Brontës

by Juliet Barker

than sober statement’. She referred Patrick to the third edition where, she claimed, Mrs Gaskell had ‘corrected’ his daughter’s mis-statements.110

  The letter was gratuitously offensive, prompting Arthur to look through the new edition to see exactly what concessions Mrs Gaskell had made to Charlotte’s erstwhile friend. Amongst the new material she had supplied, he found the passage she quoted from Harriet Martineau’s letter to Charlotte about the love in Villette. ‘Your letter is now in my possession’, he told her, ‘this passage does not occur in it – I shall adopt the same means, that you have, to inform the public that the individual, who accuses my wife of inaccuracies, has herself been guilty of a much graver offence.’111

  Clearly alarmed, Harriet Martineau wrote a self-justificatory letter, claiming to have supplied the quote from memory and that ‘in a spirit of kindness’ she had leapt to the defence of Patrick against the unjust imputations of William Dearden; in a desperate bid for sympathy she also told him that she was herself ‘deep in my last illness’ – as she had been for over two years and was to be until her death in 1876, nineteen years later. Nevertheless, she demanded to see the original of her letter or a certified copy. ‘This is the first step’, she ominously declared. ‘We shall then see what next.’112

  Arthur sent off a copy of the letter with an understandable but provocative retort.

  Your intention in writing to ‘the Daily News’ may have been very kind: but will you pardon me for saying that your interference was wholly gratuitous? Mr Brontë being quite competent to take care of himself: he would moreover have willingly dispensed with a vindication which was made the occasion of bringing a charge of general untruthfulness against his daughter.113

  Unable to deny that her supposed quotation was substantially different from her original letter, Harriet Martineau changed tack, accusing him of deliberately deceiving Mrs Gaskell by telling her that he had destroyed all Charlotte’s papers when he clearly had not. Aware now that he was dealing with a hysterical woman who might be on her deathbed, Arthur replied more patiently than he might otherwise have done, pointing out that he had claimed only to have destroyed Charlotte’s letters to himself. Patrick, too, wrote again, confessing how sorely he still felt his bereavement. ‘This it is that makes, both Mr Nicholls and me, feel sensitive, in regard to any prejudices, or misrepresentations, bearing upon the character of my Dear Daughter Charlotte.’ Reiterating the advice he had given Mrs Gaskell, he added, ‘Beware of the designs, of prejudiced, or reckless Informants.’114 This was clearly a reference to John Greenwood, who had told Miss Martineau that Arthur had burnt all Charlotte’s papers. She had wrongly believed that the statement had come directly from Arthur himself and had used it as further evidence of his duplicity in dealing with Mrs Gaskell. Forwarding a letter from Greenwood himself, in which he abjectly confessed that he only ‘believed Mrs Nicholls made it a rule not to keep letters, except those of importance’, Arthur could not restrain his anger at uncovering yet another example of unwarranted interference in his affairs. Greenwood’s letter showed that he acted ‘solely on supposition’ and ‘His position is not such as would have enabled him to know any thing of Miss Brontës private affairs further than what he [might] have learnt by gossiping with servants. His relation to Miss Brontë consisted in being the recipient of her bounty and advice, when in distress from the claims of a large family.’115

  Responding by return of post to Miss Martineau’s demand for all her letters to Charlotte to be sent back to her, Arthur informed her that he had not read any of them, except the ones relevant to the quarrel, and requested her to send Smith, Elder & Co. a revised transcript of her letter on Villette for inclusion in a future edition. This she agreed to do.116 The ‘warlike correspondence’ which had been carried on at a fast and furious pace – there are twelve extant letters written in only ten days – now came to an end. Arthur evidently sought to extend a hand of friendship at the close but Miss Martineau, taking the somewhat warped view that she had been vindicated by the correspondence, crowed to her friends about her ‘victory’: ‘I fancy these gentlemen (who are not gentlemen, however) have never before been opposed or called to account. In their own parish they reign by fears: and I hope it may be good for them to find they can get wrong.’117

  Whether it was good for them or not, this was the last occasion on which either Patrick or Arthur ventured personally into Brontë controversy. Clearly there was little to be gained and much to lose by sinking to the level of Charlotte’s critics: a dignified silence was the most appropriate response. From now on they would put their faith in the third edition of the Life of Charlotte Brontë to defend Charlotte’s reputation. As Patrick himself had declared:

  my opinion, and the reading world’s opinion of the ‘Memoir,’ is, that it is every way/ worthy of what one Great Woman, should have written of Another, and that it ought to stand, and will stand in the first rank, of Biographies, till the end of time.118

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THE END OF ALL

  In the general furore which greeted Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, the publication of Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, slipped by almost unnoticed. Printing began shortly after the biography had appeared but was so slow that Arthur, who meticulously proof-read every page, began to fear that he might lose the brief holiday he had planned to take in June. A plea to George Smith produced the desired effect and the book was ready for publication by the third week in May: it appeared as a two-volume set at the beginning of June. Characteristically self-effacing, Arthur only allowed his name to be appended to a brief foreword claiming that he had consented to the publication because ‘it has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold “The Professor” from the public’; he made no mention of his own conscientious work as editor and left his wife to speak for herself in the foreword she had written when proposing to revise it as her second publication.1

  Despite the huge interest in the Brontës’ works which the Life of Charlotte Brontë had stimulated, only 2,500 copies were printed. Though this was a respectable number for a hardbacked novel, it pales into insignificance when compared to the print runs and sales of the cheap editions of the Brontës’ works. Twenty-five thousand copies of Jane Eyre were printed in July 1857, with further reprints of 5,000 each six months and a year later; 20,000 copies of Shirley, printed in September 1857, had sold out within nine months; 15,000 copies of Villette were printed in December 1857 and 5,000 more six months later; even Wuthering Heights & Agnes Grey, despite its initial critical mauling, had its sales boosted to the extent that 15,000 had to be printed in March 1858. Though early sales of The Professor were not bad, almost two-thirds of the print run being sold within a month, there were still copies on hand five years later and the sales did not warrant the production of a cheap edition until 1860.2

  The lacklustre sales were mirrored by unenthusiastic reviews. Where the critics condescended to notice it at all, it was generally subsumed in a larger piece on the Life of Charlotte Brontë. Opinions ranged from ‘the poorest of all Charlotte Brontës productions’ to, in Frances Henri, ‘the most attractive female character that ever came from the pen of this author’. Though some reviewers doubted the wisdom of publishing a work which could not add to Charlotte’s literary reputation, all were agreed that it was remarkable as a literary curiosity and evidence of how Charlotte’s powers had developed in the interval between it and Villette?3 The cool response to The Professor did not disappoint Arthur, who had had no great expectations of success: ‘The Reviews of the work, which I have seen,’ he told George Smith, ‘are quite as favourable as I expected.’4

  The dramatic effect of the Life of Charlotte Brontë was not only felt on the sales of the Brontës’ novels but also on their home and neighbours. The book itself was in great demand in Haworth. One enterprising bookseller (John Greenwood, perhaps?) had bought a copy on its first issue and then lent it out at the rate of a shilling a week for each volume. Even at that price, those
who could not afford to purchase a copy outright were queuing up to borrow the volumes, which were eagerly read and criticized.5 Arthur found himself being unjustly reviled by the ‘charitable folks’ in the township, who assumed that he had supplied Mrs Gaskell with her grotesque tales about Haworth and its people, even though he was not aware of some of the stories until he saw them in the book.6

  The book had placed Haworth firmly on the map. There had been a trickle of tourists ever since the publication of Shirley and the identification of’Currer Bell’; in the wake of Mrs Gaskell’s powerful and emotive descriptions of the place, this now became a flood. ‘Haworth has been inundated with visitors—’, Arthur wrote to George Smith a mere two months after the biography had appeared. ‘But with one or two exceptions we have not seen any thing of them – It would be a great nuisance if they were to intrude on us—’7 By July the local papers had begun to comment. ‘The memoir of this lady is producing quite a revolution in the ancient village of Haworth’, declared the Bradford Observer and the Leeds Intelligencer.

  Scarcely a day passes that a score of visitors do not make a pilgrimage to the spot where Charlotte Brontë lived and died. The quiet rural inns, where refreshments for man & beast, of a plain but excellent kind, used to be obtainable at a fabulously low price, have raised their tariff to an equality with the most noted hotels in the pathways of tourists, & if they advance their charges much more they will rank among the most costly houses of entertainment in the Queen’s dominions. The old proverb, ‘make your hay while the sun shines’, is diligently obeyed by the bonifaces in this locality.8

  Tourists walking up the main street were confronted with the first examples of Brontë souvenirs: even the chemist was cashing in on the trend, displaying photographs of Patrick Brontë, the church and the parsonage for sale in his windows. William Brown, who had taken his brother’s place as sexton, was similarly milking the tourists for all they were worth, inviting them to see Charlotte’s signature in the marriage register and then showing them his own collection of photographs ‘with an intimation that they were for sale’.9 It is difficult to believe that his rector and curate were aware of how he was abusing his position in the church.

  ‘From different parts of this variegated world,’ Patrick informed Mrs Gaskell with a mixture of pride and irritation, ‘we have in this place daily/ many strangers, who from various motives, pay a visit to the Church and neighbourhood, and would, if we would let them, pay a gossiping visit to us, in our proper persons.’10

  Among the ‘select few’ who were granted the privilege of an interview was the Duke of Devonshire, who stopped for about an hour at the parsonage and invited Arthur and Patrick to visit him at his seat at Bolton Abbey in September.’11 A less illustrious but equally favoured visitor was a correspondent of the Bradford Observer, whose complaint has been echoed by every tourist since. ‘Our previous conceptions of the locality had been formed entirely from Mrs Gaskell’s description and the frontispiece to the “Memoirs of Charlotte Brontë;” and we found all our expectations most gloriously disappointed’, he reported.

  We had supposed Haworth to be a scattered and straggling hamlet, with a desolate vicarage and a dilapidated church, surrounded and shut out from the world by a wilderness of barren heath, the monotony of the prospect only broken by the tombstones in the adjacent graveyard. Our straggling hamlet we found transformed into a large and flourishing village – not a very enlightened or poetical place certainly, but quaint, compact, and progressive, wherein, by the bye, we observed three large dissenting chapels and two or three well-sized schools.

  One of Martha Brown’s sisters was a waitress at the White Lion Inn, where the correspondent and his friend took their dinner, and through her they obtained a fifteen-minute interview with Patrick at the parsonage. Their faith in Mrs Gaskell, already undermined, underwent a further diminution during the visit. Patrick so impressed them with his fine physique, despite his eighty years, his courteous and gentlemanly bearing and his obviously sincere feeling, that they deliberately set out to find out what his parishioners thought of him. One and all pronounced him to be held in great affection and respect and all denied knowledge of Mrs Gaskell’s pistol-shooting anecdotes.12

  Another visitor was Edward White Benson, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, but then only a twenty-nine-year-old clergyman, who was granted an interview in January 1858, presumably because he was a cousin of the Sidgwicks of Stonegappe where Charlotte had once been a governess. Naturally they discussed Mrs Gaskell’s biography, Patrick revealing that neither he nor his son-in-law had been consulted by Mrs Gaskell and lamenting not only his own caricature but also the ‘many unfounded things pertaining to our neighbours’ which had appeared in the book: with his usual penetration he also observed that though the third edition was more truthful, vulgar readers would always prefer the first’.13

