The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte (2 page)

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

M
y 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.