Brontës (161 page)

The remarks about Patrick, far from giving him pain, had simply made him laugh – ‘indeed, I have not seen him laugh as much for some months as he did while I was reading the article to him'. He ended his letter with the sad little comment: ‘We are both well in health, but lonely and desolate.'
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Arthur seems to have been a little premature in rejecting Ellen's suggestion out of hand. Patrick's first reaction may have been to laugh, but when he thought the matter over, the idea of an authorized biography of his daughter, written by one of her own friends, herself a celebrated author, not unnaturally appealed to his paternal pride. Perhaps Ellen wrote to him too, hoping that he might be persuaded where Arthur could not and pointing out that it was only a matter of time until someone less well qualified and less sympathetic than Mrs Gaskell produced a biography of his daughter. There must have been considerable argument between the two men but in the end Arthur bowed to Patrick's wishes. Only five days after his son-in-law had turned the idea down flat, Patrick himself wrote to Mrs Gaskell.

Finding that a great many scribblers, as well as some clever and truthful writers, have published articles, in Newspapers, and tracts – respecting my Dear
Daughter Charlotte, since her death – and seeing that many things that have been stated, are true, but more false – and having reason to \think/ that, some may venture to write her life, who will be ill qualified for the undertaking, I can see no better plan, under these circumstances, than to apply to some established Author, to write a brief account of her life – and to make some remarks on her works – You, seem to me, to be the best qualified, for doing what I wish should be done – If therefore, you will be so kind, as to publish a long or short account of her life and works, just as you may deem expedient & proper – Mr Nicholls, and I, will give you, such information, as you may require –

I should expect, and request that you would affix your name, so that the work might obtain a wide circulation, and be handed down to the latest times – Whatever profits might arise from the sale, would of course, belong to you – You, are the first to whom I have applied – Mr Nicholls, approves of the step I have taken, and could my Daughter speak from the tomb, I feel certain, she would laud our choice—
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Curiously enough, the idea of writing a memoir of her friend had already occurred to Mrs Gaskell. Thinking over her last visit to Haworth in the September of 1853 and realizing how much of what Charlotte told her then she had already forgotten, she had decided to spend the summer writing down her personal recollections of Charlotte from the time of their first meeting in the Lake District and here and there ‘copying out characteristic extracts from her letters'. Originally, she had thought to do this simply for her daughters to read, but in confiding the idea to George Smith, and in telling him that ‘the time may come when her wild sad life, and the beautiful character that grew out of it may be made public', she was clearly staking her claim to any future biography. Even so, she admitted that ‘this sort of record of her could not be made public at present without giving pain'.
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She was therefore both surprised and delighted to receive Patrick's letter inviting her to undertake precisely this sort of memoir and promising her every cooperation. ‘I have taken some time to consider the request', Mrs Gaskell wrote to George Smith only the day after she received Patrick's letter,'… but I have consented to write it,
as well as I cam
Mrs Gaskell was well aware of the problems she would face, not least because she had already formed unfavourable notions about Patrick which she believed had considerable bearing on the formation of his daughter's character: such details would now have to be omitted or ‘merely indicated' during Patrick's life-
time.
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The news that Mrs Gaskell had accepted the commission ‘has broken in like a ray of light on our gloomy solitude', Patrick wrote, enclosing for her assistance a rough outline of his own and his children's lives. He also paid his own handsome tribute to his daughter: ‘I never knew one, less selfish than she was, or more disposed to suffer, herself – to save others from suffering –'.
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It was not until 23 July 1855, some five weeks later, that Mrs Gaskell at last found time in her busy schedule to pay a visit to Haworth. Obviously feeling that she would need moral support in facing her friend's fearsome father again, she took Katie Winkworth with her. They arrived in ‘broiling heat' about one o'clock in the afternoon. The normally loquacious Mrs Gaskell was reduced to an unusually terse description of the few hours she spent at the parsonage. ‘It was a most painful visit. Both Mr Brontë & Mr Nicholls cried sadly. I like Mr Nicholls.'
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Though frequently accused of not caring about his children, the depth of Patrick's emotion can perhaps be gauged by the fact that, a full year after his daughter's death, he could still confess that ‘my grief is so deep and lasting, that I cannot long dwell on my sad privation – I try to look to God, for consolation, and pray that he will give me grace, and strength equal to my day – and resignation to his will'.
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No one could doubt Mrs Gaskell's sensibility and it was with the kindest of motives, leavened with a not unnatural reluctance to repeat the exercise, that she left Haworth determined not to seek future information from the two people who had been closest of all to the subject of her biography. Instead, she would rely on friends and acquaintances, some of whom had their own axe to grind. Far from saving Patrick and Arthur from future grief, she was unintentionally to inflict further trauma upon them.

