Brontës (158 page)

Scarborough had no effect and the Taylors returned to Hunsworth, where Joe began to make preparations for his death. Amelia was in despair. Again Charlotte wrote to comfort her: she was convinced that his recovery was not only possible but probable. She warned Amelia not to let Joe ‘quit his hold upon life in thought nor entirely relax his will to live', explaining that ‘A mental tendency inherited from his Mother will dispose him to do this too soon. He must remember it is better for his wife, better for his child – better for many that he should live. He may feel that he can already lie down serene and fearless by his Father and Grandfather – but others may find it too difficult and dreary to live on after he has left them.'
⁶⁶

Charlotte had put off going to Brookroyd because she had wanted to go on to Hunsworth on the same trip from home. Then came news that Mercy Nussey was also ill. Ellen reported that she was suffering from a low fever; Arthur was not happy at the idea of Charlotte being exposed to any contagion, ‘fever – you know is a formidable word', though she herself was unconcerned. Fortunately, before she had fixed her plans to go to
Brookroyd, a letter came from Miss Wooler warning them that Mercy's fever was actually the deadly typhus. ‘I thank you very much for your truly kind warning', Charlotte responded, ‘- and I believe my husband thanks you still more.'
⁶⁷
There was now absolutely no possibility of Charlotte going to Brookroyd, but she had difficulty making her excuses. It was not clear whether Ellen was actually aware that her sister had typhus and, if she did not know, then Charlotte had no wish to alarm her. She therefore wrote to defer the visit on the grounds that it was her husband's wish that she should do so. ‘I shall not get leave to go to Brookroyd before Christmas now – so do not expect me', she told Ellen, adding, without mentioning the fearful word ‘typhus':

For my own part I really should have no fear – and if it just depended on me – I should come – but these matters are not quite in my power now – another must be consulted – and where his wish and judgment have a decided bias to a particular course – I make no stir, but just adopt it. Arthur is sorry to disappoint both you and me, but it is his fixed wish that a few weeks should be allowed yet to elapse before we meet –

By making the decision appear to be simply a dictatorial whim on her husband's part, Charlotte unintentionally fanned the flames of her friend's hatred for Arthur. Ellen would never forgive him for depriving her of Charlotte's last visit to Brookroyd. Nor did Charlotte help matters by referring to her husband as ‘my dear boy' and ending her letter with a comment that made it clear to Ellen that her own place as Charlotte's most intimate friend had been usurped.

I am writing in haste – It is almost inexplicable to me that I seem so often hurried now – but the fact is whenever Arthur is in, I must have occupations in which he can share, or which will not at least divert my attention from him – Thus a multitude of little matters get put off till he goes out – and then I am quite busy.
⁶⁸

Ellen's role in Charlotte's life had been reduced to a ‘little matter' over which Arthur's smallest desires took precedence.

The year seemed to be drawing to a gloomy close. Almost exactly three years to the day after the death of Keeper, Anne's dog Flossy died. ‘Did I tell you that our poor little Flossy is dead?' Charlotte asked Ellen. ‘He drooped
for a single day – and died quietly in the night without pain. The loss even of a dog was very saddening – yet perhaps no dog ever had a happier life or an easier death.' Tabby, too, was ill, suffering from an attack of diarrhoea so severe that even though the Haworth doctor, Mr Ingham was ill himself, Charlotte wrote to ask him to prescribe her some medicine.
⁶⁹

Events outside Haworth, too, could not fail to impinge on the household. The news from the Crimea was appalling. Though the British had succeeded in repulsing two Russian attacks at Balaclava and Inkerman, their casualties (including, most famously, the victims of the Charge of the Light Brigade) had been immense and they had failed to take Sebastopol. Devastated by disease, without the resources or medical supplies to sustain a winter campaign and their lines of provision cut off by the hostile weather, the soldiers were dying in their hundreds. Any linGéring illusions about the glory of war which Charlotte had once cherished had long since been crushed. ‘I say nothing about the War', she told Miss Wooler,

– but when I read of its horrors – I cannot help thinking that it is one of the greatest curses that can fall upon mankind. I trust it may not last long – for it really seems to me that no glory to be gained can compensate for the sufferings which must be endured. This tone may seem a little ignoble and unpatriotic – but I think that as we advance towards middle age – nobleness and patriotism bear a different signification to us to that which we accept while young.
⁷⁰

