Romancing Miss Bronte

by Juliet Gael

  “It’s from Arthur. He’s arrived in Oxenhope. With Mr. Sowden.” She looked up at them with wide eyes. “So. This is it. Tomorrow I am to be married.”

  Mary Burwin was on her cousin’s doorstep when the note arrived that afternoon.

  “What’s that about?” her cousin asked when, after reading it, Mary stuffed it quickly into her pocket.

  “Nothin’ to worry yerself about. Just work for me to do,” she said gruffly. But there was a smile tickling her face when she turned out the gate and hurried up the lane to her own cottage.

  Mary waited until dark had fallen; then she fetched the heavy keys and climbed the hill to the church. She took her time preparing the altar that evening, dusting and polishing the ancient dark wood with beeswax and a cloth until it glowed in the light of her lantern. Then she spread the altar linens, putting on the white frontal, the one Mr. Nicholls had requested—the one Miss Brontë had embroidered with a burning bush. Fresh candles were fixed in the tall brass candlesticks, and to the side she placed a vase with a meager bouquet of flowers she’d cut from her little garden. Then she locked up the church and went home.

  The next morning, young Johnny Robinson was on his way to school when John Brown waylaid him on the footpath. He had been a favorite scholar of Arthur’s, had gone every Saturday morning to the curate’s lodgings for private lessons until Arthur had left Haworth. He remembered a good deal from those lessons that was not in the books. He had learned what lovesickness was.

  “Listen carefully, lad,” John said, “I have a task for ye this mornin’. Reverend Nicholls asked specifically for ye.”

  “Mr. Nicholls? Is he here?”

  “He will be soon. I want ye t’ go t’ the top of the hill and keep a watch for him. They’ll be comin’ over the hill from Oxenhope. Soon as ye see ’em, ye run directly t’ the parsonage and tell ’em the gentlemen are on their way.”

  “Is he comin’ for the parson’s daughter?”

  “Indeed he is, John. They’ll be married in the church this mornin’.”

  “Lord Almighty!” the boy cried. “Mr. Nicholls must be a happy man for sure!”

  “Now listen up. After the parsonage, you run straight off an’ get Josh Redman and bring him t’ the church.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Tell him we need him t’ register a marriage and he’s got t’ come right away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And not a word t’ anyone else. Ye hear me, lad?”

  “Aye, sir. And if I’m late t’ school?”

  “Don’t ye worry about that, boy. Not on a day like today.”

  She stood before the looking glass putting on her bonnet. It was a delicate confection, white satin and French lace, with a string of tiny satin roses and green leaves twined just back of the brim, and wide satin ribbons that fell down her shoulders. It did not overwhelm her plain face, as she had feared; rather, it flattered her large, dark eyes and brown hair.

  Staring at her solitary reflection, she felt a sharp and poignant yearning for her sisters, an ache such as she had not felt in years. A longing for the past. She struggled momentarily, trying to keep her thoughts in the present, on the prospects of her future.

  She went to the window and looked out over the churchyard. It was nearly eight. She wouldn’t have long to wait. Arthur was always meticulously punctual. She was thankful for that.

  Ellen came in.

  “It’s time to come down. Oh, you’ve already put on your bonnet! It’s lovely! You look just like a little snowdrop. Turn around. Let me see. Oh, my dearest Charlotte, why the tears? Oh, dear friend, here, come to me. Here, take my handkerchief.”

  Charlotte rapped on her father’s bedroom door, then entered. He was lying in bed, dressed and shaven, in his house slippers. He swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed, then turned a stricken face to her.

  “How are you feeling, Papa?”

  “I’m just resting,” he said in a pitiful voice. “I shall be down shortly.”

  She stepped up and kissed him on his cheek.

  “Arthur will be here any minute. I must go,” she said gently.

  “I do hope and pray that under Providence this change will be for your good as well as my own, Charlotte, both in time and eternity.”

  “I trust that it will, Papa.”

  With Ellen and her old schoolmistress close behind, she slipped out the door and quietly down the gravel path, through the gate and down Church Lane. She walked with her eyes cast downward, her pale face concealed behind the lace veil, and a prayer book clutched in a white-gloved hand. She entered the church by the back, through the vestry door. It was a dim, hazy summer morning and no one was about.

  Johnny Robinson watched the service from the vestry. He thought he probably wasn’t supposed to be there, but no one had bothered to chase him away.

  The cavernous gloom of the ancient church swallowed up the muted morning light, leaving only the flickering candles to illuminate the small wedding party gathered solemnly at the altar. Charlotte’s tiny figure had disappeared behind the others—but Arthur could be seen inclining his head toward her as he repeated his vows, his face softened by the glow of the candlelight. They spoke in low voices—his grave and confident; hers but a whisper.

  Johnny Robinson waited in the shadows as they went out through the vestry. Word had gotten around by then, and there were villagers in the street; they all watched, hushed, as the tiny woman in white and her strong black-clad husband walked arm in arm the short distance up to the parsonage.

  Not long after that a carriage and pair arrived with a racket of hooves and wheels clattering on the cobblestones. Those who had been inclined to wait around witnessed Mr. Nicholls coming out with his dainty little bride on his arm and lifting her gently into the carriage. She wore a simple pale lavender silk dress and bonnet, and he handed her up like something weightless and easily broken. Johnny Robinson was seventeen, and it made an impression on him that a big, stern fellow like that was capable of such tenderness.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  They traveled southwest by train, passing quickly through the plains of Cheshire. By the afternoon, as the train wound around the deep inlets of the rivers and turned back toward the sea, the first hills of Wales rose up to the north. The weather was wild and windy, with sunlight intermittently breaking through the clouds and warming the compartment in bursts of intense heat. Arthur had taken first-class seats, and the only other occupant was a beefy-faced gentleman who pulled his hat over his eyes and slept in his corner until he was awakened by the porter somewhere just across the border. After that they were alone. By then they had thoroughly exhausted the topic of the wedding, with all its excitement and well-wishing guests, the toasts and tears. Charlotte had been fighting off a cold for days, and her face—earlier so lively—had now taken on a drawn and pale look.

  “You must be worn out,” Arthur said to her. “Try to sleep a little.”

  She removed her bonnet and nestled her head in the crook of his arm, but she could not sleep—could not even close her eyes. Her gaze wandered nervously about the compartment: to the window, back to Arthur’s hand wrapped around hers, to his sturdy, muscular legs now stretched out across the aisle. In the silence, a new perception of herself crept into her thoughts: A married woman—no longer single. A husband. My husband. Husband and wife. The very words invested her with a sense of privilege, as if she had suddenly found herself on the other side of a great divide, enlightened and forever altered. Only now did she admit how desperately she had longed for this. Whatever her failed illusions, whatever her disappointments with the man destiny had chosen for her, she could not wish herself back on the other side.

  She felt a sudden rush of gratitude and relief; she tilted her head up and, in a rare spontaneous show of affection, kissed Arthur on his whiskered cheek. It was one of the few times when she had kissed him of her own volition. He turned to her with a gleam in his eye, and she quickly looked away. She had become
fully aware of the effect she could produce on him by so much as a gesture or a touch.

  They remained quiet for a moment, and then he tugged off her glove and held up her dainty hand to admire the ring on her finger.

  “You’ve made me a very happy man,” he whispered into her ear.

  He did not ask if she was happy, and Charlotte offered no reply.

  As England receded and they sped toward the northern coast of Wales, there was an unspoken sense of leaving behind all that was familiar and known. Wales was a land steeped in nostalgia for the past, and Charlotte listened intently while Arthur spoke of the great castles he planned for them to tour, of the strikingly dramatic mountains and the coastline of steep cliffs and sandy bays. She was reminded of Scotland’s rugged beauty and her brief but heavenly excursion with George. She had been far more excited about that journey than this one. Here there would be no literary shrines to visit, and the man by her side had none of George Smith’s charm. But this man had made her his wife, and George had not.

  Late in the day the train rumbled across the bridge spanning the River Conwy, toward the bleak and barren fortress towering over the medieval village. At the sight of the castle ruins Charlotte’s imagination began to stir, awakening briefly all those great romantic ideals of passion, adventure, and beauty.

  She leaned close to the window, squinting through her spectacles.

  “Have we arrived?”

  “We have. This is Conwy.”

  They took a cab from the station, passing into the walled town through the lower gate. Light rain had begun to fall when they drew up at the doorstep of the Castle Hotel. The rambling old coaching inn had recently been renovated; the half-timber was now masked with an elaborate Gothic façade of stone and red brick. Bay windows were crowned with mantles of intricately carved designs and fitted with small glazed panes that caught the shadows and light in myriad subtle reflections. Although modest in scale, it projected a stately, manorial air.

  “Is this our ‘comfortable little inn on the coast’?” she whispered to him as he lifted her down from the carriage.

  “Are you not pleased?”

  “You led me to expect something quite modest,” she whispered back.

  “We’ll have plenty of that when we get to Ireland,” he said with a laugh.

  “You’ve a view of the castle, Mr. Nicholls, as you requested,” the innkeeper boasted as he led them down the corridor to their room. “Lady Llanberis departed just yesterday—she had this very same room and was very pleased with it indeed.”

  As he unlocked the door and gave orders to the porter with their luggage, he added with a sly wink, “You never know who you might meet downstairs. Mr. Wordsworth used to stay here on occasion. Said he liked Wales almost as much as his English lakes. Aye, there’s a good number of famous people come through here.”

  “Is that so? Perhaps we might obtain an autograph—”

  “Right now we’ve not got anybody famous. Not that I know of. But I’ll be sure to let you know, sir. You bein’ a clergyman, I’m sure they’d oblige you, sir. The maid will be right up with hot water, sir, and to start the fire if you’d like. Coals are extra. Supper is served in the dining room at six.” With this he gave a quick little bow and hurried out.

  “Arthur!” Charlotte scolded as she dusted the rain off her bonnet and set it on the table. “How wicked of you to tease him so!”

  “I wonder what he’d say if he knew Currer Bell was under his roof.”

  “You mean Mrs. Nicholls,” she corrected softly.

  “Mrs. Nicholls,” he said in a low voice as he reached for her and drew her close. “Come here, little wife.” He trapped her hands behind her back and pressed her against him.

  “I shan’t let you go now,” he said. “You cannot flee. There’s no one coming to frighten you off.”

  He said these things with his eyes locked on hers, and she was startled by the urgency in his look.

  “The maid’s coming back with water.”

  “And the door is locked,” he murmured with his lips so close she could feel his breath on her cheek as he spoke. “Look up at me, Charlotte,” he said, and she tilted back her head and closed her eyes. His kisses—once snatched so furtively—were long and forceful. He pressed himself against her; she could feel his arousal, and she gasped and recoiled.

  “Arthur …” she began in protest, but his clasp around her was like iron.

  “I do so want you. I’ve waited so long for you.”

  She squirmed, but he was pulling up her skirts with one hand, grappling with her petticoats.

  “Arthur!” she cried, and at the sound of alarm in her voice he quit groping for her. He lowered her skirts and took her tenderly into his arms.

  “Charlotte,” he exclaimed softly into her hair. “I’m a wreck,” he said. “Do you see what you’ve done to me?”

  “You frighten me.”

  “I frighten myself sometimes.” He stroked her hair to calm her.

  After a moment he whispered, “Is there too much light for you?”

  She nodded against his chest.

  “Then we’ll wait until tonight,” he murmured. “God give me the strength.”

  And me as well, Charlotte thought.

  They went down together to the dining room and had tea. He was kind and considerate as always, but a dark cloud of restlessness hung over his mood. When they had finished tea he left her to go off and make arrangements to hire a cab for the next day to take them on a tour of the region.

  “I’ll meet you back in the room,” he said with a meaningful glance as he pulled on his greatcoat.

  In the bedroom, Charlotte unpacked her trunk and then sat down to dash off a quick note to Ellen. Already she felt a sense of guilt and divided loyalties, and behind the hastily scribbled words there lurked a feeling of loss and longing. The mere gesture of writing seemed to her a frantic desire to hold on to something that was slipping from her grasp.

  How to speak of these things to her dear and faithful friend? She could not. They would remain unsaid. Charlotte—loyal to the truth—would never allude to the dread and anxiety churning in her chest. Her hand trembled as she dipped the pen in ink and set it on the paper. She could barely recognize her own handwriting.

  “You mustn’t expect much at first,” Katie Winkworth had whispered to her in parting. “It gets better, trust me.”

  Charlotte was not a stranger to sexual gratification. She had discovered it during those days at Roe Head and satisfied herself quietly, shamefully, shuddering silently in her bed, alone, at night. She had found it impossible to confide in anyone, impossible to speak of darkly powerful urges of such a private nature. All her life she had heard passions of the flesh condemned as vile and wicked, and during those days, as she succumbed to her sexual desires and fantasies, she felt herself falling away from God. She had cloaked her fears in terms of a spiritual struggle and written dozens of letters to dear, pious Ellen, who had bade her to pray and seek strength and courage from God.

  Yet something in her rebelled against this doctrine. Even as a girl she had let her imagination skirt around the perimeters of desire. She knew her body could respond to the fantasies of touch, of hands and lips.

  Now she was married. It was her sacred duty to render this pleasure to her husband, but the reality of a man’s flesh was something for which she was absolutely unprepared.

  She sealed the letter quickly and began a second one to her father. She was still writing when Arthur returned.

  She removed her spectacles and rose swiftly when he came into the room.

  “My dear, you’re absolutely soaked.”

  “It’s pouring out there, and blowing a gale,” he said as he sloughed off his wet greatcoat and gave it to Charlotte to hang on the back of a chair to dry.

  “I was just jotting off a note to Papa to tell him we’ve arrived safely.”

  “Very good.”

  “I’ve given Bangor as our next mailing address. I said we s
hould be there by Monday.”

  “That’s our plan. But we’ll see how the weather is.”

  She returned to her desk and picked up her pen.

  Arthur removed his waistcoat and the clerical collar, and when she next looked up he was in his trousers with his white shirt open at the chest. Stripped of the decorous trappings of the church, his physicality became strikingly apparent.

  He was pouring a glass of port from the bottle the maid had brought up.

  “Here, my darling,” he said as he set the glass in front of her, then poured one for himself. There was an air of impatience in his manner. She was finding it difficult to concentrate on her letter.

  “I ran into a most obtuse man at the stables. A Manchester clergyman. He asked where my curacy was, and when he learned I was from Haworth he claimed to know your father. Said he’s here with his wife and was planning an excursion tomorrow to Caernafon. Proposed that we share a cab and see the sights together.”

  “Oh dear,” Charlotte said with a look of horror.

  Arthur pulled up a chair, straddled it, and leaned against the back. “I accepted.”

  “You didn’t!”

  He watched her with an intense gaze as he sipped his port. “I thought it might please you.”

  “Arthur, you wouldn’t.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek, and his blue eyes darkened.

  “I will unless you put down your pen,” he said sternly.

  Her hands trembled as she lay aside her pen and stopped the ink bottle.

  “Now drink the port.”

  She took the glass, her hand still shaking.

  “Go on, drink,” he said. “It will calm your nerves.” When she had obliged him, he said, “Now let down your hair.”

  “Would you at least allow me the decency of turning your back?”

  “Not yet,” he said gently. “Just do as I ask.”

  She had never liked her own body. Even now she could not think of it as an object of desire, and as she removed the combs and the hairpins and shook out her hair, she did not dare to meet his eyes.