Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  29. CB to WSW, [20 Dec 1848]: MS in Scripps [LCB, ii, 155]. I am grateful to Margaret Smith for drawing this ms, which was then unpublished, to my attention.

  30. WSW to CB, 21 Dec 1848: Ms pp.1–4, 6–7, in private hands [LCB, ii, 155–7].

  31. CB to WSW, 25 Dec 1848: MS Ashley 2452 p.1, BL [LCB, ii, 159].

  32. Ibid., p.3 [LCB, ii, 159].

  33. BO, 21 Dec 1848 p.5; HG, 23 Dec 1848 p.8; LI, 23 Dec 1848 p.5; LM, 23 Dec 1848 p.8. All the newspapers wrongly place Emily in her 29th year, instead of her 30th, as does the funeral card which was printed by Joseph Fox, Confectioner, who presumably supplied the funeral tea: EJB, funeral card, 19 Dec 1848. Two pairs of white funeral gloves, issued at the burials of unmarried women and associated with Emily’s, are HAOBP: D60 and D61, BPM. Plaited necklaces and bracelets, made from Emily’s and Anne’s hair, are HAOBP: J12, J43 and J51, BPM. Mourning jewellery, made from the hair of the deceased, was a popular memento of the dead in the days before photography became cheap and commonplace.

  34. Burials, Haworth (22 Dec 1848). The entry is recorded by Nicholls. Martha Brown told ECG the details of the funeral procession: ECG to [?John Forster], [Sept 1853] [C&P, 246]. For Keeper see CB to WSW, 25 June 1849: MS BS 70 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 224].

  35. CB to EN, [23 Dec 1848]: MS p.1, Berg [LCB, ii, 157].

  36. CB to WSW, 25 Dec 1848: MS Ashley 2452 p.3, BL [LCB, ii, 159].

  37. CB to WSW, 7 Dec 1848: MS Gr. F6 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 148]; CB to WSW, 14 Aug 1848: MS p.6, Berg [LCB, ii, 100], in which Charlotte had said ‘My sister Anne wishes me to say that should she ever write another work, Mr Smith will certainly have the first offer of the copyright.’ For Emily’s second novel see above, pp.629–31.

  38. By July 1853 only 279 copies out of the 961 purchased from Aylott & Jones at 6d. each had been sold: G.D. Hargreaves, ‘The Publishing of “Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell”‘, BST:15:79:299; unsigned review, Spectator, 11 Nov 1848 pp.1094–5 [Allott, 64–6].

  39. AB, The Three Guides, 11 Aug 1847: MS Bon 136, BPM [Chitham, 144–5]; Fraser’s Magazine, Aug 1848, 193–5: ECG, Life, 233. This was not, as Chitham claims, the only poem by Anne, other than in Poems 1846, to appear in print in her lifetime; nor was it, as he concludes, the poem Gaskell reports Ellen saying was published in Chamber’s Journal while she was staying at Haworth. Anne probably learnt that ‘The Narrow Way’ had been published in Fraser’s Magazine from the LI, 30 Dec 1848 p.7which reprinted the poem in its poetry column under the heading ‘From Frazer’s Magazine for the present Month’.

  40. AB, The Narrow Way, 24 Apr 1848: MS Ashley 54 pp.9–10, BL [Chitham, 161–2]. I have followed the version printed in LI, 30 Dec 1848 p.7.

  41. Unsigned review, Sharpe’s London Magazine, Aug 1848 pp.181–4 [Allott, 265]; AB to Revd David Thom, 30 Dec 1848: MS pp.2–3, 6–7, Princeton. Though Anne says that she had discovered the doctrine for her-self, I suspect that she may have been introduced to it by Revd James La Trobe during her religious crisis as a school-girl at Roe Head (see above, pp.327–331). Moravians, like Christadelphians and Anabaptists, openly espoused a belief in uni-versal salvation. The idea that salvation was ultimately achievable, whatever sins the believer had committed, was the antithesis of the Calvinist belief in the elect to which Anne (and Charlotte) had been exposed. Naturally it would have appealed to her, given her sense of her own unworthiness. Significantly, Charlotte would later openly admit her belief in universal salvation, rounding on Miss Wooler who had reported clerical criticism of Jane Eyre and Shirley: ‘I am sorry the Clergy do not like the doctrine of Universal Salvation; I think it a great pity for their sakes, but surely they are not so unreasonable as to expect me to deny or suppress what I believe the truth!’: CB to MW, 14 Feb 1850: MS FM 8 p.2, Fitzwilliam [LCB, ii, 343]. I suspect that Patrick also believed in universal salvation: he could not preach the doctrine openly because Anglican clergymen who did so could be deprived of their livings (which explains Anne’s caution in describing her ‘hints in support’ as ‘mere suggestions’) but his liberal attitude towards, for instance, criminals (see above, pp.184, 195) suggests that he did not believe in eternal damnation.

