Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle

by Clement King Shorter

Charlotte had been in Brussels three months when she made the friendship to which I am indebted for anything that there may be to add to this episode in her life. Miss Lætitia Wheelwright was one of five sisters, the daughters of a doctor in Lower Phillimore Place, Kensington. Dr. Wheelwright went to Brussels for his health and for his children’s education. The girls were day boarders at the Pensionnat, but they lived in the house for a full month

or more at a time when their father and mother were on a trip up the Rhine. Otherwise their abode was a flat in the Hotel Clusyenaar in the Rue Royale, and there during her later stay in Brussels Charlotte frequently paid them visits. In this earlier period Charlotte and Emily were too busy with their books to think of ‘calls’ and the like frivolities, and it must be confessed also that at this stage Lætitia Wheelwright would have thought it too high a price for a visit from Charlotte to receive as a fellow-guest the apparently unamiable Emily. Miss Wheelwright, who was herself fourteen years of age when she entered the Pensionnat Héger, recalls the two sisters, thin and sallow-looking, pacing up and down the garden, friendless and alone. It was the sight of Lætitia standing up in the class-room and glancing round with a semi-contemptuous air at all these Belgian girls which attracted Charlotte Brontë to her. ‘It was so very English,’ Miss Brontë laughingly remarked at a later period to her friend. There was one other English girl at this time of sufficient age to be companionable; but with Miss Maria Miller, whom Charlotte Brontë has depicted under the guise of Ginevra Fanshawe, she had less in common. In later years Miss Miller became Mrs. Robertson, the wife of an author in one form or another.

To Miss Wheelwright, and those of her sisters who are still living, the descriptions of the Pensionnat Héger which are given in Villette and The Professor are perfectly accurate. M. Héger, with his heavy black moustache and his black hair, entering the class-room of an evening to read to his pupils was a sufficiently familiar object, and his keen intelligence amounting almost to genius had affected the Wheelwright girls as forcibly as it had done the Brontës. Mme. Héger, again, for ever peeping from behind doors and through the plate-glass partitions which separate the passages from the school-rooms, was a constant source of irritation to all

the English pupils. This prying and spying is, it is possible, more of a fine art with the school-mistresses of the Continent than with those of our own land. In any case, Mme. Héger was an accomplished spy, and in the midst of the most innocent work or recreation the pupils would suddenly see a pair of eyes pierce the dusk and disappear. This, and a hundred similar trifles, went to build up an antipathy on both sides, which had, however, scarcely begun when Charlotte and Emily were suddenly called home by their aunt’s death in October. A letter to Miss Nussey on her return sufficiently explains the situation.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Haworth, November 10th, 1842.

‘My dear Ellen,—I was not yet returned to England when your letter arrived. We received the first news of aunt’s illness, Wednesday, Nov. 2nd. We decided to come home directly. Next morning a second letter informed us of her death. We sailed from Antwerp on Sunday; we travelled day and night and got home on Tuesday morning—and of course the funeral and all was over. We shall see her no more. Papa is pretty well. We found Anne at home; she is pretty well also. You say you have had no letter from me for a long time. I wrote to you three weeks ago. When you answer this note, I will write to you more in detail. Aunt, Martha Taylor, and Mr. Weightman are now all gone; how dreary and void everything seems. Mr. Weightman’s illness was exactly what Martha’s was—he was ill the same length of time and died in the same manner. Aunt’s disease was internal obstruction; she also was ill a fortnight.

‘Good-bye, my dear Ellen.

‘C. Brontë.’

The aunt whose sudden death brought Charlotte and Emily Brontë thus hastily from Brussels to Haworth must have been a very sensible woman in the main. She left her money to those of her nieces who most needed it. A perusal of her will is not without interest, and indeed it will be

seen that it clears up one or two errors into which Mrs. Gaskell and subsequent biographers have rashly fallen through failing to expend the necessary half-guinea upon a copy. This is it:—

Extracted from the District Probate Registry at York attached to Her Majesty’s High Court of Justice.

Depending on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for peace here, and glory and bliss forever hereafter, I leave this my last Will and Testament: Should I die at Haworth, I request that my remains may be deposited in the church in that place as near as convenient to the remains of my dear sister; I moreover will that all my just debts and funeral expenses be paid out of my property, and that my funeral shall be conducted in a moderate and decent manner. My Indian workbox I leave to my niece, Charlotte Brontë; my workbox with a china top I leave to my niece, Emily Jane Brontë, together with my ivory fan; my Japan dressing-box I leave to my nephew, Patrick Branwell Brontë; to my niece Anne Brontë, I leave my watch with all that belongs to it; as also my eye-glass and its chain, my rings, silver-spoons, books, clothes, etc., etc., I leave to be divided between my above-named three nieces, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Jane Brontë, and Anne Brontë, according as their father shall think proper. And I will that all the money that shall remain, including twenty-five pounds sterling, being the part of the proceeds of the sale of my goods which belong to me in consequence of my having advanced to my sister Kingston the sum of twenty-five pounds in lieu of her share of the proceeds of my goods aforesaid, and deposited in the bank of Bolitho Sons and Co., Esqrs., of Chiandower, near Penzance, after the aforesaid sums and articles shall have been paid and deducted, shall be put into some safe bank or lent on good landed security, and there left to accumulate for the sole benefit of my four nieces, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Jane Brontë, Anne Brontë, and Elizabeth Jane Kingston; and this sum or sums, and whatever other property I may have, shall be equally divided between them when the youngest of them then living shall have arrived at the age of twenty-one years. And should any one or more of these my four nieces die, her or their part or parts shall be equally divided amongst the survivors; and if but one is left, all shall go to that one: And should they all die before the age of twenty-one years, all their parts shall be given to my sister, Anne Kingston; and should she die before that time specified, I will that all that was to have been hers shall be equally divided between all the surviving children of my dear brother and sisters. I appoint my brother-in-law, the Rev. P. Brontë, A.B., now Incumbent of Haworth, Yorkshire; the Rev. John Fennell, now Incumbent of Cross Stone, near Halifax; the Rev. Theodore Dury, Rector of Keighley, Yorkshire; and Mr. George Taylor of Stanbury, in the chapelry of Haworth aforesaid, my executors. Written by me, Elizabeth Branwell, and signed, sealed, and delivered on the 30th of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, Elizabeth Branwell. Witnesses present, William Brown, John Tootill, William Brown, Junr.

The twenty-eighth day of December, 1842, the Will of Elizabeth Branwell, late of Haworth, in the parish of Bradford, in the county of York, spinster (having bona notabilia within the province of York). Deceased was proved in the prerogative court of York by the oaths of the Reverend Patrick Brontë, clerk, brother-in-law; and George Taylor, two of the executors to whom administration was granted (the Reverend Theodore Dury, another of the executors, having renounced), they having been first sworn duly to administer.

Effects sworn under £1500.

Testatrix died 29th October 1842.

Now hear Mrs. Gaskell:—

The small property, which she had accumulated by dint of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces. Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share, but his reckless expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted in her will.