Romancing Miss Bronte Page 4

  “Precisely my point, Nicholls. Who wants a clever woman for a wife? Who wants a woman who can think like a man? And an ugly one at that?”

  “She is certainly not ugly,” Arthur replied, a little more vehemently than he realized.

  “She’s stunted, poor creature.”

  “I rather think of her as delicate.”

  “Think of her? Do you indeed think of her, Mr. Nicholls? Do your thoughts turn to her at night when you’re lying alone in your cold bed? Ah! Ladies! Ladies! Come right up! Don’t be shy!” Mr. Smith cried. He sat up from his perpetual slouch and wagged a finger at Arthur. “Here’s a man just waiting to be ensnared! Right here!”

  Arthur laughed along with Joseph Grant and Sutcliffe Sowden, but he said no more about Charlotte Brontë’s appeal.

  Arthur’s stern reserve belied a tender heart, and he was deeply sensitive to the sufferings of others. He had been raised with his cousin Mary Anna, a young woman of such sweet disposition that he sometimes thought she was not quite real. Born with a bone defect in her legs, she had been forced to wear leg irons. Even as an adult she would not be able to walk without a cane. Arthur had witnessed the way boys had tormented her and how she had lain across her mother’s bed and wept; he had listened to his aunt condemn the cruelty of men in judging a woman, how they valued a pretty figure over a good heart. When he grew older, the other boys learned never to say an unkind word about Mary Anna, knowing that if they did Arthur would beat them to within an inch of their lives.

  Arthur was not quite ready to defend Charlotte Brontë’s name with his bare hands; nevertheless, she now had a champion behind the scenes, albeit a slightly cowardly one. The time would come for bravery, and he would prove himself more than equal to the task.

  It would be a long time before he knew her as anything more than a broad-faced woman who slipped in and out of the parsonage rooms like a gray rustling shadow, arranging a chair out of place or whisking away of bit of needlework left lying about by one of her sisters. She was tiny and squinted without her spectacles, but when she drew close and looked up at him, a slight tremor swept through his stomach, like ripples from something dense and blazing deep inside her person. He was a practical man, uncomfortable with poetics and without an inkling of psychology, and it perplexed him that a woman so lacking in stature and physical charms could make herself felt so intensely.

  A couple of months later, when rumors began to circulate that Charlotte might be engaged to her father’s new curate, she was dumbfounded as to where the gossip might have started. Fortunately, a scandal broke around that time. One night in November, Mr. Smith absconded with all the proceeds they had collected to purchase an organ for the church in Stanbury. He fled to Canada, leaving behind a heap of debts and a penniless wife and two children. This kept tongues wagging for months, and the villagers forgot all about matchmaking between Arthur Bell Nicholls and the parson’s daughter.

  Chapter Four

  “What shall I do without you, Mary?” Charlotte said with a stricken face. “When you’re gone, I’ll have only Ellen.”

  “I fret about that. I truly do,” Mary replied. “I shouldn’t like her to have such unmitigated influence over you. She’s a dear, sweet, sensible girl, but she’s got those dreadful Calvinists breathing in her ear.” Mary Taylor gave a shudder. “You’re far too susceptible to that sort of thing as it is … all that pious self-denying nonsense.”

  “We both strive for Christian perfection. But I’m not like her. If I were more like Ellen, I’d have no doubt as to the fate of my soul.”

  “But how can you possibly compare yourself to her? She’s never had an original thought in her life.”

  Charlotte smiled. “I shall miss your blunt manners.”

  “I’m sure you will. Who else will speak the bitter truth to you?”

  “The ugly truth.”

  Mary Taylor wrestled herself around onto her stomach and raised herself on her elbows. Charlotte lay beside her in bed. She had the appearance of a sarcophagus, deathlike and stiff, her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her dainty, impeccably manicured hands folded across her chest. Mary recalled how she had always slept like this at school when they were girls. When the lights were out, Charlotte would lie in the dark and talk of her visionary stories and the characters she saw drifting through her imagination. They would all lie breathless as they listened, shuddering at the horrors she drew so vividly with her voice and the power of her words. Mary had thought her wildly impractical at best; at worst, mad.

  “Charlotte,” she said, her eyes full of remorse, “I’ve never said this before and I must say it now. I’ve always regretted those words.”

  “What? When you told me I was ugly?”

  “It was such a heartless thing to say to you.”

  “You always speak your mind, but you’re not heartless, Polly. I learned that about you very quickly.”

  They grew silent, remembering those days as girls at Roe Head School. At fifteen Mary had been tall and full-figured, with thick, glossy hair. Miss Wooler, the headmistress, had once declared Mary Taylor “too beautiful to live.” But she could be harsh and terribly insensitive, and there were times when her comments wounded deeply; then there would be long periods of silence between them.

  “You were so frightfully clever. You dwarfed us all intellectually,” Mary said.

  “Not you.”

  “Yes, even me.”

  “I alienated everyone.”

  “Because we were young and silly. You knew things no one else knew. You could look at a painting and see things, and you could tell us what you saw, and you knew everything about the poets we read. You had opinions, Charlotte. Pray tell me what fifteen-year-old girl has opinions?”

