The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte (32 page)

I did not find Miss Anne's book though, and so I left and after having a quick splash and getting dressed I hurried downstairs for a cup of tea to settle my mind after what I had seen. Then I went back upstairs and started to put the big bedroom to rights. First I took all the bedclothes downstairs and emptied the palliasse out the back for the straw to be burned. Then I set about hanging her clothes where they should have been and tidying up generally – but all the while I was keeping an eye out for Miss Anne's book, not knowing whether or not I was on a fool's errand and Mr Nicholls had it already.

It took a long time, but I
did
find it, though it was simply by chance, and when I came across it I knew why Mr Nicholls had not – if, indeed, that was what he had been looking for.

My find came about like this. When I had put everything away, I began to sweep the room – moving things as I went. I must say that I did so quickly and not very gently because I was so vexed at not finding the book, and also I wanted the job over and done with as soon as I could so that I could have a little breakfast before seeing what else was to be done and how Mr Brontë was. So I knocked the broom very hard into corners, without heeding the paintwork as I usually did – not that that mattered very much anyway as it was so bad – but when I came to a corner from where I had pulled the bed out a small part of the board that skirted the room came away – and out fell the book!

That bedroom had been made a little bigger a few years before, and Mr Brontë had gone on about the shoddy workmanship of the men who did it – in fact he had had them back twice at least to put some things right. Because of that, I was not at all surprised to see that this small bit of board seemed not to have as many nails as there were holes for them, so it came away easily. It had covered a lovely little hiding place that Madam must have found at the time, for there was the book. I had a look and a bit of a feel round in the space to see if anything else was hidden there. There was not, so I just picked up the book, hid it under my apron and took it to my room. Later, when I popped home, I went out the back and wrapped it in an old bit of canvas and then hid it in the little shed where the kindling was kept – Madam was not the only one to have her own little hidey-hole!

Having the book made a great deal of difference to how I felt. Even though I thought such a lot of him, I did not
really
know what Mr Nicholls' true feelings for
me
were, nor what he had in mind for me, but now I had the means to bend him to my will if need be.

After her death there was a great deal of talk in the village, and I was really surprised to find how few folk had known how bad she was. It seemed that Mr Nicholls had told no one, and Father in particular was very much up in arms about it for, although
I
had told him, I do not think that it had sunk in as to how poorly she really was.

He said to us, and others, that in his post as Sexton he would have thought that he would have been told by Mr Nicholls or Mr Brontë how bad things were. He also went on and on about there being no postmortem examination by the doctors, and said that too many folk to do with the Parsonage had died in such a short while that he could not, for the life of him, understand why nobody else could see that something was amiss. Mother told him to hush, lest he found himself in trouble, but he did not listen to her and only stopped when someone at the Lodge warned him in like fashion. When Mother told us of that I was pleased, for I did not wish to see Mr Nicholls harmed in any way, and by then it was all water under the bridge anyway and no one could bring them back.

I did not go to the funeral. Even had I been asked I could not have brought myself to have done so, and I must say I wondered how Mr Nicholls, a so-called man of God, could have gone into the Church with so much blood on his hands, so to speak. He did though – well I do not suppose he could have stayed away really – and I was told that he moved many folk to tears by what he said to them – but that did not surprise me at all because he always was such a lovely talker. For my part, I stayed at the Parsonage and saw to it that the food and drink was all in order for the Wake.

It was
so
quiet and peaceful in the house once the funeral was over and done with. Mr Brontë hardly moved out of his room anyway, and with only him and Mr Nicholls to look after my days were much easier and more pleasing than they had ever been – especially with not having
her
sharp tongue going on and on, and her poking and prying with her eyes everywhere. The weather was getting better by the day as well, and so I started the Spring cleaning a bit earlier than usual. I had all the windows opened, except those in Mr Brontë's rooms, and saw to it that the house was cleaned, scrubbed and polished from top to bottom until it smelled sweeter than ever it had.

As for me and Mr Nicholls, I find it very hard to put into words how happy we were with her gone. Now we could make love more or less whenever and wherever we liked, and I found out how much better it was in a bed. We were even able to have some meals together, and I felt quite the lady of the house – it was almost as if we were wed.

All the while, though, I wondered what he had it in mind to do now that he was free of her and had her money. I half-expected that he would up and go back to Ireland and so, after a couple of weeks, I asked him straight out what he was going to do.

He must have been waiting for me to say something, for he did not seem a bit surprised and said that he had been going to tell me anyway. With a smile, he said that the way things were now suited him well, and that he saw no reason to leave unless I wanted him out of the way. That made me burst out laughing, which I suppose was not really right in the light of all that had happened in that house, but I was so happy that I was like to have died with joy.

Of course, I still had my secret dream that some day he and I would wed, but for the time being I was more than content to leave things be and see what would happen next.

[
] As there is no evidence of a pregnancy, and having disposed of that myth, we may now attempt to discover what
really
ailed Charlotte.

