Brontës
Page 112
It is an indication of the impression her previous visit to Scotland had left on her memory that she chose to go there again in the uncongenial company of Joe Taylor and his family, rather than visit Ellen at Brookroyd or Miss Wooler who had taken a house at Hornsea for the summer. Ellen may have paid a brief visit to Haworth on her return from Oundle53 but the friends were rapidly falling out over the question of Mr Nicholls. Ellen entirely disapproved not only of Mr Nicholls himself but also, and more especially, of Charlotte’s increasingly obvious change in attitude towards him.
After allowing six miserable letters from her suitor to go unanswered, Charlotte had finally relented and allowed herself to be drawn into a clandestine correspondence. She may even have had a secret visit from Mr Nicholls.54 Ellen heartily disapproved of such behaviour and wrote to Mary Taylor, expecting her support in the battle to keep Charlotte out of Mr Nicholls’ clutches. Instead, she received a round condemnation herself.
You talk wonderful nonsense abt C Brontë in yr letter. What do you mean about ‘bearing her position so long, & enduring to the end’? & still better – ‘bearing our lot whatever it is’. If its C’s lot to be married shd n’t she bear that too? or does your strange morality mean that she shd refuse to ameliorate her lot when it lies in her power. How wd she be inconsistent with herself in marrying? Because she considers her own pleasure? If this is so new for her to do, it is high time she began to make it more common. It is an outrageous exaction to expect her to give up her choice in a matter so important, & I think her to blame in having been hitherto so yielding that her friends can think of making such an impudent demand.55
Ellen’s attitude was particularly offensive to Charlotte in that it was so two-faced. Only a few months before, she had been in high hopes that she would secure a husband for herself in Mary Gorham’s brother. Now, when Charlotte had the possibility of marrying, she turned all sniffily moralistic and insisted on the duty of spinsterhood. There is no doubt that jealousy and fear were responsible. Since the deaths of Emily and Anne, Ellen had (she thought) made herself indispensable to Charlotte as her friend, her surrogate sister and her confidante. Ellen took immense pride and satisfaction in this role, more especially, it has to be said, since Charlotte had become famous as ‘Currer Bell’. After Charlotte’s death, it was to become her raison d’étre. A husband threatened all that. Charlotte would naturally confide in him and, however important her friendship with Ellen remained, it could never be as intimate as it was before her husband came between them.
Exactly when the disagreement between Charlotte and Ellen became an open quarrel is not clear, but it is surely significant that there are no extant letters from Charlotte between 23 June 1853 and 1 March 1854.56 Ellen may, of course, have destroyed some which, as the quarrel grew more bitter, put her in a bad light or contained harsh words from Charlotte. Certainly, at some point, they not only stopped visiting each other but also stopped writing, maintaining a frigid silence that spoke more of the breakdown in their friendship than any volume of words could have done. In December Miss Wooler tried to intervene but in vain: ‘Do not think that your kind wish respecting E. Nussey and myself does not touch or influence me; it does both;’ Charlotte responded, ‘yet I hardly know how to take the step you recommend’.57 Towards the end of February 1854, when Patrick had finally been persuaded to sanction Mr Nicholls’ letters and visits and events were moving towards their inevitable conclusion, Charlotte found the necessary nerve and forgiveness to put an end to the quarrel. Ellen had been ill and this provided an excuse for a reconciliation. Ellen grasped the olive branch willingly: a friendship diminished in intimacy by the intervention of a husband was better than no friendship at all. She could not resist pouring out her woes to Mary Gorham, now Mrs Hewitt, and how one-sided that account was is evident from Mary’s response.
I was glad to receive your second letter telling me you had heard from Miss Brontë – glad for her as well as you – for it seemed unnatural that she could so throw off all her old friendship that she did not evince some little return of it when you were ill – I was very glad she did – it must have comforted you very much and you had suffered so much pain about her evidently. Now you are ready to forget all I can see – and that is kind and right – but she will not quite forget I hope – but will remember enough to see how your true friendship was shown in it – and be guided by you – her thoughts – and affections must really need control. It is an example of the dangerous gift such a mind as hers must be, and I trust it will overcome temptations, and shine out brightly at last – That will be a happiness to you indeed.58
Evidently Mr Nicholls’ name had not been mentioned in the reconciliation. Indeed, it was not until 11 April 1854, when Charlotte wrote to tell Ellen that she was engaged to be married, that the full story of the intervening months of his courtship was revealed. Charlotte began her account with the words ‘Matters have progressed thus since last July’.59 One can only assume that the quarrel dated back to then and to Mr Nicholls’ first secret visit to Haworth.
This also explains the fact that Charlotte did not visit Brookroyd again that year and decided to go with the Taylors to Scotland in August – a choice she was rather to regret. What had appealed to Charlotte was the plan to take up residence at Kirkcudbright or some other watering-place on the Solway Firth. Rather surprisingly, given her previous acid comments on the subject, she had reckoned without little ‘Tim’ and her ailments. No sooner had they reached the Solway Firth and stayed but a single night than the baby, ‘that rather despotic member of modern households’, developed diarrhoea. ‘To my unskilled perception its ailments appeared very slight – nowise interfering with its appetite or spirits, but parental eyes saw the matter in a different light’, Charlotte reported sardonically to Miss Wooler. To her immense frustration it was decided that the air of Scotland was ‘unpropitious’ for the child and that they should return to the safety of Yorkshire. The only lasting memory of Scotland which Charlotte was to garner on this visit was of the thirty-mile journey through richly cultivated and well-wooded scenery between Dumfries and Kirkcudbright, which was spent on the outside of a stagecoach.60
The Taylors resolved to go to Ilkley, a fashionable spa town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, not far from Haworth. Unfortunately for Charlotte, though she was very taken with the town, she was obliged to cut short her stay after only three days because her box, containing her clothes, had been mislaid in the hurry of changing trains. Having come to terms with her disappointment at losing the chance to stay in Scotland for such a frivolous reason, Charlotte was able to look back on her week away with pleasure. Nevertheless, it had entirely confirmed her view of the unhealthy state of baby-worship in the Taylor household. ‘The world does not revolve round the Sun – that is a mistake;’ she remarked sarcastically,
certain babies – I plainly perceive – are the important centre of all things. The Papa and Mama could only take their meals, rest and exercise at such times and in such measure as the despotic infant permitted. While Mrs J. eat her dinner, Mr J— relieved guard as nurse. A nominal nurse indeed accompanied the party, but her place was a sort of anxious, waiting sinecure, as the child did not fancy her attendance.61
She returned home to find Patrick complaining, rather pathetically, of weakness and depressed spirits, so she felt obliged to turn down an invitation from Miss Wooler to join her at Hornsea on the Yorkshire coast.62 A letter from Mrs Gaskell a few days later, proposing to make her long-deferred visit to Haworth within the next few weeks, was a bright spot on the horizon, but when she had still not arrived at the end of the second week in September, Charlotte could stand it no longer and left home again. Her change of mind seems to have been dictated partly by her own irritation at Patrick’s implacable hostility to Mr Nicholls and his efforts to claim her sympathy for his poor state of health. No doubt, too, her own feelings of guilt were partially responsible, for she was concealing from her father the fact that Mr Nicholls had made another visit to Ha
worth since her return from Scotland, during which he seems to have met Charlotte, and that their correspondence was continuing.63
Such were the pressures at home that Charlotte accepted Miss Wooler’s invitation, agreeing to meet her at Ilkley for a few days rather than travelling further afield to Hornsea.64 In writing to tell Miss Wooler about her Scottish expedition, Charlotte had said she liked Ilkley exceedingly and longed to revisit it, so this was a happy choice of location for the visit. The two friends could wander the wide, tree-lined streets, admire the grand new hotels, visit the mineral water spa on the hillside above the town and walk up to the moors where the skyline was dominated by the sombre outline of the Cow and Calf rocks. No doubt Charlotte took the opportunity to unburden her mind on the subject of her breach with Ellen and the problem with Mr Nicholls; certainly, while her friendship with Ellen lay in tatters, her liking for and intimacy with Miss Wooler increased.65
As luck would have it, during the two or three days she was away a letter arrived from Mrs Gaskell. Perhaps suspecting from her large, masculine handwriting that it was from Mr Nicholls, Patrick opened the letter and found that Mrs Gaskell intended to come in four days’ time. Writing to tell her that Charlotte should be back by then and that her visit was welcome, Patrick made it clear how much he hoped for from Mrs Gaskell’s visit.
