Lyn Reid Banks and the Brontes Part V

Patrick finally gave in, and agreed to Charlotte marrying Nicholls. SHe arranged a small empty room as a study for her new husband and they planned their wedding. They kept things quiet but on the day Patrick had another upset and told her that he could not give her away at the ceremony. Charlotte was hurt but she and her friends checked out the prayer book and found that there was no mention of the giver away having to be male, so it was decided that Miss Wooler, her old teacher, could do the giving away. Charlotte and Mr Nicholls went to Ireland for their honeymoon and she was pleased when she found that he had not been boasting about being from a genteel family. He had been brought up by an uncle who kept a school and the family welcomed her. Their home was comfortable and they were reasonably well off... and she seemed to grow fonder of Nicholls as she settled into married life. When she and Nicholls came back to Haworth she was quite happy and Patrick was relieved to have his curate back to take the work off his hands. Mr Nicholls was kept very busy, but Charlotte found that he wanted her to help him in his work and she accepted this as part of married life. She enjoyed the little get togethers in Haworth society much more as a wife than she had done when she was the daughter of the clergyman. She told Ellen that Mr Nicholls wanted a lot of her time now and she was pleased by this. She didn't see Mrs Gaskell partly because Mr Nicholls was a rather bigoted High Churchman and not too keen on dissenters, and partly because she was so busy, but her friend was delighted that Charlotte was now busy and happy. However she did have less time for writing and she told Arthur that she had started a new story but had not had a chance to do much. SHe showed it to him and he suggested that as it was about a school the critics might say she was repeating herself. She told him that she usually changed things around a lot before she completed a story. Arthur did not stop her writing but he did not see her as Currer Bell the writer, but as his wife, Charlotte... and she was rather pleased and flattered that he did not care about her wealth and fame. She and Ellen had their small problems, as Ellen was rather jealous of her friend being married and devoted to another person, and Arthur felt that the two women were too free spoken in their letters to each other, chattering about other people. He told Charlotte that Ellen must promise to destroy her letters when she read them, in case they fell into the wrong hands. Charlotte was amused by this but Ellen was rather annoyed, and while she did promise, in fact she kept Charlotte's letters and they still chatted freely. Then after a few months of happiness, she and Arthur went out for a walk and got wet and she caught a cold. She was not well and then symptoms of pregnancy surfaced.