  “Why, Mary Taylor, you’re the most opinionated creature on the face of the earth.”

  “Not about art.”

  Mary dropped her head onto her pillow. “I truly am sorry, Charlotte, for calling you ugly.”

  “But I was.”

  “It was cruel. And you were frightened. It was your first day. We were all frightened on our first day.” She paused and then tittered, “I admit, your hair was frightful.”

  A grin crept over Charlotte’s face. “I’d gotten up before dawn that morning so Emily could curl it with the tongs. She scorched it.” She shook with quiet laughter. “And my clothes. What a sad little sight I was in my hand-me-downs.”

  “Well, I didn’t fare any better than you did. Mama always made us wear everything down to its last thread. She used to make us cross-stitch our brand-new gloves so they wouldn’t wear out.”

  Charlotte reached for Mary’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Let’s not talk about those days. Let’s talk about you. About your plans. So you’ve decided to be a shopkeeper in New Zealand rather than teach English to dull little boys in Germany.”

  “It’s a general store. My brother’s done quite well with it.”

  “Fearless Mary.”

  “What’s there to fear in making a fortune? It says something about good old England that I have to go all the way to New Zealand to earn the money I know I’m capable of earning. Did you ever hear of a governess making a fortune?” Mary smiled. “I’m quite looking forward to the adventure. I sail in March.”

  “How long does it take for letters to reach New Zealand?”

  “About six months.”

  “Good grief.”

  Mary hesitated, toying with her long braid as she lay propped on her elbows.

  “Do you still hear from your professor in Brussels?” she asked gently.

  Charlotte shifted her gaze back to the ceiling, to the shadows. “I haven’t had a letter since last summer.”

  “You mustn’t dwell on it anymore. It’s in the past. You must get on with your life.”

  “But I shall go back, Mary. One day, I shall return. I don’t know when or how, but I shall.” Charlotte turned her head, and her dark eyes bore into Mary’s. “I have you to thank for it all
. The letters you wrote to me while you were studying there, about all the wonderful things you were doing. The great cathedrals, the paintings you saw. Something inside me swelled when I read those letters. I was so angry with my life at the time, so impatient to be free.”

  “And rightfully so. You’re far too duty-bound. I think going to Brussels was the only thing you’ve ever done truly for yourself and yourself alone. Are you keeping up with your French?”

  “I’m trying very hard. I memorize a half page of French text every week. I try to speak French with Emily, but she’ll have none of it.”

  “I’ll make sure that Joe keeps sending you the French newspapers.”

  “Oh, yes, please do.”

  “Have you completely abandoned your project for a school?”

  “I’ve lost my enthusiasm for it. I feel something in me is tamed or broken. I would so love to have some active purpose in life, but I doubt I’ll find that here. Haworth is such a lonely, quiet spot.”

  She turned her dark, solemn eyes to Mary and said, “New Zealand,” trying to fathom the enormous distance. “Shall I never see you again?”

  “Come with me.”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “You said yourself you wish for more variety. You need a chance to meet people and experience life.”

  “That is my wish, but apparently that is not my fate.”

  “Your fate is as you make it; it’s not predetermined. You mustn’t stay here. You fall into the deepest depressions at home. If you stay here, it will ruin your health. You’ll never recover. Think of what you’ll be five years from now if you stay here.”

  A dark cloud came over Charlotte’s face, and Mary feared she had brought her to tears. “Oh, Charlotte, I am sorry. Please, don’t cry.”

  Charlotte rolled over and blew out the candle. Then she settled back in the bed and grew still. They were engulfed in darkness.

  “Nevertheless, Polly, I intend to stay.”

  Upon her return from Brussels, Charlotte had fired off a storm of letters to Constantin Heger, her beloved professor—the first ones solemn, eager, brimming with concern for his well-being and her enthusiastic plans for her school. The later ones, written when she despaired that she would lose him, revealed a pathetic, heartbroken woman incapable of self-control. In her mind she was paying homage to the man who had nurtured and cherished the qualities that few outside her family had valued in her—not beauty but probity of thought, imagination, genius. The letters, however, were much more than that. Writing in a language that was not her own, distanced by the miles, another woman emerged; her self-restraint broke down and from behind a thin veil of denial she shamelessly bared her heart to him.

  Monsieur,

  I know quite well that it’s not my turn to write, but my friend Miss Wheelwright is going to Brussels and has agreed to carry this letter….

  I’m terribly afraid of forgetting French because I’m persuaded I’ll see you again one day—I don’t know how or when—but it must be because I wish it so much, and then I wouldn’t want to stand there dumb before you—that would be too terribly sad to see you and not be able to speak to you….

  I would not be so depressed in spirit if I could write. In the past I could spend days, weeks, whole months writing. Do you know what I would like to do, monsieur? I would like to write a book and dedicate it to my literature master—to the only master I have ever had—to you.