The day after her visit, both Mrs Gaskell and Arthur Nicholls wrote to Ellen Nussey, requesting that she would make her letters available for the biography. Mrs Gaskell made it clear that both men had agreed to her suggestion that the book should make Charlotte's ‘most unusual character (as taken separately from her genius,)' known to her readers who would ‘expect to be informed as to the circumstances which made her what she was'. Despite their agreement, Mrs Gaskell was shrewd enough to realize that Patrick did not fully appreciate the scale of interest felt by strangers in his daughter's personal history. He wanted her life to be written, and written by Mrs Gaskell, his last words being, ‘No quailing, Mrs Gaskell! no drawing back!' ‘Mr Nicholls was far more aware of the kind of particulars which
people would look for; and saw how they had snatched at every gossiping account of her, and how desirable it was to have a full and authorized \history/ of her life if it were done at all. His feeling was against it's being written; but he yielded to Mr Brontës impetuous wish'. He had presented her with a dozen of Charlotte's letters addressed principally to Emily, one or two to her father and brother and one to her aunt, all dating from 1839–43, and had suggested that she should contact Ellen for earlier correspondence.
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Arthur's letter echoed Mrs Gaskell's but it is clear that he expected to be consulted about the material that was to be used in the book.

The greatest difficulty seems to be in obtaining materials to shew the development of Charlotte's Character – For this reason Mrs G. is anxious to see any of her letters – Especially those of an early date – I think I understood you to say that you had some – if so – we should feel obliged by your letting us have any, that you may think proper – not for publication, but merely to give the writer an insight into her mode of thought – Of course they will be returned after a little time –

I confess that the course most consonant with my own feelings would be to take no steps in the matter but I do not think it right to offer any opposition to Mr Brontës wishes – We have the same object in view, but should differ in our mode of proceeding –
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Ellen was actually staying with Miss Wooler in Ilkley when Mrs Gaskell's letter was forwarded to her: it was an indication of their respective attitudes towards the biography that Ellen wished very much to invite Mrs Gaskell to join them but that Miss Wooler refused to allow her to do so.
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On her return home Ellen went through all her letters from Charlotte, carefully reading over every one, erasing names of persons and places, and putting them into date order. From 500 letters, she selected some 300 for Mrs Gaskell's perusal, handing them over to her in person when she called at Brookroyd in the middle of August.
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‘They give one a very beautiful idea of her character', Mrs Gaskell wrote after she had read them, adding, T am sure the more fully she, Charlotte Brontë – the
friend
the
daughter
the
sister
the
wife
is known – and known where need be in her own words – the more highly will she be appreciated.'
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Through Ellen's offices, Mrs Gaskell eventually secured an interview with the reluctant Miss Wooler at Brookroyd and impressed her sufficiently to persuade her to part with her letters: ‘I
hardly know how it is,' she told Miss Wooler, ‘but I like them better than any other series of letters of hers that I have seen.'
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Not surprisingly, George Smith proved equally reluctant to part with his letters. After an increasingly irate set of missives from Mrs Gaskell, he finally lent her about twenty letters, some of them only fragments, principally concerned with the Newby transactions and Charlotte's criticisms of Thackeray. Forewarned by Ellen Nussey, Mrs Gaskell knew that this was only the tip of the iceberg and refused to be put off. ‘The remainder', Mr Smith suavely announced, ‘contain matter of too purely personal a nature to be generally interesting.' He offered to lend them on condition that they were returned: ‘He is very civil, more civil than satisfactory', Mrs Gaskell observed darkly to Ellen, who advised her that an unannounced visit to Cornhill might prove more productive. Williams, too, was persuaded to part with his letters, which Mrs Gaskell again liked better than any others she had seen apart from those to Miss Wooler: by this time she had gathered enough material to notice that ‘it is curious how much the spirit in which she wrote varies according to the correspondent whom she was addressing'.
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In addition to Charlotte's own letters, Mrs Gaskell was assiduous in contacting people who might be able to help her. John Greenwood was set to work transcribing the Brontë memorial tablet in the church; another friend was deployed to find books about the ‘peculiar \customs &c-/ character of the population' of Haworth; a chance meeting with Dr Scoresby at a house party provided an opportunity to pump him for ‘many curious anecdotes about the extraordinary character of the people round Haworth'.
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Above all, however, it was Ellen Nussey who provided information, stories and contacts. Unlike Charlotte's husband, she was a willing, even eager, participant in the exercise and, perhaps inevitably, Mrs Gaskell absorbed many of her opinions and prejudices without questioning them. Inevitably, too, Patrick and Arthur came out badly and, since it was easier and less painful to accept Ellen's versions of events than to interrogate Charlotte's father and widower, Mrs Gaskell made no attempt to counterbalance the evidence she was building up.