  42. CB to EN, 10 Dec 1848: MS p.1, Harvard [LCB, ii, 152].

  43. EN, Reminiscences [BST:8:42:21].

  44. CB to WSW, 2 Jan 1849: MS p.2, Berg [LCB, ii, 165]; CB to GS, 22 Jan 1849: MS SG 20 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 171].

  45. CB to EN, 10 Jan 1849: MS HM 24463 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 166]; CB to EN, 15 Jan 1849: MS pp.1–2, Berg [LCB, ii, 169].

  46. CB to WSW, [?13 Jan 1849]: MS Bon 205 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 168].

  47. AB, ‘A dreadful darkness closes in’, 7–28 Jan 1849: MS Bon 137 pp.1–2, BPM [JB ST no.26; Chitham, 163–4]. The poem exists in rough draft only and has several versions of some words and lines. The second verse has 2cancelled readings to describe the mist, ‘rolling’ and ‘gathering’, plus one alternative ‘blinding’. In the 5th verse, ‘pure’ is an alter-native for ‘Keen’, in the 6th ‘breaking’ for ‘bleeding’ and in the 7th ‘For’ for ‘O’.

  48. Ibid., pp.1–2, the 3rd verse quoted here has an alternative 2nd line, ‘What ever be’ for ‘Whate’er’ and ‘may be’ for ‘my written’.

  49. CB to WSW, [?13 Jan 1849]: MS Bon 205 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 167–8]. Ellen had returned home, leaving her box behind, by 9 January: Charlotte rejected a proferred visit from the Taylors, feeling unable to receive them properly: CB to EN, 10 Jan 1849: MS HM 24463 pp.1–3, Huntington [LCB, ii, 166].

  50. CB to WSW, [?13 Jan 1849]: MS Bon 205 pp.1–2, 3–5, BPM [LCB, ii, 167–8]. The fifth page of this letter is missing.

  51. CB to EN, 15 Jan 1849: MS pp.3, 2, Berg [LCB, ii, 169]; CB to EN, [c.29 Jan 1849]: MS MA 2696 R-V p.3, PM [LCB, ii, 173].

  52. Ibid., p.2[LCB, ii, 172]; CB to WSW, 1 Feb 1849: MS Gr. F7 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 174–5]. Charlotte asked Ellen to buy the 30s. respirator.

  53. CB to GS, 22 Jan 1849: MS SG 20 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 170–1]; CB to EN, [c.29 Jan 1849]: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.2–3, PM [LCB, ii, 173].

  54. CB to WSW, [?13 Jan 1849]: MS Bon 205 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 168]. CB to WSW, 1Feb 1849: MS Gr. F7 pp.1–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 174–5] notes Anne’s improvement and Charlotte’s revival of interest in literary mat-ters.

  55. Ibid., p.4[LCB, ii, 174].

  56. CB to WSW, 4Feb 1849: MS BS 67 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 177].

  57. CB to James Taylor, 1Mar 1849: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 188].

  58. CB to WSW, [?c.10 Feb 1849]: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 181].

  59. CBto EN, [c.13 June 1845]: MS HM 24440 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 399].

  60. CB to WSW, [?c.10 Feb 1849]: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 181]; CB to WSW, [?1Mar 1849]: MS Bon 208 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 185].

  61. CB, Shirley, 632. When describing ‘the premature and sudden vanishing of Mr Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish’, she added a weighted comment in similar vein: ‘you cannot know how it happened, reader; your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love of the pretty and pleasing’: ibid, 634.

  62. CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 15 Mar 1849: MS p.3, in private hands [LCB, ii, 190–1]. I am grateful to Roger Barrett for a photocopy of this ms and permission to quote from it.

  63. PB to Mr Rand, 26 Feb 1849: MS Bon 252, BPM [LCB, ii, 184–5]. The Rands had left Haworth for Stalybridge in the spring of 1845: CB to Mrs Rand, 26 May [1845]: MS 2696 R-V, PM [LCB, i, 393–4]; PB to Mr Rand, 5 June 1845: MS n.l. [LRPB, 185].

  64. CB to EN, 29 Mar 1849: MS Bon 207 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 194].

  65. Ibid., p.4 [LCB, ii, 194]; AB to EN, 5Apr 1849: MS BS 5pp.1–5, BPM [JB ST no.28; LCB, ii, 194–5].

  66. Ibid., pp.2–8 [LCB, ii, 195].

  67. CB to EN, 12 Apr 1849: MS Bon 209 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 200].

  68. PB, annotations in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine: HAOBP:bb210 p.247, BPM; CB to EN, 12 Apr 1849: MS Bon 209 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 200], where Charlotte adds that they will go in ‘a month or six weeks hence’ if Anne con
tinued to insist on going; four days later, she was already deferring the journey to 6–8weeks hence: CB to WSW, 16 Apr 1849: MS p.2, Princeton [LCB, ii, 201].

  69. Ibid., p.2 [LCB, ii, 201]; CB to WSW, 8May 1849: MS MA 2696 R-V p.3, PM [LCB, ii, 206], where she remarks of the servants ‘One of them [Tabby] is indeed now old and infirm and unfit to stir much from her chair by the kitchen fireside – but the other is young and active and even she has lived with us seven years.’

  70. CB to EN, 12 Apr 1849: MS Bon 209 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 200].

  71. CB to EN, 1May 1849: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–3, PM [LCB, ii, 205].

  72. CB to EN[c.12–14 May 1849]: MS pp.1–2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 208]. For Fanny Outhwaite’s death, aged 54, on 14 February 1849, see LI, 17 Feb 1849 p.5.

  73. CB to MW, 16 May 1849: MS FM 7 pp.1–3, Fitzwilliam [LCB, ii, 210]. See also CB to EN, 16 May 1849: MS HM 24468 p.1, Huntington [LCB, ii, 211].

  74. Ibid., p.1[LCB, ii, 211]. Ellen’s presence at Haworth prior to the Brontës’ departure is presumed from Charlotte’s purchase of 3 train tickets from Keighley to Leeds costing 10s in all and confirmed by Ellen’s diary where the entry on Wednesday 23 May ‘To Scarbro’ with CB & AB’ is deleted and replaced with ‘To Leeds’; next day she records ‘to Haworth – at York – the George Hotel’: CB, Cash Book, [1848–9]: MS BS 22 p.11, BPM; EN, [Diary], [1849] in A Christian Remembrancer (London 1849): HAOBP:bb112, BPM [23 and 24 May 1849].

  75. CB to EN, 16 May 1849: MS HM 24468 p.1, Huntington [LCB, ii, 211]; CB to WSW, 4June 1849: MS Ashley 2452 pp.2–3, BL [LCB, ii, 216].

  76. CB to WSW, [27 May 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 213].

  77. CB to EN[c.12–14 May 1849]: MS p.2crossed, Harvard [LCB, ii, 209]. A list of items titled ‘To be bought’ appears on the opposite page to the relevant expenditure in CB, Cash Book, [1848–9]: MS BS 22 p.10, BPM. Ellen identifies the George Hotel as their quarters in York and, according to Charlotte’s cash book, their stay cost them £20s 6d: EN, [Diary], [1849]: HAOBP: bb112, BPM (24 May 1849); CB, Cash Book, [1848–9]: MS BS 22 p.11, BPM.

  78. CB to WSW, [27 May 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 213]; EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS pp.1–2, KSC [LCB, ii, 739]. ECG, Life, 307–10 used Ellen’s account selectively, omitting certain passages. Ellen appears to have expanded her account in the 1870s as the version quoted in Reid, 95–7[LCB, ii, 214 n.2] includes details not included in this ms.

