by Juliet Gael
This was a crushing blow to Arthur, and many in the village thought it shabby and heartless to abandon the man after he’d labored so long and lost so much, leaving him with no employment and nowhere to go. They were ashamed of themselves, and no one could pass Arthur in the street and dare to look him in the eye.
Martha thought it was just as well. Arthur was such a lonely and disconsolate man, with his beloved wife and all her family now sealed in a cold vault beneath the stone church floor. With Martha’s help he packed Charlotte’s dresses, her writing desk, sewing box and paint box, the manuscripts and the little books she had written as a child, her portrait by Richmond as well as all the other family portraits, and the grandfather clock that had stood on the stair landing. Of what remained of the family’s personal belongings, Martha took her pick, and the rest went up for auction.
He left Haworth before dawn one September day, taking with him his treasured possessions and Patrick’s dog. He never sought another curacy but returned to Ireland and took up farming, slipping into a life of quiet obscurity. After a while, Martha—who had once professed such a violent dislike for the curate—came to live with him in Banagher, bringing her colorful Yorkshire manners and recipes for her tea cakes and, above all, her memories. She was as devoted to Arthur as she had been to his wife and until her death served him loyally.
For years after the publication of Lily Gaskell’s biography a good deal of controversy flew around involving libel suits and rights; there were page after page of letters rebutting claims made in the book, quarrels about what was true and what was not; Ellen, who had expected praise and recognition for her contribution, found herself under attack for recklessly divulging Charlotte’s personal correspondence. Bitter and bristling with indignation, she attempted to deflect the blame onto Arthur, against whom she would nurse a grudge for life. But Arthur remained distanced from the scandals and the Brontë fanatics. Conscientious to the end, always mindful of his wife’s integrity, he did what was asked of him and ignored much of what was written about his famous wife and her family.
Ten years later he married his cousin Mary Anna, but it was widely accepted that Arthur acted out of gratitude to Mary Anna, who had kept his house and been such a caring companion all those years; they retained their separate bedrooms, and there were never any children. Charlotte still lived on in his heart; the portraits that had once hung in the parsonage and many of the Brontës’ watercolors now crowded the walls of his modest house; the grandfather clock that Patrick Brontë had punctually wound every night at nine stood on the stairs, and Charlotte’s white wedding dress and bonnet were carefully preserved in a clothespress. The dress was in Martha’s keeping, and every few months she’d take it out and give it a good airing.
Arthur lived long, nearly to ninety, largely forgotten by the outside world. The few people who made the effort to locate him found him to be a dignified, contented man, idolized by his wife and held in great esteem by his friends and neighbors.
He bequeathed Charlotte’s wedding dress to his brother Joseph’s daughter, Miss Charlotte Brontë Nicholls, with instructions that the dress should be burned before she died so that it would not be sold.
Miss Charlotte Brontë Nicholls kept her word.
Author’s Note
Thousands of readers, writers, and scholars have fallen under the Brontës’ spell, as I first did during a graduate seminar over fifteen years ago. Countless plays, novels, and films have been spun from their lives and their work. But what I found so gripping was the true story of Charlotte’s personal struggle: her determination to overcome circumstance, even her own temperament and nature, in order to taste just a few of life’s splendors, its thrills and its beauty.
From the beginning I was committed to as much historical accuracy as the narrative could bear; it was tempting to omit some of the characters who impacted her life, or tighten the progression of her relationship with George Smith, but it would have meant sacrificing a deeper and more complex portrayal. Likewise, the political and social problems of their time needed to be addressed. Arthur’s religious intolerance presented an enormous hurdle to Charlotte personally, and the historical context of their differences needed to be woven into the story.
Nearly all of Charlotte’s letters are her own, with minor editing and only occasional invention. Her letters also provided the substance, if not the language, for some of the dialogue. I also turned to her novels for character development, particularly Shirley, where I felt she was speaking through her characters of her sisters and their relationship with their father. After countless readings of all the sisters’s works and letters concurrently with biographies and historical documents of the region and the period, I felt confident making those choices.
As a novelist I drew on what may have been minor incidents or anecdotes to develop the story, some of which were alluded to in biographers’ footnotes, or could be inferred by reading between the lines of correspondence. Necessarily, there was a certain compression of events at the beginning, but even the time frame of their lives during these years is, for the most part, accurate.
A few of the minor characters, such as Miss Dixon, are pure invention.
Arthur Nicholls is an obscure figure about who very little is known, although Charlotte certainly wrote a good deal about him during the difficult months after his proposal. Even then, the portrait she painted of him was skewed by her own prejudices, and later, when that attitude had been transformed by love, she said little about their intimate lives. Thus it was this part of the story that allowed my imagination the most freedom—although I do not hesitate to add that the progression of their romance accurately follows Charlotte’s account, and nearly all the scenes toward the end are rooted in authentic incidents, particularly the events that led her to view him in a new light and fall in love with him. Arthur’s letters to Charlotte are my own creation, and I suspect, given his deep feelings, I have not fallen far from the mark. Intentionally, his outpourings draw from the same language she used in her letters to Heger. I took enormous pleasure in bringing Arthur to life and giving him his due in the story.
This novel would not have been possible twenty-five years ago; it stands on the shoulders—I should say in the shadows—of remarkable scholarly achievements. I am particularly indebted to Juliet Barker’s extensive work, The Brontës, which brought to light difficult-to-access sources such as George Richmond’s papers and George Smith’s autobiography, and to Margaret Smith’s monumental three-volume edition of all Charlotte’s surviving letters. I would also enthusiastically recommend The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family by Rebecca Fraser, recently reissued as Charlotte Brontë: A Writer’s Life; Charlotte Brontë: The Self Conceived by Helene Moglen; and The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell. It is my sincere hope that my novel will inspire the reader to pick up one of these fascinating studies. And, of course, the Brontës’ novels as well.
Acknowledgments
I would like to recognize the following for their contributions:
The many Brontë scholars and biographers who, through their decades of research, made possible this intimate portrait of Charlotte.
Barbara Daniel at Little, Brown in London, who urged me to follow my heart and write this novel.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum, and Ann Dinsdale, for their prompt, courteous attention to all our inquiries.
Father Stan Runnels, for reading the manuscript and assuring me that my Anglican curates were sufficiently priestly, but most of all for his warmth, encouragement, and guidance.
Rhoderic Bannatyne, who read the early manuscript, for his meticulous attention to detail and helpful editing suggestions.
My many friends who revived my drooping spirits during the long winters of work, specifically Jan and Les Ryon, who always made sure I was well fed.
My splendid agent, Loretta Barrett, for her patience, support, and enthusiasm.
Linda Marrow, Senior Vice President and Editorial Director at Ballantine,
for her lively humor and passionate commitment to this book.
About the Author
JULIET GAEL was raised in the Midwest and obtained her M.A. in French literature before pursuing graduate film studies at USC and English literature at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. She has lived abroad for more than fifteen years, primarily in Paris, where she worked as a screenwriter. She now makes her home in Florence, Italy.
Romancing Miss Brontë is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Juliet Gael
All rights reserved
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gael, Juliet.
Romancing Miss Brontë : a novel / Juliet Gael.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52032-6
1. Brontë, Charlotte, 1816–1855—Fiction. 2. Women novelists—Fiction. 3. Brontë family—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.A3535R66 2010
813′.6—dc22
2010000560
www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.0