As far as I am able to discover from what my Daughter has told me, and from my perusal of your able, moral, and interesting literary works – I think that you, and she are congenial spirits, and that a little intercourse between you, might, under the strange vicissitudes, and frequent trials of this mortal life –
Clearly, a little moral feminine company might reinforce Charlotte’s sense of duty to her father as well as providing her with the distraction of suitable amusement. He ended his letter with words which strangely echoed Charlotte’s own invitation to Mrs Gaskell: ‘We can promise you nothing here but a hearty welcome, and peaceful seclusion – nevertheless, this may not be without its use – for a season –’.66
In fact his letter was unnecessary, for Charlotte arrived home the next day and was able to answer for herself.67 Annoyance at her father’s having opened her letter probably added to the already frosty atmosphere at the parsonage. Mrs Gaskell arrived at Keighley station in the early afternoon of Monday, 19 September 1853, to be met by a cab which carried her the four miles to Haworth. Like many a tourist after her, Mrs Gaskell was gratified to find the ‘lead-coloured’ day lent just the right gloomy aspect to her first impressions of the place and admirably fulfilled all her preconceptions about it. The houses, factories, even the landscape looked ‘dull’ and ‘grey’ to a Mancunian used to the warmer colours of red brick: even the moors, which should have been a blaze of purple, were brown and dull – a fact which she curiously attributed to a thunderstorm a few days previously rather than the simple fact that the brief heather season was over.68
At the parsonage gate she was ‘half-blown back by the wild vehemence of the wind which swept along the narrow gravel walk’ and on the steps she encountered ‘a ruddy kind-looking man of no great refinement’ who was just leaving. This turned out to be Francis Bennoch, a self-styled ‘patron of authors and literature’ from London who had arrived shortly before, despite having had a letter from Charlotte declining the visit. He had produced a manuscript dedication of a work by the writer Mary Mitford as ‘a sort of portable certificate of his merits’ and, having ‘captivated’ Patrick, obtained his desired interview with a reluctant Charlotte through him. Perhaps fearing that Mr Bennoch would also importune Mrs Gaskell if he realized who she was, Charlotte hastily swept her invited guest inside the house. Discussing the visit later, Patrick ‘abused us both for “a couple of proud minxes” when we said we would rather be without individual patronage if it was to subject us to individual impertinence’: ‘Oh, please burn this letter as soon as you have read it’, Mrs Gaskell added, alarmed at her indiscretion.69
Charlotte gave Mrs Gaskell ‘the kindest welcome’ and if she had feared that her guest might find her home poor and humble after the wealth and style of Plymouth Grove, she was soon set right. Mrs Gaskell enthused about everything: the dining room
looked the perfection of warmth snugness & comfort, crimson predominating in the furniture, wch did well with the bleak cold colours without. Every thing in her department has been new within the last few years; and every thing, furniture, appointments &c. is admirable for it’s consistency all simple, good, sufficient for every possible reasonable want, & of the most delicate & scrupulous cleanliness. She is so neat herself I got quite ashamed of any touches of untidiness. a chair out of its place, work left on the table were all of them, I could see, annoyances to her habitual sense of order; not annoyances to her temper in the least – you understand the difference.
Mrs Gaskell had been given Aunt Branwell’s old bedroom, the largest in the house, and she tried hard to find something favourable to say about it, finally lighting on the fact that the view (directly over the ‘pestiferous’ churchyard to the moors beyond) was ‘really beautiful in certain lights’, adding with unconscious irony, ‘moon-light especially’.70
During the four days of her visit, Mrs Gaskell came to recognize the set routine at the parsonage which, in most respects, had not changed since Charlotte’s childhood. After prayers at 8.30, they breakfasted together with Patrick in his room at nine, then left to await the post in the dining room. About noon they went for a walk, returning to dine at two – ‘Mr Brontë having his dinner sent to him in his sitting-room according to his invariable custom’; another walk at four o’clock preceded tea at six, when they were joined again by Patrick, which Mrs Gaskell (wrongly) considered unusual. After tea Patrick retired to his study to smoke a clay pipe, leaving Charlotte and Mrs Gaskell to chat before the fire in the dining room. At half-past eight the whole household, including Tabby and Martha, gathered for prayers, and by nine o’clock everyone except Charlotte and her guest was in bed. They sat up for at least another hour, Mrs Gaskell drawing out of Charlotte stories about her past life and how they had influenced her work, before finally retiring to bed. ‘Monotonous enough in sound,’ Mrs Gaskell said of this routine, ‘but not a bit in reality.’
