The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte

by James Tully

  There can be no doubt whatsoever that she would have put her poems away in her desk as usual. Charlotte had been consumed with curiosity to know what she was writing, but was forced to bide her time in order to find out. Then, when her sister had gone for one of her long walks, her patience was rewarded. We gain some idea of the time which she needed to pry into everything when we learn that there were about forty poems to read!

  I find it very telling that Charlotte did not put out her tale about ‘accidentally’ lighting on the poems until Emily was long dead.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book!’

  Job 19:23

  As I have said already, Master Branwell was in a poor state on his return to the Parsonage, but he took to writing in his sober moments because, as he said to Father, he knew he had to do something. He had no job, and little chance of getting one, and money was very short.

  He also told Father that, whilst with the Robinsons, he had learned from some of his writer friends that writing a ‘novel’ – whatever that might be – was a way of making money and so, in his spare time, he had made a start on one. It had been put aside of late, but now he had taken it up again.

  Taken it up he may have done, but it was only for short spells because for most of his time he was in no fit state to do anything worthwhile. In his drunken mind, though, he had finished his book already and was well on the way to becoming a rich and famous writer, and I myself heard him rambling on in that vein.

  Of course, with her ears and eyes everywhere, it was not long before Miss Charlotte heard of what he was going around saying, and Mr Nicholls told me in later years that, not knowing the full truth of what her brother was going on about, she was tormented by the thought that there might be something in it. She and her sisters were writing nothing, and the book of poems was still being sent back by publishers, and just the thought that what I have heard her call her ‘disgusting brother’ might outshine them all gave her sleepless nights.

  Of course, I knew little of that at the time, and therefore I thought it just one of Miss Charlotte’s many ideas for making money – which usually came to naught – when I heard her ask her sisters whether or not they thought that they might write their own books. I only realized how much it meant to her when I saw her face set when she heard their answers. Miss Anne told her that she had already been writing whilst with the Robinsons, and had, in fact, almost finished a tale. Then, as if not to be outdone, Miss Emily chimed in to say that she already had an idea for a book.

  Miss Charlotte went pale and then very red, and called them ‘a pair of slyboots’. She had clearly been very taken aback. She had thought that she was coming up with a new idea only to find that her younger sisters were well ahead of her. I learnt later that the discovery did nothing to endear them to her; it simply added to her feelings that they were in league against her. She wondered why they had said nothing before she raised the matter, and felt that they might all leave her behind in the race for fame and fortune. Now she felt that she just had to carry on with her plan that they should each write a book, if only to keep an eye on what the others were up to.

  Thus it was that, around November, 1845, they all set to writing in earnest.

  That was easy for Miss Anne, who was already well on with her book, and soon it became less difficult for Miss Charlotte. I had seen some of the little books which the sisters had written as children with Master Branwell, long before I went to work at the Parsonage, so all of them knew something of the proper way of writing.

  The only one of the sisters who seemed to have real trouble was Miss Emily. To my mind, she had not even thought about writing a book, let alone have an idea for one, when Miss Charlotte first came up with the idea, but said that she had simply to tease her sister. Either that, or her idea for a book just had not been good enough. Be that as it may, there were several times, when we were alone together, that she told me that her mind was a total blank, and that she had no idea of what to write about.

  Then, all of a sudden, she was off and there seemed to be no stopping her, with her scribbling away faster, and for much longer, than her sisters. I have even seen her taking her papers with her when she went off up to the moors. I could not imagine that she was doing much writing up there, especially with Mr Nicholls about, and I put it down to the fact that, after the business with the poems, she did not want Miss Charlotte ‘accidentally’ discovering what she had written. Mr Nicholls has told me that I am right about that, but also that he would look at what she had written and make some changes.

  After her death, there were tales that Miss Emily had not written the book herself, and at those times I scoffed at such ideas and said that the people were liars – for I could vouch for having seen her writing it. Now, though, I am not so sure, because Mr Nicholls told me that it was Master Branwell’s idea in the first place, and so many others have come forward with what seem to be true accounts that the book was, in part at least, Master Branwell’s.

  In recent years Mr Nicholls has also felt able to confide in me about the worries that Master Branwell began to cause him and Miss Emily at that time.

  The first was when he told her that he knew about her meetings with Mr Nicholls. She could not think of how he had found out, but perhaps it was because everybody had become so used to treating Master Branwell as if he were not there – much as they tended to do with me at times – that she and Mr Nicholls had not taken care when he was about. Some folk make the mistake of thinking that those in their cups do not notice what is going on around them, but it has always seemed to me that a part of their mind keeps going as normal. Many were the times, when I was a young girl, that I passed remarks – sometimes about him – when my Father had had a drop too much and I thought that he would not notice, but was taken to task by him the next day.

