Then there are these slighter inferences, that concerning Anne being particularly interesting.
‘Write long letters to me, and tell me everything you can think of, and about everybody. “His young reverence,” as you tenderly call him, is looking delicate and pale; poor thing, don’t you pity him? I do from my heart! When he is well, and fat, and jovial, I never think of him, but when anything ails him I am always sorry. He sits opposite to Anne at church, sighing softly, and looking out of the corners of his eyes to win her attention, and Anne is so quiet, her look so downcast, they are a picture.’
‘July 19th, 1841.
‘Our revered friend, W. W., is quite as bonny, pleasant, lighthearted, good-tempered, generous, careless, fickle, and unclerical as ever. He keeps up his correspondence with Agnes Walton. During the last spring he went to Appleby, and stayed upwards of a month.’
During the governess and Brussels episodes in Charlotte’s life we lose sight of Mr. Weightman, and the next record is of his death, which took place in September 1842, while Charlotte and Emily were in Brussels. Mr. Brontë preached the funeral sermon, [287] stating by way of introduction that for the twenty years and more that he had been in Haworth he had never before read his sermon. ‘This is owing to a conviction in my mind,’ he says, ‘that in general, for the ordinary run of hearers, extempore preaching, though accompanied with some peculiar disadvantages, is more likely to be of a colloquial nature, and better adapted, on the whole, to the majority.’ His departure from the practice on this occasion, he explains, is due to the request that his sermon should be printed.
Mr. Weightman, he told his hearers, was a native of Westmoreland, educated at the University of Durham. ‘While he was there,’ continued Mr. Brontë, ‘I applied to the justly venerated Apostolical Bishop of this diocese, requesting his Lordship to send me a curate adequate to the wants and wishes of the parishioners. This application was not in vain. Our Diocesan, in the scriptural
character of the Overlooker and Head of his clergy, made an admirable choice, which more than answered my expectations, and probably yours. The Church Pastoral Aid Society, in their pious liberality, lent their pecuniary aid, without which all efforts must have failed.’ ‘He had classical attainments of the first order, and, above all, his religious principles were sound and orthodox,’ concludes Mr. Brontë. Mr. Weightman was twenty-six years of age when he died. His successor was Mr. Peter Augustus Smith, whom Charlotte Brontë has made famous in Shirley as Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield. Mr. Smith was Mr. A. B. Nicholls’s predecessor at Haworth. Here is Charlotte Brontë’s vigorous treatment of him in a letter to her friend.
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘January 26th, 1844.
‘Dear Nell,—We were all very glad to get your letter this morning. We, I say, as both papa and Emily were anxious to hear of the safe arrival of yourself and the little varmint. [288]
‘As you conjecture, Emily and I set to shirt-making the very day after you left, and we have stuck to it pretty closely ever since. We miss your society at least as much as you miss ours, depend upon it. Would that you were within calling distance, that you could as you say burst in upon us in an afternoon, and, being despoiled of your bonnet and shawl, be fixed in the rocking-chair for the evening once or twice every week. I certainly cherished a dream during your stay that such might one day be the case, but the dream is somewhat dissipating. I allude of course to Mr. Smith, to whom you do not allude in your letter, and I think you foolish for the omission. I say the dream is dissipating, because Mr. Smith has not mentioned your name since you left, except once when papa said you were a nice girl, he said, “Yes, she is a nice girl—rather quiet. I suppose she has money,” and that is all. I think the words speak volumes; they do not prejudice one in favour of Mr. Smith. I can well believe what papa has often affirmed, and continues to affirm, i.e., that Mr. Smith is a very fickle man, that if he marries he will soon get tired of his wife, and consider her as a burden, also that money will be a principal consideration with him in marrying.
‘Papa has two or three times expressed a fear that since Mr. Smith paid you so much attention he will perhaps have made an impression on your mind which will interfere with your comfort. I tell him I think not, as I believe you to be mistress of yourself in those matters. Still, he keeps saying that I am to write to you and dissuade you from thinking of him. I never saw papa make himself so uneasy about a thing of the kind before; he is usually very sarcastic on such subjects.
