The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (6 page)

“Anne: you have left the Robinsons’ employ. Surely, after all these years, you may feel free to speak of them
now
with impunity—if only to me. The sharing may do you good, and you know I will not tell any one.”

“No.” Anne set down the brush and climbed into bed. “The Robinsons loved me in their own way, and that is how I hope to remember them.”

I closed the shutters and slipped into bed beside her. “At least tell me one thing,” I said as I lay back on my pillow. “How is it that Branwell is so satisfied with his position at Thorp Green? Every time he comes home, he seems so anxious to go back there. Does he not suffer the same degradations as we did? Or is it different for him, because he is a man and a tutor, rather than a governess?”

Anne fell silent; even in the dim evening light, I could discern a blush rise in her cheeks. “He is very valued there,” was all she said. She then closed her eyes, bade me an affectionate good-night, and turned her back to me.

Clearly, I thought, she has not told all; but I could see that I would have to be content with that for the present.

That night, I dreamt that I was back in the garden at the Pensionnat in Brussels. It was a moonlit night in April; the air was heavy with the fragrance of pear blossoms, mingled with the smoky scent of a cigar; my master and I stood together, just as we had stood two years before. Even in dreaming, my heart pounded with ferocity, and I awoke trembling.

As I lay there in the early-morning darkness, I strove to calm
myself so that Anne beside me would not stir. Why, I wondered, did I continue to dream of my former professor, night after night? Why could I not forget? Often, I had tormenting dreams, in which I saw him always severe, always saturnine and angry with me. In this dream, however, he had been kind, affectionate, and tender, as he had been on that fateful evening. Perhaps the dream was an omen, then: not a bad sign, but a good one. Perhaps it meant that to-day, my wish would be fulfilled: I would at last receive another letter from Brussels.

I could see the shape of that letter in my mind: the envelope of enameled white, with the Cyclops’s eye of crimson wax in the centre. I could almost feel the hoped-for envelope itself: firm, substantial, and satisfying, with the promise of at least a single sheet of paper inside. A little thrill ran through me at the thought. It was earlier than I was accustomed to rising, but I left my warm bed with excitement and quietly got dressed.

Not long after, as I sat reading one of my French newspapers downstairs, the church bells tolled the early-morning hour; moments later, I heard the familiar, sharp report of papa’s pistol discharging above. Ever since the days of the Luddite riots more than thirty years before, papa had gone to bed with a loaded pistol at his bedside, and his first duty on awakening was to fire it out his bedroom window, usually taking aim at the church tower. This rather eccentric daily habit had become the accepted signal to all the household—and no doubt all the neighbourhood—that it was time to rise. I heard the expected stirring from above; soon Martha appeared, expressing surprise to see me up before her.

After breakfast, I went about my household duties in a sort of fog, listening with fevered anticipation for the approaching footsteps of the postman. At last he came. I ran to meet him at the front door, where I secured his handful of deliveries and glanced through them. A surge of disappointment washed over me; the letter was not there.

“What are ye up to?” said Tabby, as she hobbled down the hall and snatched the mail from my grasp. “The letters be my
job, an’ well ye know it. Ye can read ’em t’ your father later, after tea.”

Tabby shuffled into papa’s study; as the door opened, the sound of music trilled out into the hall. Emily was practising at the cottage piano; through the open doorway I glimpsed Anne sitting on the bench beside her, turning the pages. I knew I ought to return to the dining-room, where I had been polishing the fender; but my heart was too heavy; I had no will to move. The long-awaited letter would have been the answer to my prayers, my ransom from the devastation of months of deprivation; but it had not come.

As Tabby passed me on her way to the kitchen, I gave myself a mental shake. “Stop acting like an idiot. It is only a letter,” an inner voice sternly cried. “He will write again one day; surely he must.” Another voice, far sweeter and more cajoling than the first, quickly followed: “if you cannot have the satisfaction of a
new
letter, there
is
one recourse.” My heart beat faster; I was fraught with indecision. “It is time,” I silently scolded myself, “to give up your guilty pleasure.” But I could not help myself.

