The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte

by James Tully

  When Miss Emily was ill, I heard Miss Charlotte say several times that the weather at Haworth was ‘unfavourable for invalids’. Well Miss Anne must have remembered that because soon, and quite without warning, she said that she thought that a visit to somewhere warmer might be better for her health. I remember thinking that a move to somewhere warmer would be better for all of us, and when she started to go on about visiting her relations in mild Penzance, in Cornwall, I was very envious, although the thought of journeying so far – Father said it was well over 300 miles – was not to my liking.

  I heard Miss Anne talking about going to Cornwall, and I could not, for the life of me, understand why Miss Charlotte was struck so pale. Now, of course, I know that she and Mr Nicholls did not want Miss Anne out of their sight at all lest she told someone of what she knew, and that danger would have been even greater were she with kindly relations and all that far away. Mr Nicholls has told me that the notion really bothered them – but then they were given a helping hand.

  If my memory serves me right, Mr Brontë was 71 then, and very, very odd at times. Still he was no fool, and like all of us he knew that Dr Wheelhouse was not a very good doctor. One day I was working in the hall and I heard him talking to Miss Charlotte about Miss Anne. He said that he was not satisfied with what Dr Wheelhouse was doing, and that he thought that half the time he did not know what he was talking about. After much thought he had decided to bring in another doctor, and so he was writing to a Dr Teale who, it seems, was the surgeon to Leeds General Infirmary, to ask him to come and see her. Miss Charlotte wondered what that would cost, but Mr Brontë said that his mind was made up and the letter would go that day.

  We had to get the Parsonage really spick and span for when the great doctor came, and then, when he did, Miss Charlotte told all of us to keep out of sight and be as quiet as possible. Afterwards she gave it out that the doctor had said that Miss Anne was suffering from consumption, but that it had not gone too far and could be stopped. She said also that he had forbidden ‘the excitement of travelling’.

  By the end of March Miss Anne did not seem much altered – in fact, if anything, to my mind she was a little better – and one day she told me she was very happy because Miss Charlotte’s friend, Miss Nussey, had asked her to go and stay with her for a while. I do not think Miss Charlotte was very pleased about it though, because when I said to her that it might do Miss Anne good she just grunted and said it was far too soon for her to think of such gadding about. I could not understand that, nor why Miss Charlotte was always telling folk that Miss Anne was worse than seemed to be the case. Sometimes she made out that her sister was almost bedridden, and I know that Miss Anne was none too pleased about it when she found out.

  Then there was the time when Miss Anne found out that Miss Charlotte had been reading her letters when she was out of the room, and had said that she would answer them for her if Miss Anne wished. I was cleaning the stairs, and they did not know I was there, and I heard Miss Anne tell Miss Charlotte, very sharp like, that she was quite able to take care of her own affairs and that she wished that Miss Charlotte would stop poking her nose into them. Miss Charlotte made no reply that I heard, but the next moment she just bustled out of the bedroom. She brushed past me without a word, and I could see that her face was even redder than usual, and her lips were pursed shut very tight.

  I think that Miss Anne must have felt well in herself because she was always saying to me that she felt like going off to Scarborough after Easter, when it was a little warmer, and once I heard her say the same thing to Miss Charlotte and ask if she would go with her when the time came. All that Miss Charlotte had to say was: ‘We’ll see,’ and I could tell how that damped Miss Anne’s spirits. Next thing I heard was when, a week or two later, Miss Anne told me that she was thinking of asking Miss Nussey to go with her instead.

  She must have done so, because one day I went in to make the bed and Miss Anne was sitting on it, and it was clear to me that she had been shedding a tear or two. I thought that she must be feeling unwell. I asked her if I could bring her anything, but she said that it was all right, it was just that she had had some disappointing news, and it was then that I noticed that she had a letter beside her on the bed. A moment later she said that Miss Nussey had written to say that she could not go away with her before June and so, as she had set her heart upon going before that, she did not know what to do. I nearly said that if she wanted someone with her she could take me! I had never been more than 15 miles from Haworth in my life, and had certainly never seen the sea.

  The next thing I knew was that Miss Charlotte had said that she would go with her after all, but the weeks went by and it did not happen.

  In the meantime Miss Anne gradually grew worse, and I think that the disappointment and being made to stay in Haworth had a lot to do with it. She was very down all the time, and I watched her grow thinner and thinner almost by the minute, but still she managed to keep going and she went out every day.

  Mr Nicholls has told me that he and Miss Charlotte were very concerned about her at that time. They knew she was in an odd state of mind, and they had become more and more worried as to how much longer she could be expected to hold her tongue, but things seemed to come to a head when she told Miss Charlotte that for some weeks she had believed herself to be near death, and that the awful things that she knew had become a burden that she could no longer bear. She felt a great need to confess to someone before it was too late, but she was unsure of what to do. She did not know whether to tell their father everything, or whether it would relieve her state of mind if she made her confession to a clergyman outside the parish.

  It seems that that made Miss Charlotte run straight to Mr Nicholls. She told him that she did not think that Miss Anne could be kept silent for much longer.

  As for Mr Nicholls, he made no secret to me that that was the moment when he began to think that Miss Anne also would need to be helped to an early death. He told me that with quite a sigh, and it was apparent that it was not a thought that he had enjoyed. Nevertheless the notion that she might let everything out at any moment was never far from his mind, and the more he thought about killing her the more he came to see that her death might not be a bad thing for him in other ways.

  At first he felt that the best thing would be not to tell Miss Charlotte what he was set upon doing. He pointed out to me that with Miss Anne out of the way Miss Charlotte’s hold over him would be very much less, as Miss Anne would not be there to back her up, and she might therefore stop him from going on with his plan. However, he soon came to see that she would have to be told, for the simple reason that he would need her help.

  You see, his trouble was that, unlike with Master Branwell and Miss Emily, he had no way to put anything into Miss Anne’s food – but Miss Charlotte could, and it would be very easy for her, but would she do it?

  Mr Nicholls closed his eyes when he came to that part, and it was clear to me that he was reliving his state of mind at that time. When he spoke again he said that he had not known how to bring up the matter with Miss Charlotte, although he did know that he would need to lead up to it very gently indeed.

  He never went into the whys and wherefores of how he got round to coming out with it, but he said that when he finally got to the point Miss Charlotte did not seem all that taken aback. That seems to have surprised him, but it did not me. I see now, from the complete change in her general manner then, that she must have been besotted with him, whereas I know that Miss Anne had been vexing her with her illness, her worries and some of the things that she had said. I well remember that, only a few weeks before, Miss Charlotte had come into the kitchen and slammed down a plate and cup, so hard as if to break them, saying that Miss Anne gave herself the airs of a saint. Miss Aykroyd was most displeased, not only by what she had said but also, I think, because she had said it in front of me. She scolded Miss Charlotte for saying such things about her sister, and then sent me off for some wood. That was only an ex
cuse to get me out of the way though, for when I listened at the door I heard her carrying on to Miss Charlotte as nobody else would have dared to do.

  Then there was the fact that, as we all knew, Miss Charlotte had been looking forward to leaving Miss Anne at home to care for their father whilst she journeyed around and met important people, but now that her sister had become something of an invalid she found herself tied to the Parsonage and what she would sometimes call ‘awful Haworth.’

  Above all, and knowing Miss Charlotte as well as I did, I would think that she had never forgotten how Miss Emily and Miss Anne had kept her out of their lives whenever possible. From time to time she had made catty remarks to Miss Anne about that in my hearing. All in all, then, I feel that her thoughts would have been that she owed Miss Anne naught, but I doubt very much if she would have wanted to become mixed up in murder. Against that, though, she would not have wanted to take the chance of losing Mr Nicholls.

  Mr Nicholls has told me that she did not give him an answer straightaway, and he took that as a good sign. He thinks that she held back because she thought that if she took a direct part in Miss Anne’s death she would place herself in his power, but it was evident to him that she wanted to help him because of the threat that Miss Anne was to him, and she thought that something should be done. However, she drew back at murder, and took her usual way out when she had something of moment to decide – she tried to slow matters down whilst she thought.

  That time, though, she was not able to, because Mr Nicholls pressed her for an answer and, in the end, she was forced to say that she would help, but Mr Nicholls told me that, even whilst she was saying so, he knew that she was hoping to get out of it. It was evident to him that she would put it off for as long as she could because she said that, to her mind, it would not be long before Miss Anne died a natural death anyway – and that would have let her out of it.

  One thing was sure though, either way she would die.

  [] For Nicholls and Charlotte it was certainly a fortunate coincidence that Anne was apparently forbidden to leave Haworth just at the very time when that possibility was what they feared most. On a balance of probabilities, however, it would seem that Charlotte misused Dr Teale’s words. As the illness had not reached an advanced stage, then surely it is commonsense to suppose that a move to somewhere warmer, and where the air was purer, would have been of benefit. I find it very contradictory that, on 30 January, she should suggest, in a letter to Ellen Nussey, that during the following year ‘an early removal to a warmer locality for the winter might be beneficial’ to her sister. If that statement is pursued to a logical conclusion it is clearly nonsensical. Were Anne’s health still to be a cause for concern a year later, it follows that her condition would be no better, and probably worse. Yet there was Charlotte implying that ‘the excitement of travelling’ would then be of no consequence, which prompts the question of why, in that case, it should have been considered deleterious a year before.

  In the event, the ploy succeeded. Anne stayed put, and that was that problem solved.

  Unfortunately, however, Charlotte’s relief was short-lived because the well-meaning Mr Williams intervened again. It will be recalled that it was he who had recommended that ‘two fashionable London doctors’, who were Drs Elliotson and Forbes, should see Emily, and that, when Charlotte told him that her sister had rejected that idea, he had suggested Dr Epps and homeopathy. Well now he recommended that Dr Forbes, who was physician to the Queen’s household, be consulted on Anne’s behalf.

  Significantly, Charlotte did not reply to him. Instead, on 22 January 1849, she wrote to his employer, George Smith, but once again rejected Mr Williams’ advice. This time it was on the grounds that Mr Brontë had declared his ‘perfect confidence’ in Dr Teale but, in point of fact, it is very doubtful whether Charlotte ever mentioned the matter to her father, any more than she had in Emily’s case. What happened was that, with a singular lack of originality, she imitated the Dr Epps episode.

  It is a little difficult to follow, but this is what she did. She asked George Smith if he would tell Dr Forbes of Dr Teale’s diagnosis, and then ask the former for his opinion on what the latter had said.

  George Smith would not have been pleased to have been burdened with such a chore. He had a publishing business to run, and that gave him quite enough to do without having such tasks imposed upon him. Also he must have thought, as I do, that Charlotte’s request was rather a tortuous way of going about things, and have wondered why on earth she was involving him. Either she shared her father’s faith in Dr Teale or she did not. If she did, then why was she bothering to have another physician consulted? If she did not, then she had two obvious options open to her. She could have done what she was asking George Smith to do, or she could have asked Dr Forbes to visit the Parsonage in person and examine her sister himself. Of course, had she adopted the latter alternative, and had she been telling the truth when she said that Mr Brontë was satisfied with Dr Teale, she would have needed to be prepared to face her father’s wrath. Surely, though, that would have been a small price to pay were she genuinely concerned about Anne.

  There is, therefore, no logical reason why she should have involved an outsider. Instead we are presented with yet another example of Charlotte’s self-defence mechanism. Were her sister to die, she wanted no criticism levelled at her which might then have led to closer examinations of other sensitive matters. She wanted to be seen to have done her duty, and that would have been achieved had she been able to give the impression that she had made an approach to Dr Forbes. Only two people other than her would have known that the consultation had been through a third party, and had involved such an unnecessary but, importantly, time-consuming procedure.

  We see something of what I am getting at in her letter to Ellen Nussey, of 30 January 1849, in which she wrote: ‘A few days ago I wrote to have Dr Forbes’ opinion,’ thus deliberately giving the impression that she had consulted him herself. She went on to say that he disapproved of any change of residence for the present, so that now, according to her – and her alone – there were two doctors of the opinion that Anne should not leave the Parsonage. It was all very convenient, much too convenient some may think, and we shall never know the truth of it. Nevertheless, it was the result which counted, and the result was that Anne stayed put.

  February came, and Charlotte wrote to Ellen to thank her for a respirator which she had bought for Anne. In that letter she expressed the curious hope that ‘the respirator will be useful to Anne in case she should ever be well enough to go out again’. One can but be driven to wonder at her motive for expressing such a hope, because it is almost as if she was preparing Ellen for Anne’s early demise. Only a fortnight before she had told Mr Williams how much better Anne was, and on 2 March she wrote: ‘My sister still continues better; she has less languor and weakness; her spirits are improved.’ One tale for him, to put off any further mention of doctors, and another for her friend.

  We now know that, in confirmation of what Martha said Anne told her, that Ellen Nussey did indeed invite Anne to come and stay with her, and there is also some confirmation of Martha’s account of the row between Anne and Charlotte about the latter interfering with the former’s correspondence.

  From what is now in the public domain, we know that Anne was quite capable of writing her own letters – indeed she wrote to Ellen only a week after the letter which I am about to discuss – but it had been Charlotte who thanked Ellen for the respirator, and it was Charlotte who now replied to Ellen’s invitation. She began with an ambiguous phrase: ‘I read your kind note to Anne . . .’ Now what, precisely, was that supposed to convey? It could be construed as meaning simply that Anne had read the note and then passed it to Charlotte. Alternatively, and more probably, it could have been worded in that way in order to give the impression that Anne was too ill to read anything for herself and that Charlotte had therefore read the note to her. Charlotte was usually very precise with her words, and we sh
ould therefore look askance at such loose phraseology.

  The letter to Ellen continued: ‘Papa says her state is most precarious,’ although whether he made any such remark must be in doubt because, as we have seen, it suited Charlotte’s purposes very well to exaggerate her sister’s condition. She then went on to the main purpose of her letter, which was to say that, in a month or two, and were she well enough, Anne wished to ‘go either to the seaside or to some inland watering place’. In that event, Charlotte would be unable to accompany her, as she would be needed at home to look after father, so would Ellen take her place?

  That part of the letter is surprising and, to a large extent, contradictory. Surprising because we know that Nicholls and Charlotte wanted Anne where they could see her, and contradictory because it made a nonsense of the impression about Anne’s ‘most precarious’ state which Charlotte had been so anxious to convey.

  Certainly she and Nicholls would not have wished to have Anne go off with Ellen, or anyone else come to that; so why did Charlotte write such a letter? Well, the reason is really quite simple: it is just that she did not want Anne to answer Ellen’s invitation. One can imagine the conversation which took place when it arrived, and Anne’s expression of her wishes.

  Charlotte: ‘What a good idea. I shall be writing to Ellen tonight; I’ll ask her if she’ll go with you, shall I? I’m sure she’ll agree.’ It would have seemed so natural, and Anne would have been saved the bother of replying. So Charlotte did write, and she did put Anne’s proposal to Ellen. She had no alternative, because Anne would have expected a reply, but there was method in her apparent foolishness, and in the solving of this problem we see Charlotte at her most devious.