her steel-rimmed glasses and wondered why the visitors couldn’t behave just that little bit more like sheep. Sadly, his point was a valid one; she herself had often pondered the diluted ending, wishing, like millions of others, that circumstances had allowed Jane and Rochester to marry after all.
‘Some things will never be known,’ she replied non-committally. ‘Charlotte is no longer with us so the question is abstract. What we have to study and enjoy is what she has left us. The sheer exuberance of the writing easily outweighs any of its small shortcomings.’
The young American nodded and the small crowd moved on, my aunt and uncle among them. I hung back until only I and a single Japanese tourist were left in the room; I then tried to look at the original manuscript on tiptoe. It was tricky, as I was small for my age.
‘Would you like me to read it for you?’ said a kindly voice close at hand. It was the Japanese tourist. She smiled at me and I thanked her for her trouble.
She checked that no one was around, unfolded her reading glasses and started to speak. She spoke excellent English and had a fine reading voice; the words peeled off the page into my imagination as she spoke.
… In those days I was young and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind; the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give…
I closed my eyes and a thin chill suddenly filled the air around me. The tourist’s voice was clear now, as though speaking in the open air, and when I opened my eyes the museum had gone. In its place was a country lane of another place entirely. It was a fine winter’s evening and the sun was just dipping below the horizon. The air was perfectly still, the colour washed from the scene. Apart from a few birds that stirred occasionally in the hedge, no movement punctuated the starkly beautiful landscape. I shivered as I saw my own breath in the crisp air, zipped up my jacket and regretted that I had left my hat and mittens on the peg downstairs. As I looked about I could see that I was not alone. Barely ten feet away a young woman, dressed in a cloak and bonnet, was sitting on a stile watching the moon that had just risen behind us. When she turned I could see that her face was plain and outwardly unremarkable, yet possessed of a bearing that showed inner strength and resolve. I stared at her intently with a mixture of feelings. I had realised not long ago that I myself was no beauty, and even at the age of nine had seen how the more attractive children gained favour more easily. But here in that young woman I could see how those principles could be inverted. I felt myself stand more upright and clench my jaw in subconscious mimicry of her pose.
I was just thinking about asking her where the museum had gone when a sound in the lane made us both turn. It was an approaching horse, and the young woman seemed startled for a moment. The lane was narrow, and I stepped back to give the horse room to pass. As I waited, a large black-and-white dog rushed along the hedge, nosing the ground for anything of interest. The dog ignored the figure on the stile but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. His tail wagged enthusiastically and he bounded over, sniffing me inquisitively, his hot breath covering me in a warm cloak and his whiskers tickling my cheek. I giggled and the dog wagged his tail even harder. He had sniffed along this hedge during every single reading of the book for over a hundred and thirty years, but had never come across anything that smelt so, well… real. He licked me several times with great affection. I giggled again and pushed him away, so he ran off to find a stick.
From subsequent readings of the book I was later to realise that the dog Pilot had never had the opportunity to fetch a stick, his appearances in the book being all too few, so he was obviously keen to take the opportunity when it presented itself. He must have known, almost instinctively, that the little girl who had momentarily appeared at the bottom of page 81 was unfettered by the rigidity of the narrative. He knew that he could stretch the boundaries of the story a small amount, sniffing along one side of the lane or the other since it wasn’t specified; but if the text stated that he had to bark or run around or jump up, then he was obliged to comply. It was a long and repetitive existence, which made the rare appearances of people like me that much more enjoyable.