A more positive outcome of the visit was that Mrs Gaskell, her romantic heart all aquiver with sympathy for the thwarted lovers, determined to do a little matchmaking on their behalf. A month after her visit she wrote in triumph to her friend Richard Monckton Milnes. ‘With skilful diplomacy, for which I admire myself extremely, I have obtained the address we want’, she announced. She had sworn Monckton Milnes to secrecy, for ‘if my well-meant treachery becomes known to her I shall lose her friendship, which I prize most highly’, but she needed his help because, as a powerful, influential and wealthy patron of the arts, he had access to the funds of various charitable institutions. ‘I have been thinking over little bits of the conversation we had relating to a pension’, she told him, adding with a sure instinct,
I do not think she would take it; and I am quite sure that one hundred a year given as acknowledgement of his merits, as a good faithful clergyman would give her ten times the pleasure that two hundred a year would do, if bestowed upon her in her capacity as a writer. I am sure he is a thoroughly good hard-working, self-denying curate … Her father’s only reason for his violent & virulent opposition is Mr Nicholls’s utter want of money, or friends to help him to any professional advancement.75
Having set the wheels in motion for an Anglican clergyman to receive a pension for services rendered, the Dissenter Mrs Gaskell sat back and waited to see the result of her plotting.
Her departure had left Charlotte feeling even more isolated and unhappy than usual. ‘After you left, the house felt very much as if the shutters had been suddenly closed and the blinds let down. One was sensible during the remainder of the day of a depressing silence, shadow, loss, and want’.76 She found some occupation in writing to Francis Bennoch, her would-be patron, who had called just before Mrs Gaskell arrived. Turning down his invitation to stay with him in London, she added that she would very much like to call on him, ‘though at present I see little prospect of events calling me there’. The following Sunday she had two clergymen to entertain, William Cartman, who gave the afternoon sermon at Stanbury, and John Burnett, the vicar of Bradford, who preached in the evening at Haworth.77
Having performed these duties, Charlotte left home again, seeking refuge with Miss Wooler, this time at Hornsea, a quiet seaside town south of the more fashionable resorts of Scarborough and Bridlington. Charlotte spent a pleasant week, despite the mishap of a child being sick into her lap on the coach journey home.78 At Haworth, another dreary month passed by with nothing to relieve the strained relations between father and daughter except the occasional visiting clergyman who came to assist with the services.79
In the middle of November, Charlotte suddenly decided to go to London. There was an element of mystery about this visit from the start. Charlotte told Mrs Gaskell:
Now – I believe – it will be necessary for me to go up to London erelong on a little matter of business (nothing relating to literature or publishing, as I hardly need say – but wholly and solely touching my small income) and I want to know if you could suggest to me where I could get quiet and respectable lodgings for a few days … I might of course apply to Mr Smith – but then he would ask me to stay at his Mother’s which I would rather avoid. I merely wish to go quietly – to get my business done and to come home.80
If Charlotte’s explanation was genuine, the ‘business’ is likely to have been connected with her capital which George Smith had invested for her in the Funds and which paid her a regular dividend through his hands. She had not heard from George Smith since the middle of July, a fact which, combined with her earlier disappointment at receiving only five hundred pounds for the copyright of Villette, instead of the seven hundred for which she had hoped, may have made her decide to end his power of attorney and take her financial affairs back into her own control.81 Alternatively, as Mr NichoUs persisted in his courtship, she may simply have wished to discover how much she was worth and whether she had enough money to enable them to marry in defiance of her father. If she was contemplating even the possibility of marrying, however half-heartedly, it is understandable that she would not wish to confide in George Smith. A more likely possibility, in the light of subsequent events, is that Charlotte, concerned at her publisher’s long silence, simply intended to make the sort of ‘visitation of the unannounced and unsummoned apparition of Currer Bell in Cornhill’ she had threatened once before.82
On 21 November, she wrote to Mrs Shaen, one of the Winkworth sisters who were close friends of Mrs Gaskell, and asked her to book lodgings that she had recommended in Bedford Place for a week from 24 November.83 By a curious twist of fate, however, on the same day she received an unexpected letter from George Smith, which caused her great consternation: ‘tho’ brief and not explicit’ it ‘seemed indicative of a good deal of uneasiness & disturbance of mind’. Charlotte’s suspicions were immediately aroused and she wrote not to him, but to his mother, for an explanation. ‘What ails him?’ she demanded. ‘Do you feel uneasy about him, or do you think he will soon be better? If he is going to take any important step in life – as some of his expressions would seem to imply – is it one likely to conduce to his happiness and welfare?’84 Clearly she found it as impossible to ask George Smith himself if he was to be married as he found it to tell her.
Poor Mrs Smith was left with the uncomfortable task of telling Charlotte that her son was indeed about to announce his engagement to Elizabeth Blakeway, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy London wine merchant, whom he had met in April and fallen in love with at first sight. Ironically, she was just the sort of bride Charlotte had predicted would suit George Smith, and, naturally, far more eligible than Charlotte Brontë. Mrs Smith struggled for words as she drafted the unpalatable news.
I shall answer you[r] kind enquiries about my Son with a great deal of pleasure – he is quite well and very happy – he is thinking of taking a very important step in Life the most important and I know/ with every prospect of happiness. I am very thankful and pleased about it – I am sure he will as soon as it is quite settled enter into all the particulars with you – it is not so yet tho’ I have no doubt in my own mind all will be as his best Friends could wish and you will soon/ hear from him again …85
As Mrs Smith intended, this letter left no room for doubt. George Smith was about to be engaged to be married, his choice had the full weight of his family’s approval and his ‘best Friends’ could not wish it otherwise. Any linGéring hopes Charlotte may have cherished in that direction herself were absolutely crushed. Lucy should not marry Dr John.
Just how hurt Charlotte was by this news was manifest in her reactions. She immediately cancelled her trip to London with a laconic ‘Man proposes but Another disposes’, announcing that ‘circumstances have taken a turn which will prevent my intended journey to London’.86 She packed up and returned to Cornhill a box of their books, following it with a curt note to Williams: ‘Do not trouble yourself to select or send any more books. These courtesies must cease some day – and I would rather give them up than wear them out’.87 When the letter she dreaded finally arrived bearing the official tidings of George Smith’s engagement, she wrote him an even more brusque and savage reply.
Decbr 10th 1853
My dear Sir
In great happiness, as in great grief – words of sympathy should be few. Accept my meed of congratulation – and believe me
Sincerely yours
C. Brontë
George Smith Esqre88
The proffered congratulations provided but a thin veil against the scorching intensity of Charlotte’s pain; George Smith could be left in no doubt that he had caused the bitterest hurt and deepest offence. The relationship between Currer Bell and Smith, Elder & Co., Charlotte Brontë and George Smith, lay in smouldering ruins.
Abandoned by the two people she cared for most, George Smith and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte’s sense of isolation grew intense. ‘I wonder how you are spending these long winter
evenings’, she wrote to Miss Wooler. ‘Alone – probably – like me.’ To Mrs Gaskell she explained how living ‘a very still lonely life’, when the post brought a friendly letter it was an immediate stimulus to reply. ‘You put it away, saying in about three days I shall reply. The three days pass; you happen to be a little downcast; it seems to you that you have nothing to say worth saying. It may be very pleasant to you to receive letters, but what can you write worth imparting?’89
It was not surprising, feeling both isolated and betrayed by her closest friends, that Charlotte finally turned to the one person who had loved her consistently and unconditionally, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She decided to give him a fair chance and to that end she had to inform her father that they had been writing to each other for the last six months. There was a certain relief from guilt in making the confession.
The correspondence pressed on my mind. I grew very miserable in keeping it from Papa. At last sheer pain made me gather courage to break it – I told all. It was very hard and rough work at the time – but the issue after a few days was that I obtained leave to continue the communication.90
More importantly, she demanded the right to become better acquainted with her suitor. This was a complete volte face: from complete deference to her father’s wishes, she was now setting out the agenda and demanding his compliance with her wishes. It may be unfair to Arthur Nicholls, but one cannot avoid the suspicion that Patrick’s implacable opposition to the match had been a useful excuse for Charlotte to turn him down. Despite Mrs Gaskell’s impressions of dutiful and unhappy resignation to paternal duty, Charlotte had not been certain in her own mind that she should marry Mr Nicholls. She had always used Patrick’s ill health as an excuse for preventing her leaving home; that excuse served again while she remained undecided about Mr Nicholls; it was to be dropped just as unceremoniously when it no longer coincided with her wishes. With the dream of a more brilliant destiny as the wife of George Smith finally shattered, with her Cornhill connections severed and her lifelong friendship with Ellen apparently at an end, the love of a good and worthy, if ordinary, man suddenly seemed more precious. Even if the feeling was not mutual, no one could doubt that he cared for her: he offered her security, affection and loyalty. The dawning of this realization marked the end of Charlotte’s dutiful obedience; she would fight tooth and nail for the right to a chance of happiness.
Patrick had never been able to gainsay his daughter when she decided something and he now, reluctantly and with bad grace, conceded that Charlotte and her suitor should be allowed to meet. Mr Grant was once more pressed into service and in January 1854, Mr NichoUs spent ten days at Oxenhope vicarage. This time the meetings were all open and above board. Charlotte had the ‘opportunity to become better acquainted’ she had demanded of her father with the result that ‘all I learnt inclined me to esteem and, if not love – at least affection.’ Patrick, though still ‘very – very hostile – bitterly unjust’, was compelled not only to acquiesce in the meetings but also to receive his prospective son-in-law at the parsonage, a task which he performed ‘not pleasantly’.91
Though his prospects were so suddenly and unexpectedly improved, Mr NichoUs still did not have an easy time of it. Even the weather was against him, heavy snowfalls in the new year having been followed by severe frosts which froze the snow to a depth of three feet or more.92 Before he left, Charlotte warned him that he still had great obstacles in his way, so he returned to Kirk Smeaton comforted but by no means confident. Soon after his return he had an interview with Richard Monckton Milnes who had, at Mrs Gaskell’s behest, exerted his influence on his behalf. ‘I must tell you that I made Mr NichoUs’ acquaintance in Yorkshire’, he reported back:
He is a strong-built, somewhat hard-featured man, with a good deal of Celtic sentiment about his manner & voice – quite of the type of the northern Irishman.
He seemed sadly broken in health & spirits & declined two cures, which Dr. Hook enabled me to offer him – one in Lancashire of considerable interest, [but?] requiring much energy; – another in Scotland, requiring none at all. He gave me the impression of a man whose ardour was burnt out. I was amused at his surprise at the interest I took in him & I carefully avoided any mention of you. He spoke with great respect of Mr Brontë’s abilities & character & of her simply & unreservedly.93
It was hardly surprising that Mr Nicholls should decline the posts offered to him: it was more essential than ever that he should be near Haworth so that he did not lose the little advantage he had already gained. His remarkable lack of bitterness towards Patrick was consistent with his attitude throughout the affair – and wholly admirable.
Now that Mr Nicholls was accepted (however reluctantly) as a suitor for Charlotte’s hand, the atmosphere at the parsonage gradually returned to normality. Patrick busied himself with parish affairs: the extreme hardship caused by a three-month-long strike at Merralls’ mill; the dispute between Bradford and Keighley over plans to draw water from the Worth River, which would have put paid to Patrick’s own schemes for Haworth; an invitation to attend a Church Pastoral Aid Society meeting in Bradford.94 Two dramatic incidents, occurring within a fortnight of each other, must also have claimed his attention and exercised his pastoral care. Feelings were still running high after the prolonged strikes of the winter over the introduction of the two-loom system and someone discharged a gun into the houses of two weavers who were working the system at Butterfield’s mill, breaking windows and damaging property but not causing injury or loss of life. A fifty-pound reward was offered for the conviction of the offenders. The second incident caused even greater excitement: the body of a newborn boy was discovered buried in a field. The inquest established that he was the child of an unmarried mother, Susey Sunderland, who had kept her pregnancy secret and delivered herself some six to eight weeks previously. Anxious to avoid scandal and to keep her job, she had not sought medical attention and had missed only half a day’s work at the mill. As it could not be proved that she had murdered the child, the inquest simply recorded a verdict that he had been – found dead in a field’.95
Despite the human tragedy behind both these stories, which must have interested the novelist in Charlotte, she made no reference to either of them in her letters. She was absorbed in her literary correspondence and making tentative plans for the future. She accepted an invitation to stay with Francis Bennoch and his wife in London in May with the proviso that
I will trust you for not ‘lionizing’ me – indeed I should suppose I am now too far out of date to make an eligible ‘lion’ or ‘lioness’ – but at any rate – you will I know spare me that vulgarizing process to which I have ever felt an insurmountable repugnance. It would not answer with me, for I could not always/ ‘roar’ when I was bid – I am afraid I should sometimes disappoint my shewmen.96
She wrote to thank Sydney Dobell for the gift of his second book, Balder: a dramatic poem of lurid and morbid colouring. Recognizing that it would not be as popular as his first work, she offered a sympathy born of her own experience: ‘How is it that – while the first-born of genius often brings honour – the second, almost as often, proves a source rather of depression and care? I could almost prophesy that your third will atone for any anxiety inflicted by this his immediate predecessor.’97
Literary criticism was also sought from her from an altogether different quarter. Not for the first time, a hopeful author presumed upon family acquaintance to ask her opinion of his work.98 Henry Garrs, a younger brother of Nancy and Sarah Garrs, the Brontës’ nurserymaids, sought her advice on publishing some poems he had written. Charlotte made it clear that ‘any opinion I may give is intended merely for your private satisfaction – not for public use’, but took the trouble to go through the manuscript with great care, marking ‘prominent errors’ in spelling and rhythm. After careful revision and provided he could get sufficient subscribers, she thought that he would be justified in publishing his poems – though warning him of the fate of Poems by Currer, El
lis and Acton Bell. ‘Should you decide on publishing, you may put down my father’s name and my own as subscribers for a copy each. Be very cautious however not to commit yourself to pecuniary risk. Printers and Publishers are hazardous men to deal with: it is seldom an author comes off without loss.’99
It was ironic that on the very day she wrote this advice to Henry Garrs she unexpectedly received a cheque for thirty pounds from the ‘shuffling scamp’ himself, Thomas Cautley Newby.100 It had taken him the best part of four years to produce the money he owed for her sisters’ publications.
Charlotte had also resumed her correspondence with Ellen Nussey. Her first few letters were non-committal and avoided all mention of the burning issue which had been responsible for their quarrel in the first place.101 Ellen remained unaware of how matters had progressed until, towards the end of March, Charlotte accidentally put letters to Mr Nicholls and Ellen in the wrong envelopes and thus inadvertently revealed to her friend that she was not only in correspondence with Arthur Nicholls but also about to welcome him on a visit to the parsonage. Evidently flustered, Charlotte tired to gloss over the importance of the visit and make amends by inviting Ellen to Haworth as well.
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