According to Martha, the reality was that Nicholls was proceeding quietly with his deadly plan, and one is able to plot his steady progress from a calendar of letters:

 

All that time Nicholls was penning letters supposedly dictated by his wife, and censoring the few of which he was aware that she had written herself. He ensured that there were many favourable references to himself, and that it was made clear that it was by
her
wish that no doctors outside Haworth were now being consulted. Dr MacTurk is heard of no more: he had served his purpose. Charlotte was now under the supervision of the Haworth practitioner Dr Ingham – who had been well primed with the ‘opinion' planted on Dr MacTurk.

Dr Ingham appears to have been as well suited to Nicholls' purposes as the credulous Dr Wheelhouse had been. For one thing, he was apparently in the habit of prescribing for patients whom he had not examined. Around 20 January, when Charlotte herself was beginning to feel really unwell, she wrote a short note to the good doctor: ‘I regret to have to disturb you at a time when you are suffering from illness, but I merely wish to ask if you can send any medicine for our old servant Tabby.'

It is obvious that Charlotte – who quoted none of Tabby's symptoms – took it for granted that he, ill or not, would do as she had requested, so we may presume that it was a common practice of his. As it happened, Tabby was dead within a month – little wonder then that Nicholls stayed with Dr Ingham!

I think that Tabitha's death destroyed whatever little faith Charlotte may have had in Dr Ingham. She wrote to Joe Taylor's wife, Amelia, and told her: ‘Medicine I have quite discontinued. If you can send me anything that will do good – do.' In her next letter, she told her friend: ‘The medicines produced no perceptible effect on me but I thank you for them all the same. I would not let Arthur write to Dr. Hemingway – I know it would be wholly useless.'

I find all that very contradictory. After telling Amelia that she had ‘quite discontinued' taking medicine she went on, in the next breath, to ask her to send some – and took it! Obviously it was only Dr Ingham's medicine, administered by Nicholls, that had been discontinued.

There are other aspects of the letter which I find quite peculiar. It is very odd that she should beg for any sort of medicine from a friend and yet, we are asked to believe, she would not allow her husband to write to a doctor. That contradiction apart, she was in no position to forbid Nicholls to do anything.

Of course, the complete explanation is that few of the letters contained Charlotte's own words, whereas Nicholls' involvement is quite apparent. He was ensuring that no blame for what was to come could be attributed to him, and therefore Amelia and the world were told that it was at his wife's request that Dr MacTurk's services were dispensed with and Dr Hemingway not consulted. She alone is held responsible for discontinuing with the medicine prescribed by Dr Ingham whereas Nicholls, by inference, is shown in a favourable light as encouraging her to seek other remedies. In reality, of course, Nicholls probably did not care from whom she received medicines if he was dosing them all!

The fact of the matter is that, at the end, Charlotte was doomed. With visitors forbidden and her mail censored, she was kept in virtual isolation by a husband who hated her and was plotting her death. There was no one to whom she could have appealed. Tabby was gone and, much as he detested Nicholls, her father would probably have thought her hysterical. She might, of course, have turned to Martha, but I think that she sensed that she could no longer trust even her.

Until Charlotte's ‘illness' became much worse, Martha had presented her usual friendly, but somewhat servile, face to her mistress. However, her attitude had changed abruptly once Charlotte became
really
ill, and especially after the Will was signed, and Charlotte could not but have noticed that she was no longer the apparently willing and obliging Martha whom she had always known. We cannot know what construction she placed upon her servant's change of attitude, but I am convinced that it was that change which finally broke Charlotte and left her feeling completely abandoned.

Her mental and physical torment can be only imagined as she lay there for hours, neglected and utterly alone. She
must
have suspected by then what Nicholls was up to, but she seems to have hoped against hope that she was wrong. It would appear that she dreaded the sound of Nicholls' footsteps upon the stairs and yet, at the same time, from what Martha tells us, she lived for his visits.

As the weeks passed, and she sank lower and lower, who knows what apparitions from the past were conjured up in her fevered mind. Whatever her transgressions, she went a long way towards expiating them during those last grim days.

According to Martha, it was during that period, when Charlotte felt so isolated, and was so very, very vulnerable, that Nicholls took advantage of her state of confusion.

I can imagine that, since the time of their honeymoon, he had been on and on at her to rescind the marriage settlement. Always she refused, steadfastly, to do so, and his anger had been evident in the increasingly hostile attitude which he had adopted, and which had frightened her so much. Now, however, all that changed and, with a suddenness that threw her off guard completely, Nicholls began to devote himself entirely to her needs. He showered such affection upon her that she, in her loneliness and despair, began to think that perhaps she had misjudged him which, of course, was just what he had hoped for.

He seems to have lost no time in pressing home his advantage. Martha tells us of the soothing words which he whispered to Charlotte as he spooned more dosed broth down her, and of the pathetic gratitude with which she responded to his ministrations. Soon she appears to have been his to do as he would with, and then he had no trouble whatsoever in persuading her that it was only right and proper that she should make a Will in his favour, thus circumventing all the provisions of the marriage settlement. As we know, the witnesses were Martha and the almost blind Mr Brontë and I have often wondered whether the old man realized what he was signing.