The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte (7 page)

After her death, there were tales that Miss Emily had not written the book herself, and at those times I scoffed at such ideas and said that the people were liars – for I could vouch for having seen her writing it. Now, though, I am not so sure, because Mr Nicholls told me that it was Master Branwell's idea in the first place, and so many others have come forward with what seem to be true accounts that the book was, in part at least, Master Branwell's.

In recent years Mr Nicholls has also felt able to confide in me about the worries that Master Branwell began to cause him and Miss Emily at that time.

The first was when he told her that he knew about her meetings with Mr Nicholls. She could not think of how he had found out, but perhaps it was because everybody had become so used to treating Master Branwell as if he were not there – much as they tended to do with me at times – that she and Mr Nicholls had not taken care when he was about. Some folk make the mistake of thinking that those in their cups do not notice what is going on around them, but it has always seemed to me that a part of their mind keeps going as normal. Many were the times, when I was a young girl, that I passed remarks – sometimes about him – when my Father had had a drop too much and I thought that he would not notice, but was taken to task by him the next day.

Be that as it may, however Master Branwell knew, knew he did, although at that time there was little enough
to
know, but even so Miss Emily did not want anything of her friendship with Mr Nicholls to be bandied about. There can be no doubt but that she was already in love with him, but what passed between them then was very mild and she had in no way made her true feelings known to Mr Nicholls. I suppose that with the way she had been brought up, her natural closeness and her lack of dealings with men, things could not have been otherwise. Certainly she needed a great deal of wooing and, from what I knew of her and from what Mr Nicholls has told me, at the start she would have been put off by anything but the most gentle and innocent of lovemaking.

By then it was 1847, and life at the Parsonage was going on in much the same old way except that Master Branwell's state was getting worse. I could see that he was lonely, and Father said that, at long last, he was having to face the fact that he would never amount to much. Seemingly he was full of self-pity, saying that he thought himself ill-suited for drudgery and blaming that on the fact that he had been too much petted through life. Their mutual friend, Mr Leyland, told Father that Master Branwell had written to him saying that he was an utter wreck and, being without hope, was in mental agony.

Certainly his drinking was even more of a disgrace and the talk of the village, and I knew for a fact that he was taking far more laudanum than ever because I saw the bottles. Miss Anne seemed to look upon him with horror, and I heard Miss Charlotte call him ‘a shameful burden', which I did not think was a proper thing to have done when servants were in earshot.

Then, in May I think it was, Master Branwell became much quieter, but when I remarked about that at home Father said it was not to be wondered at because he had got to the end of a large sum of money which he had got in the Spring, and had therefore to restrict himself to some degree. However, that state of affairs was too good to last because, as Miss Charlotte said, he just had to have his drink and drugs, and seemed willing to do anything to get them.

I knew from gossip in the village at that time that he was going to almost anyone trying to borrow money, but folk had had enough of him and he had no luck. I suppose that is why he decided to make demands of Mr Nicholls.

Before that he had often had small sums from Mr Nicholls, who has told me that, although he had little enough money for himself, he had not minded parting with the odd coin or two to keep him quiet and get rid of him. Now, though, he was not asking but demanding, and those demands came more often and for much larger sums than Mr Nicholls could provide. Then when Mr Nicholls refused him altogether, his desperate state drove him to start to make nasty threats to Mr Nicholls about his friendship with Miss Emily. He told him that he would tell his father they were meeting on the moors if Mr Nicholls did not pay him.

Well, as Mr Nicholls has said to me, what choice did he have? He knew that Mr Brontë would probably have a seizure if he found out that one of his daughters was walking out, or worse, with his assistant. Mr Brontë wanted his daughters to marry money, and he would not have allowed any of them to wed an assistant with hardly a penny to bless himself with. Mr Nicholls knew that he would have been dismissed, and that, coupled with unclear tales of misbehaviour with a Minister's daughter, would have made certain that he did not get another job in the Church.

He knew also that it was important to keep Master Branwell quiet about what he and Miss Emily now thought of as ‘her' book. They both had the constant worry that Master Branwell would decide to take back what he had written and make it public – leaving her with nothing. So Mr Nicholls paid up, not knowing that in doing so he had taken the first step on a path that would lead to misery and death.

[
] As far as Emily was concerned, I can quite believe that she found it difficult to begin her novel. She was not as worldly as her sisters, and was unaware of many of the frailties of human nature. All she knew was that she was possessed by inexpressible yearnings from which she was constantly tempted to seek relief. She wanted so much to keep up with her sisters, and therefore did not relish the prospect of having to confess to Charlotte that she had never had an idea for a novel, and most certainly was not writing one. From what Martha hints at, and others have actually stated publicly, it seems apparent that finally, in utter desperation, and because the emotions expressed were so akin to her own, she resorted to plagiarism.

It is well known that Emily wrote fair copies of his writings for Branwell when they were younger, and Martha has told us that the practice continued into their adult lives. Perhaps her help was even more essential then, because heavy drinking, and the subsequent bouts of
delirium tremens
from which he suffered, were hardly conducive to good handwriting. Thus Emily had come to know upon what Branwell was working when he gave her the completed part of his novel for tidying up.

