The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte

by James Tully

  After thinking about it – I do not know if he ever did see a lawyer – he came to see that there was nothing he could do, but he was very bitter about her and Mr Brontë and things were never the same between any of them after that.

  It was all so sad, for it soured things in the Parsonage for a while, but after a few weeks things were back as they were.

  I do not know where the next few years went to. It seems now that I just settled into a life of contentment and the weeks and months just rushed by. Of course, folk carried on gossiping, and there were still some of the older women who would not come to Church any more, and would shun me in the street and shops, but in the main the villagers came to accept things as they were. I did not care either way, though, for I was happy.

  Only one thing bothered me slightly, and that was that, although we were to all intents and purposes a married couple, Mr Nicholls never ever talked about us really getting wed. I brought the matter up a few times because, truth to tell, sometimes the tittle-tattling got me down a bit, and anyway it would have been lovely to have been Mrs Nicholls and everything legal. Every time, though, Mr Nicholls just put me off, saying that we were all right as we were – were we not? – and that we should leave things as they were for a while and see what happened, and I just did not feel able to keep pushing and risk souring things.

  Of course, I always wondered if the reason why he did not wish to wed me was because of the difference in our stations in life, and once I said that to him. To give him his due, he seemed really taken aback at the notion and said that such a thing had never been in his mind – but even so I always wondered. I could do naught about it, though, so I just let it be – thinking that he always seemed to know what he was doing and he always seemed to have my good in mind – and all the while things just drifted on.

  I always felt sorry for Mr Nicholls, though, for from some of the snippets that got back to me it seemed that folk blamed him for the way things were rather than me, and many were also speaking out against him for keeping Mr Brontë so close. They did not seem to give heed to the truth that he was now keeping to his bed all the time, and was far too weak to do anything or see folk for very long at a time. Looking after him meant a lot more work for me of course, but it was a labour of love for by then he was like a Grandfather to me.

  Then, in the Summer of 1861, came the awful night when he was taken very bad. He could hardly breathe, but worse than that he was taken by fits for hours on end, with his whole body twisting and turning and him shouting out about the pains in his belly and his chest. Me and Mr Nicholls tried everything to soothe him, but it was no good and in the end I had to go for Dr Ingham. He could do nothing, and I wondered why we had bothered, but it would have looked bad for us had we not because Mr Brontë died that day.

  His passing saddened me beyond all measure, and I sobbed my heart out at his funeral. Mr Nicholls did not seem to mind though for, after all, the pair of them had always been at loggerheads. He told me that his mind was more on what would happen next, and I must say that that was something that was very much to the fore of my thinking as well.

  [] After Charlotte’s death Mr Brontë was forced to think at length about the situation in which he found himself. Nearly blind, and not in very good health, he had to face the prospect of living with a man whom he detested, but upon whom he was compelled to rely because, for quite some time, Nicholls had carried out most of the parish duties, even though it was the old man who received the minister’s stipend.

  He could, of course, have rid himself of his assistant by the simple expedient of giving him notice, but then he would have had to go through all the tedious business of finding a replacement and I doubt whether he would have felt up to it. That apart, he had to acknowledge the fact that Nicholls was invaluable to him in his personal life, because it was he who dealt with the practicalities of everyday living at the Parsonage, including the running of the household. It seems that eventually, therefore, he decided that, if Nicholls wished to stay, he would retain the Devil he knew – but it still went very much against the grain.

  No words on the subject of Nicholls’ remaining or going ever passed between the two men. For a few days after the funeral each waited, not a little apprehensively, for an approach from the other. When that did not happen, it was tacitly assumed that things would go on very much as before, but Mr Brontë was pleasantly surprised at the solicitous attention which he began to receive from his son-in-law.

  Now, what other means of persuasion Nicholls employed are not known, but the fact remains that his efforts were completely successful insomuch as, within only three months of Charlotte’s death, he had managed somehow to coerce the semi-confused old man into making a fresh Will. It was probably a combination of kindness and threats which did the trick because, although Mr Brontë seems to have resigned himself to spending what remained of his life with Nicholls, I doubt very much whether he would have agreed easily to bequeathing most of his worldly goods to him. One suspects that his greatest fear was that Nicholls and Martha would leave if he did not do as he was bid. As before, when Charlotte made such a threat, the possibility of being left alone in that grim house – at the mercy of complete strangers – would have terrified him.

  Mr Brontë’s Will was dated 20 June 1855. Apart from some minor bequests, including one of £30 to Martha Brown, Nicholls was the main beneficiary. He was also the sole executor. Mr Brontë referred to him as ‘my beloved and esteemed son-in-law’, a description which I find rather ironic considering their mutual dislike. It suggests that Nicholls had more than a little to do with the drafting.

  We know that the mere thought of Nicholls marrying his daughter had almost caused the old man to have a stroke, and nothing had changed, or would change, over the years. In 1860, that is to say five years after Charlotte’s death, John Greenwood, the Haworth stationer, remarked: ‘Aye, Mester Brontë and Mr Nicholls live together still, ever near but ever separate.’

  Ellen Nussey wrote to Nicholls shortly after her friend had died. She suggested that Mrs Gaskell should be asked to undertake a reply to a ‘tissue of malignant falsehoods’ which had appeared in an article in Sharpe’s London Magazine. Obviously intent upon letting sleeping dogs lie, Nicholls told her that Mr Brontë and he did not feel inclined to take any notice of the article.

  It is also obvious, though, that he had not consulted Mr Brontë because when, in the following month, the latter, somehow, found out about Ellen’s letter and Nicholls’ reply there were heated arguments between the two men, and Mr Brontë wrote to Mrs Gaskell contradicting what his son-in-law had said and asking her if she would, in fact, write Charlotte’s biography. He went on to say: ‘Mr Nicholls approves of the step I have taken.’ However, we have it from Martha that Nicholls neither knew or approved of what came later: ‘Whatever profits might arise from the sale would, of course, belong to you.’

  It seems that Nicholls was torn between avarice, and wanting the whole world to forget about the personal lives of the Brontës and him – well, for the immediate future anyway. The more publicity there was, the greater the danger that someone would start to wonder about so many deaths in the same household. He did not like anybody to visit Charlotte’s grave, nor to pay any kind of tribute to her. Strange behaviour indeed for a husband who, we are asked to believe, was so devoted to his wife.

  Another example of Nicholls’ peculiar attitude to Charlotte’s memory concerns John Greenwood’s, the aforementioned stationer’s, last child. When Nicholls learned that it was proposed to name it ‘Brontë’, in memory of Charlotte, he refused to perform the christening. Greenwood therefore went to see Mr Brontë who, as we know, was bedridden by then, when he knew Nicholls to be out, and subsequently the old man performed the ceremony secretly in his bedroom, using his water jug for the purpose. Nicholls discovered what had happened when he went to enter the details of the next christening in the register. According to Greenwood, he was furious and ‘stormed and stamped, and went straight home t
o the Parsonage to Mr Brontë to ask him for his reasons in going directly against his wishes’.

  The only thing which could tempt Nicholls into showing any interest in the Brontë family, or relaxing his arbitrary rules, was money. That is why I believe completely Martha Brown’s assertion that he knew nothing of Mr Brontë’s arrangement with Mrs Gaskell until it was far too late to do anything about it. For instance, he jumped at the chance of having Charlotte’s oft-rejected The Professor published after her death, in spite of a statement by Mrs Gaskell’s daughter that he had a ‘sullen, obstinate rooted objection to any reverence being paid to Miss B. one might say at any rate to people caring to remember her as an authoress . . .’ His avarice invariably overcame his natural caution, and his jealousy that the three Brontë sisters were being acclaimed for works that owed a lot to him.

  G. Smith, Elder & Company published The Professor in 1857, and Nicholls even wrote a preface. He was well paid for the book and therefore, thinking that he was on to a real money-spinner, he looked forward eagerly to the financial negotiations that he anticipated in connection with Mrs Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte.

  He was cooperation personified in the writing of it. Mrs Gaskell said that he ‘brought me down all the materials he could furnish me with’. He even wrote to Ellen Nussey asking whether she ‘would allow us to see as much of her correspondence . . . as you might feel inclined to trust me with.’ What effrontery from the man who had demanded an undertaking that she burn all his wife’s letters to her!

  Mention of these demands reminds me that earlier I referred to a note that was penned on Ellen’s reply to the second letter on the subject from Charlotte. At that time I wrote that it bore another comment which I would mention, a little later. The second note reads: ‘Mr Nicholls and Mr Brontë were the very first to break his (Mr Nicholls’) objections – by requesting the use of CB’s letters for Mrs Gaskell.’

  How Ellen’s letter to Charlotte came back into her possession, thus allowing her to write the notes, is not known; certainly it is highly unlikely that it was returned to her by Nicholls. One strong possibility that comes to mind is that it was purloined by Ellen Nussey when she had ample opportunity to sort through Charlotte’s belongings while staying at the Parsonage during the period between her friend’s death and her funeral.

  Be that as it may, Nicholls discovered that he had underestimated Ellen; she supplied the letters but, wisely, she sent them direct to Mrs Gaskell. She also furnished her with other information, and thus the writing of the biography was able to begin. Only when it was well under way did Nicholls discover that old Mr Brontë had relinquished voluntarily the possibility of either of them receiving any cash from the proceeds, and then he was fit to be tied. The remembrance that he had so lowered himself as to write a begging letter to Ellen Nussey was bad enough, but the discovery that he was to gain no advantage from having done so was infuriating.

  The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in March 1857, and was the subject of much criticism. Mr Brontë said it was not true that he was eccentric and had a temper, and Nicholls thought that he had been portrayed as being unsympathetic to Charlotte.

  However, the strongest attack came from Mrs Robinson’s solicitors, who objected to what they considered to be the libellous story of the supposed affaire between her and Branwell. Mrs Gaskell was forced to remove it from subsequent editions, and was also compelled to issue a public retraction and an apology in The Times.

  There were other protests, and complaints about inaccuracies, because Mrs Gaskell was very gullible, and far from objective in certain areas. It is clear that she was essentially a romantic novelist, and any statement made by her should be taken with a large amount of salt.

  Although he may have been angry at what Mrs Gaskell wrote, and disappointed – to say the least – at having gained nothing for himself out of the book, Nicholls did not pursue the aspects of it which concerned him, but continued with his policy of drawing as little attention to himself as possible. Beholden to nobody, he led a quietly pleasant life, and bided his time until the happy day when his father-in-law would die.

  As the months went by, a peculiar relationship developed between the ill-assorted trio in the Parsonage.

  In 1856 Mr Brontë was an ailing and reclusive seventy-nine-year-old. Nicholls was a handsome man of thirty-eight and Martha was some nine years younger. The only description of her which I have been able to discover was written four years later by Mrs Gaskell’s daughter, Meta, who stated that she was ‘a blooming, bright, clean young woman’.

  She and Nicholls were to be together in that house, virtually alone, for some six years. He had probably had affaires before going to Haworth, had been married until only recently and, as we shall see, years later he married again. A virile man, he had a healthy sexual appetite as, indeed, had Martha, It was a very cosy arrangement, but one which attracted attention and gossip in the village and did nothing to reduce Nicholls’ unpopularity. John Brown, in particular, was not pleased.

  As for Mr Brontë, he existed in a world almost entirely of his own making, hardly knowing which day was which or what was going on around him. There is no reason to doubt Martha’s assertions that she was kind to him and saw to his needs, for which he was almost pathetically grateful, but there is reason to suspect that her motives were not entirely altruistic.