In response to the sufferings, a national Patriotic Fund had been established to raise voluntary subscriptions for the benefit of the wounded and the widows and orphans of the dead. With typical concern, Patrick convened a meeting in the National School on 16 December to raise a subscription in the township; as his eyesight was so poor, however, it was Charlotte and her husband who wrote out the circulars to the leading members of the community inviting their attendance.
⁷¹

Despite the almost universal gloom and the fact that this was normally her most unhappy time of year, Charlotte remained resolutely cheerful. Marriage had clearly eclipsed the painful memories of her sisters' deaths which had so overshadowed previous winters. Writing to Ellen on Boxing Day 1854, she ended her letter like any other new bride.

Arthur joins me in sincere good wishes for a happy Christmas & many of them to you and yours. He is well – thank God – and so am I – and he is ‘my dear
boy' certainly – dearer now than he was six months ago – in three days we shall actually have been married that length of time!
⁷²

The new year began well enough. Charles Dickens came to Bradford on 28 December to give one of his celebrated public readings of
A Christmas Carol
at St George's Hall; he was followed, on 11 January, by the Earl of Carlisle, who gave a lecture on the poetry of Thomas Gray.
⁷³
As Charlotte had met both men, one wonders whether she was in the audience for either or both occasions, or whether they were now as remote to her as Cornhill. Her own literary exertions had virtually ceased, though this was more a result of circumstance than decision; her thoughts sometimes reverted to her writing. ‘One Evening at the close of 1854', Arthur later told George Smith,

as we sat by the fire listening to the howling of the wind around the house my poor wife suddenly said, ‘If you had not been with me I must have been writing now' – She then ran upstairs, brought down & read aloud the beginning of her New Tale – When she had finished I remarked, ‘The Critics will accuse you of repetition, as you have again introduced a school' – She replied, ‘O I shall alter that – I always begin two or three times before I can please myself' – But, it was not to be –
⁷⁴

The two chapters which Charlotte read to her husband were a reworking of'Willie Ellin, the story she had begun in the late spring of 1853. This time, the fragment, which became known as ‘Emma', introduced a sensitive young girl, Matilda Fitzgibbon, who, though personally unpopular because of her unpromising looks and depressed spirits, is nevertheless petted and fêted by her headmistress because of her apparent wealth and aristocratic pretensions. She is then exposed as an impostor whose father's title and estate do not exist; as the headmistress turns on her in vindictive spite she finds a new and unexpected protector in William Ellin.
⁷⁵
Even this fragment, however, was over a year old, having been written the previous November. Probably she had written nothing since.

Whether she wished to do so or not, Charlotte was not given the chance to develop her story. In the second week of January, she and her husband were invited to Gawthorpe Hall as the guests of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth. The baronet evidently had some thoughts of persuading Arthur to change his mind about the living of Padiham but was rather thwarted by his persistent refusal and the current incumbent's withdrawal
of his resignation.
⁷⁶
According to Mrs Gaskell, Charlotte returned from Gawthorpe Hall feeling unwell, having aggravated a cold she had caught at the end of November by walking in thin shoes on damp ground. This seems unlikely, though Charlotte had complained of a chill after she had been caught in the rain while walking on the moors above Haworth to see the snow-swollen waterfall on Sladen Beck. This was proffered as a partial excuse for not going to Brookroyd in December. But Charlotte had declared herself to be well in her next extant letter and there is nothing to suggest the ‘linGéring cold' which Mrs Gaskell describes.
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The real cause of Charlotte's sudden poor health was the fact that, at thirty-eight years old, she was pregnant. She hinted as much to Ellen in a letter describing the classic symptoms of what is misleadingly known as morning sickness.