  Be that as it may, however Master Branwell knew, knew he did, although at that time there was little enough to know, but even so Miss Emily did not want anything of her friendship with Mr Nicholls to be bandied about. There can be no doubt but that she was already in love with him, but what passed between them then was very mild and she had in no way made her true feelings known to Mr Nicholls. I suppose that with the way she had been brought up, her natural closeness and her lack of dealings with men, things could not have been otherwise. Certainly she needed a great deal of wooing and, from what I knew of her and from what Mr Nicholls has told me, at the start she would have been put off by anything but the most gentle and innocent of lovemaking.

  By then it was 1847, and life at the Parsonage was going on in much the same old way except that Master Branwell’s state was getting worse. I could see that he was lonely, and Father said that, at long last, he was having to face the fact that he would never amount to much. Seemingly he was full of self-pity, saying that he thought himself ill-suited for drudgery and blaming that on the fact that he had been too much petted through life. Their mutual friend, Mr Leyland, told Father that Master Branwell had written to him saying that he was an utter wreck and, being without hope, was in mental agony.

  Certainly his drinking was even more of a disgrace and the talk of the village, and I knew for a fact that he was taking far more laudanum than ever because I saw the bottles. Miss Anne seemed to look upon him with horror, and I heard Miss Charlotte call him ‘a shameful burden’, which I did not think was a proper thing to have done when servants were in earshot.

  Then, in May I think it was, Master Branwell became much quieter, but when I remarked about that at home Father said it was not to be wondered at because he had got to the end of a large sum of money which he had got in the Spring, and had therefore to restrict himself to some degree. However, that state of affairs was too good to last because, as Miss Charlotte said, he just had to have his drink and drugs, and seemed willing to do anything to get them.

  I knew from gossip in the village at that time that he was going to almost anyone trying to borrow money,
but folk had had enough of him and he had no luck. I suppose that is why he decided to make demands of Mr Nicholls.

  Before that he had often had small sums from Mr Nicholls, who has told me that, although he had little enough money for himself, he had not minded parting with the odd coin or two to keep him quiet and get rid of him. Now, though, he was not asking but demanding, and those demands came more often and for much larger sums than Mr Nicholls could provide. Then when Mr Nicholls refused him altogether, his desperate state drove him to start to make nasty threats to Mr Nicholls about his friendship with Miss Emily. He told him that he would tell his father they were meeting on the moors if Mr Nicholls did not pay him.

  Well, as Mr Nicholls has said to me, what choice did he have? He knew that Mr Brontë would probably have a seizure if he found out that one of his daughters was walking out, or worse, with his assistant. Mr Brontë wanted his daughters to marry money, and he would not have allowed any of them to wed an assistant with hardly a penny to bless himself with. Mr Nicholls knew that he would have been dismissed, and that, coupled with unclear tales of misbehaviour with a Minister’s daughter, would have made certain that he did not get another job in the Church.

  He knew also that it was important to keep Master Branwell quiet about what he and Miss Emily now thought of as ‘her’ book. They both had the constant worry that Master Branwell would decide to take back what he had written and make it public – leaving her with nothing. So Mr Nicholls paid up, not knowing that in doing so he had taken the first step on a path that would lead to misery and death.

  [] As far as Emily was concerned, I can quite believe that she found it difficult to begin her novel. She was not as worldly as her sisters, and was unaware of many of the frailties of human nature. All she knew was that she was possessed by inexpressible yearnings from which she was constantly tempted to seek relief. She wanted so much to keep up with her sisters, and therefore did not relish the prospect of having to confess to Charlotte that she had never had an idea for a novel, and most certainly was not writing one. From what Martha hints at, and others have actually stated publicly, it seems apparent that finally, in utter desperation, and because the emotions expressed were so akin to her own, she resorted to plagiarism.

  It is well known that Emily wrote fair copies of his writings for Branwell when they were younger, and Martha has told us that the practice continued into their adult lives. Perhaps her help was even more essential then, because heavy drinking, and the subsequent bouts of delirium tremens from which he suffered, were hardly conducive to good handwriting. Thus Emily had come to know upon what Branwell was working when he gave her the completed part of his novel for tidying up.

  That is not to say, however, that she did not already have a good idea of the subject matter. Branwell, unlike Emily, was never one to keep anything to himself and had bragged about his writing to his sisters and others, albeit only in the vaguest of terms. To whom, though, had he spoken in more detail, in search of approval and praise? Certainly not Charlotte; he had been wounded deeply by the way in which she had treated him since the Robinson business, and it was obvious that she was avoiding his company.

  Anne, also, had made her opinion of him quite clear. She had been horrified by what had happened at Thorp Green Hall, by what he had become, and by what he was doing to the family. It was also because of him that she had been obliged to leave a post which she enjoyed and return to cheerless Haworth.

