After her visit to Manchester, she had to return to a re-opening of the
painful circumstances of the previous winter, as the time drew near for
Mr. Nicholl's departure from Haworth. A testimonial of respect from
the parishioners was presented, at a public meeting, to one who had
faithfully served them for eight years: and he left the place, and she
saw no chance of hearing a word about him in the future, unless it was
some second-hand scrap of intelligence, dropped out accidentally by one
of the neighbouring clergymen.
I had promised to pay her a visit on my return from London in June; but,
after the day was fixed, a letter came from Mr. Brontë, saying that she
was suffering from so severe an attack of influenza, accompanied with
such excruciating pain in the head, that he must request me to defer my
visit until she was better. While sorry for the cause, I did not regret
that my going was delayed till the season when the moors would be all
glorious with the purple bloom of the heather; and thus present a scene
about which she had often spoken to me. So we agreed that I should
not come to her before August or September. Meanwhile, I received a
letter from which I am tempted to take an extract, as it shows both her
conception of what fictitious writing ought to be, and her always kindly
interest in what I was doing.
"July 9th, 1853.
"Thank you for your letter; it was as pleasant as a quiet chat, as
welcome as spring showers, as reviving as a friend's visit; in short,
it was very like a page of 'Cranford.' . . . A thought strikes me. Do
you, who have so many friends,--so large a circle of acquaintance,--find
it easy, when you sit down to write, to isolate yourself from all
those ties, and their sweet associations, so as to be your OWN WOMAN,
uninfluenced or swayed by the consciousness of how your work may affect
other minds; what blame or what sympathy it may call forth? Does no
luminous cloud ever come between you and the severe Truth, as you know
it in your own secret and clear-seeing soul? In a word, are you never
tempted to make your characters more amiable than the Life, by the
inclination to assimilate your thoughts to the thoughts of those who
always FEEL kindly, but sometimes fail to SEE justly? Don't answer the
question; it is not intended to be answered. . . . Your account of Mrs.
Stowe was stimulatingly interesting. I long to see you, to get you to
say it, and many other things, all over again. My father continues
better. I am better too; but to-day I have a headache again, which will
hardly let me write coherently. Give my dear love to M. and M., dear
happy girls as they are. You cannot now transmit my message to F. and
J. I prized the little wild-flower,--not that I think the sender cares
for me; she DOES not, and CANNOT, for she does not know me;--but no
matter. In my reminiscences she is a person of a certain distinction. I
think hers a fine little nature, frank and of genuine promise. I often
see her; as she appeared, stepping supreme from the portico towards the
carriage, that evening we went to see 'Twelfth Night.' I believe in J.'s
future; I like what speaks in her movements, and what is written upon
her face."
Towards the latter end of September I went to Haworth. At the risk of
repeating something which I have previously said, I will copy out parts
of a letter which I wrote at the time.
"It was a dull, drizzly Indian-inky day, all the way on the railroad to
Keighley, which is a rising wool-manufacturing town, lying in a hollow
between hills--not a pretty hollow, but more what the Yorkshire people
call a 'bottom,' or 'botham.' I left Keighley in a car for Haworth,
four miles off--four tough, steep, scrambling miles, the road winding
between the wavelike hills that rose and fell on every side of the
horizon, with a long illimitable sinuous look, as if they were a part of
the line of the Great Serpent, which the Norse legend says girdles the
world. The day was lead-coloured; the road had stone factories alongside
of it,--grey, dull-coloured rows of stone cottages belonging to these
factories, and then we came to poor, hungry-looking fields;--stone
fences everywhere, and trees nowhere. Haworth is a long, straggling
village one steep narrow street--so steep that the flag-stones with
which it is paved are placed end-ways, that the horses' feet may have
something to cling to, and not slip down backwards; which if they did,
they would soon reach Keighley. But if the horses had cats' feet and
claws, they would do all the better. Well, we (the man, horse, car;
and I) clambered up this street, and reached the church dedicated to
St. Autest (who was he?); then we turned off into a lane on the left,
past the curate's lodging at the Sexton's, past the school-house, up
to the Parsonage yard-door. I went round the house to the front door,
looking to the church;--moors everywhere beyond and above. The crowded
grave-yard surrounds the house and small grass enclosure for drying
clothes.
"I don't know that I ever saw a spot more exquisitely clean; the
most dainty place for that I ever saw. To be sure, the life is like
clock-work. No one comes to the house; nothing disturbs the deep repose;
hardly a voice is heard; you catch the ticking of the clock in the
kitchen, or the buzzing of a fly in the parlour, all over the house.
Miss Brontë sits alone in her parlour; breakfasting with her father in
his study at nine o'clock. She helps in the housework; for one of their
servants, Tabby, is nearly ninety, and the other only a girl. Then I
accompanied her in her walks on the sweeping moors the heather-bloom
had been blighted by a thunder-storm a day or two before, and was all
of a livid brown colour, instead of the blaze of purple glory it ought
to have been. Oh those high, wild, desolate moors, up above the whole
world, and the very realms of silence! Home to dinner at two. Mr. Brontë
has his dinner sent into him. All the small table arrangements had the
same dainty simplicity about them. Then we rested, and talked over the
clear, bright fire; it is a cold country, and the fires were a pretty
warm dancing light all over the house. The parlour had been evidently
refurnished within the last few years, since Miss Brontë's success has
enabled her to have a little more money to spend. Everything fits into,
and is in harmony with, the idea of a country parsonage, possessed by
people of very moderate means. The prevailing colour of the room is
crimson, to make a warm setting for the cold grey landscape without.
There is her likeness by Richmond, and an engraving from Lawrence's
picture of Thackeray; and two recesses, on each side of the high,
narrow, old-fashioned mantelpiece, filled with books,--books given to
her; books she has bought, and which tell of her individual pursuits and
tastes; NOT standard books.
"She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she
weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she
wanted much to draw; and she copied niminipimini copper-plate engravings
out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every
little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced
an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to
express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to DRAW stories, and
not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a
hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this
time.
"But now to return to our quiet hour of rest after dinner. I soon
observed that her habits of order were such that she could not go on
with the conversation, if a chair was out of its place; everything was
arranged with delicate regularity. We talked over the old times of her
childhood; of her elder sister's (Maria's) death,--just like that of
Helen Burns in 'Jane Eyre;' of those strange, starved days at school; of
the desire (almost amounting to illness) of expressing herself in some
way,--writing or drawing; of her weakened eyesight, which prevented her
doing anything for two years, from the age of seventeen to nineteen;
of her being a governess; of her going to Brussels; whereupon I said I
disliked Lucy Snowe, and we discussed M. Paul Emanuel; and I told her of
----'s admiration of 'Shirley,' which pleased her; for the character of
Shirley was meant for her sister Emily, about whom she is never tired
of talking, nor I of listening. Emily must have been a remnant of the
Titans,--great-grand-daughter of the giants who used to inhabit earth.
One day, Miss Brontë brought down a rough, common-looking oil-painting,
done by her brother, of herself,--a little, rather prim-looking girl of
eighteen,--and the two other sisters, girls of sixteen and fourteen,
with cropped hair, and sad, dreamy-looking eyes. . . . Emily had a great
dog--half mastiff, half bull-dog--so savage, etc. . . . This dog went to
her funeral, walking side by side with her father; and then, to the day
of its death, it slept at her room door; snuffing under it, and whining
every morning.
"We have generally had another walk before tea, which is at six; at
half-past eight, prayers; and by nine, all the household are in bed,
except ourselves. We sit up together till ten, or past; and after I go,
I hear Miss Brontë comedown and walk up and down the room for an hour or
so."
Copying this letter has brought the days of that pleasant visit very
clear before me,--very sad in their clearness. We were so happy
together; we were so full of interest in each other's subjects. The
day seemed only too short for what we had to say and to hear. I
understood her life the better for seeing the place where it had been
spent--where she had loved and suffered. Mr. Brontë was a most courteous
host; and when he was with us,--at breakfast in his study, or at tea
in Charlotte's parlour,--he had a sort of grand and stately way of
describing past times, which tallied well with his striking appearance.
He never seemed quite to have lost the feeling that Charlotte was a
child to be guided and ruled, when she was present; and she herself
submitted to this with a quiet docility that half amused, half
astonished me. But when she had to leave the room, then all his pride in
her genius and fame came out. He eagerly listened to everything I could
tell him of the high admiration I had at any time heard expressed for
her works. He would ask for certain speeches over and over again, as if
he desired to impress them on his memory.
I remember two or three subjects of the conversations which she and I
held in the evenings, besides those alluded to in my letter.
I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description
given of its effects in "Villette" was so exactly like what I had
experienced,--vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the
outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that
she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but
that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to
describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she
had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to
sleep,--wondering what it was like, or how it would be,--till at length,
sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one
point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before
her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then
could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account
for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she
said it.
She made many inquiries as to Mrs. Stowe's personal appearance; and
it evidently harmonised well with some theory of hers, to hear that
the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin was small and slight. It was another
theory of hers, that no mixtures of blood produced such fine characters,
mentally and morally, as the Scottish and English.
I recollect, too, her saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of
plagiarism, when, after she had written "Jane Eyre;" she read the
thrilling effect of the mysterious scream at midnight in Mrs. Marsh's
story of the "Deformed." She also said that, when she read the
"Neighbours," she thought every one would fancy that she must have
taken her conception of Jane Eyre's character from that of "Francesca,"
the narrator of Miss Bremer's story. For my own part, I cannot see the
slightest resemblance between the two characters, and so I told her;
but she persisted in saying that Francesca was Jane Eyre married to a
good-natured "Bear" of a Swedish surgeon.
We went, not purposely, but accidentally, to see various poor people in
our distant walks. From one we had borrowed an umbrella; in the house of
another we had taken shelter from a rough September storm. In all these
cottages, her quiet presence was known. At three miles from her home,
the chair was dusted for her, with a kindly "Sit ye down, Miss Brontë;"
and she knew what absent or ailing members of the family to inquire
after. Her quiet, gentle words, few though they might be, were evidently
grateful to those Yorkshire ears. Their welcome to her, though rough and
curt, was sincere and hearty.
We talked about the different courses through which life ran. She said,
in her own composed manner, as if she had accepted the theory as a fact,
that she believed some were appointed beforehand to sorrow and much
disappointment; that it did not fall to the lot of all--as Scripture
told us--to have their lines fall in pleasant places; that it was well
for those who had rougher paths, to perceive that such was God's will
concerning them, and try to moderate their expectations, leaving hope to
those of a different doom, and seeking patience and resignation as the
virtues they were to cultivate. I took a different view: I thought that
human lots were more equal than she imagined; that to some happiness and
sorrow came in strong patches of light and shadow, (so to speak), while
in the lives of others they were pretty equally blended throughout. She
smiled, and shook her head, and said she was trying to school herself
against ever anticipating any pleasure; that it was better to be brave
and submit faithfully; there was some good reason, which we should know
in time, why sorrow and disappointment were to be the lot of some on
earth. It was better to acknowledge this, and face out the truth in a
religious faith.
In connection with this conversation, she named a little abortive plan
which I had not heard of till then; how, in the previous July, she had
been tempted to join some friends (a married couple and their child)
in an excursion to Scotland. They set out joyfully; she with especial
gladness, for Scotland was a land which had its roots deep down in her
imaginative affections, and the glimpse of two days at Edinburgh was all
she had as yet seen of it. But, at the first stage after Carlisle, the
little yearling child was taken with a slight indisposition; the anxious
parents fancied that strange diet disagreed with it, and hurried back to
their Yorkshire home as eagerly as, two or three days before, they had
set their faces northward, in hopes of a month's pleasant ramble.
We parted with many intentions, on both sides, of renewing very
frequently the pleasure we had had in being together. We agreed that
when she wanted bustle, or when I wanted quiet, we were to let each
other know, and exchange visits as occasion required.
I was aware that she had a great anxiety on her mind at this time; and
being acquainted with its nature, I could not but deeply admire the
patient docility which she displayed in her conduct towards her father.
Soon after I left Haworth, she went on a visit to Miss Wooler, who was
then staying at Hornsea. The time passed quietly and happily with this
friend, whose society was endeared to her by every year.
To Miss WOOLER
"Dec. 12th, 1853.
"I wonder how you are spending these long winter evenings. Alone,
probably, like me. The thought often crosses me, as I sit by myself, how
pleasant it would be if you lived within a walking distance, and I could
go to you sometimes, or have you to come and spend a day and night with
me. Yes; I did enjoy that week at Hornsea, and I look forward to spring
as the period when you will fulfil your promise of coming to visit me.
I fear you must be very solitary at Hornsea. How hard to some people
of the world it would seem to live your life! how utterly impossible
to live it with a serene spirit and an unsoured disposition! It seems
wonderful to me, because you are not, like Mrs. ----, phlegmatic and
impenetrable, but received from nature feelings of the very finest
edge. Such feelings, when they are locked up, sometimes damage the mind
and temper. They don't with you. It must be partly principle, partly
self-discipline, which keeps you as you are."
Of course, as I draw nearer to the years so recently closed, it becomes
impossible for me to write with the same fulness of detail as I have
hitherto not felt it wrong to use. Miss Brontë passed the winter of
1853-4 in a solitary and anxious manner. But the great conqueror Time
was slowly achieving his victory over strong prejudice and human
resolve. By degrees Mr. Brontë became reconciled to the idea of his
daughter's marriage.
There is one other letter, addressed to Mr. Dobell, which developes the
intellectual side of her character, before we lose all thought of the
authoress in the timid and conscientious woman about to become a wife,
and in the too short, almost perfect, happiness of her nine months of
wedded life.
"Haworth, near Keighley,
"Feb. 3rd, 1854.
"My dear Sir,--I can hardly tell you how glad I am to have an
opportunity of explaining that taciturnity to which you allude. Your
letter came at a period of danger and care, when my father was very
ill, and I could not leave his bedside. I answered no letters at that
time, and yours was one of three or four that, when leisure returned
to me, and I came to consider their purport, it seemed to me such that
the time was past for answering them, and I laid them finally aside. If
you remember, you asked me to go to London; it was too late either to
go or to decline. I was sure you had left London. One circumstance you
mentioned--your wife's illness--which I have thought of many a time, and
wondered whether she is better. In your present note you do not refer to
her, but I trust her health has long ere now been quite restored.
"'Balder' arrived safely. I looked at him, before cutting his leaves
with singular pleasure. Remembering well his elder brother, the potent
'Roman,' it was natural to give a cordial welcome to a fresh scion of
the same house and race. I have read him. He impressed me thus he teems
with power; I found in him a wild wealth of life, but I thought his
favourite and favoured child would bring his sire trouble--would make
his heart ache. It seemed to me, that his strength and beauty were not
so much those of Joseph, the pillar of Jacob's age, as of the Prodigal
Son, who troubled his father, though he always kept his love.
"How is it that while the first-born of genius often brings honour, the
second as almost often proves a source of depression and care? I could
almost prophesy that your third will atone for any anxiety inflicted by
this his immediate predecessor.
"There is power in that character of 'Balder,' and to me a certain
horror. Did you mean it to embody, along with force, any of the
special defects of the artistic character? It seems to me that those
defects were never thrown out in stronger lines. I did not and could
not think you meant to offer him as your cherished ideal of the
true, great poet; I regarded him as a vividly-coloured picture of
inflated self-esteem, almost frantic aspiration; of a nature that has
made a Moloch of intellect--offered up; in pagan fires, the natural
affections--sacrificed the heart to the brain. Do we not all know
that true greatness is simple, self-oblivious, prone to unambitious,
unselfish attachments? I am certain you feel this truth in your heart of
hearts.
"But if the critics err now (as yet I have seen none of their
lucubrations), you shall one day set them right in the second part of
'Balder.' You shall show them that you too know--better, perhaps, than
they--that the truly great man is too sincere in his affections to
grudge a sacrifice; too much absorbed in his work to talk loudly about
it; too intent on finding the best way to accomplish what he undertakes
to think great things of himself--the instrument. And if God places
seeming impediments in his way--if his duties sometimes seem to hamper
his powers--he feels keenly, perhaps writhes, under the slow torture of
hindrance and delay; but if there be a true man's heart in his breast,
he can bear, submit, wait patiently.
"Whoever speaks to me of 'Balder'--though I live too retired a life to
come often in the way of comment--shall be answered according to your
suggestion and my own impression. Equity demands that you should be your
own interpreter. Good-bye for the present, and believe me,
"Faithfully and gratefully,
"CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
"Sydney Dobell, Esq."
A letter to her Brussels schoolfellow gives an idea of the external
course of things during this winter.
"March 8th.
"I was very glad to see your handwriting again. It is, I believe, a year
since I heard from you. Again and again you have recurred to my thoughts
lately, and I was beginning to have some sad presages as to the cause of
your silence. Your letter happily does away with all these; it brings,
on the whole, glad tidings both of your papa, mama, your sisters, and,
last but not least, your dear respected English self.
"My dear father has borne the severe winter very well, a circumstance
for which I feel the more thankful as he had many weeks of very
precarious health last summer, following an attack from which he
suffered in June, and which for a few hours deprived him totally of
sight, though neither his mind, speech, nor even his powers of motion
were in the least affected. I can hardly tell you how thankful I
was, when, after that dreary and almost despairing interval of utter
darkness, some gleam of daylight became visible to him once more. I
had feared that paralysis had seized the optic nerve. A sort of mist
remained for a long time; and, indeed, his vision is not yet perfectly
clear, but he can read, write, and walk about, and he preaches TWICE
every Sunday, the curate only reading the prayers. YOU can well
understand how earnestly I wish and pray that sight may be spared him
to the end; he so dreads the privation of blindness. His mind is just
as strong and active as ever, and politics interest him as they do YOUR
papa. The Czar, the war, the alliance between France and England--into
all these things he throws himself heart and soul; they seem to carry
him back to his comparatively young days, and to renew the excitement of
the last great European struggle. Of course my father's sympathies (and
mine too) are all with Justice and Europe against Tyranny and Russia.
"Circumstanced as I have been, you will comprehend that I have had
neither the leisure nor the inclination to go from home much during
the past year. I spent a week with Mrs. Gaskell in the spring, and a
fortnight with some other friends more recently, and that includes the
whole of my visiting since I saw you last. My life is, indeed, very
uniform and retired--more so than is quite healthful either for mind or
body; yet I find reason for often-renewed feelings of gratitude, in the
sort of support which still comes and cheers me on from time to time.
My health, though not unbroken, is, I sometimes fancy, rather stronger
on the whole than it was three years ago: headache and dyspepsia are my
worst ailments. Whether I shall come up to town this season for a few
days I do not yet know; but if I do, I shall hope to call in P. Place."
In April she communicated the fact of her engagement to Miss Wooler.
"Haworth, April 12th.
"My dear Miss Wooler,--The truly kind interest which you always taken
in my affairs makes me feel that it is due to you to transmit an early
communication on a subject respecting which I have already consulted you
more than once. I must tell you then, that since I wrote last, papa's
mind has gradually come round to a view very different to that which
he once took; and that after some correspondence, and as the result of
a visit Mr. Nicholls paid here about a week ago, it was agreed that he
was to resume the curacy of Haworth, as soon as papa's present assistant
is provided with a situation, and in due course of time he is to be
received as an inmate into this house.
"It gives me unspeakable content to see that now my father has once
admitted this new view of the case, he dwells on it very complacently.
In all arrangements, his convenience and seclusion will be scrupulously
respected. Mr. Nicholls seems deeply to feel the wish to comfort and
sustain his declining years. I think from Mr. Nicholls' character I may
depend on this not being a mere transitory impulsive feeling, but rather
that it will be accepted steadily as a duty, and discharged tenderly as
an office of affection. The destiny which Providence in His goodness and
wisdom seems to offer me will not, I am aware, be generally regarded as
brilliant, but I trust I see in it some germs of real happiness. I trust
the demands of both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled
by the step in contemplation. It is Mr. Nicholls' wish that the marriage
should take place this summer; he urges the month of July, but that
seems very soon.
"When you write to me, tell me how you are. . . . I have now decidedly
declined the visit to London; the ensuing three months will bring me
abundance of occupation; I could not afford to throw away a month. . . .
Papa has just got a letter from the good and dear bishop, which has
touched and pleased us much; it expresses so cordial an approbation of
Mr. Nicholls' return to Haworth (respecting which he was consulted), and
such kind gratification at the domestic arrangements which are to ensue.
It seems his penetration discovered the state of things when he was here
in June 1853."
She expressed herself in other letters, as thankful to One who had
guided her through much difficulty and much distress and perplexity of
mind; and yet she felt what most thoughtful women do, who marry when
the first flush of careless youth is over, that there was a strange
half-sad feeling, in making announcements of an engagement--for cares
and fears came mingled inextricably with hopes. One great relief to her
mind at this time was derived from the conviction that her father took
a positive pleasure in all the thoughts about and preparations for her
wedding. He was anxious that things should be expedited, and was much
interested in every preliminary arrangement for the reception of Mr.
Nicholls into the Parsonage as his daughter's husband. This step was
rendered necessary by Mr. Brontë's great age, and failing sight, which
made it a paramount obligation on so dutiful a daughter as Charlotte, to
devote as much time and assistance as ever in attending to his wants.
Mr. Nicholls, too, hoped that he might be able to add some comfort and
pleasure by his ready presence, on any occasion when the old clergyman
might need his services.
At the beginning of May, Miss Brontë left home to pay three visits
before her marriage. The first was to us. She only remained three days,
as she had to go to the neighbourhood of Leeds, there to make such
purchases as were required for her marriage. Her preparations, as she
said, could neither be expensive nor extensive; consisting chiefly in a
modest replenishing of her wardrobe, some re-papering and re-painting
in the Parsonage; and, above all, converting the small flagged
passage-room, hitherto used only for stores (which was behind her
sitting room), into a study for her husband. On this idea, and plans for
his comfort, as well as her father's, her mind dwelt a good deal; and we
talked them over with the same unwearying happiness which, I suppose,
all women feel in such discussions--especially when money considerations
call for that kind of contrivance which Charles Lamb speaks of in his
Essay on Old China, as forming so great an addition to the pleasure of
obtaining a thing at last.
"Haworth, May 22nd.
"Since I came home I have been very busy stitching; the little new
room is got into order, and the green and white curtains are up; they
exactly suit the papering, and look neat and clean enough. I had a
letter a day or two since, announcing that Mr. Nicholls comes to-morrow.
I feel anxious about him; more anxious on one point than I dare quite
express to myself. It seems he has again been suffering sharply from
his rheumatic affection. I hear this not from himself, but from another
quarter. He was ill while I was in Manchester and B----. He uttered no
complaint to me; dropped no hint on the subject. Alas he was hoping
he had got the better of it, and I know how this contradiction of his
hopes will sadden him. For unselfish reasons he did so earnestly wish
this complaint might not become chronic. I fear--I fear; but if he is
doomed to suffer, so much the more will he need care and help. Well!
come what may, God help and strengthen both him and me! I look forward
to to-morrow with a mixture of impatience and anxiety."
Mr. Brontë had a slight illness which alarmed her much. Besides, all
the weight of care involved in the household preparations pressed on
the bride in this case--not unpleasantly, only to the full occupation
of her time. She was too busy to unpack her wedding dresses for several
days after they arrived from Halifax; yet not too busy to think of
arrangements by which Miss Wooler's journey to be present at the
marriage could be facilitated.
"I write to Miss Wooler to-day. Would it not be better, dear, if you and
she could arrange to come to Haworth on the same day, arrive at Keighley
by the same train; then I could order the cab to meet you at the
station, and bring you on with your luggage? In this hot weather walking
would be quite out of the question, either for you or for her; and I
know she would persist in doing it if left to herself, and arrive half
killed. I thought it better to mention this arrangement to you first,
and then, if you liked it, you could settle the time, etc., with Miss
Wooler, and let me know. Be sure and give me timely information, that I
may write to the Devonshire Arms about the cab.
"Mr. Nicholls is a kind, considerate fellow. With all his masculine
faults, he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly, in
a way that makes me grateful; and if nobody interferes and spoils his
arrangements, he will manage it so that not a soul in Haworth shall be
aware of the day. He is so thoughtful, too, about 'the ladies,'--that
is, you and Miss Wooler. Anticipating, too, the very arrangements I was
going to propose to him about providing for your departure, etc. He and
Mr. S---- come to ---- the evening before; write me a note to let me
know they are there; precisely at eight in the morning they will be in
the church, and there we are to meet them. Mr. and Mrs. Grant are asked
to the breakfast, not to the ceremony.
It was fixed that the marriage was to take place on the 29th of June.
Her two friends arrived at Haworth Parsonage the day before; and the
long summer afternoon and evening were spent by Charlotte in thoughtful
arrangements for the morrow, and for her father's comfort during
her absence from home. When all was finished--the trunk packed, the
morning's breakfast arranged, the wedding-dress laid out,--just at
bedtime, Mr. Brontë announced his intention of stopping at home while
the others went to church. What was to be done? Who was to give the
bride away? There were only to be the officiating clergyman, the bride
and bridegroom, the bridesmaid, and Miss Wooler present. The Prayer-book
was referred to; and there it was seen that the Rubric enjoins that the
Minister shall receive "the woman from her father's or FRIEND'S hands,"
and that nothing is specified as to the sex of the "friend." So Miss
Wooler, ever kind in emergency, volunteered to give her old pupil away.
The news of the wedding had slipt abroad before the little party came
out of church, and many old and humble friends were there, seeing her
look "like a snow-drop," as they say. Her dress was white embroidered
muslin, with a lace mantle, and white bonnet trimmed with green leaves,
which perhaps might suggest the resemblance to the pale wintry flower.
Mr. Nicholls and she went to visit his friends and relations in Ireland;
and made a tour by Killarney, Glengariff, Tarbert, Tralee, and Cork,
seeing scenery, of which she says, "some parts exceeded all I had
ever imagined." . . . "I must say I like my new relations. My dear
husband, too, appears in a new light in his own country. More than once
I have had deep pleasure in hearing his praises on all sides. Some
of the old servants and followers of the family tell me I am a most
fortunate person; for that I have got one of the best gentlemen in the
country. . . . I trust I feel thankful to God for having enabled me to
make what seems a right choice; and I pray to be enabled to repay as I
ought the affectionate devotion of a truthful, honourable man."
Henceforward the sacred doors of home are closed upon her married life.
We, her loving friends, standing outside, caught occasional glimpses
of brightness, and pleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling of the
gladness within; and we looked at each other, and gently said, "After a
hard and long struggle--after many cares and many bitter sorrows--she is
tasting happiness now!" We thought of the slight astringencies of her
character, and how they would turn to full ripe sweetness in that calm
sunshine of domestic peace. We remembered her trials, and were glad in
the idea that God had seen fit to wipe away the tears from her eyes.
Those who saw her, saw an outward change in her look, telling of inward
things. And we thought, and we hoped, and we prophesied, in our great
love and reverence.
But God's ways are not as our ways!
Hear some of the low murmurs of happiness we, who listened, heard:--
"I really seem to have had scarcely a spare moment since that dim quiet
June morning, when you, E----, and myself all walked down to Haworth
Church. Not that I have been wearied or oppressed; but the fact is,
my time is not my own now; somebody else wants a good portion of it,
and says, 'we must do so and so.' We DO so and so, accordingly; and it
generally seems the right thing. . . . We have had many callers from a
distance, and latterly some little occupation in the way of preparing
for a small village entertainment. Both Mr. Nicholls and myself wished
much to make some response for the hearty welcome and general goodwill
shown by the parishioners on his return; accordingly, the Sunday and
day scholars and teachers, the church-ringers, singers, etc., to the
number of five hundred, were asked to tea and supper in the School-room.
They seemed to enjoy it much, and it was very pleasant to see their
happiness. One of the villagers, in proposing my husband's health,
described him as a 'consistent Christian and a kind gentleman.' I own
the words touched me deeply, and I thought (as I know YOU would have
thought had you been present) that to merit and win such a character
was better than to earn either wealth, or fame, or power. I am disposed
to echo that high but simple eulogium. . . . My dear father was not
well when we returned from Ireland. I am, however, most thankful to say
that he is better now. May God preserve him to us yet for some years!
The wish for his continued life, together with a certain solicitude for
his happiness and health, seems, I scarcely know why, even stronger
in me now than before I was married. Papa has taken no duty since we
returned; and each time I see Mr. Nicholls put on gown or surplice, I
feel comforted to think that this marriage has secured papa good aid in
his old age."
"September 19th.
"Yes! I am thankful to say my husband is in improved health and spirits.
It makes me content and grateful to hear him from time to time avow his
happiness in the brief, plain phrase of sincerity. My own life is more
occupied than it used to be I have not so much time for thinking I am
obliged to be more practical, for my dear Arthur is a very practical,
as well as a very punctual and methodical man. Every morning he is in
the National School by nine o'clock; he gives the children religious
instruction till half-past ten. Almost every afternoon he pays visits
amongst the poor parishioners. Of course, he often finds a little work
for his wife to do, and I hope she is not sorry to help him. I believe
it is not bad for me that his bent should be so wholly towards matters
of life and active usefulness; so little inclined to the literary and
contemplative. As to his continued affection and kind attentions it does
not become me to say much of them; but they neither change nor diminish."
Her friend and bridesmaid came to pay them a visit in October. I was to
have gone also, but I allowed some little obstacle to intervene, to my
lasting regret.
"I say nothing about the war; but when I read of its horrors, I cannot
help thinking that it is one of the greatest curses that ever fell upon
mankind. I trust it may not last long, for it really seems to me that
no glory to be gained can compensate for the sufferings which must be
endured. This may seem a little ignoble and unpatriotic; but I think
that as we advance towards middle age, nobleness and patriotism have a
different signification to us to that which we accept while young."
"You kindly inquire after Papa. He is better, and seems to gain strength
as the weather gets colder; indeed, of late years health has always
been better in winter than in summer. We are all indeed pretty well;
and, for my own part, it is long since I have known such comparative
immunity from headache, etc., as during the last three months. My life
is different from what it used to be. May God make me thankful for it! I
have a good, kind, attached husband; and every day my own attachment to
him grows stronger."
Late in the autumn, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth crossed the border-hills
that separate Lancashire from Yorkshire, and spent two or three days
with them.
About this time, Mr. Nicholls was offered a living of much greater value
than his curacy at Haworth, and in many ways the proposal was a very
advantageous one; but he felt himself bound to Haworth as long as Mr.
Brontë lived. Still, this offer gave his wife great and true pleasure,
as a proof of the respect in which her husband was held.
"Nov. 29.
"I intended to have written a line yesterday, but just as I was sitting
down for the purpose, Arthur called to me to take a walk. We set off,
not intending to go far; but, though wild and cloudy, it was fair in
the morning; when we had got about half a mile on the moors, Arthur
suggested the idea of the waterfall; after the melted snow, he said, it
would be fine. I had often wished to see it in its winter power,--so we
walked on. It was fine indeed; a perfect torrent racing over the rocks,
white and beautiful! It began to rain while we were watching it, and
we returned home under a streaming sky. However, I enjoyed the walk
inexpressibly, and would not have missed the spectacle on any account."
She did not achieve this walk of seven or eight miles, in such weather,
with impunity. She began to shiver soon after her return home, in spite
of every precaution, and had a bad lingering sore throat and cold, which
hung about her; and made her thin and weak.
"Did I tell you that our poor little Flossy is dead? She drooped for a
single day, and died quietly in the night without pain. The loss even of
a dog was very saddening; yet, perhaps, no dog ever had a happier life,
or an easier death."
On Christmas-day she and her husband walked to the poor old woman (whose
calf she had been set to seek in former and less happy days), carrying
with them a great spice-cake to make glad her heart. On Christmas-day
many a humble meal in Haworth was made more plentiful by her gifts.
Early in the new year (1855), Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls went to visit Sir
James Kay Shuttleworth at Gawthorpe. They only remained two or three
days, but it so fell out that she increased her lingering cold, by a
long walk over damp ground in thin shoes.
Soon after her return, she was attacked by new sensations of perpetual
nausea, and ever-recurring faintness. After this state of things had
lasted for some time; she yielded to Mr. Nicholls' wish that a doctor
should be sent for. He came, and assigned a natural cause for her
miserable indisposition; a little patience, and all would go right. She,
who was ever patient in illness, tried hard to bear up and bear on.
But the dreadful sickness increased and increased, till the very sight
of food occasioned nausea. "A wren would have starved on what she ate
during those last six weeks," says one. Tabby's health had suddenly and
utterly given way, and she died in this time of distress and anxiety
respecting the last daughter of the house she had served so long. Martha
tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time tried to cheer
her with the thought of the baby that was coming. "I dare say I shall be
glad some time," she would say; "but I am so ill--so weary--" Then she
took to her bed, too weak to sit up. From that last couch she wrote two
notes--in pencil. The first, which has no date, is addressed to her own
"Dear Nell."
"I must write one line out of my weary bed. The news of M----'s probable
recovery came like a ray of joy to me. I am not going to talk of my
sufferings--it would be useless and painful. I want to give you an
assurance, which I know will comfort you--and that is, that I find in
my husband the tenderest nurse, the kindest support, the best earthly
comfort that ever woman had. His patience never fails, and it is tried
by sad days and broken nights. Write and tell me about Mrs. ----'s case;
how long was she ill, and in what way? Papa--thank God!--is better. Our
poor old Tabby is DEAD and BURIED. Give my kind love to Miss Wooler. May
God comfort and help you.
"C. B. NICHOLLS."
The other--also in faint, faint pencil marks--was to her Brussels
schoolfellow.
"Feb. 15th.
"A few lines of acknowledgment your letter SHALL have, whether well or
ill. At present I am confined to my bed with illness, and have been
so for three weeks. Up to this period, since my marriage, I have had
excellent health. My husband and I live at home with my father; of
course, I could not leave HIM. He is pretty well, better than last
summer. No kinder, better husband than mine, it seems to me, there can
be in the world. I do not want now for kind companionship in health and
the tenderest nursing in sickness. Deeply I sympathise in all you tell
me about Dr. W. and your excellent mother's anxiety. I trust he will not
risk another operation. I cannot write more now; for I am much reduced
and very weak. God bless you all.--Yours affectionately,
"C. B. NICHOLLS."
I do not think she ever wrote a line again. Long days and longer nights
went by; still the same relentless nausea and faintness, and still borne
on in patient trust. About the third week in March there was a change;
a low wandering delirium came on; and in it she begged constantly for
food and even for stimulants. She swallowed eagerly now; but it was too
late. Wakening for an instant from this stupor of intelligence, she saw
her husband's woe-worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words
of prayer that God would spare her. "Oh!" she whispered forth, "I am not
going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy."
Early on Saturday morning, March 31st, the solemn tolling of Haworth
church-bell spoke forth the fact of her death to the villagers who had
known her from a child, and whose hearts shivered within them as they
thought of the two sitting desolate and alone in the old grey house.