Unaware of the direction the biography was taking, Patrick and Arthur had resumed the threads of their normal life as far as was possible in the wake of Charlotte's death. A fortnight after that event, Patrick had bought a dog of mixed Newfoundland and retriever ancestry from Mr Summerscale, the National schoolmaster. He named it Cato, after the classical orator, and though it was clearly intended for companionship, a note
in his account book that ‘My Dr D-t-r Ch.tte, greatly admired him' suggests another reason for the purchase. A couple of months later, Patrick bought another dog, this time a cross between a Newfoundland and a water spaniel, from Mr Summerscale, which was named Plato in honour of the classical philosopher.
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There were other changes in the household too. Martha Brown, worn out after her labours running the house singlehandedly while nursing Tabby and Charlotte, had herself fallen ill. She could not be cared for at the parsonage and, as her father was terminally ill, there was no place for her at home: she was therefore sent to Leeds to Mrs Dean's alms-houses, where she was gradually restored to health. In her absence, the household duties devolved on her younger sister, Eliza, who Patrick hastened to reassure her was ‘Very steady, and does her work very well'.
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Other old and faithful servants were also in touch again as news of Charlotte's death spread. Nancy Garrs had come back to Haworth, possibly to attend Charlotte's funeral, and her sister, Sarah, who had emigrated to the States, wrote to Patrick from Iowa. Replying with a brief sketch of the family's history since her departure, he added, with justifiable pride, ‘You probably, little thought, that the children you nursed on your knees, would have been so much noticed by the world – as they have been – Emily and Anne, wrote and published Clever Books – and Charlotte's writings, and fame, are known in all parts where Genius, and learning are held in due estimation.' Referring to the ‘happy union' between his daughter and Arthur Nicholls, ‘a very worthy and respectable Clergyman', he described how ‘her loving Husband, and, I, are left to mourn her irreparable loss'.
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Despite the bitterness of their former quarrel, the two men were now totally reconciled. There was no higher proof of this than when, on 20 June 1855, Patrick made his own will. He left two specific bequests: forty pounds to his brother, Hugh Brontë, ‘to be equally divided amongst all my Brothers and Sisters to whom I gave considerable sums in times past' and almost as much again, thirty pounds, to Martha Brown ‘as a token of regard for long and faithful services to me and my children'. Everything else he left, without reservation, to his ‘beloved and esteemed Son-in-Law … for his own absolute benefit'.
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