‘Mr. Smith be hanged! I never thought very well of him, and I am much disposed to think very ill of him at this blessed minute. I have discussed the subject fully, for where is the use of being mysterious and constrained?—it is not worth while.
‘Be sure you write to me and immediately, and tell me whether you have given up eating and drinking altogether. I am not surprised at people thinking you looked pale and thin. I shall expect another letter on Thursday—don’t disappoint me.
‘My best regards to your mother and sisters.—Yours, somewhat irritated,
‘C. B.’
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘Dear Nell,—I did not “swear at the postman” when I saw another letter from you. And I hope you will not “swear” at me when I tell you that I cannot think of leaving home at present, even to have the pleasure of joining you at Harrogate, but I am obliged to you for thinking of me. I have nothing new about Rev. Lothario Smith. I think I like him a little bit less every day. Mr. Weightman was worth 200 Mr. Smiths tied in a bunch. Good-bye. I fear by what you say, “Flossy jun.” behaves discreditably, and gets his mistress into scrapes.
‘C. Brontë.’
‘March 16th, 1844.
‘Dear Ellen,—I received your kind note last Saturday, and should have answered it immediately, but in the meantime I had a letter from Mary Taylor, and had to reply to her, and to write sundry letters to Brussels to send by opportunity. My sight will not allow me to write several letters per day, so I was obliged to do it gradually.
‘I send you two more circulars because you ask for them, not because I hope their distribution will produce any result. I hope that if a time should come when Emily, Anne, or I shall be able to serve you, we shall not forget that you have done your best to serve us.
‘Mr. Smith is gone hence. He is in Ireland at present, and will stay there six weeks. He has left neither a bad nor a good character behind him. Nobody regrets him, because nobody could attach themselves to one who could attach himself to nobody. I thought once he had a regard for you, but I do not think so now. He has never asked after you since you left, nor even mentioned you in my hearing, except to say once when I purposely alluded to you, that you were “not very locomotive.” The meaning of the observation I leave you to divine.
‘Yet the man is not without points that will be most useful to himself in getting through life. His good qualities, however, are all of the selfish order, but they will make him respected where better and more generous natures would be despised, or at least neglected.
‘Mr. Grant fills his shoes at present decently enough—but one cares naught about these sort of individuals, so drop them.
‘Mary Taylor is going to leave our hemisphere. To me it is something as if a great planet fell out of the sky. Yet, unless she marries in New Zealand, she will not stay there long.
‘Write to me again soon and I promise to write you a regular long letter next time.
‘C. Brontë.’
The Mr. Grant here described had come to Haworth as master of the small grammar school in which Branwell had
received some portion of his education. He is the Mr. Donne, curate of Whinbury, in Shirley. Whinbury is Oxenhope, of which village and district Mr. Grant after a time became incumbent. The district was taken out of Haworth Chapelry, and Mr. Grant collected the funds to build a church, schoolhouse, and parsonage. He died at Oxenhope, many years ago, greatly respected by his parishioners. He seems to have endured good-naturedly much chaff from Mr. Brontë and others, who always called him Mr. Donne. It was the opinion of many of his acquaintances that the satire of Shirley had improved his disposition.
Mr. Smith left Haworth in 1844, to become curate of the parish church of Keighley. He became, at a later date, incumbent of a district church, but, his health failing, he returned to his native country, where he died.
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘October 15th, 1844.
‘Dear Nell,—I send you two additional circulars, and will send you two more, if you desire it, when I write again. I have no news to give you. Mr. Smith leaves in the course of a fortnight. He will spend a few weeks in Ireland previously to settling at Keighley. He continues just the same: often anxious and bad-tempered, sometimes rather tolerable—just supportable. How did your party go off? How are you? Write soon, and at length, for your letters are a great comfort to me. We are all pretty well. Remember me kindly to each member of the household at Brookroyd.—Yours,
‘C. B.’