"Kitty Bell at home, my dear, but here we must call you Catherine; for a school, you know, is where many forms must be observed. How old are you?"
"I shall be ten next birthday, madam."
"And when will that be?"
"On the 23rd of April."
"Shakespeare's Day, I declare!"
The above is, of course, not in Jane Eyre. There is a stroke of sarcasm in the last sentence. It would appear that Currer Bell playfully had moved her birthday forward two days, in her private conversation with one from whom M. Sue had gleaned information—and this could be only M. Héger himself. Charlotte Brontë, as Lucy Snowe, in Villette, Chapter XLI., tells us that M. Paul Emanuel (M. Héger) said:—
"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I could keep a secret. How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution! How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!" And this had doubtless a reference to some such indiscretions as resulted in M. Sue whilst at Brussels (and he was publishing L'Orgueil from Brussels in 1844, in the January of which year Charlotte Brontë arrived home from the Belgian capital), learning the literary secrets of Jane Eyre, and perhaps Wuthering Heights.
A further reference to Currer Bell's literary aspirations—in the spirit of Mdlle. Reuter's sneers, in The Professor, at Mdlle. Henri's literary ambition—occurs in M. Sue's feuilleton in another version of the fortune-telling incident of Jane Eyre:—
"Here," said I, to a brown, sunburnt damsel, ... "take this shilling and tell me when I shall be Empress of Morocco?"
I held out my hand.... The young girl looked at it, ... then shook her head doubtfully:—