  79. EN, Reminiscences [Reid, 95; LCB, ii, 214 n.2]; EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS p.3, KSC [LCB, ii, 739].

  80. EN, [Diary], [1849]: HAOBP:bb112, BPM (27 May 1849); CB, Cash Book, [1848–9]: MS BS 22 p.12, BPM.

  81. EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS p.3, KSC [LCB, ii, 739]; CB to WSW, [27 May 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 213].

  82. EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS pp.4–7, KSC [LCB, ii, 739–40]; ECG, Life, 308–9.

  83. EN, Reminiscences [Reid, 96; LCB, ii, 214 n.2].

  84. Ibid.; EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS pp.8–11, KSC [LCB, ii, 740]; EN, Reminiscences [Reid, 96–7; LCB, ii, 214 n.2]; ECG, Life, 309.

  85. CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 p.2, BL [LCB, ii, 220]; EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS p.10, KSC [LCB, ii, 740]; ECG, Life, 309.

  86. EN, ‘A short account of the last days of dear A.B.’, n.d.: MS pp.11–12, KSC [LCB, ii, 740–1]; CB to WSW, 30 May 1849: MS p.1, Berg [LCB, ii, 214].

  87. AB, Death Certificate, 28 May 1849: MS BS x, D, BPM. Curiously, though a doctor had attended Anne’s final hours, he neither certified nor registered the death. Miss Wooler is the ‘lady from the same neigh-bourhood as E[llen]’ who unobtrusively attended Anne’s funeral: ECG, Life, 310: Max Blakeley, ‘Memories of Margaret Wooler and her Sisters’, BST:12:62:114.

  88. Scarborough Gazette, 31 May 1849 pp.1, 3. The same edition, p.2, included Charlotte’s and Ellen’s names among the Scarborough visitors. In the deaths column Anne’s address is given as Brookroyd, Birstall, near Leeds, suggesting either that Ellen supplied this information directly or that it had been taken from Ellen’s details, given as the informant, on the death certificate. The death was reported correctly a week later in the West Riding papers: BO, 5 June 1849 p.8; HG, 9 June 1849 p.8; LM, 2 June 1849 p.8; LI, 2June 1849 p.5.

  89. CB to PB, 29 May 1849: MS n.l. but referred to in ECG, Life, 310.

  90. Register of Burials, 1841–1900, St Mary’s Church, Scarborough (30 May 1849). A week after Anne’s burial, a stray cannonball from the Civil War and a bell were both found embedded in the north walls of St Mary’s church during their demolition: LM, 9June 1845 (supp) p.11.

  91. ECG, Life, 310; Max Blakeley, ‘Memories of Margaret Wooler and her Sisters’, BST:12:62:114. See above, n.87.

  92. CB to WSW, 4 June 1849: MS Ashley 2452 pp.1–2, BL [LCB, ii, 216].

  93. CB to WSW, 30 May 1849: MS p.1, Berg [LCB, ii, 214]; CB to WSW, 4June 1849: MS Ashley 2452 p.3, BL [LCB, ii, 216].

  94. CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 p.2, BL [LCB, ii, 220].

  95. CB to WSW, 4June 1849: MS Ashley 2452 p.3, BL [LCB, ii, 216]; CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 p.2, BL [LCB, ii, 220].

  96. CB to Martha Brown, 5June 1849: MS BS 69 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 217–8]; CB to WSW, [27 May 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 213]; CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 p.2, BL [LCB, ii, 220].

  97. CB to WSW, 4June 1849: MS Ashley 2452 p.3, BL [LCB, ii, 216].

  98. CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 p.4, BL [LCB, ii, 220]; CB to EN, 6 June 1852: MS HM 24496 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, iii, 51].

  99. CB to PB, 9June 1849: MSS in different locations [LCB, ii, 218]. Patrick cut this letter up to send samples of Charlotte’s handwriting to autograph hunters; six fragments, all in different locations, have been found and the letter has been partially reconstructed in Margaret Smith, ‘A Reconstructed Letter’, BST:20:1:42–7 esp. 44–5. Charlotte later complained of 5errors on the gravestone: these included Anne’s age, which should have been 29: the same error also appears in the burial register: CB to MW, 23 June 1852: MS FM 15 p.3, Fitzwilliam [LCB, iii, 56]; Register of Burials, 1841–1900, St Mary’s Church, Scarborough (30 May 1849).

