Then I spied the postman coming up the road, and my spirits lifted. The post was a source of light and life to me. I carefully locked the desk drawer, because although Papa had been told the secret of Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell, no one else must know-not even Branwell, who could not be trusted with the secret. I tucked the key in my pocket, hurried downstairs, and eagerly accepted a letter from the postman. I read the sender’s address on the envelope: “Smith, Elder amp; Company, 65 Cornhill, London.”
This was the letter that would launch me on a dangerous path through worlds beyond my imagination, but all I then understood was that the letter came from my publisher. As I scanned the two sheets, my anticipation of good news turned to dismay. I rushed downstairs and found Emily stirring a cauldron of preserves on the stove. Her bulldog, Keeper, lay beneath the table where Anne and our servant, Martha Brown, sealed jars. The kitchen was humid with fruity steam and hot from the coal fire.
“Emily. Anne,” I said, “we must talk.”
My face must have revealed my agitation, for they immediately followed me through the back door to the yard, out of Martha’s hearing. Above and away from us spread the moors, their hilly expanses broken only by a few stunted trees and the distant black lines of stone walls. Blustering wind whipped our skirts.
“Currer Bell has just received a disturbing communication,” I explained, then read aloud:
My Dear Sir,
As you will no doubt recall, Smith, Elder amp; Company has secured from you the exclusive right to publish your next novel and to grant secondary right of publication to our counterparts abroad. However, it has come to my attention that Mr. Thomas Cautley Newby, publisher of the works of Acton and Ellis Bell, has sold to an American publisher, for a high price, a book entitled The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which he claims to be the new work by Currer Bell.
We at Smith, Elder amp; Company were quite indignant to learn that a rival business has gained a property which is lawfully ours. Are we to believe that you have deliberately breached your contract with us? (It would appear so, judging by the enclosed document.)
We respectfully request an explanation of this circumstance.
Yours Sincerely,
George Smith
Emily and Anne stared in astonishment. I cried, “Anne, my publisher believes your book to be mine. He suggests that I’ve cheated him!”
“There must be a mistake,” Anne said hesitantly. “My publisher knows that Acton Bell and Currer Bell are two separate individuals. Surely Mr. Newby would not claim otherwise.”
“But he has,” I said, holding out the paper that had accompanied George Smith’s letter. “This is an extract from a letter written by Mr. Newby to the American publisher: ‘To the best of my belief, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are all the production of one writer.’”
Emily shook her head, frowning. Anne, looking bewildered, ventured, “I cannot believe that Mr. Newby would intentionally misrepresent me.”
“I can,” I said, “because he has already treated you both in a shabby fashion. Remember that he charged the printing expenses for Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights to you. Then he delayed publication of your books. And he hasn’t yet sent you the royalties he owes you. Mr. Newby is an unscrupulous man who would do anything to profit himself.”
“And he is doing so by capitalizing on the success of Currer Bell,” Emily said. Her large, luminous eyes, ever a magical mixture of fire and ocean, were of a hue that changed with her moods; now anger darkened them to slate blue. “He seeks to elevate little known authors by confusing them with a celebrated one.”
I winced: Emily was a person of few words, and those often too blunt for comfort. The differing degrees of success achieved by Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell represented a sensitive issue that we avoided discussing. Though Emily and Anne were genuinely pleased by my good fortune, I knew that if our positions were reversed, I would envy them, in spite of our affection for one another. I also knew how badly they must feel about the reviews of their books.
“There is not in the entire dramatis personae a single character which is not utterly hateful or thoroughly contemptible,” the Atlas had said of Wuthering Heights. Agnes Grey had fared no better. “It leaves no painful impression on the mind-some may think it leaves no impression at all.” Worse, both Emily and Anne had suffered from comparison to me when the Athenaeum had proclaimed of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey: “All three might be the work of one hand, but the first issued remains the best.”
How much I regretted that my writing had set me apart from my sisters! Would that today’s missive had not done further damage to our harmony!
“Dear Charlotte, I’m so sorry that my book has endangered your reputation,” Anne said.
She was always too ready to accept blame and thereby restore peace. “The fault belongs to Mr. Newby,” I said. “And I fear he has endangered more than my reputation.” I paced the yard in a fever of anxiety. “I know little of the law, but enough to see that appearances suggest that I’ve broken it.” I had a horrible vision of the authorities descending upon the parsonage, and myself arrested and thrown into prison. “What am I to do?”
“Write to Mr. Smith. Tell him that Currer Bell, Acton Bell, and Ellis Bell are three distinct individuals, and that anyone who says differently is a liar,” said Emily.
“But I told him as much when the critics raised the question of our identities,” I reminded her. “If he doubts me now, why should another letter convince him?”
“Perhaps I could order Mr. Newby to set matters right,” Anne offered.
“Why would he, and put himself in the wrong?” I said, dismissing the notion that mild-natured Anne could force anyone to do anything. I halted my pacing and faced my sisters. “The only way to solve the problem is to dispense with pen names and reveal who we really are.”
Anne gasped in alarm. “No!” Emily burst out. Vehemence harshened her normally quiet, melodious voice, and her eyes darkened to a stormy grey-green. “When you first suggested that we try to publish our works, we all agreed that we would always use pen names.”
While Anne and I had adopted pen names because we enjoyed the secret and thought that male aliases would assure our work a more favorable reception, Emily had wished to avoid unwanted exposure. Neither my sisters nor I participated much in any society, but Emily was the most reclusive among us. She was like a wild creature-happiest when rambling the moors alone. She shot a pleading glance at Anne, who moved close to her.
“Dear Charlotte,” said Anne, “I know your situation is grave, but surely there is a solution that doesn’t require us to reveal our true identities.”
Anne always took Emily’s side, for they shared a special intimacy that excluded everyone else. They were like twins sharing one heart. A familiar pang of envy needled me, because Emily was my favorite sister as well as Anne’s.
“But there is not another solution,” I insisted. “Even if I manage to convince Mr. Smith that I didn’t write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , problems will continue to arise as long as there remains a mystery about who Acton, Ellis, and Currer Bell are. People will always confuse us.”
“Let them,” Emily declared, tossing her head. Her hair swirled in the wind; with her back to the clouded sky and sweeping moors, she seemed a wild force of nature. “I don’t care.”
“Well, I do,” said I. Even as I admired Emily’s independent spirit and hated to cause her pain, I suddenly felt a tremendous impatience to cast off the pen name that had obscured me like a suffocating shroud. “We must let Mr. Smith and everyone else know us at last.”