The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte

by James Tully

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Noted criminologist James Tully became fascinated by inconsistencies he found in the accounts of the lives and deaths of the Brontes. So dark and unexpected were the results of his searches, he decided to tell the story in the form of a novel. He has created a controversial and compelling account of this most famous Victorian family.

Release date: August 1, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

My name is Charles Coutts, and I am a partner in the firm of solicitors Coutts, Heppelthwaite and Larkin, which was established in 1788 by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Henry Coutts.

Henry began his practice from one room which he rented in a large four-storied building in Keighley, Yorkshire. He prospered, and, over the centuries, more and more rooms were acquired until, in 1926, my grandfather bought the freehold of the entire property. Then, three years ago, we received an offer for it which we could not refuse.

Some developers were willing to pay a considerable sum in order that they might demolish the building and then use the entire, very large, site for the construction of a shopping mall. Actually we were, in effect, made two offers. We could either have the total amount in cash, or have our pick, at a favourable price, of a spacious suite of offices in a new block which was nearing completion, and receive the balance.

I discussed the matter with the other partners at some length, and in the end we realized that we should be foolish not to jump at the proposal. Our premises needed a lot spending on them, and they were already costing the earth to heat and maintain. It was a heaven-sent opportunity to cut our losses and move, and that was just what we did – after opting for the ‘part-exchange’ deal.

As we had anticipated, the changeover was a major upheaval. To move one’s home is bad enough, but to clear such a large building of all the junk which had accumulated in over two centuries was a nightmare. It had been decided that it would be best if we dealt with the removal floor by floor, and transferred to our new offices gradually. We began, therefore, with the two large attics.

Many years had slipped away since I was last up there – as a small boy during the Second World War – and, remembering what it was like then, it was with some trepidation that I ascended the rickety stairs to make an inspection.

What I beheld, when I finally managed to force open the first door, confirmed my memories – and my worst fears. The rooms were packed from floorboards to rafters. It seemed that my forebears had been unable to throw away anything whatsoever, and it was going to be a task of gargantuan proportions to sort through what was there.

I undertook the supervision of the work myself, mainly because I did not wish anything of value to be discarded, but also because I was interested in my ancestry and the history of the firm. In other words, as I overheard one of my partners say, I was ‘both acquisitive and inquisitive’!

It was a slow business but, with the help of four stalwart workmen, I was able to make steady and rewarding progress. A couple of containers of rubbish went off to the tip, but there were many other items, some genuine antiques, which we sold at prices which astounded us.

There was, however, one piece of furniture which I earmarked for myself. It was a handsome George IV bureau/bookcase, which I thought would stand nicely in my study. I gave it a rough wipe with a rag, made sure that it was free from woodworm, and then had it taken to my home where it was stored, temporarily, in the garage.

What with the move, and other matters, it was some weeks before I was able to get round to a closer inspection. Eventually, however, a weekend arrived when I had the time to give it a good cleaning in order to see whether any restoration would be necessary.

I lowered the flap which formed the writing-top, and then removed all the drawers before starting work. It appeared to be in good condition, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself as I beavered away with cloth and polish. Then, suddenly, as I was rubbing the side of the large central section, there was a loud ‘click’ and, to my utter amazement, the bottom of the section swung up.

What was revealed was one of those secret compartments so beloved by nineteenth-century craftsmen. The base of the middle section was false, and obviously I had touched something which released what was, in fact, a carefully hinged lid to the hiding-place below.

Among other bits and pieces, it contained various documents which, I was to discover, had been placed there by my great-great-grandfather who died, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, in 1878. All had been of a highly confidential nature at the time, but most were now no longer so and need not concern us here. However, the contents of a brown paper parcel have intrigued me ever since I read them, and have given me many a sleepless night.

The parcel measured some twelve inches by ten, and was about three inches thick. It was sealed with red wax, imprinted upon which was the name of our firm, and tied neatly with white tape, the knot of which was also sealed and bore the signet of my ancestor James Coutts. On the front of the parcel, in his magnificent copperplate handwriting, were the words: ‘Statement sworn to by Miss Martha Brown of Bell Cottage, Stubbing Lane, Haworth, on January 8th, 1878. Not to be opened until after her death, and that of Arthur Bell Nicholls, Esquire, of Hill House, Banagher, King’s County, Ireland.’

It was the stuff of which murder mysteries are made and, never having seen similar phraseology before in my professional career, my curiosity knew no bounds. I was filled with anticipation as – oh, so carefully – I slit open the parcel and examined the contents.

They consisted of a pile of rather tattered old school exercise books, one of which, I found later, had been used as something of a diary by Anne Brontë.

At the end of the final paragraph, on the last page of the books, there was a deposition that what had been written in the books was true. That was followed by a form of wording which authorized James Coutts or his successors to use the information contained in the books in any way they saw fit, but only after the deaths of the signatory and Mr Nicholls. Below that, and witnessed by James Coutts and one of his clerks, was the signature ‘Martha Brown’, written in a good hand for one who, I was to discover, had been a mere servant woman.

I had to read the books several times before I had a proper appreciation of the enormities which they detailed. Apparently Martha Brown had been a servant in the employ of the legendary Brontë family of Haworth – which is some five miles from Keighley as the crow flies. Among other things, she claimed that most of the Brontë family had been murdered, and that she was privy to one of the killings. What she alleged she had witnessed made startling reading, especially as part of it was self-incriminatory, but, if it was all true, I understood why she had seen fit to have her testimony signed and sealed.

Was it true, though? Or could it be true? Although their former home was so close to mine, I must confess that I knew very little about the Brontës. I had once accompanied my wife, under sufferance, to Haworth and the Parsonage – but had thought the best part of the trip was our visit to the Black Bull afterwards! From holidays in Cornwall, I also knew the house in Penzance in which Mrs Brontë had lived until she married. That, however, was the sum total of my knowledge of the family. As for the literary works of the three daughters, I had heard of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights but had never read them.

What Martha Brown deposed was to alter all that. Clearly I needed to check on all the available evidence. I wanted to know why she had chosen James Coutts’ firm, and whether what she had told him was in keeping with the known facts about the Brontës.

The answer to my first query was easily discovered. I found that our firm had acted for the Haworth Church Trustees on many occasions, a fact of which Martha might have been aware both from working at the Parsonage and being the daughter of the sexton at Haworth. It was logical, therefore, that she should have come to us, and the senior partner would have been the only person to whom she would have imparted such extraordinary information.

As for my other question, I began on the premise that James Coutts must have thought that there was at least some truth in what she had confided. Otherwise, from what I had read of him, he would probably have sent her packing with a stern warning ringing in her ears. I then embarked upon what was to become a lengthy process of research, but it did not take all that long to come to the conclusion that there was something seriously amiss with the generally accepted legend of the Brontë family.

It all seemed far too good to be true. Three almost saint-like sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – live with their stern, but equally saint-like, father in a grim parsonage in a wild part of England. After very little formal schooling, and not until they are all far into their twenties, each writes – in the very same year – a romantic novel which sells well. Within ten years they are all dead, but they live on in their books – which continue to sell well nearly 150 years after the last sister’s death.

Interwoven with their lives is a young and handsome curate who arrives, very coincidentally, at the start of the year in which the novels are written. He eventually marries the eldest sister who dies, tragically, whilst carrying their first child. Husband, heartbroken at the loss of his one true love, vows that he will care for her aged father for the rest of his life. This he does, for six long years, until the venerable, white-haired patriarch finally departs to meet his Maker.

The sad and lonely widower then rides off into the sunset to try to find some meaning in Life. Curtain down; not a dry eye in the house.

Of course, being Victorian, the story has to paint a moral, and this is provided appropriately by the sisters’ brother, Branwell Brontë. He is intelligent, artistically gifted, and shows great promise. However, he falls in with bad companions and is easily led into a life of debauchery. Inevitably he comes to a sad, but only to be expected, end through his addiction to drink, drugs and gambling. Let that be a lesson to us all, and an encouragement to sign the Pledge before it is too late!

I fear that, according to Martha Brown, the reality was very different. The Brontës were all fallible, and subject to short-comings as are we all.

Having checked her story, and what Anne Brontë had written, against the known facts, I was in a dilemma. I had been able to discover nothing which contradicted what she had to say. Initially I had made my enquiries merely to satisfy my own curiosity; but now that I had done so, and become convinced of the veracity of the documents, what should my next step be?

Probably the easiest thing would have been to have destroyed the books, or at least kept the whole matter to myself. Nobody would have been any the wiser, and the ‘authorized version’ of the Brontë legend would have continued to be accepted. On balance, however, and only after a great deal of thought, I decided that the statement and the ‘diary’ were historical documents which should be made public.

Here, then, is what Martha recounted all those years ago. As it incorporates all the facts that Anne recorded, I have seen no reason to quote verbatim from her book. I have other plans for that highly valuable document.

In order to make Martha’s deposition understandable, and to provide readers with background and other information, I have replaced the more obscure of the old Yorkshire dialect words, inserted some punctuation and added, at the end of each chapter, comments on the results of my research – to distinguish them from Martha’s text the reader will find my initials [] at the start of each of these sections. The Biblical quotations at the start of each chapter are my idea, and were introduced in order to break up Martha’s continuous narrative and because they seemed appropriate. Essentially, however, the tale belongs to her.

I am very conscious of the possibility that the publication of this account may cause offence in some quarters. That, I am sure, was not Martha’s intention, and it is certainly not mine. I shall therefore be sorry if such proves to be the case. It is merely that, as her statement fits all the known facts, I feel I have an obligation, especially to the Brontës, to let it be known.

So come along with Martha and me, step by step, and see what you think. If, as I did sometimes, you find anything which is difficult to accept, compare it with the popular version and then with the facts and see which you consider the more reasonable.

Obviously each reader will come to her or his own conclusion, and there will probably be many who, initially, will doubt Martha’s tale – as indeed I did. However, after asking myself what she had to gain by inventing such a story, I approached it with an open mind and all I ask is that you do the same.

If, in the end, she has achieved nothing more than to cause you to doubt the traditional Brontë story I am sure that Martha Brown’s spirit, and those of the Brontës too come to that, will rest more easily.

‘Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.’

Job 13:1

My name is Martha Brown, and for over 20 years I was servant to the Brontë family at Haworth Parsonage. During my time there I witnessed and overheard many things that have stayed unknown to the world outside, and I was told of other matters by my Father and the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls, who was Mr Brontë’s curate for about 16 years. Even so, there were happenings that were not fully clear to me at the time, but so much has come out since the Brontës died that I can now see the whole picture.

For a long while now what I know has been a burden to me and, as I have not been too well of late, I now feel that it is high time that I set my mind at rest. I shall ask that what I write is not read until after my death, and even then it should not be made public if Mr Arthur Bell Nicholls, now of Hill House, Banagher, King’s County, Ireland is still alive. Although he has much to answer for, he has never rendered me any harm and I do not wish any ill to befall him through me.

What I have to say begins in 1840, when I was only just over 12 years of age. My Father, John Brown, was a stone mason in Haworth. He was also the Sexton of the Church there and Master of the Freemason Lodge. We lived in a cottage called ‘Sexton House’ in The Ginnel – near the Church and right next door to the National School, where I also went to Sunday School. Father used a barn across The Ginnel from the Parsonage for his work.

I was very happy with my Mother and Father and sisters until shortly after my 12th birthday, when Father told me that as I was the oldest I would have to earn my keep. He said he had had a word with Mr Brontë and I was to work at the Parsonage and live there. Life was never the same for me after that.

There were many tales about the Parsonage, and I was very ill at ease on the morning that I had to start my job, so Father took me by the hand and we walked there together, carrying the bits and pieces that I was taking with me.

First of all we met the Parson, Mr Brontë, and his dead wife’s sister, Miss Branwell, who had come up from Cornwall to look after the family when Mrs Brontë died nearly 20 years before the time that I am talking about. Mr Brontë was only 63 then, with Miss Branwell being but a few years older, but they both seemed very old to me, and I was a little afraid of them. Mr Brontë spoke to me kindly enough though, as did Miss Branwell after him and Father had left the room. She showed me the kitchen and the other rooms downstairs, and then took me to meet Mrs Tabitha Aykroyd.

In truth, Miss Aykroyd – as we called her – knew me very well, as I did her. She was a village widow-woman who was nigh on 70 then, and who had worked at the Parsonage for 15 years. The Brontë children looked upon her as an aunt, and called her ‘Tabby’, but talk in the village had it that, at one time, she had had a very different friendship with Mr Brontë. Now, though, the years were catching up with her, and also she had had a fall and broken her leg which was not mending as it should, so Father and Mr Brontë had agreed that I should be taken on to help out.

The work at the Parsonage was hard, and the house dreary and damp with no curtains at the windows because Mr Brontë was afraid of a fire. I had to get up very early, and I slaved for many hours, doing all manner of rough jobs, some of which I hated, from scrubbing the flags with sandstone, which often left my hands bleeding, to making ready the vegetables, and all for only 2/3d a week which I had to give to Mother with naught for myself but what she chose to give me from time to time. As I got older I was to be relieved of many of the worst jobs by younger girls, and I would be allowed to work upstairs, becoming something of a maid to the sisters. However, I did not know that then and I was very unhappy.

Night after night I was kept working to all hours. I would trail upstairs so tired out, and many a time in tears. I had to share a bedroom with Miss Aykroyd, and that had not bothered me when first I was told about it for I was used to sharing with my sisters in our crowded house. When it came to it though, I did not like it one jot. Miss Aykroyd snored a great deal, and often moaned, I suppose from the pain in her leg. But it was not only that – she got up two or three times in the night to pass water and made such a noise that some nights I had barely any sleep and would start work tired out already.

At the start it seemed that I could do nothing right, and I was always being scolded. Miss Aykroyd was crochety and had little patience, but she was old and I was able to get away with some things with her. No, it was Miss Charlotte who was the bane of my life. She was always snooping around the house and poking her nose into things that were not rightfully her business, and she took to ordering me about and watching to see that I did not get a moment’s rest. I also heard her complaining to Miss Branwell about me, and I began to wonder why she was so down on me, but it was not until I said about it to Father that I understood. He told me to take no notice, and said that she was probably trying to get back at him through me as she blamed him a lot for Master Branwell’s drinking. Father and Master Branwell both loved to drink at the Black Bull, and were also members of the Freemason Lodge of the Three Graces.

It was all right for Father to say take no notice; he did not have to put up with her. As fast as I finished one job I was given another, and if anything went wrong, such as me breaking something, you could be sure that she would be on the spot. Then she would give me a good scolding, no matter who else was there, and say that the cost would be taken out of my wages. I would feel myself becoming redder and redder, and would have a job holding back the tears. Many was the time when I swore to myself that I would get my own back on her one day.

It was Miss Emily who, without the others knowing, usually came to my aid with a kind word, a hug, and little treats, and she saw to it that nothing ever was taken from my wages. She was the only person who took the trouble to explain to me how jobs should be done properly, and to give me a kind word when I did well. Happily for me, it was her who was in the kitchen for most of the time, as she loved cooking and doing jobs around the house, whereas the others seemed to think such things beneath them. As time went on I grew to love her dearly.

Little by little I became more able, and I also became very good at hiding my true feelings from Miss Charlotte. It was all ‘Yes, Miss’ and ‘No, Miss’ with a smile on my face – even though I usually put my tongue out, or worse, to her back – and gradually she came to think that that was the real me, and stopped tormenting me so much.

The years passed, and I grew stronger, but even so it was still hard work, and many were the times when I told Father that I wanted to leave the Parsonage to do something else, and be more amongst girls of my own age. I had my mind fixed on going into one of the mills, where most of the girls I knew were working, but Father would have none of it. I know now that he was right, and that the hours there were even longer and the work far harder than I suffered at the Parsonage, but at least I would have had a few laughs instead of the grimness that was my lot in that dreary house.

As time went by, though, things became a little easier and in the end I was as taken for granted and unnoticed as a piece of their old furniture. Rarely did anyone tell me off, and I was allowed to be privy to a lot that was hidden from other folk. I have kept most of what I learned to myself for all this time, but now it is only right and proper that folk should know what really happened over the years in that awful place.

I suppose it was during the year of 1845, when I was 17, that things began to go wrong for the family, although it was hard to see it at the time.

The first thing that happened was that a new curate came to help Mr Brontë out. He was the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls, and when he arrived there was quite a stir of interest both in the Parsonage and the village. I knew more about him than most though, for Mr Brontë had arranged with Father that he should lodge in our house – as though it was not full enough already – but I was still surprised when I saw him.

Mr Nicholls – for even after all we have been through together I seldom think of him as anything else – was a handsome man. Then he was 27, about Miss Emily’s age and some 2 years younger than Miss Charlotte. He was well-built, with a full beard. Like Mr Brontë, he had been brought up in Ireland, but he spoke in a lovely soft voice that was quite unlike the harsh Irish accent of Mr Brontë and his daughters.

I got to know him quite well early on, what with him living with my family and being in and out of the Parsonage all the time. He was very agreeable and, when he wished, he could be quite the charmer, but there were other sides to his nature.

Very often he would seem quite down, and Mother told me that then he would go off for long walks on the moors from which he would come back more cheerful. There was no doubt in my mind, nor indeed in the whole village, that he had an eye for the ladies, and it seemed to give him great pleasure to make himself agreeable to even the oldest and most cross-grained of the women in the parish – though I had a good idea of his true thoughts.

I knew that he was lonely, because at the Parsonage he was treated much as I had been when I first went there. He told Father that Mr Brontë and Miss Charlotte rarely spoke to him, and that only Miss Emily had shown him any kindness and gone out of her way to make him feel at home. There were no young men of his class in the village, and though Father had tried to befriend him at the outset they did not get on very well. Father loved his drink, and he was often at the King’s Arms or the Black Bull, but Mr Nicholls was not interested in mixing with the villagers socially, especially in a tavern, and I always noticed his face set when the Freemasons were mentioned.

Mind you, Father would not have been so well-inclined towards him then had he known of some of the things that Mr Nicholls got up to with me from time to time when nobody was about.

It started with him putting his arm around my shoulders in a fatherly fashion, and sometimes he would pat my bottom in jest. Then he took to creeping up behind me when I was busy and tickling me in the ribs. I am very ticklish, and used to wriggle and try to stem my laughter, and then, somehow, his hands would be on my breasts giving them a gentle squeeze. I was quite taken aback when first it happened, but put it down to being by chance. When it happened quite often though, I knew it was not. Still, I never made anything of it – indeed I rather liked it and, although it would have been very immodest of me to have let him know that, he must have sensed how I felt.

One day he tickled me when I was on my hands and knees scrubbing, and somehow we finished up on the floor together with him on top of me. I could feel the hardness of him, and feelings that I had never had before swept over me. To this day I do not know what would have happened next if we had not heard Miss Charlotte clip-clopping across the flags. Mr Nicholls leaped to his feet and was out of the door in a flash, whilst I quickly put my dress to rights and took to scrubbing as if possessed.

All along, though, I knew that to him it was but a bit of play with a servant girl, especially as I had noticed that he had been trying very hard to get into Miss Charlotte’s good books right from the very start. He would take any chance to talk to her, putting on all his charm as he did so. I just could not understand this, because even her best friends – such as she had – would not have called her anything like pretty, or even handsome. In truth, to me she looked very much like an old pug-dog that Father once had. That being so, you would have thought that she would have been more welcoming of his attentions, but she was not and sometimes she was really quite rude to him. Not only that – I heard her pass nasty remarks about him to Miss Emily, and I know from seeing some of her unfinished letters to her friends that she was quite down on him to them as well.

It seemed to me that the only man she had any time for then was one that she used to write to in Belgium.



[] Here, I think, we should pause for a closer look at Charlotte who, to my mind, is the key figure in the Brontë puzzle.

I have explained how, when I started upon the research for this book, I knew practically nothing about the Brontë family, and had read none of the sisters’ works. Therefore I had no preconceived ideas but, as I became more and more involved with my research, I was able to put some flesh on the bare bones of my knowledge.

Most of the recognized information about the Brontës comes from Charlotte. Her letters – and those from her friends – form the basis of most research, together with the first biography of her, written by another famous novelist, Mrs Gaskell.

Mrs Gaskell presents a sometimes inaccurate, almost always biased, and frequently over-sentimental picture of her subject. The letters, however, are invaluable because they tell us about Charlotte’s true character. Fortunately, when they wrote them she and her friends had no way of foreseeing that successive generations would read them, and be able to compare them, one with another, thus allowing them to place what they wrote in context.

Let us make a start with her appearance.

Most people who know anything about Charlotte prefer to think of her as she was presented in the portrait by George Richmond. That, however, is a very flattering likeness, to say the least. It should be borne in mind that Richmond would have wanted to please the successful authoress, who was by then in a position to recommend him to the rich and famous. For something nearer the truth we should listen to those who knew her well, her two lifelong friends, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor.

Talking about Charlotte at the age of fifteen, Mary Taylor said: ‘She was very ugly.’ Ellen Nussey said: ‘Certainly she was at this time anything but pretty.’ Her ‘screwed up’ hair revealed ‘features that were all the plainer from her exceeding thinness and want of complexion’. She looked ‘dried in’.

Even Mrs Gaskell was not flattering. Listen to her description of Charlotte, when she first met her in 1850: ‘She is (as she calls herself) undeveloped; thin and more than half a head shorter than I, soft brown hair, not so dark as mine; eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour, a reddish face; large mouth and many teeth gone; altogether plain; the forehead square, broad and rather overhanging.’

In the same year, G.H. Lewes, a well-known writer of the day, described her as ‘a little, plain, provincial, sickly-looking old maid’. She was only thirty-four!

Let me not be misunderstood. Nobody can be held responsible for what Nature bestows upon them, only for what they do with, or to, it. It was not Charlotte’s fault that she was short, thin and plain; all I am trying to do is peel away some of the layers of myth which have been built up around her.

Now that we know how she looked, let us examine her character.

Basically she was a domineering and ambitious child who became a domineering and ambitious woman. I attribute that to the fact that she had a poverty-stricken upbringing in a bare and poorly furnished parsonage which left her with mental scars from which she never recovered.

She was the plain daughter of an eccentric – to put it mildly – Irish parson, who herself spoke with an Irish brogue. Very early in her life she developed an inferiority complex which. . .