A quick glance into the study convinced me that Emily and Anne would be engaged at the piano for a good half-hour, at least. Hastily, I stole upstairs to my chamber, took my keys from my pocket, and unlocked the bottom drawer of my bureau. From its depths, I removed a small rosewood case which had once belonged to my mother. I unlocked the case and took out a bundle shrouded in silver paper; this I unwrapped, to reveal a small packet of letters tied with a scarlet ribbon. Five letters only: these were the sum total of my treasure. I sat down on the bed, untied the precious bundle, and eyed the first letter in the stack: the one that had come just a few weeks after I returned from Belgium.

Oh! What delight I had felt upon its receipt, and on the arrival of its four successors. Each new letter had been as if an aliment divine: a godsend, sweet, pure, and life-sustaining. Even now, knowing every word of their contents so intimately that I could recite them in my sleep, a mere glimpse of each cover
with its direction, “Miss Charlotte Brontë,” in that clean, decided, and familiar hand—stamped on the reverse with the well-cut impress of three beloved initials—caused a thrill to run lively through all my veins and warmed me to my very core.

How many letters had I sent to Brussels, I wondered, in the past eighteen months? Too many to count; yet, in all that time, I had received only these five precious replies. Some I had read at the very moment of receipt; others—like a perfectly ripe peach, too good to be tasted at once—I had saved for a later devouring, when they could be enjoyed away from prying eyes and questioning tongues. Each one I had opened with the greatest of care, gently sliding a knife blade beneath the seal, to leave the molten circle intact in all its crimson beauty.

Now, I picked up the first envelope and slipped out the crisp, white pages just as cautiously, so as not to crease or despoil the edges; with rapidly beating heart, I unfolded them and gave myself over to my treat. The letters were, of course, written in French. I had, while in Belgium, developed a certain level of prowess in that language; since I left that country, I had committed myself to reading a half page of a French newspaper every day, to keep alive my skills. Now, I took my time, slowly savouring each and every word, one epistle at a time, until I had read all five. When I was through, I tied and wrapped them as before, replaced them in their box, and returned them to their hiding place.

Diary, you may ask: what did these letters contain, that caused me to await them with such fervent anticipation, and peruse them over and over again with such eagerness? Were they Shakespearean in their might and brilliance? Were they akin to Byron, the outpourings of a tortured, poetic soul? Hardly. They were simply good-natured letters, written in a benignant mood, sharing news of people we both knew and imparting sage counsel. And yet to me, they seemed the elixir of a divined vintage; a draught which Hebe might provide, and the very gods approve. They nourished my soul; they gave me vital comfort. When that comfort was withdrawn—as the months ticked by, and one sea
son followed another, without a word from him—I was tormented exceedingly, locked like the letters in my drawer in a state of stasis from which there was no escape.

What had I done to deserve this silence? After that night in the garden—after all that he had said, and all that had happened—it seemed impossible that he had forgotten me; and yet it seemed that he wanted me to forget him.

People who have undergone bereavement often gather together and stash away mementos of their dearly departed; it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment by sharp revival of regret. As such, I had stowed his letters out of sight, and had tried to stop reading them. For months, I had forbidden myself the pleasure of speaking about him, even to Emily, the only person in my household who knew him.

Oh! The folly of the human heart! If only we could choose, through prudence and discernment, the recipient of our admiration. It was different with corporal afflictions, I thought, like the blindness from which papa suffered; in such cases, we were sadly compelled to make all those who surrounded us sharers in our anguish. The troubles of the
soul
, however,
should
and
must
be kept hidden; I could not speak of my secret to any one, not even my family. They must believe that I felt—and
had
felt—only friendship for my master; that I merely held him in the highest esteem as my teacher, and nothing more.

For Monsieur Héger was married, and had been married the entire time that I had known him in Brussels.

F
or some time, I had been desirous of a change of scenery from Haworth, if only for a brief respite. My sisters convinced me that, with Anne’s return, there were now two of them to assist papa; and so I ought to avail myself of a long-standing invitation to visit my oldest and dearest friend, Ellen Nussey.

