The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte

by James Tully

  According to Miss Anne, Miss Emily was very much cast down by the short shrift that he gave her. It seems that there was no tenderness or thought for her, and certainly no sympathy for the plight that she found herself in. In fact he seems to have blamed her alone for their problem. He steadfastly refused to marry her, and even went as far as to say that she should go and see one of the women who were known to do away with unwanted babies.

  That seems to have shocked Miss Emily more than anything else, and I can quite see why that should have been. She loved all living creatures, and her whole upbringing and nature would never have allowed her to take part in what to her mind would have been murder and what was, in any event, an unlawful act. She refused, and begged Mr Nicholls to change his mind, but he would not be moved. It was only then, so she told Miss Anne, that she came to the full knowledge of how little she now meant to him, if indeed he had ever felt anything for her, but her plight was desperate and she could not afford to take ‘No’ for an answer.

  She told Miss Anne that it was only after days of pleading had proved in vain that she was driven to take a leaf out of Master Branwell’s book, and she told Mr Nicholls that she would tell of his hand in her brother’s death if he did not make an honest woman of her.

  It is not so long since that I asked Mr Nicholls how he felt when she told him that, and, apart from his words, I could tell from how he spoke that even after all this time he still feels how shaken he was. As he said, he felt that he was going back to the blackmailing nightmare from which only Master Branwell’s death had set him free – and worse. Suddenly he felt totally lost and with no way to turn.

  He tried his hardest to reason with her, and I have little doubt that he used all his old charm – which I know more than a little about – but it was no good. In her way, when her mind was firmly made up about something, Miss Emily stood her ground with a steady will, and he was able to do nothing against it although it filled him with rage. Seeing that he was doing no good, he decided to change his manner. He made a show of weakening, and begged for time to think, and that seemed to soften her towards him, for she agreed.

  It was not time to think that he wanted though, it was time to plan, because, in his heart, he already knew what he had to do. Just as Master Branwell’s death had ended one vexation, so Miss Emily’s would rid him of the danger that she now posed.

  In his own words, that he spoke to me in quite a hard voice, he knew that she would have to go.

  [] At first sight, I thought that Martha’s suggestion that Emily was pregnant, or thought that she might be, was almost beyond belief, but as I conducted my research certain facts emerged which gave credence to it. Therefore, although I appreciate fully how preposterous the whole idea will appear to Emily’s fans, all I can ask is that, like me, they keep an open mind.

  As we shall see, Emily refused steadfastly to be examined by a doctor, or even to try a prescription sent by one, until the day she died. Nobody, however, not even her sisters, has ever given a reason for such an apparent aversion to the medical profession.

  Charlotte was in frequent correspondence with Mr W.S. Williams, who was a reader for her publishers, and in a letter dated 22 November 1848 she commented upon Emily’s attitude: ‘. . . my sister would not see the most skilful physician in England if he were brought to her just now, nor would she follow his prescription.’

  On the following day she continued in the same vein to Ellen Nussey: ‘. . . she declares “no poisoning doctor shall come near her.”’

  I find it hard to understand why Emily should have felt as she did. I can find no mention of her ever having been ill, during her adult life, until then, and so she could have had no adverse personal experience likely to have set her against doctors. What, then, could have been the reason for her behaviour?

  One explanation may be that she had lost whatever faith she had in Dr Wheelhouse and his colleagues after she witnessed his inaccurate diagnosis of the cause of Branwell’s death. Were that the case, then the phrase ‘poisoning doctor’ may well have been the result of a subconscious connection between whatever killed her brother and the doctor who failed to detect it.

  In the normal course of events, I would have expected Emily to have scoffed at the idea of a doctor when she was in the early stages of whatever ailed her. It would have been very much in character for her to have scorned the idea of ‘a cold and a cough’ meriting any consideration. However, there is no obvious reason why she should have refused even ‘the most skilful physician in England’ when she began to feel really ill, unless she was, indeed, pregnant – or even supposed that she was. In either of those events there would have been a very good, and apparent, motive.

  Older readers will remember – and it is not that long ago – when to become an unmarried mother was one of the quickest ways of becoming ostracized and reviled. Being the daughter of a clergyman, Emily would probably have suffered more than most, and then there would have been the child to consider. The present trendy term ‘love-child’ had not been invented then, and any issue would have carried the stigma of ‘bastard’ and been denied some entitlements in law.

  Certainly this would account for Charlotte’s curiosity about the change in Emily’s manner. In a letter dated 29 October 1848, she told Ellen Nussey that her sister’s ‘reserved nature occasions me great uneasiness of mind. It is useless to question her, you get no answers.’ Unfortunately, she does not say what form her questions took, and we do not know, therefore, whether they were just general enquiries about what was the matter with her, or something more specific.

  Of course, whatever the reason for her questions, she should have known that she was the last person in whom Emily was likely to confide. However, Emily obviously needed to unburden herself to somebody and it comes as no surprise to learn that that person was Anne.

  We have seen how close Emily and Anne had been for all of their lives, sharing pleasures and troubles alike. It was therefore perfectly natural for Emily to turn to Anne when she was more distressed than she had ever been, and, as we shall see, Martha had good evidence that, having sworn her to secrecy, Emily poured out her soul.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.’

  Isaiah 28:15

  Mr Nicholls has told me, and I believe him, that he did not come lightly to his decision to murder Miss Emily. He was not really an evil man. He was simply a weak, idle and vain person who felt driven to do the things which he did by anything which seemed to be a threat to him and his quiet way of life.

  He began to give Miss Emily small doses of poison whenever that was possible, whilst all the time carrying on as lovingly as he had at the start of their friendship. As Miss Emily told Miss Anne, that made her hope against hope that she was mistaken in thinking that Mr Nicholls no longer loved her, and slowly part of her really came to believe that he would marry her after all – she just prayed that he would not leave it too late. She felt that she had to see him every day, and I can vouch for the fact that to do that she never once took to her bed during the whole of her illness.

  Each day she arose at 7, and stayed up until 10 in the evening although, as she became weaker, she was not able to keep on with her walks on the moors. Therefore it was arranged that, as an excuse for their regular meetings, Mr Nicholls would call at the Parsonage every day to collect the dogs for exercise.

  As he says, that suited him very well as the agreement not only did away with the long, and sometimes tearful, talks that Miss Emily always wanted to have, but also gave him more chances for giving her the poison.

  He has told me that he called at the Parsonage only at times when there was little chance of anyone being in the kitchen. Then it was an easy matter to dose whatever Miss Emily was going to drink or eat. There was little danger of anybody else being affected because, as everyone knew, Miss Emily planned her own meals and they were almost always different from what the rest of us ate.

  As for Mr N
icholls sneaking into the kitchen, as soon as he told me that I recalled one or two times when I had come upon him without warning in the quiet of the afternoon, and he had seemed somewhat startled and had had to make excuses for being there. I smiled to myself as I remembered that and he, sensing what was in my mind, smiled back.

  Of course, I knew naught of any of that at the time. All I knew was that Miss Emily seemed unwell, but I thought that there could not be much up with her because there was no talk of doctors, and she went about her business in the house much the same as usual at the start. Little did I realize how much worse she was becoming, but Miss Anne did, and she also knew why Miss Emily dared not permit a doctor to be called in, even had she been so minded. Nevertheless, she writes that she was very much of the opinion that all would be well if only Mr Nicholls could be urged, or forced, to marry Miss Emily and thus give her the will to live.

  Miss Anne did not think, from what Miss Emily had told her, that Mr Nicholls could be coaxed, and she admits that she knew that she was not the one to talk to him to try to force his hand. Seemingly she had tried to steel herself to speak to him, but it did not work. That does not surprise me at all, because we all knew that she was not very good at that kind of thing.

  It would seem that she worried over the business for weeks, and all the time Miss Emily was becoming weaker before her eyes. In the end she could bear it no longer and made up her mind that there was nothing else for it but to tell Miss Charlotte. She did not want to do so, and she knew that it was the very last thing that Miss Emily would have wished, but she could think of nothing else. There would have been no holding her father had she gone to him and told him that Miss Emily was with child by Mr Nicholls, and so it was to her elder sister that she went and told the whole of what Miss Emily had told her.

  To my mind, in the normal way of things Miss Charlotte would have been the best person to deal with the matter. The trouble was that very little was normal in that family, but nevertheless out it all poured.

  Miss Anne told of how Mr Nicholls had done away with Master Branwell, and that Miss Emily knew of it, and of how Mr Nicholls and Miss Emily had become lovers, and now she fancied that she was expecting but Mr Nicholls would not marry her.

  I can just see Miss Charlotte’s face as she listened, almost without believing, to what Miss Anne had to say. Quiet, shy Miss Emily carrying on with their father’s assistant, and under her very nose at that! So that was who she had been seen with up on the moors, and then it would have come to her why Mr Nicholls had never made any more advances to her. He himself told me, much, much later, that, years on, Miss Charlotte had admitted to him that after she had got over the man in Belgium she would have been very pleased to have had an approach from him. Indeed, as he had noticed, she had made her feelings clear, albeit in a careful way, but he had made no move because by then his eyes were firmly on Miss Emily.

  Time and time again I have wondered whether Miss Emily really was with child, or whether it was simply that what had ailed her at first had upset her monthly showing – as has sometimes happened with me. We shall never know now but, as Miss Anne wrote, Miss Charlotte did not care either way. The mere notion that her sister thought that she might be was enough to show her how far things had gone between them, and she was so angry with them both. Knowing that Master Branwell had been done to death seems not to have bothered her at all – indeed she burst out to Miss Anne that she was glad he was dead. All that seemed to have been on her mind was what in the world could be done about the present mess.

  Miss Anne tells us that she was quite taken aback to see that Miss Charlotte, who was usually so level-headed at such times, seemed to find it hard to think straight. I can but hazard a guess about how she felt, but knowing her as well as I came to, I feel sure that her main feeling was one of jealousy.

  As far as I know, she had had nothing to do with a man in that way ever since she came back from Belgium. I recall Miss Emily telling me that she often heard Miss Charlotte tossing and turning in her bed, and now I can understand why. Mr Nicholls is a man who attracts the attentions of women, and her thoughts of him, so near yet seemingly not noticing her, must have cost her many a sleepless night, and now she knew that, all that time, her sister had been enjoying the love that she needed so badly. Now Miss Anne was expecting her to help bring about their marriage – she would have seen them both dead first!

  No, Miss Charlotte would have had none of that, but the thought of what had been going on must have made her very angry because Miss Anne says that she stormed off straightaway to have it out with Mr Nicholls.

  Now it so happened that he had been closeted with Mr Brontë in his room that morning, but he was just leaving as Miss Charlotte came down the stairs. From the kitchen, I saw her take his arm and half pull him along to the sitting room, but then the door slammed and although I could hear her voice I could not make out the words.

  Mr Nicholls has told me that he can now recall that meeting with some good humour, but that he was fully taken aback at the time to find out that Miss Emily had let the cats out of the bag, and that both her sisters knew everything. However, Miss Charlotte gave him no time to think, as she lashed into him with great fury, no doubt thinking of herself very much as a woman scorned.

  Right from the outset she took no care to keep her voice down, and so I can recount at first hand a lot of what was said, because, by that time, I, inquisitive as ever, was at the door trying very hard to hear what was going on, whilst all the time taking care not to be caught.

  It was quite a long meeting, and I could not be at the door for the whole of the time because other folk were about, but I heard enough to understand something of what was going on, and Mr Nicholls has since filled in the gaps for me.

  As I have said, at first he was totally taken aback, and was so afeared that he was not able to think properly as her words poured out. Slowly, though, as she ranted on, he came to see that there was more to her anger than what she was going on about. He could not believe it: ‘the spiteful little woman’, as he called her, was really jealous!

  At the outset he had tried to hush her, because there were at least 4 other people in the Parsonage at the time, but to no avail, and he had been forced to let her carry on. However, there finally came a moment when she seemed to run out of breath and to be a little calmer, and then he was able to make himself heard.

  I know only too well how good with words Mr Nicholls has always been, but then he must have been at his very best. Although I could hear him talking in his lovely Irish voice, he was speaking too softly for me to catch the words – and I very nearly pushed the door open as I was leaning against it straining to hear. He has told me what he said though, and it went something like this. Seemingly, he explained that he had never felt anything for Miss Emily, and that was why he would not marry her. He had been lonely, and it was only because Miss Charlotte had rebuffed him that he had sought friendship elsewhere – it was not something that he had wanted to do.

  Mr Nicholls smiled a little as he remembered how his words had calmed Miss Charlotte, almost as if they were magic to her ears, and she had been forced to admit that she had spurned him. From that moment on, he said, she acted almost as if she was the one at fault, and the time came when she even seemed to believe that it was Miss Emily who had made the running in their friendship.

  Knowing Miss Charlotte as I did, I cannot but think that usually she would have taken a lot of what he said with a pinch of salt, but it is evident that she heard the words that she wanted to hear, and they were enough to make her heedless of any doubts that she may have had. It must have been then that she began to see that she, plain as she was, could make that handsome man hers if she thought and acted with care.

  The talking went on for quite a while longer, but Mr Nicholls says that he had sensed something of what was going on in her mind, and he thought that a turning point had been reached, but it was only when he placed his hand gently upon hers and she did not withdraw that he kne
w that an unspoken agreement had been reached.

  The problem of what to do about Miss Emily was still there though, and about Miss Anne as well, come to that, but by then he was ready with his answers. I can well imagine how he put on his best soothing voice as he pointed out that Miss Emily might not be with child at all, and that if she was not something else must be ailing her that seemed to be getting worse. Miss Charlotte was not so sure though. What she wanted to know was what Mr Nicholls had in mind to do if she was expecting, or if she recovered from whatever else might be wrong with her.

  They were questions that needed direct answers, and Mr Nicholls has confessed to me that for a moment he was not sure what to say. Then, feeling a sureness that had been coming back to him the longer they talked, he decided to take a chance. Gently, very gently, he put it to her that one answer could be that he should help Miss Emily along just as he had helped Master Branwell. Of course, he did not tell her that he was already doing so – he was just sounding her out – and he said that he held his breath as he awaited her reply.

  When it came, however, he was not really surprised. It was very much as he thought it would be, although she put on a good show of being shocked, and told Mr Nicholls that he should put any such notion right out of his mind. They should wait a while and see what happened. Mr Nicholls has told me that it was very much the answer that he himself would have given in her place because it allowed her to play for time and safety. Should Miss Emily die of a natural cause that would be all well and good. However, she must have known that, if that looked unlikely, Mr Nicholls would take up his poisoning ways again, but if he did and she had not been part of it she would never know for sure that he had, and could always tell herself that her sister had died naturally.