The long walks on the moors were particularly memorable, Charlotte pointing out ‘in the gloom of the distant hollows … a dark grey dwelling – with Scotch firs growing near them often – & told me such wild tales of the ungovernable families, who lived or had lived therein that Wuthering Heights even seemed tame comparatively.’ The novelist in Mrs Gaskell was fascinated by these tales of ‘dare-devil people’ and she could not resist a typical exaggeration in summing them up: ‘These people build grand houses, & live in the kitchens, own hundreds of thousands of pounds & yet bring up their sons with only just enough learning to qualify them for overlookers during their father’s lifetime, & greedy grasping money-hunters after his death.’ Though she did not say so, she obviously considered Charlotte quite justified in not ‘visiting’ with any of them.71
Irrepressibly curious, and longing insatiably for more lurid details about her friend’s family, Mrs Gaskell even interrogated Martha Brown. One day they ‘stole out’ while Charlotte was busy and Martha took her to see the memorial tablet in the church. Once started, the garrulous Martha could not be stopped, relaying the dramatic details with morbid relish, from Emily’s last morning with ‘the rattle in her throat while she would dress herself’, to Anne’s gentle lament, ‘Oh, if it was but Spring and I could go to the sea – Oh if it was but Spring.’ It was Martha who told Mrs Gaskell about the Brontës’ habit of walking round the table each evening.
For as long as
I can remember – Tabby says since they were little bairns Miss Brontë & Miss Emily & Miss Anne used to put away their sewing after prayers, & walk all three one after the other round the table in the parlour till near eleven o’clock. Miss Emily walked as long as she could; & when she died Miss Anne & Miss Brontë took it up, – and now my heart aches to hear Miss Brontë walking, walking on alone.
Mrs Gaskell then learnt that after she had escorted her to bed each evening Charlotte would return downstairs to her solitary walk: ‘She says she could not sleep without it – that she & her sisters talked over the plans & projects of their whole lives at such times.’ The poignancy of this routine did not fail to strike Mrs Gaskell: ‘I am sure I should fancy I heard the steps of the dead following me.’72
The visit was clearly a great success: Mrs Gaskell was ready and willing to be pleased by any and everything and Charlotte, warmed by her companionship, unburdened herself to her friend. The whole sad story of Mr Nicholls was revealed, together with Charlotte’s own fatalistic views on its likely termination. She told Mrs Gaskell that she believed some people were appointed beforehand to sorrow and much disappointment and that it was well for those who had rougher paths to perceive that it was God’s will and therefore moderate their expectations, abandon hope and cultivate patience and resignation.73 This was not how Charlotte herself was actually handling the question of Mr Nicholls, but Mrs Gaskell was impressed with the passivity and hopelessness of the statement. She allowed it to colour and inform her opinion of Patrick Brontë – the way, for instance, that ‘He never seemed quite to have lost the feeling that Charlotte was a child to be guided and ruled’; and though he was invariably polite and agreeable to her, she was ‘sadly afraid of him in my inmost soul; for I caught a glare of his stern eyes over his spectacles at Miss Brontë once or twice which made me know my man; and he talked at her sometimes’. Her views of him already poisoned by Lady Kay Shuttleworth’s gossip, it was unfortunate that Mrs Gaskell met Patrick at the one time when he had exercised his paternal authority and, as a result, his relationship with his daughter was at its lowest point ever. She went away with the indelible impression that Patrick was a domestic tyrant, a man who ‘ought never to have married’ or had children and one whose selfish love of solitude had condemned his daughter to a life of isolation even in her own home. Its legacy was to be the travesty of a portrait which appeared in The Life of Charlotte Brontë.74