I had known Ellen since I was fourteen years of age. We were faithful correspondents, exchanged frequent visits, and had taken several pleasant holidays together. Ellen currently lived with her mother and unmarried siblings at a house called Brookroyd in Birstall, about twenty miles distant. It was not, however, to Brookroyd that I was now directed, but to Hathersage: a small village in the Derbyshire Peak District near Sheffield, a place I had never seen. Ellen had been at Hathersage the past few months supervising alterations to the vicarage as a favour for her brother Henry, a serious-minded clergyman who had recently found himself a bride.

On the second of July, I corded up my trunk and sent it with the carrier to the train station. Early the next morning, my sisters walked with me to Keighley to see me off on the first leg of
my journey, to Leeds. With great excitement, I boarded the locomotive, wherein I was fortunate enough to secure a window seat. My own place of residence being so remote, and every field, hill, and valley so familiar, I always found great pleasure in looking out, as I travelled, at the many and varied scenes passing by: in imagining who might live in that quaint farmhouse, or what fascinating landscapes might lie on the other side of that pale, distant mountain.

On this excursion, however, as I relaxed into my seat, jostled and lulled by the movement of the train, instead of focusing on the vistas spread out before me, I found myself staring at my own countenance in the window, which was reflected back to me against the shadowy backdrop of the misty day. I saw before me a mouth too wide, a nose too large, and a forehead too high, all set in a complexion that was too ruddy; the only redeeming feature, if there was one, were the soft brown eyes. As I stared, the stinging remark which Mr. Nicholls had recently made came back to me:

The words, gentlemen, of an ugly old maid.

The statement haunted me. I had been called ugly only once before, a long time ago; it had been, in fact, on the day I first met Ellen Nussey—the very friend I was travelling to see. I could laugh about the incident now; but then, it was no laughing matter. As I sat back in my seat, my thoughts drifted away to that other time and place, some fourteen years earlier: when I was a lonely new arrival at Roe Head boarding school—an establishment which was to for ever change my life in innumerable, unexpected ways.

It was a stark, grey day in early January, 1831, when I first learned that I was to be sent away to Roe Head School. I was adamantly opposed to the idea of going to school at all—and no wonder. For years I had taken charge of my own studies, and worked at my own pace at home; the prospect of giving up that delicious freedom, and of being separated from my loved ones, filled me with grief. Far more grievous, however,
were the harrowing memories of the last school I had attended, when I was eight years old—the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge—a truly horrifying place, whose tenure had resulted in a tragedy of such enormous proportions, that it haunted my family to this day. My father, who I think never quite forgave himself for that catastrophe, insisted that this school would be different.

“Roe Head is a wonderful establishment,” he assured me, as we sat by the hearth in his study with my aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who was busily knitting a sweater. “It’s a brand-new school on the outskirts of Mirfield, not twenty miles from Haworth. They take only ten pupils, who all live in a fine old house which has just been acquired for that purpose. I can only afford to send one of you girls at a time; as the eldest, you’ll be the first.”

“But papa,” said I, stunned by this unexpected news, and fighting back the sudden threat of tears, “I enjoy a wide-ranging education at home. Why must I leave?”

“You are nearly fifteen years old, Charlotte. I have kept you at home long enough,” papa insisted.

“You must be equipped to earn your own living as a teacher or a governess, in case you do not marry,” added Aunt Branwell. A very small, antiquated lady, my mother’s sister had reluctantly but dutifully removed from Penzance to Haworth after my mother’s death to care for us children. As always, she wore a false front of light auburn curls over her forehead, held in place by a white cap large enough for half a dozen of the caps in fashion at the time. Beneath her voluminous, dark silk skirts peeked the pattens
¹²
which she wore when downstairs to protect her feet from the cold stone floors of the parsonage. A practical and disciplined woman, Aunt Branwell had for years managed our household with skill and precision, if not great affection, overseeing
our lessons and household chores and teaching us to sew, while often wistfully recalling the warmer climate of her beloved Cornwall, and the social pleasures she had enjoyed there. My father enjoyed their frequent, lively intellectual discussions; my sisters and I respected and appreciated her; my brother loved her as the mother we longed for but did not have.

