The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, page 35
“I’ve longed for many years to express my feelings to you, but I was fully aware, in those early days, that you were not at all of like mind. Not only that, you were—and still are—so far above me: I’m only a poor curate, and you the parson’s daughter; and so I said nothing. The day we took that walk to the beck, some four years past, I thought the tide might turn in my favour; but then all that sadness happened in your dear family. I saw you needed time to heal and mend. And so I waited. Just as I gathered my courage to speak, I discovered, to my great surprise, that you were not only the Miss Brontë I had come to know and love so well—you were, in fact, a famous author. You met with great celebrities in London; you had the very world at your feet. Who was I, I asked myself, to dare approach you now on such a subject? How could I even hope that you might be interested in the likes of me?”
“Mr. Nicholls—” I began, but he raised a hand to stop me.
“Please; I must finish, before I lose my nerve again.” He glanced briefly into the fire, then back at me. “For many a moon, I tried to put the thought out of my mind. I tried to tell myself I must be satisfied to be Miss Brontë’s friend, and only a friend. I tried in vain. To be your friend, I knew, would never be enough. And so I’ve waited and I’ve watched, every day for the past three long years, silently hoping, yearning, to see some small sign from you—some tiny hint that you might in some way come to reciprocate my feelings. I felt a growing friendliness between us, and I thought: perhaps that is enough. I told myself: I must speak; but I saw how engrossed you were in your writing. Fearing to disturb your peace of mind, I resolved to wait until you’d finished your new book.”
He was trembling now, his eyes alive with such a desperation of hope and fear and affection, as I had never witnessed in my life. “These last few months I’ve endured such tortuous suffering and agitation of mind and spirit, as I cannot begin to describe—afraid to admit to my feelings, yet unable to bear the agony of not knowing. I must say it now: I love you, Miss Brontë. I love you with all my heart and all my soul. I can imagine no greater honour on this earth, than if you were to agree to be my wife. Will you consider it? Will you have me? Will you marry me, and share my life with me?”
I was stunned—overwhelmed—speechless with confusion. For the first time, I felt what it costs a man to declare affection where he doubts response. I had begun to suspect that Mr. Nicholls harboured feelings for me, but I’d had no conception of the degree or strength of those feelings. He stood before me now, anxiously awaiting my reply. How was I to answer? How did I feel? I hardly knew.
“Have you spoken to papa?” I said at last.
“I dared not. I thought it best to speak to you first.”
I stood. “Mr. Nicholls: I am honoured and humbled by your offer, and from my heart, I thank you for it most respectfully. I can give you no answer, however, until I speak to papa.”
He looked at me desperately. “I understand; but surely, you can say how you feel. Do you return my affections? At least tell me that! I crave leave for some hope.”
“I think it best that I say no more at present, sir, for I do not yet know what I think or feel. I promise a reply on the morrow.” Still, he did not move. I took him by the arm and half led, half put him out of the room and into the hall. “Good-night, sir. Again, I thank you.”
Once I saw the front door close firmly behind him, I leaned back against the passage wall, my mind in a whirl, my heart pounding wildly. What had just happened? Had I imagined it—or had Mr. Nicholls truly just proposed marriage to me? I was thirty-six years old; I had given up any thought of marriage, sure in the belief that no one I could love would ever love me. I had long vowed that I would rather remain single all my days, than to marry a man who did not adore me, and whom I could not adore in return with all my heart; yet here was a conundrum. Here was Mr. Nicholls, declaring his affection with as much passion and feeling as any romantic hero I had ever imagined in a story or a novel.
How did I feel about Mr. Nicholls? Did I love him? No; but whereas I had once despised him, I had, over the years, gained a true respect for him; I had grown to like him, and to consider him a trusted and valued friend—almost a member of the family. In his startling declaration, his entire being seemed to proclaim his love for me—a love he had kept hidden. Who could say if, in time, an answering love could blossom in my own heart?
Oh! If only my sisters were alive, I thought. How dearly I would have liked to share this news with them, and to obtain their counsel. I did not even have a close friend with whom to speak; the only women with whom I shared my confidence—Ellen, Mrs. Gaskell, and Miss Wooler—lived many miles away; and this was not a matter which could be deferred for a time-consuming deliberation by post. There was no one but papa; and I required his consent in any case. Surely, I thought, papa would share his wise and impartial views on the subject, and help me understand what I ought to do.
I took several deep breaths to steady myself, knocked at the study door, and entered.
Papa sat beside the fire-place, erect in his chair, reading the newspaper with the aid of a magnifying glass and the light of hearth and candle. Too unnerved to sit, too stunned to consider how best to choose my words, I strode to papa directly and simply said, with shaking voice: “Papa. I have just had a proposal.”
“What’s that?” said papa, his attention still fixed on his paper.
“Mr. Nicholls has asked me to marry him.”
Papa’s head shot up; his mouth fell open; he stared at me, aghast. The magnifying glass nearly slipped from his grasp; he caught it with both hands, recapturing the newspaper which threatened to slide from his lap. “What do you mean? Are you trying to provoke me? Or is this some kind of a joke?”
“No, papa. Mr. Nicholls came in to see me after he left you. He has only just said the words. He declared that he loves me, and he asked me to be his wife.”
Papa’s voice rose in sudden anger. “That’s preposterous! Mr. Nicholls? Who does he think he is, to be making such an outrageous declaration—and to you, directly? How dare he? Such a question must be put to the father! I hope you gave him a flat refusal!”
“I made no answer, papa. I said I needed to speak to you first.”
“Well, you can tell him for me that he can go straight to the devil!”
“Papa!”
“Mr. Nicholls? Asking you to marry him? Is he mad? The man is my curate! A lowly curate! Did you know this declaration was coming?”
“I did not, but—I have seen signs. My reason tells me it has been long brewing.”
“How long? How long has it been brewing?”
“He said he has loved me for many years, but was afraid to come forward.”
Papa stood and strode to his desk, where he slammed down his newspaper and magnifying glass with such fury, it was a wonder the instrument did not shatter. Flossy, who had awakened with a start at papa’s first outburst, now scampered from the room in terror. “For many years? The ingrate! The bastard! All this time he’s been living amongst us, and working by my side—I thought him to be so diligent, so upstanding, so devoted to the community—all the while he’s just been plotting and planning behind my back, to steal away my only living daughter!”
I was stunned and affronted to hear papa speaking against Mr. Nicholls in this way. “Papa, that is not true. This was no plot. If Mr. Nicholls has feelings for me, they do not take away from the work he has done for you and for this parish.”
“Don’t argue with me, girl!” Papa whirled to face me, his eyes flashing behind his spectacles, with a growing anger and agitation that I thought most disproportionate to the occasion. “The man is a cunning, devious liar. To think, after all the hours and weeks and years I’ve spent in the man’s company, he never breathed a word about this to me—not even a hint. For years, he has purposely concealed his aims from the both of us!”
“If he did, papa, I believe it was not out of cunning or disingenuousness—but because he feared this very reaction from you, and feared I might reject him.”
“And reject him you must, in no uncertain terms! I wouldn’t hear of such a match, not in a thousand years, I tell you! That man has nothing. Nothing! A measly ninety pounds a year, no expectation of a penny more to come, and no house of his own. Where does he expect to keep a wife? In that single room in which he lodges at the sexton’s house?”
“I do not know. I did not think of that. I suppose it is true that Mr. Nicholls does not have a great deal of money, papa—but should not the main consideration in my decision be more about my feelings for the man himself, rather than the size of his income?”
“The size of a man’s income tells you a great deal about the man, Charlotte. Marrying him would be a degradation! Clearly, he is only after your money.”
“My money?” I cried, aghast. “My money? Is it so inconceivable to you, papa, that a man could love me for myself?”
“Of course not!”
“You do not want any one thinking of me as a wife!”
“Don’t try my patience! You are a brilliant and successful woman, Charlotte—a celebrated author. If you wish to marry, then marry well! Had you said yes to James Taylor, I would have been proud!”
“Why? Because Mr. Taylor was leaving the country, and asked me to wait? That was a safe choice, was it not, papa? It would have kept me here as your housekeeper for another five years!”
“It has nothing to do with that!”
“Doesn’t it? What are you afraid of, papa? Do you think if I married, that I would go away and leave you, to live and die alone? I promised I would not—and I will not break that promise. Mr. Nicholls lives here; if I married him, I would not be going anywhere!”
“To even consider that you should so lower yourself, as to fall prey to the common lot of any ordinary clergyman’s daughter—to marry your father’s curate—and such a lowly, ungrateful, lying wretch as this one is—it is unthinkable! You would be throwing yourself away!”
My blood boiled with a sense of injustice, but papa had worked himself up into a state not to be trifled with: the veins on his temples started up like whipcord, and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot, the same symptoms which had preceded the dangerous apoplectic seizure he had suffered earlier that year. The doctor had warned me, then, that extreme anxiety could produce a relapse of that condition, which could prove extremely debilitating, or even fatal.
“Papa, please calm yourself,” I said hastily, my anger mitigated by sudden concern.
“I shall calm myself when you give me your word that you will refuse him!”
I hesitated, then with a confused nod, I said, “I will write to him on the morrow.”
Diary, I had spent many sleepless nights before, but the hours of darkness following Mr. Nicholls’s proposal proved to be the longest and most tortuous of all. I was astonished and deeply touched by the outpouring of emotion he had displayed, and his admission of the sufferings he had undergone; it grieved me to think that I would be the cause of his further suffering. Had I been in love with Mr. Nicholls, even my father’s violent opposition to the union, and my fears for his health, could not have prevented me from accepting him on the spot. But I did not love Mr. Nicholls—at least, I did not love him then—nor had I, up until that time, ever entertained an attachment to him. I liked him very much; I knew his worth; but I also knew that a disparity existed between us, not only in terms of this explosion of feeling, but in key religious attitudes and principles which were central to my heart.
As I tossed and turned, I suddenly realised that, although I had come to know Mr. Nicholls better in recent years, I still did not know all that much about him. Although he went home to Ireland every autumn to visit his family, he had never spoken about them, except telling me about the death of his sister. He had never talked about his life before he came to Haworth, and I had never asked. How strange it was, I thought, that one could live next door to a person for nearly eight years, and see him nearly every day, yet still know him so little!
What I did know, convinced me that Mr. Nicholls was a man of action: he devoted himself to the realities of the present, whereas I was often miles away in thought. Was I some one that Mr. Nicholls could truly put up with for a lifetime? I feared not. I could not enter into such a binding contract as marriage without an equally binding and mutual affection; and I doubted I could ever return Mr. Nicholls’s affection with the fervour he had expressed to me.
A part of me wished I could have a chance to explore the matter further: that I might be allowed the time to experience a real courtship with Mr. Nicholls, to discover whether or not we could be compatible, despite our many differences. Papa’s vehement antipathy to the union, however, made that an impossibility. It greatly angered me that papa had so verbally abused him, and applied such unjust epithets against him. I hated to think that, in refusing Mr. Nicholls, I would seem to only be blindly following papa’s dictates; yet refuse him I must.
I wrote and tore up at least six drafts of my letter to Mr. Nicholls, before settling on the following brief note, which I had Martha deliver to him the next morning:
December 14th, 1852
My Dear Sir,
Please know that I hold you in the highest esteem, and am sensible of the great honour you bestow upon me by the declaration which you made last night. However, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, it is with sincerest regret that I must decline your proposal. I consider you a valued friend, Mr. Nicholls, and I do hope that friendship can continue.
Believe me to be, yours truly,
C. Brontë
Within the hour, I received the following note in reply:
December 14th, 1852
My dear Miss Brontë,
I am deeply, deeply grieved. I can imagine no future prospect of happiness in this life without you at my side. I accept your offer of friendship; but please know that my abiding affection for you remains, and will ever remain unchanged.
A. B. Nicholls
This avowal of Mr. Nicholls’s distress filled me with pain. I was equally pained by papa’s continued, vociferous hostility towards him—which, despite papa’s insistence to the contrary, I believed stemmed as much from the bare thought of any one thinking of me as a wife, as it did from his objections to the gentleman in question.
To my surprise, my father was not the only one who thought Mr. Nicholls to be beneath my notice.
“What on earth can Mr. Nicholls have been thinking?” snapped Martha the next morning as she angrily dusted the dining-room. “I dunnut blame ye one whit for refusing him, ma’am. He has some nerve, t’ think ’at he could win yer affections—ye, a famous author an’ such like, an’ him nought but a poor curate—why, he’s overreached his station, an’ ’at’s a fact.”
“Please do not speak ill of Mr. Nicholls,” I said firmly, looking up from the table where I was scribbling a letter to Ellen, elucidating all that had happened. “He is a good man.”
“I once thought so, but I dunnut ony more,” replied Martha. “Mama says he be so downcast, he entirely rejected his meals yesterday an’ again this morning, but refused t’ say why. I told her all ’at happened, an’ she be quite horrified. She said he be a man o’ great presumption.”
Oh no, I thought, my cheeks burning; Martha’s mother—Mr. Nicholls’s landlady—was a very garrulous individual; now that she had been apprised of the news, there would be no way of stopping it from spreading throughout the village.
To my further mortification, that same morning, papa wrote a very harsh note to Mr. Nicholls, cruelly deriding him for concealing his intentions with regards to me, citing all the objections he had to him as my suitor, and berating him for daring to make a declaration. I begged papa to revise said note, or not to send any note at all.
“I will send it,” insisted papa. “I intend to put that ungrateful, devious, lying bastard in his place.”
I could not stop Martha from delivering the pitiless dispatch; I felt, however, that the blow must be parried; so I wrote a softening note to accompany it.
December 15th, 1852
My Dear Sir,
I apologise profusely for the words expressed herein by my father. I find his missive so cruel and unjust, that I could not refrain from sending a line or two of my own. Please believe me when I say that, while you must never expect me to reciprocate the strength of feeling you expressed on Monday night, at the same time, I wish to disclaim participation in any sentiments calculated to give you pain. I wish you well, and do hope that you will maintain your courage and spirits.
Yours faithfully and most respectfully,
C. Brontë
I could not discern if my note in any way lessened Mr. Nicholls’s distress. For the next few weeks, he kept mainly to his rooms, deliberately avoiding any contact with me or my father. He occasionally took Flossy for a walk, but we did not see him then, as Flossy had, for many years, been going directly to the sexton’s house on his own every morning. Mr. Nicholls took care of his most important clerical duties, but for a time sent Mr. Grant to preside for him in church. On Christmas, papa and I dined in virtual silence; Mr. Nicholls, who had amiably joined us for the past few years, naturally stayed away.
A few days after Christmas, Mr. Nicholls attempted to call on my father, but papa refused to see or speak to him. To my dismay, Mr. Nicholls then delivered a note to papa, offering his resignation, and insinuating that he intended to apply to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as a missionary to one of the colonies in Australia.
Australia! Was Mr. Nicholls indeed going to leave us, and emigrate to Australia?
“Let him go to Australia, if he can!” declared papa contemptuously, as he tossed Mr. Nicholls’s note into the fire. “It is best for all concerned.”
“You are very hard on Mr. Nicholls,” said I.
“As a man sows, so shall he reap. I can never trust Mr. Nicholls any more in things of importance. His conduct might have been excused by the world, in a confirmed rake or unprincipled army officer, but in a clergyman, it is justly chargeable with base design and inconsistency!”