  No, it was to Emily, always his friend, that he looked for approbation. Apart from anything else, he had spent more time alone with her in recent years, and there was a great deal of rapport between them. The worst that Emily is known ever to have said about her brother was that he was ‘a hopeless being’, and I think that even that was merely a passing comment. I also consider that, unlike his other sisters, she was inclined to believe his tale about an affaire with Mrs Robinson. Anne may have told her the truth, but that would not have been something which Emily would wish to believe. She had a great deal of pity for Branwell, and would have sympathized with what she thought to be his plight because of what was happening between her and Mr Nicholls.

  Nevertheless, her predicament compelled her to desperate measures. Having seen Branwell’s incomplete manuscript, she realized the potential of the story, which was set in a location very dear to her heart. I do not think that she would have set out to steal it, but she found herself in a dilemma, and the finishing of a novel which might otherwise have gone uncompleted seemed an ideal solution.

  She sought Nicholls’ advice and he encouraged her: he realized the financial potential of a successful novel. So she took the incomplete story and finished it with the active advice, collaboration and corrections of Nicholls, from whom I do not think even Charlotte and Anne were averse to seeking help. Branwell was consulted from time to time, but only to placate him, because he was under the impression that Emily was merely writing his thoughts whereas, in essence, she took the idea from him and then wrote most of the book which she later entitled Wuthering Heights.

  I fear that some readers may regard all of this with a degree of scepticism. If, however, they examine the evidence objectively, and disregard the myths which tend to surround the Brontës, they will find corroboration of what Martha asserted.

  In 1845, Branwell had some poems published in the Halifax Guardian and started on a three-volume novel. In September of that year, he told his friend J.B. Leyland that he had finished the first volume, but at the end of the following month he informed another crony, Grundy, that he had abandoned the project, and those apparently conflicting statements have led to some confusion. Fifty-eight pages of a novel entitled And the Weary are at Rest were discovered after his death but, as there were only fifty-eight pages, they cannot comprise the finished volume of which he told Leyland. It is, therefore, logical to suppose that they made up the unfinished work which he mentioned to Grundy. That, however, prompts the question of what happened to the completed volume – but more of that in a moment.

  Much later, in 1867, William Dearden claimed that in 1848 he, J.B. Leyland and Branwell each agreed to write something which would be read aloud in the Cross Roads Inn, which was situated between Haworth and Keighley. They met on the appointed night, but Branwell had to apologize, saying that, by mistake, he had brought the opening chapter of a novel he was writing instead of the special piece which he had composed. According to Dearden, Branwell then proceeded to read out the first chapter of Wuthering Heights!

  That is not all. In his book Pictures of the Past, Grundy wrote: ‘. . . Brontë declared to me, and what his sister said bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion of Wuthering Heights himself. Indeed it is impossible for me to read that story without meeting with many passages which I feel certain must have come from his pen. The weird fancies of diseased genius with which he used to entertain me in our long talks at Luddenden Foot reappear in the pages of the novel, and I am inclined to believe that the very plot was his invention rather than his sister’s.’

  I find it more than frustrating that Grundy did not name the sister who confirmed Branwell’s claim, but all the signs point to it having been Emily.

  There is more. Edward Sloane, of Halifax, told William Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by portion, the novel as it was produced, at the time, insomuch that he no sooner began the perusal of Wuthering Heights, when published, than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be disclosed.

  Staunch supporters of Emily have poured scorn upon all those statements, especially as they were not made until all the Brontës were dead, but they are not being objective. They will listen to nothing which tends to detract from the popular Brontë image. However, an impartial observer will ask why all those men should have lied. They had absolutely nothing to gain by so doing, and their statements were not only made independently but were separated by an interval of twelve years. Actually, the mere fact that they did wait until the family was dead tends to strengthen my
belief in their veracity. We should ask what the results would have been had they spoken out whilst the sisters were living. Their assertions would have served merely to fuel the arguments about the authorship of the sisters’ novels which raged when they were first published, and that would have caused distress to the family, and to Emily in particular. The men would not have wished that to happen, especially in view of Emily’s many kindnesses to their friend Branwell.

  Is there not, also, the ring of truth in what they said? One can well imagine poor befuddled Branwell producing in 1848 something which he had written three or four years earlier and declaring that it was the first chapter of what he was then engaged upon. Sloane’s statement, that Branwell read the story to him chapter by chapter, as it was written, lends credence to my belief that Emily consulted him whilst she was writing. Were that the case, he would have known how she was progressing, and it would not have been difficult for him to smuggle chapters out of the Parsonage as they were completed.

  In addition to all that, there is very convincing literary evidence which indicates that Branwell was involved in the writing of the book.

  I have been struck very forcibly – and much as Grundy was with his friend’s spoken words – by similarities of phraseology between certain passages in the novel and some in letters written by Branwell.

  There is also the mute testimony of the book itself. The first three chapters are related by the character Lockwood and tell of his personal experiences, but then there is an awkward change of literary style. One is introduced to Nellie Dean, Lockwood’s housekeeper, and the rest of the story is her tale to Lockwood – who then recounts it to the reader. I can think of no more likely reason for the change than that a female writer took up where a male left off.