  100. CB to WSW, 13 June 1849: MS Ashley 172 pp.1, 3–4, BL [LCB, ii, 219–20].

  101. Ibid., p.4[LCB, ii, 216]; CB to Martha Brown, [5June 1849]: MS BS 69, BPM [LCB, ii, 217–8]; CB to EN, 4July [1849]: MS BS 71.2 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 228–9].

  102. CB to EN, 23 June 1849: MS pp.1–3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 222].

  103. CB to ECG, 27 Aug 1850: MS Chatsworth [LCB, ii, 457]; CB, ‘There’s little joy in life for me’, 21 June 1849: MS HM 2575, Huntington [VN CB, 342]. Charlotte had similarly tried to write a poem after Emily’s death: CB, ‘My darling thou wilt never know’’, 24 Dec 1848: MS HM 2574, Huntington [VN CB, 341–2].

  104. CB to EN, 23 June 1849: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 222].

  105. CB to WSW, 25 June 1849: MS BS 70 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 224].

  106. CB to EN, 14 July 1849: MS p.4, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 230–1]; CB to WSW, 25 June 1849: MS BS 70 pp.2, 6–7, BPM [LCB, ii, 224–5].

  107. CB to EN, 14 July 1849: MS pp.3–4, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 230].

  108. CB to WSW, 26 July 1849: MS Bon 210 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 232]. The Quarterly Review had claimed that if the author of Jane Eyre was a woman then she must be one who had ‘for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex’: see below, pp.715–18.

  109. CB to WSW, 25 June 1849: MS BS 70 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 224]. For the ‘tragic associations’ of this phrase, quoted from Macbeth’s ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,/ Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow’ (Macbeth, Act v, Scene ii) see Margaret Smith, ‘The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Some New Insights into her Life and Writing’, Brontë Society – Gaskell Society Joint Conference 1990: Conference Papers (Keighley, 1991), 61.

&nbs
p; 110. CB to WSW, 26 July 1849: MS Bon 210 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 232].

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: NO LONGER INVISIBLE

  Title: CB to WSW, 1 Nov 1849: MS MA 2696 R-V p.2, PM [LCB, ii, 272].

  1. CB, Shirley, 421.

  2. Ibid., 442.

  3. ECG, Life, 315–6.

  4. CB to WSW, 3 July 1849: MS BS 71 p.5, BPM [LCB, ii, 227].

  5. CB to WSW, 12 May 1848: MS Gr. F3 pp.2, 4, BPM [LCB, ii, 64, 65].

  6. CB to WSW, 3July 1849: MS BS 71 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 226].

  7. Ann Nussey was about to marry Robert Clapham: CB to EN, [?27 July 1849]: MS HM 24466 p.2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 233]; CB to EN, [?23 Aug 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 238]; Whitehead, Charlotte Brontë and her ‘dearest Nell’, 152–3. For Mercy’s jealousy see CB to EN, [?13 Sept 1849]: MS Bon 123 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 250].

  8. CB, Shirley, 179, 181–3, 174.

  9. ’I have seen some extracts from Shirley in which you talk of women working. And this first duty, this great necessity you seem to think that some women may indulge in – if they give up marria/ge & don’t make themselves too disagreeable to the other sex. You are a coward & a traitor. A woman who works is by that alone better than one who does not & a woman who does not happen to be rich & who still earns no money & does not wish to do so, is guilty of a great fault – almost a crime – A dereliction of duty which leads rapidly & almost certainly to all manner of degradation’: MT to CB, [c.29 Apr 1850]: MS Bon 257 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 392]. Charlotte was to do the same in Villette, much to Harriet Martineau’s annoyance: see below, pp.848.

  10. CB to EN, 4 July [1849] MS BS 71.2 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 228–9]; CB to EN, 14 July 1849: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 230]; CB to EN, [?23 Aug 1849]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 238].

  11. CB to EN, [?27 July 1849]: MS HM 24466 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 233]; LI, 22 Sept 1849 p.8; 29 Sept 1849 p.5; BO, 27 Sept 1849 p.5.