That is not to say, however, that she did not already have a good idea of the subject matter. Branwell, unlike Emily, was never one to keep anything to himself and had bragged about his writing to his sisters and others, albeit only in the vaguest of terms. To whom, though, had he spoken in more detail, in search of approval and praise? Certainly not Charlotte; he had been wounded deeply by the way in which she had treated him since the Robinson business, and it was obvious that she was avoiding his company.

Anne, also, had made her opinion of him quite clear. She had been horrified by what had happened at Thorp Green Hall, by what he had become, and by what he was doing to the family. It was also because of him that she had been obliged to leave a post which she enjoyed and return to cheerless Haworth.

No, it was to Emily, always his friend, that he looked for approbation. Apart from anything else, he had spent more time alone with her in recent years, and there was a great deal of rapport between them. The worst that Emily is known ever to have said about her brother was that he was ‘a hopeless being', and I think that even that was merely a passing comment. I also consider that, unlike his other sisters, she was inclined to believe his tale about an affaire with Mrs Robinson. Anne may have told her the truth, but that would not have been something which Emily would wish to believe. She had a great deal of pity for Branwell, and would have sympathized with what she thought to be his plight because of what was happening between her and Mr Nicholls.

Nevertheless, her predicament compelled her to desperate measures. Having seen Branwell's incomplete manuscript, she realized the potential of the story, which was set in a location very dear to her heart. I do not think that she would have set out to steal it, but she found herself in a dilemma, and the finishing of a novel which might otherwise have gone uncompleted seemed an ideal solution.

She sought Nicholls' advice and he encouraged her: he realized the financial potential of a successful novel. So she took the incomplete story and finished it with the active advice, collaboration and corrections of Nicholls, from whom I do not think even Charlotte and Anne were averse to seeking help. Branwell was consulted from time to time, but only to placate him, because he was under the impression that Emily was merely writing his thoughts whereas, in essence, she took the idea from him and then wrote most of the book which she later entitled
Wuthering Heights
.

I fear that some readers may regard all of this with a degree of scepticism. If, however, they examine the evidence objectively, and disregard the myths which tend to surround the Brontës, they will find corroboration of what Martha asserted.

In 1845, Branwell had some poems published in the
Halifax Guardian
and started on a three-volume novel. In September of that year, he told his friend J.B. Leyland that he had finished the first volume, but at the end of the following month he informed another crony, Grundy, that he had abandoned the project, and those apparently conflicting statements have led to some confusion. Fifty-eight pages of a novel entitled
And the Weary are at Rest
were discovered after his death but, as there
were
only fifty-eight pages, they cannot comprise the finished volume of which he told Leyland. It is, therefore, logical to suppose that they made up the
un
finished work which he mentioned to Grundy. That, however, prompts the question of what happened to the completed volume – but more of that in a moment.

Much later, in 1867, William Dearden claimed that in 1848 he, J.B. Leyland and Branwell each agreed to write something which would be read aloud in the Cross Roads Inn, which was situated between Haworth and Keighley. They met on the appointed night, but Branwell had to apologize, saying that, by mistake, he had brought the opening chapter of a novel he was writing instead of the special piece which he had composed. According to Dearden, Branwell then proceeded to read out the first chapter of
Wuthering Heights
!

That is not all. In his book
Pictures of the Past
, Grundy wrote: ‘. . . Brontë declared to me, and what his sister said bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion of
Wuthering Heights
himself. Indeed it is impossible for me to read that story without meeting with many passages which I feel certain
must
have come from his pen. The weird fancies of diseased genius with which he used to entertain me in our long talks at Luddenden Foot reappear in the pages of the novel, and I am inclined to believe that the very plot was his invention rather than his sister's.'

I find it more than frustrating that Grundy did not
name
the sister who confirmed Branwell's claim, but all the signs point to it having been Emily.

There is more. Edward Sloane, of Halifax, told William Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by portion, the novel as it was produced, at the time, insomuch that he no sooner began the perusal of
Wuthering Heights
, when published, than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be disclosed.

Staunch supporters of Emily have poured scorn upon all those statements, especially as they were not made until all the Brontës were dead, but they are not being objective. They will listen to nothing which tends to detract from the popular Brontë image. However, an impartial observer will ask why all those men should have lied. They had absolutely nothing to gain by so doing, and their statements were not only made independently but were separated by an interval of twelve years. Actually, the mere fact that they
did
wait until the family was dead tends to strengthen my belief in their veracity. We should ask what the results would have been had they spoken out whilst the sisters were living. Their assertions would have served merely to fuel the arguments about the authorship of the sisters' novels which raged when they were first published, and that would have caused distress to the family, and to Emily in particular. The men would not have wished that to happen, especially in view of Emily's many kindnesses to their friend Branwell.

Is there not, also, the ring of truth in what they said? One can well imagine poor befuddled Branwell producing in 1848 something which he had written three or four years earlier and declaring that it was the first chapter of what he was
then
engaged upon. Sloane's statement, that Branwell read the story to him chapter by chapter, as it was written, lends credence to my belief that Emily consulted him whilst she was writing. Were that the case, he would have known how she was progressing, and it would not have been difficult for him to smuggle chapters out of the Parsonage as they were completed.