Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (1849)

This book is an experience. OK, so every book is, of course. But this one is markedly. The author was clearly casting around for future modes in part, fulfilling wishes for which she hadn't yet had the opportunity in part, travelling deeper in her original vein as well. The first impression, through the dark and more harshly humorous early chapters, is of Thackeray-echo. This is not surprising, given her respect for the man. This sounding remains present throughout, but is very much backgrounded for long periods. The novel is set in the Napoleonic era, 1811 into 1812 to be exact, in the wilds of Yorkshire. The setting is near moorland, but a tad more civilised: there's a mill in a hollow, a local great house, a few respectable abodes of clergy etc, as well as a local populace mainly employed at the mill spread over the green landscape in cottages. The impression often given of this book as being one of 'dark, satanic mills' is pretty misleading. The mill-owner, Anglo-Belgian Robert Moore, is certainly in a lot of bother when the story opens, with a justly incensed population thrust out of work by some new machines he's installing. Luddite rebellion ensues in waves, his single-minded resourcefulness battling it successfully. Bronte is careful to elucidate both sides of this story, but of course is hamstrung by the fact that Moore is one of her heroes. As soon as Moore's love life takes centre stage in the latter part of this early melee, the die is cast for a contrasting progression. Hampered by the blockaded ports and trade embargoes, his business looks likely to fail. So his attention goes from young penniless Caroline Helstone, niece of one of the local vicars, to young wealthy Shirley Keeldar, inheritress of the great house, who has just returned to the neighbourhood. Shirley is wild-spirited, forthright, searchingly intelligent - apparently she was Bronte's idealisation of her sister Emily, as she believed she might have been. Caroline, her friend, is more tender, retiring, less impulsive. The two are friends, and go through a dance around one another because Caroline had been in love with Moore, and Shirley likes the idea of his new attention. All of this part of the book is pure Bronte, and is where I think she is exploring her true centre in terms of style-development. It is punctuated by some magnificently poetic stretches - the highest mood of the book is here, the most profound colour: it is an unusual colour though, a misty green and an intense grass-green with threads of gold and white; it's almost a careful semi-arcadia she creates, a careworn place of wind and silence. Contrasts to this are often in the background and form occasional points of heavy brightness - little sparks of scarlet, smoky blue and orange with a skeleton of tree-browns, furniture-browns and silvered moonlight. These settings and emotional hues linger in the memory with a strangeness and intensity bolstered by the poetry. There is, in the introduction of Moore's brother Louis, Shirley's old tutor, later in the piece, a catalyst brought to bear on the tangle of relationships at the novel's centre. Robert Moore is shot by a disgruntled ex-employee, and spends quite some time recovering, as does Caroline of a fever, but it is not this which moves their story forward to its final conclusion, though it helps him particularly to understand and value his love. Only in the last chapter, after Wellington's (another of Bronte's personal heroes) victory at Salamanca, are the ports reopened, trade freed up, and Moore's troubled finances set onto calmer waters. This fiscal freedom means that they can marry, as will Shirley and Louis. Very telling that: Bronte, for all her supposed romanticism, was practical and grounded when push came to shove.