  We have seen that Mr Brontë had bequeathed £30 to her, but I came upon something which made me wonder whether she was wheedling money out of the old man while he was still alive. What I found was a curious little letter which he wrote to her in July 1856. Now, they lived in the same house, and saw each other on a daily basis; so one would think that there was no necessity for letters to pass between them – but this one was different.

  If there was ever an envelope it was probably addressed ‘To Whom It May Concern’, but what we know for certain is that the note reads: ‘The Money contained in this little Box, consists of sums, given by me, to Martha Brown, at different times, for her faithful services to me and my children. And this money I wish her to keep ready for a time of need.’

  Now what is to be made of that? At the time the note was written, Martha had worked at the Parsonage for some sixteen years, so why should it suddenly have been deemed necessary to have a letter confirming that the money in a box was hers – if, in fact, it was? Why should anyone have thought otherwise? Indeed, who was even to know of the very existence of the box if she chose to say nothing of it? It is all very peculiar.

  One wonders whether there is any significance in the fact that Mr Brontë apparently wished her to keep the money ‘ready for a time of need’. We know that he hated Nicholls, but he seems to have been genuinely fond of Martha. Did he, perhaps, envisage a time when his son-in-law would dismiss her, leaving her with no immediate means of support – or that, if she had received the money legitimately, Nicholls would demand to know from whence it had come and try to claim it for himself?

  The only alternative explanation, and the one which I consider the most likely, is that it was Martha herself who felt the need for such a letter, which was written at a time when the old man was confused and so completely vulnerable that he would have put his name to anything. Whether she had been obtaining the cash by fair means or foul, but especially the latter, she had no idea what the future held for her, and she must have realized that when the old man died it might become very necessary for her to be able to prove that the money was hers.

  It is not surprising that she never mentions this extra nest-egg in her deposition. We shall never know half of the chicanery that went on under that roof.

  Nicholls apparently kept Mr Brontë a virtual prisoner, censoring his mail as far as was possible and fulfilling those of his social engagements which took his fancy.

  One example of the state of affairs is displayed in a letter written by the old man to a Haworth couple who had invited him to dinner. He thanked them for their invitation, but then added, ‘I never go out at night, nor in
deed by day, to any parties. Mr Nicholls will, however, do himself the pleasure of visiting you at the time specified.’ That was a little unfortunate for the hapless couple who, had they wanted Nicholls there, would presumably have invited him in the first instance. As it was, they were saddled with him willy-nilly because he was so pleased to get out of the Parsonage occasionally.

  His continuing unpopularity in the village ensured that he received very few, if any, invitations in his own right, and even those people in what would normally be regarded as his social circle were never on intimate terms with him. For instance, Dr Ingham gave Nicholls’ Christian name as ‘Abraham’ when he recorded Charlotte’s death, and did not know what the ‘B’ represented. Nicholls soon protested about that, and a correction was inserted upon the death certificate.

  By 1860 Mr Brontë was completely bedridden. Mrs Gaskell and her daughter visited Haworth and found him unshaven, but with ‘such a gentle, quiet, sweet, half pitiful expression on his mouth’. They had a conversation, but then the old man asked them to leave ‘in five minutes or so’. From what he went on to say, Mrs Gaskell became acutely aware that, ‘he feared Mr Nicholls return from the school – and we were to be safely out of the house before that’. She also told Mr Williams about the visit, commenting that: ‘Mr Nicholls seems to keep him rather in terrorem. He is more unpopular in the village than ever.’ Nothing, therefore, had changed.

  The Revd Patrick Brontë died on 7 June 1861, aged eighty-four years. His death certificate states that he died of ‘Chronic Bronchitis, Dyspepsia, Convulsions 9 hours.’ It is signed by the good Dr Ingham, and so we cannot be at all sure of the true cause of death. It was probably from natural causes, but who knows? Perhaps Nicholls finally became impatient and helped him on his way; it would have been in character.