  I haven’t begged you to write soon because I fear imposing on you—but you are too good to forget that I nonetheless wish it so—I wish it very much—but enough of that. Do as you wish, monsieur. If I should receive a letter from you and thought that you had written it out of pity—I would be deeply hurt. Once again good-bye, monsieur. It hurts to say good-bye even in a letter. Oh, I’m sure I’ll see you again one day—it must be—as soon as I shall have earned enough money to go to Brussels I’ll go—and I shall see you even if only for a brief moment.

  Try as she might to repress her thoughts of him, she was helpless to control her dreams. Intensely felt, thrilling dreams during which some romantically charged crisis would throw them together—then there would be the sense of being in his arms, loving him, being loved by him. She would awake in tears.

  His few, infrequent replies did little to stanch the hemorrhaging of her heart. Eventually she received a kind but stiffly formal letter from Madame, his wife, requesting Charlotte to write only once every six months. Charlotte, always obedient, waited precisely to the date before setting pen to paper again. Then she wrote as if she had been waiting to exhale all that time.

  … I tried to forget you—to be constantly thinking of someone you fear you shall never see again and whom, nevertheless, you greatly respect, is exhausting for the spirit, and when you have suffered that kind of anxiety for a year or two, you’ll do anything to restore your peace of mind. I have done everything, I have kept busy, I have absolutely forbidden myself the pleasure of speaking of you—even to Emily, but I haven’t been able to conquer either my regrets or my impatience—it’s so humiliating—to be incapable of controlling my own thoughts, to be a slave to a regret, a memory, slave to a single fixed idea that oppresses my spirit like a tyrant. Why can’t I have for you just as much friendship as you have for me—neither more nor less? I would be so peaceful, so free—I could easily keep silent for ten years….

  You will perceive by the defects in this letter that I am forgetting the French language—yet I read all the French books I can get and learn a daily portion by heart—but I have never heard French spoken but once since I left Brussels—and then it sounded like music in my ears—every word was most precious to me because it reminded me of you—I love French for your sake with all my heart and soul.

  Farewell my dear Master—may God protect you with special care and crown you with peculiar blessings.

  C. Brontë

  Eventually, Constantin Heger’s letters ceased altogether.

  Chapter Five

  Charlotte had always known that her temperament was ill-suited to teaching; she loved the subject matter but had no patience for the riotous little subjects themselves. Many years ago, when Branwell was nineteen and Charlotte not yet twenty-one, she had come home at Christmas from her first months of teaching at Roe Head School and confided her despair to her brother. The two of them, bemoaning the drudge life of tutors and governesses, had concluded that there was only one way to escape such a fate: they would publish.

  Since childhood all four siblings had been scribbling stories and poetry, interweaving characters, events, and ongoing narratives that resulted in shared imaginary worlds of extraordinary detail. These imaginary kingdoms, long ago christened Angria and Gondal and teeming with political intrigue, adventure, and high drama, held infinitely more appeal than the dull routine of life in bleak Haworth. Like all children, they had discovered that this realm of consciousness was one over which they had absolute control, and therein lay the secret to their happiness. By drawing back the veils and slipping into Glass Town, they were able to free themselves from outside circumstances—their poverty, their isolation, and, for the girls, their plainness—all those things that had bred insecurity, shyness, and debilitating self-consciousness.

  Writing could be a path to exquisite joy. It offered a way to live contentedly in an infinitely dreary world that offered little hope for change. They would always be odd; they would always be poor. And so they held on to their kingdoms long after the age when childish fantasies are put aside. Ambition never entered into the game. Not for the women. Well, perhaps a little for Charlotte. But only because Branwell yearned for fame, and she followed adoringly in his steps.

  So, that Christmas it was resolved: Charlotte and Branwell would turn their writing to profit—and why not? How often had they lamented the quality of the literary material coming out of London’s print shops? Young, full of grand illusions, they believed in the originality of their work; but above all they clung firmly to the Romantic’s notion of the imag
inary world as an exalted realm, and the poet as a divinelike creature.

  Over the holidays they launched a letter-writing campaign, seeking opinions on their stories and poems and advice on how to get their work into print. Charlotte sent several of her best efforts to England’s poet laureate, Robert Southey, along with a rather flighty, florid letter introducing herself as an aspiring poetess.

  The reply, two months coming, was crushing—although Charlotte took some satisfaction in the fact that the illustrious poet deemed her worthy of a reply; Branwell’s queries (undoubtedly off-putting in his overestimation of his own talent) had bagged not a single response.

  “You live in a visionary world,” Southey wrote,

  and seem to imagine that this is my case also. You who so ardently desire “to be ever known” as a poetess, might have had your ardor in some degree abated by seeing a poet in the decline of life. You evidently possess, and in no inconsiderable degree, what Wordsworth calls the “faculty of verse.” But there is a danger of which I would, with all kindness and earnestness, warn you. The daydreams in which you habitually indulge are likely to induce a distempered state of mind; and as all the ordinary uses of the world seem to you flat and unprofitable, you will be unfitted for them without becoming fitted for anything else. Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation. To those duties you have not yet been called, and when you are you will be less eager for celebrity. Write poetry for its own sake; not with a view to celebrity. So written, it is wholesome both for the heart and soul.

  Ah, there it was. She should have known better. Shame on her. Charlotte immediately replied: