Charlotte after her sisters' deaths

Charlotte’s domineering nature had some times irritated her sisters, particularly Emily, but they had all been very close, and without them she was lost.  Her father was worried that he would lose his last child and fussed and fretted over her, afraid that she might become consumptive. In spite of his affection, he was not much company for her, being used to keeping to himself... He still did his parish work, and had some help from a curate, but the rest of his time, he preferred to spend alone.

Charlotte had put aside her writing during the months while her sisters were ill and dying, but with great bravery she took it up again.  She had made friends with George Smith, her publisher, who was a charming man some years her junior.  Her friend Mary Taylor had emigrated to New Zealand, where she felt it would be easier for a radically minded woman like her to live.   Her family had been well to do business people, but had lost their money, and she hated dependence.  She did not want to be a governess, but in New Zealand she was able to open a shop, which would have been unusual behaviour in England.   So Charlotte had lost one of her few good friends, although they remained in touch by letter.  In the time following Emily and Anne’s deaths, she continued to write novels, though the two she published, Shirley and Vilette were not as popular as Jane Eyre.

She also formed a friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, then a well-known writer, who was very different to Charlotte.  She was a happily married mother and a Unitarian, while the Brontes were Church of England and had some problems with  Dissenters.   
Apart from the death of her son, Mrs Gaskell  had not had much tragedy in her life, whereas Charlotte’s life had of late been nothing but tragedies… The two women discussed novel writing and careers for women.  Mrs Gaskell visited Haworth, but did not like her friend’s father, believing that Patrick was a selfish old man who took over Charlotte’s life.   When later, she came to write her famous biography, her prejudice against him rather skewed the book. 

However she was very fond of Charlotte and brought her some happiness and support in her career.  They mingled in literary society in London and visited Sir James Kay Shuttlewroth, who was something of a patron of writers.   Charlotte remained shy and awkward, and when in London, she didn’t shine at parties.  Thackeray was said to have left a party in his own house, for her, because it had become so heavy and dull.  Charlotte found that some of her literary idols such as Thackeray were not as wonderful as she had imagined when she actually met them.  She thought he was too fond of high society... And he rather dismissed her as a plain woman whom he also thought was too prim and proper and censorious.  Charlotte had dedicated Jane Eyre to him, which caused him some embarrassment.  She did not know that his wife was mentally ill (having suffered a breakdown after the birth of one of her children), and that he had had to put her in care, and that there were rumours that he was involved with another woman, since his wife was unwell.  Rumours then abounded that it was his ladyfriend (or his governess) who had written Jane Eyre, with its plot of a man with a mad wife, who marries his governess.

Charlotte’s shyness and naivety made her ambivalent about mixing in London society.  She was pleased for her gift to be recognised but she wanted to preserve her anonymity.  She also was prudish and censorious, at times and this didn’t go down well.  She and Mrs Gaskell did form a warm relationship, however, and thanks to this friendship,  Charlotte managed to find some real happiness, perhaps the most she had had in her not very long life.

Arthur Bel Nicholls, the curate at Haworth, was a prim and rather narrow minded man, who had not interested Charlotte at first.  She didn’t care for curates, although they were the only men that she met, at home.  She found them uninteresting and narrow in their religious views.  Patrick was not overly fond of his curate either, but he needed help with his work, as he grew older.  He had regained some of his sight but he was an old man.   

So Charlotte was amazed when out of the blue, Arthur Nicholls proposed to her. She had had no idea of his being in love with her, and while she had to a degree recovered from her sad love for Heger, she didn’t think of marriage.  She believed herself to be very plain, and not attractive to men.  She had had proposals, but they were from clergymen looking for a helpful wife and she had no hesitation in turning them down.  But In spite of being “resigned to spinsterhood”, she did long for masculine affection, and marriage.  

She was very lonely in the years following her sisters death.  She kept busy with her work, and with the duties of a “clerical daughter” for Patrick.  She did enjoy some of her trips to London or to stay with Ellen Nussey… but at home, she was very much alone.  
Her novel "Shirley" was interrupted by the deaths of Anne and Emily.  She had to leave it but then afterwards, went back and finished it. It was not her forte, writing about industrial conditions in Yorkshire at the time of the Napoleonic wars and it is not her best work.  It didn’t do nearly as well as Jane Eyre.   Her next novel Villette was more complex and in some ways a finer work than Jane Eyre, but it was not as popular.   She was pleased to be able to earn money through her writing, but she found it hard to churn out novels for publication in the way that other Victorian novelists did.  Her friendship with George Smith had included, I think a little romantic attraction on her side. However,  he was younger, he was very busy with his work and he married a woman of his own age, in due course.  So the friendship became a little cooler.

So while her work and her social life were a help to her, Charlotte was a lonely woman, now in her 30s.  She wanted something more….