My health has been really very good ever since my return from Ireland till about ten days ago, when the stomach seemed quite suddenly to lose its tone – indigestion and continual faint sickness have been my portion ever since. Don't conjecture – dear Nell – for it is too soon yet – though I certainly never before felt as I have done lately. But keep the matter wholly to yourself – for I can come to no decided opinion at present.
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At first the nausea was not bad enough to prevent her fulfilling her normal round of duties. After their return from Gawthorpe Hall, one of Arthur's cousins, the Reverend James Adamson Bell, came to stay briefly: ‘the visit was a real treat', Charlotte told Amelia, ‘– He is a cultivated, thoroughly educated man with a mind stored with information gathered from books and travel – and what is far rarer – with the art of conversing appropriately and quietly and never pushing his superiority upon you.'
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She was also well enough to be making plans for visiting Hunsworth and Brookroyd at the end of January, though assuring Amelia that she would not intrude if Joe was still too ill to derive benefit from her coming: she knew, from ‘sorrowful experience', she told Amelia, ‘that visits even from dear friends are rarely advisable during serious sickness. Ellen Nussey used, with a good intention enough, to volunteer her presence when my sisters were ill; it was impossible for me to do with her –'.
⁸⁰

Within a few days of making her tentative plans, however, Charlotte herself was compelled to take to her bed. She was too ill even to answer a letter from Ellen, obliging her husband to write one of his ‘plain, brief statements
of fact' on her behalf. Though she still held out hope of going to Brookroyd on 31 January, Arthur added, ‘I should say, that unless she improve very rapidly, it will not be advisable for her to leave home even then –'. By 29 January, Arthur was so concerned about his wife's deteriorating condition that he sent to Bradford for Dr MacTurk ‘as I wish to have better advice than Haworth affords –'. Dr MacTurk came the next day: ‘His opinion was that her illness would be of some duration – but that there was no immediate danger –'.
⁸¹

This opinion was echoed by Patrick in a letter to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth.

Owing to my Dear Daughter's indisposition, she has desired me to answer your kind letter, by return of post – For several days past, she has been confin'd to her bed, where she still lies, oppress'd with nausea, sickness, irritation, & a slow feverish feeling – and a consequent want of appetite and digestion. – Our village, Surgeon, visits her daily, & we have had a visit from Dr. Macturk of Bradford – who, both think her sickness is symptomatic – and that after a few weeks they hope her health, will again return – nevertheless the trying circumstance gives much uneasiness in our little family circle – where till lately, considering our respective ages, we have all been, in good health & spirits.–
⁸²

A fortnight later there was still no improvement. In answer to an avalanche of anxious letters from Ellen, who seems to have believed that Arthur was forbidding Charlotte to write, he painfully inscribed a few lines. ‘It is difficult to write to friends about my wife's illness, as its cause is yet uncertain –', he wrote, ‘at present she is completely prostrated with weakness & sickness & frequent fever – All may turn out well in the end, & I hope it will; if you saw [her] you would perceive that she can maintain no correspondence at present –'.
⁸³
Clearly he was beginning to have his doubts about the probability of Charlotte's recovery.

This thought must have occurred to Charlotte too, for three days later, on 17 February, she made her will. The brief legal disposition of her property spoke volumes about her marriage and the unexpected happiness it had brought her. Overturning the careful arrangements of her marriage settlement, the will left everything to Arthur Bell Nicholls, ‘to be his absolutely and entirely'. There was no provision at all for Patrick, whose name appears only with that of Martha Brown as a witness to Charlotte's shaky signature. The will was a declaration of Charlotte's absolute faith in her husband's
integrity; she now knew that he did not require a legal obligation to compel him to look after her father.
⁸⁴

As if the strain was not already unbearable, on the very day that Charlotte made her will, Tabby Aykroyd died. She was eighty-four years old and had been the Brontës' servant in weal and woe for over thirty years. It fell to Arthur to bury her in Haworth churchyard, just beyond the parsonage garden wall and within sight of the room where his own wife lay dying.
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Too weak to write anything but the briefest of pencilled notes to her closest friends, Charlotte nevertheless made the effort to sing her husband's praises in every one. ‘I am not going to talk about my sufferings it would be useless and painful –', she told Ellen. ‘I want to give you an assurance which I know will comfort you – and that is that I find in my husband the tenderest nurse, the kindest support – the best earthly comfort that ever woman had. His patience never fails and it is tried by sad days and Broken nights.'
⁸⁶
A little later, when Ellen had sent on a cheering letter from Mary Hewitt describing how she had suffered similar weakness and emaciation before being safely delivered of her child, Charlotte responded pathetically: ‘In much her case was wonderfully like mine – but I am reduced to greater weakness – the skeleton emaciation is the same &c, &c. &c. I cannot talk – even to my dear patient constant Arthur I can say but few words at once.'
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To Amelia, Charlotte wrote: