Read Romancing Miss Bronte Online
Authors: Juliet Gael
Romancing Miss Bronte (44 page)
Carefully, reverently, she slipped the program back into the desk and then opened the top drawer of Emily’s scarred old chest.
“She never really thought her work meant anything to anyone but herself, and I would often sit and watch her toss old drafts of her poetry into the kitchen fire. But at the same time she had this habit of neglect—she would leave her things all over the house. We would have these constant little quarrels; she’d be looking for something and I would have put it away. When she was gone, I gathered up everything and stored it in here. Here, this is her work.” She withdrew a sketchbook and passed it to Arthur. The pages were filled with romantic scenes of ruined castles and graceful allegorical figures. There were exquisitely detailed studies of nature: a tiny whinchat perched on a rock, a solitary Scotch fir twisted by the wind. And portraits of the many animals she had so loved: their dogs and cats, their pet hawk.
Coming across a portrait of Keeper, Arthur paused and grew very still. Charlotte was observing him closely, and she saw how his features softened in sadness.
“‘Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,’” he murmured.
There was a long moment of silent complicity, and then she took the sketchbook from him and shut it away.
“It’s a great comfort to me that you knew them,” she said. “I won’t ever have to explain them to you.”
Arthur laid his hand on her shoulder—a reassuring gesture, no more.
She turned to him with sudden earnestness. “If I survived when all the others died, I can only think it was because God had a purpose for me. He gave me a gift of words, and intellect, and imagination—although God knows Emily’s gift was so much greater than mine. If I write at all, I must write the truth. I don’t write out of vanity.” Her brown eyes pleaded with him.
He seemed perplexed by her earnestness. “My darling, I never believed you cultivated a desire for notoriety.”
“But there are certain things I’ve written—about the church and about women—that have drawn a good deal of criticism. If we were to marry …”
“I confess I sometimes cringe at your opinions on certain matters, but I have always known that we disagreed on these things. My only concern is that you leave yourself open to such wounding criticism. It is from this that I would hope to protect you.”
She nodded. Satisfied, for the moment. Thunder rolled in the distance; the storm was passing.
Arthur could no longer restrain himself. He drew her into his arms. She came willingly, her head nestled just below his heart.
“I should never be at peace in here,” he said in a low voice. “It’s Emily’s room and it should remain as such.”
When she made no move to withdraw, he lowered his head and brushed her soft hair with his lips.
“My sweet Charlotte,” he murmured. “How I’ve longed to be close to you like this.”
She tightened her arms around his waist, and his heart soared.
“Arthur?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yes?”
“What made you smile when you read the marriage settlement?”
“I smiled when I came to the part about the children.”
The rain fell lightly now and the gloom was slowly lifting.
When Charlotte learned from Miss Wooler that Ellen was seriously ill with influenza, it was enough to spur her to write. Ellen, also eager to make amends, replied. Thus their correspondence resumed—brimming with the old warmth and affection but confined to safe topics such as the health of friends and family; there were long pages dedicated to paralytic strokes and remedies for obstructed bowels. The subject of Arthur was scrupulously avoided on both sides.
Until by accident Charlotte posted a letter to Arthur in an envelope addressed to Ellen. Ellen immediately returned the letter to Charlotte. The mistake prompted a speedy confession, and Charlotte replied:
My dear Ellen
,
The enclosure in yours of yesterday puzzled me at first, for I did not immediately recognize my own handwriting; when I did, I was deeply vexed, for the letter to Mr. Nicholls ought to have gone on Friday—it was intended to relieve him from great anxiety as he had not heard from me in several days. I must have inadvertently slipped it into the envelope I had prepared for your letter—and sent yours to him. I can only be thankful that the mistake was no worse and did not throw the letter into the hands of some unscrupulous person
.
Since you were here in July, matters with Mr. Nicholls have progressed thus. Last winter I obtained permission to continue communication with him. He came in January and was then received but not pleasantly. I told him the great obstacles that lay in his way. He has persevered. He came again and was here all last week. The result of this last visit is that Papa’s consent is gained—that his respect is won—for Mr. Nicholls has in all things proved himself disinterested and forbearing. He has shown too that while his feelings are exquisitely keen, he can freely forgive. Certainly I must respect him—indeed I owe him more than mere cool respect. In fact, dear Ellen, I am engaged
.
In a few months Mr. Nicholls—I now call him Arthur—will return to the curacy of Haworth. What seemed at one time impossible is now arranged, and Papa begins really to take a pleasure in the prospect
.
For myself, dear Ellen, while thankful to One who seems to have guided me through much difficulty, much and deep distress and perplexity of mind, I am still very calm
, very
inexpectant. What I taste of happiness is of the soberest order. I trust to love my husband—I am grateful for his tender love to me—I believe him to be an affectionate, a conscientious, a high-principled man—and if with all this, I should yield to regrets that fine talents, congenial tastes, and thoughts are not added, it seems to me I should be most presumptuous and thankless
.
Providence offers me this destiny. Doubtless then it is the best for me
.
Arthur wishes our marriage to be in July. He spoke of you with great kindness and said he hoped you would be at our wedding. I said I thought of having no other bridesmaid. Did I say right?
Do not mention these things just yet. I mean the marriage to be literally as quiet as possible
.
There is a strange half-sad feeling in making this announcement. The whole thing is something other than imagination paints it beforehand: fears come mixed inextricably with hopes. I trust yet to talk the matter over with you
.