“There are accomplishments a young lady must possess, Charlotte,” Aunt Branwell continued, “further studies in language, music, and deportment, for example—and other subjects which your father and I are not qualified to teach, which will be of importance to a future employer.”

I burst into tears now, too miserable to speak.

“Don’t look upon this as the end of the world, Charlotte,” said Aunt Branwell. “You’ve spent nearly all your life in this one house. This school will be good for you.”

“You’ll see: you’ll learn new things,” said papa, leaning forward and squeezing my hand with affection. “You’ll make new friends. You might even grow to like it.”

I saw no prospect of my father’s prediction coming true on that bitterly cold day two weeks later, the 17th of January, as I made the long and bumpy journey to Roe Head School. A hired gig being too dear, I was conveyed to my destination in the back of a slow-moving covered cart, of the kind used to deliver produce to the main centres on market days. When at last I arrived, stiff-legged, nauseous, and frozen, in the fading light of that wintry afternoon, I was prepared to dislike my new home on sight; to my surprise, I could not help but be impressed. The grand, three-storeyed house of grey stone had an attractive double-bowed frontage; it was situated atop a hill with wide, sloping lawns to the front, and surrounded on both sides by gardens which, I imagined, would be lovely in spring; and its high position offered commanding views of the woods, the river valley, and the distant village of Huddersfield.

As I was admitted into the oak-panelled entrance-hall, however, and gave my name and cloak to a waiting servant, I overheard three girls (each dressed
à la mode
and stylishly coiffed)
whispering about me in a nearby doorway—and my doubts and fears instantly returned.

“She looks so old and shriveled, like a little old woman,” said the first girl.

“Look at her hair, it is all a frizzle,” whispered another.

“Her dress is so old-fashioned!” cried a third, to which they all laughed.

My face grew hot, and I wrapped my thin arms around me, as if that act could somehow shield from view the sight of my old, shabby, dark green stuff dress. I was far more mortified, however, by their comments about my appearance. I was, at the time, still as small as a child and exceedingly thin, with tiny hands and feet. I was too proud to wear spectacles (an affectation I did not overcome for several years), and so short-sighted that I squinted to perceive anything not placed directly under my nose. My hair was dry and screwed up in a mass of tight curls—the result, although I did not then understand it, of an overzealous practice of tying it up too tightly at night. Looking back, I realise that I was at a disadvantage from the other girls, having come from a motherless household where little or no attention was paid to outward appearances.

My heart pounding with embarrassment, I followed the servant—a neat-looking girl of perhaps eighteen years of age, with a sympathetic smile—who led me up a fine oak staircase to the galleried first floor. As we entered the room which I was to share with two other girls, I gasped with delight. It was three times the size of my own chamber at home, furnished with a mahogany dresser and wardrobe and two comfortable-looking beds, and the large windows, hung with floor-length drapes, overlooked a stretch of wintry garden. Papa was right about one thing, I thought: this was nothing at all like the vast, dismal dormitories at the Clergy Daughters’ School; as to whether or not I would fit in with the students here,
that
was another question.

“There still be one more girl t’ come, an’ she’ll be your bed-fellow,” the servant explained, “but she’s not expected till next
week. Th’ other bed belongs t’ Miss Amelia Walker, whose family paid extry so she might have a bed all t’ herself.”

I knew of Amelia Walker, although I had never met her. She was the niece of Mrs. Atkinson, my Godmother, who had first suggested this establishment to papa. I thanked the servant, declined her offer of food and drink, and she withdrew. As I unpacked my trunk and hung my things in the wardrobe, I could not help but feel a discomfited pang when I compared my few, homely articles of clothing to the beautiful, brightly-coloured frocks and the rich, dark velvet cloak hanging within. With a sigh, I changed into my best Sunday frock—knowing full well that it would make no better impression on my critics than had the first, for it was just as plain, and equally as old—and then made my way downstairs to the schoolroom, where I had been told to present myself.

The schoolroom was large, high-ceilinged, and entirely panelled in oak, with bookcases lining one wall, and a bow-window on the opposite side overlooking the expansive front lawns. In the centre of the room stood a long table covered with a crimson cloth, where four teachers and eight pupils were engaged in study. As I entered, all heads swivelled in my direction, and I found myself the silent, uncomfortable object of their scrutiny.

At the head of the room, at an ornate writing-desk, sat a short, stout woman of perhaps forty years of age, clad in a cream-coloured, embroidered dress. I knew her at once from papa’s description; this must be Miss Margaret Wooler, the owner and headmistress of the school.

“Good-afternoon and welcome, Miss Brontë,” said she, rising gracefully from her chair and introducing herself. Miss Wooler was not what I would call handsome; but with her hair plaited like a coronet around her head, and long ringlets falling to her shoulders, she projected the quiet and imposing dignity of a lady abbess. There followed a brief introduction to the other teachers, all of whom were Miss Wooler’s sisters, and to the girls, who looked to be my age or a year or two younger. As I struggled
to assimilate all this new information, the girls went back to their lessons, and Miss Wooler bade me to sit down opposite her at her desk.

“It is my duty to determine your position in the school, Miss Brontë,” said Miss Wooler in a low tone, “with an oral examination. Do not worry if you cannot answer every question. This will simply give me an idea of the breadth of your education.”

She then proceeded to ask me a long series of intimidating and sometimes baffling questions, covering a wide variety of subjects. It seemed as if the quiz would never end; when it did, Miss Wooler said, “Well, Miss Brontë. You show remarkable awareness and comprehension of history and the works of literature, some knowledge of French, and an excellent aptitude in mathematics. However, you are deficient in several other subjects—on the theory of grammar in particular—and you appear to possess very little knowledge of geography. Although your age places you among the senior girls, I am afraid I will have to place you at the junior table until you catch up with your contemporaries.”

This wound to my pride, coming on a day which had already been marked by so much heartache, was too much to bear; I immediately burst into tears. As I shook with sobs, Miss Wooler grew quiet; I sensed that she was observing me.

“Would it upset you so much, Miss Brontë, to sit with the lower class?”

“It would. Please,
please,
Miss Wooler, let me sit with girls my own age.”

“All right. I will admit you to the senior class on one condition: that you complete some private reading and additional studies in your free time.”

“Oh! Thank you, Miss Wooler! I am quite accustomed to private study. I will apply myself diligently, I promise.”

“I am sure you will,” replied Miss Wooler with a kind smile.

Later that evening, as I wearily entered my room to prepare for bed, I became acquainted with my roommate for the first time. Miss Amelia Walker was tall, beautiful, and fair-haired; she
was also one of the three girls who had made fun of me upon my arrival; and she was wearing the loveliest, snowiest white night-shirt I had ever seen. I set down my candle beside hers on the dresser (each pupil was supplied with her very own candle and holder; quite a luxury) and undressed in silence. Amelia hung her exquisite pink silk frock in the wardrobe, and, with a decisive shove, moved all her garments as far down the rod as possible from mine. “Do not touch my things,” warned she imperiously. “They are all new, and I do not wish to have them spoiled. Also: never sit on my bed. I am very particular about that.”

“I do not see how any contact with me or my clothing could spoil your things,” I replied, as I hung up my dress.

She glanced at me. “What a strange manner of speaking you have. Are you from Ireland?”

“No. My father was from Ireland. I am from Haworth. Your aunt Atkinson is my Godmother.”

“Oh! Je comprends. Vous êtes
cette
Charlotte,”
¹³
declared she in an affected manner, as if speaking French was the world’s loftiest accomplishment. She retrieved a box of curl papers from the dresser and sat down upon her bed; we each quickly tied up our hair. “My father is a squire. He says the Irish are a very lowly race. You must be very poor,” she added, with a pitying glance at my night-shirt, which I had made myself, and mended any number of times. “Your
vêtements
¹⁴
are so old.”