anybody but the governess; and how Thackeray at last, very late, with a
finger on his lip, stole out of the house and took refuge in his club.
No wonder if this quaint and curious Charlotte survived in the memory
of Thackeray's daughter. But, even apart from the headache, you can see
how it came about, how the sight of the governess evoked Charlotte
Brontë's unforgotten agony. She saw in the amazed and cheerful lady her
own sad youth, slighted and oppressed, solitary in a scene of
gaiety--she could not have seen her otherwise--and her warm heart rushed
out to her. She was determined that that governess should have a happy
evening if nobody else had. Her behaviour was odd, if you like, it was
even absurd, but it had the sublimity of vicarious expiation. Has anyone
ever considered its significance, the magnitude of her deed? For
Charlotte, to be the guest of honour on that brilliant night, in the
house of Thackeray, her divinity, was to touch the topmost height of
fame. And she turned her back on the brilliance and the fame and the
face of her divinity, and offered herself up in flames as a sacrifice
for all the governesses that were and had ever been and would be.

And after the fine stories came the little legends--things about
Charlotte when she was a governess herself at Mrs. Sidgwick's, and the
tittle-tattle of the parish. One of the three curates whom Charlotte
made so shockingly immortal avenged himself for his immortality by
stating that the trouble with Charlotte was that she _would_ fight for
mastery in the parish. Who can believe him? If there is one thing that
seems more certain than another it is Charlotte's utter indifference to
parochial matters. But Charlotte was just, and she may have objected to
the young man's way with the Dissenters; we know that she did very
strongly object to Mr. William Weightman's way. And that, I imagine, was
the trouble between Charlotte and the curates.