  With so many tourists of varying degrees of fame coming to Haworth, it was perhaps not surprising that advantage was taken of them in more ways than one. Approaches had been made to the Duke of Devonshire, through Sir Joseph Paxton, seeking financial assistance towards a public subscription in Haworth which was intended to fund the provision of heating in the church and schools. ‘This has been done, without our knowledge,’ Patrick wrote indignantly to Sir Joseph,

  and most assuredly, had we known it, would have met with our strongest opposition. We have no claim on the Duke. His Grace, honour’d us with a visit, in token of his respect for the memory of the Dead, and His liberality and munificence, are well, and widely known, and the mercenary, taking an unfair advantage of these circumstances, have taken a step which both Mr Nicholls, and I utterly regret and condemn.14

  Though Patrick and Arthur were anxious not to profit financially by the fame which Mrs Gaskell’s biography had brought them, Patrick was only too delighted when, having read the book, former friends got in touch again. He wrote anxiously to correct James Cheadle, the incumbent of Bingley, who had told an enquirer that Patrick was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, ‘since the Inquirer may be some old friend, with whom I shall like to revive half-dead associations. At any age, this is pleasant, but at mine, it is especially so – since many I once knew and esteem’d and loved, are now gone, and but few new ones, have arisen, to take their place –’.15

  An old colleague at St John’s College was one of the first to renew contact. The Reverend John Nunn, Patrick’s fellow sizar, was now the rector of Thorndon in Suffolk and, although some five years younger than Patrick, was in a very poor state of health. Clearly he and his wife had derived an alarming picture of the backward state of Haworth from Mrs Gaskell. They offered to send Patrick a newspaper (until he pointed out that he could see any paper he wished through his own subscriptions and the various institutions in the village) and followed this up by offering him a home with them in their large and comfortable rectory. Despite their illusions about the barbarous state of Patrick’s neighbourhood, there was much pleasure to be gained from grumbling together about the bad spirit of the present age and the shocking spread of’Romish idolatry’.16

  Another old friend who was prompted to write by the biography was the Reverend Robinson Pool, who had been minister of the Dissenting chapel in Thornton during Patrick’s incumbency there. His letters brought back memories of a different and more poignant kind. ‘I can fancy, almost, that we are still at Thornton, good neighbours, and kind, and sincere friends, and happy with our wives and children’, Patrick wrote. ‘You have had your trials, both sharp, and severe, but God has given you grace, and strength sufficient unto your day – My trials you have heard of – I feard often, that I should sink under them; but the Lord remembered mercy in judgement, and I am still living.’17

  The pleasure of renewing old friendships was somewhat marred by sad news from Buckinghamshire: William Morgan, if not Patrick’s oldest then certainly his closest friend, had died on 30 March 1858, while on a visit to Bath.18 Like John Nunn and Robinson Pool, he was several years younge
r than Patrick himself who, having outlived all his family, now seemed likely to outlive all his friends. That his own death must now be close at hand did not trouble Patrick, however, and he set about making preparations with the calmness of an unquestioning faith. It was at about this time that he ordered a new memorial tablet for his family in Haworth Church. The old one had been so full of names that the letters had had to be made smaller and the lines more cramped together towards the bottom of the tablet. By the time Charlotte died, it was so full that her name could not be added and had to be inscribed on a separate plaque below. The simple and elegant new tablet, sculpted by Mr Greaves of Halifax, was made of Carrara marble and plainly ornamented. The names, ages and dates of death of Mrs Brontë and her six children were inscribed, and space was left for the insertion of Patrick’s own name below that of his family. William Brown was entrusted with the task of removing the old tablet, breaking it up and burying it in a corner of the parsonage garden, safe from the prying eyes and hands of souvenir hunters.19

  For the rest, Patrick lived quietly and simply enough, continuing to preach in his church but, after a severe attack of bronchitis in the spring of 1858, only doing so once each Sunday. James Hoppin, a professor from Yale, heard him preach on a text from Job, ‘There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest’, about this time. The sermon impressed him both by its delivery – ‘the simple extemporaneous talk of an aged pastor to his people, spoken without effort, in short, easy sentences’ – and by its obvious personal application – ‘he seemed to long for wings like a dove to fly away from this changeful scene, and be at rest’.20