Yours affectionately
C. Brontë
In all of Charlotte’s letters announcing her engagement, there was the echo of sad resignation and a kind of forced cheer, a sense that she had to reassure herself that she was doing right for herself. She was far too honest to portray Arthur as anything other than what he was. She could boast only of his moral virtues, not of wealth or standing or worldly connections. There was nothing interesting about Arthur, nothing that
would be grist for the imagination or excite curiosity. Her acquaintances in London would not be in the least surprised; they had seen how she floundered amid their sparkling society, with their women of beauty and men of wit. She had landed where she belonged, in the hands of a most ordinary man.
Most painful of all was the letter to George. She framed it as best she could, in the context of her peculiar existence, but she could not feign an excitement that was not there. She wrote:
The step is not a hasty one: on the gentleman’s side, at least, it has been meditated for many years, and I hope that in at last acceding to it, I am acting right. My future husband is a clergyman. He was for eight years my father’s curate. He left because the idea of this marriage was not entertained as he wished. But various circumstances have led my father to consent to his return. Nor can I deny that my own feelings have been much impressed and changed by the nature and strength of the qualities brought out in the course of his long attachment. I fear I must accuse myself of having formerly done him less than justice. However, he is to come back now. He has forgone many chances of preferment to return to the obscure village of Haworth. I believe I do right in marrying him. I mean to try to make him a good wife
.
My expectations, however, are very subdued—very different, I daresay, to what yours were before you were married. I hardly know in what form of greeting to include your wife’s name—as you have never told me any particulars about her, though I should have liked them much. Say to her whatever may seem to you most appropriate and most expressive of goodwill
.
I sometimes wonder how Mr. Williams is, and hope he is well. In the course of the year that is gone, Cornhill and London have receded a long way from me—the links of communication have waxed very frail and few. It must be so in this world. All things considered, I don’t wish it otherwise
.
By April, Charlotte was immersed in preparations for her wedding. The change in her father was radical. Once the whole matter had been settled, he admitted to Charlotte that he had been far too stern. He grew kind again and declared himself happy. He discussed matters calmly and took an interest in all the arrangements. Yet there was a lingering sense of disappointment that pierced Charlotte’s heart more deeply than all his months of hostile ranting. Gentleness was far more potent than wrath, and in his quiet acceptance of her fate, she felt all the more keenly her own regrets. There were nights when she retreated to Emily’s room and gazed through the window onto the moonlit moors, struggling with her own pride and mourning the loss of something that would never be found.
When Arthur came to visit in April, he found the parsonage in upheaval—with workmen tramping through the house, the servants scuttling about in a flurried state, and a gaping hole in the entry hall opposite the kitchen.
“It’s your new study,” Charlotte announced proudly. “Come. Take a look.”
He extended his hand to her as she stepped over the rubble, into the room where they had once stored peat and coal.
“It occurred to me that all we needed to do was open up a door into the hallway and plaster up the door to the backyard. You’ll have a good deal of light from the south. When you next come it will be all scrubbed clean and painted and papered.” She tilted her head to look up at him with eager eyes. “Does it please you?”
He slipped a hand around her waist and drew her close to him. “I wish I might have broken into your heart as easily as you’ve broken through this wall.”
She became suddenly nervous, the way she always did when he drew close to her. Reluctant to cross the threshold—knowing she could never go back.
Resisting him, hands pressed on his chest, she flashed him a warning.
“Arthur,” she whispered, “please. There are workmen about.”
“And what do you think will happen if you kiss me?”
“Don’t tease me, Arthur.”
“Tell me, am I that pathetic character St. John Rivers? Are you afraid of my nature?”
“You, St. John?” she answered with a little gasp. “But he was all marble and ice. And vengeance. You are none of that.”
“But you once thought as much—tell me it wasn’t so.”
“Indeed, you are outwardly solemn and grave. When you fix your eyes on a body, the way your brows knit together—see, you’re doing it just now—such a stern fellow!”
“So I was right to fancy I glimpsed something of myself in him.”
“He had none of your qualities.”
“Ah, but even you were ignorant of them.”
“I was.”
“Even when I stood at your side, through all of your terrible sufferings, through all the loss, you read only austerity and ice, and nothing of my feelings.”
“I could see nothing beyond my own grief, Arthur.”
“I used to keep one of your books with me, wherever I went. I read parts, here and there, my favorites, and at each reading I discovered more of you. But that was before. Now you are my book. And there is a new chapter approaching.”
The moment was shattered by the sound of the workmen returning. Charlotte drew back and patted at her hair, although not a strand was out of place.
“Yes, it will be a fine room,” she said audibly as she lifted her skirts and turned away.
The next instant Arthur pulled her into his arms and kissed her. In that brief but bold kiss she was keenly aware of the firm outline of his lips—the flavor and texture of his mouth—and an unmistakable sensual charge. Then he thrust her away from him—only seconds before the workmen peered into the room.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said brightly as he steadied Charlotte with
a firm grip on her arm and passed her back over the heap of rubble. “Pray, let the lady pass.”
In the days that followed, she found it difficult to deter his advances. Once he had kissed her, he deemed it his right to demand more. Because her father had long established the habit of leaving Charlotte on her own, Arthur’s visits were entirely unchaperoned, and it was up to Charlotte to keep him under control. He confessed to how difficult it was to wait, that even though he might walk back and forth to Oxenhope a dozen times a day he would not be sufficiently exhausted to maintain his composure around her.