In 1826 Arthur Bell Nicholls was taken in by his uncle the Reverend Allan Bell, headmaster of the Royal Free School, Banagher, and 10years later went up to Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1844. His first clerical position was the curacy at Haworth, and he took up his duties in May 1845...
Mr Brontë was by then 68 years old, and besides taking services and undertaking such duties as Mr Brontë might direct, Mr Nicholls had specific responsibilities for Stanbury village, and for the Church School, where he taught five mornings a week. He was diligent, serious-minded and widely read, and both Mr Brontë and the village thought well of him. A strongly built man, he liked fresh air and exercise, and would take the Brontë dogs for walks on the moors.
Mr Nicholls lived in the sexton John Brown's house adjoining the Church School. A few months after Mr Nicholls' arrival in Haworth, Branwell returned home in disgrace, and Mr Nicholls would have witnessed every stage of Branwell's decline over the next three years, and shared the tragedy of the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne in 1848-9. By 1850 he would have been more familiar than anyone with the family at the Parsonage.
His proposal of marriage to Charlotte in December 1852 came as a complete surprise to both her and her father. Angered by his curate's presumption, Mr Brontë withheld his consent and Charlotte declined the offer.
‘The spectacle of one ordinarily so statue-like thus trembling, stirred, and overcome, gave me a kind of strange shock. He spoke of sufferings he had borne for months, of sufferings he could endure no longer, and craved leave for some hope. I could only entreat him to leave me then and promise a reply on the morrow. I asked him if he had spoken to papa. He said he dared not. I think I half led, half put him out of the room. When he was gone I immediately went to papa, and told him what had taken place. Agitation and anger disproportionate to the occasion ensued; if I had loved Mr. Nicholls, and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used, it would have transported me past my patience; as it was, my blood boiled with a sense of injustice. But papa worked himself into a state not to be trifled with: the veins on his temples started up like whip-cord, and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot. I made haste to promise that Mr. Nicholls should on the morrow have a distinct refusal.
‘I wrote yesterday and got this note. There is no need to add to this statement any comment. Papa’s vehement antipathy to the bare thought of any one thinking of me as a wife, and Mr. Nicholls’s distress, both give me pain. Attachment to Mr. Nicholls you are aware I never entertained, but the poignant pity inspired by his state on Monday evening, by the hurried revelation of his sufferings for many months, is something galling and irksome. That he cared something for me, and wanted me to care for him, I have long suspected, but I did not know the degree or strength of his feelings. Dear Nell, good-bye.—Yours faithfully,
Mr Nicholls lived in the sexton John Brown's house adjoining the Church School. A few months after Mr Nicholls' arrival in Haworth, Branwell returned home in disgrace, and Mr Nicholls would have witnessed every stage of Branwell's decline over the next three years, and shared the tragedy of the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne in 1848-9. By 1850 he would have been more familiar than anyone with the family at the Parsonage.
His proposal of marriage to Charlotte in December 1852 came as a complete surprise to both her and her father. Angered by his curate's presumption, Mr Brontë withheld his consent and Charlotte declined the offer.
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘December 15th, 1852.
On Monday evening Mr. Nicholls was here to tea. I vaguely felt without clearly seeing, as without seeing I have felt for some time, the meaning of his constant looks, and strange, feverish restraint. After tea I withdrew to the dining-room as usual. As usual, Mr. Nicholls sat with papa till between eight and nine o’clock; I then heard him open the parlour door as if going. I expected the clash of the front door. He stopped in the passage; he p. 473tapped; like lightning it flashed on me what was coming. He entered; he stood before me. What his words were you can guess; his manner you can hardly realise, nor can I forget it. Shaking from head to foot, looking deadly pale, speaking low, vehemently, yet with difficulty, he made me for the first time feel what it costs a man to declare affection where he doubts response.‘The spectacle of one ordinarily so statue-like thus trembling, stirred, and overcome, gave me a kind of strange shock. He spoke of sufferings he had borne for months, of sufferings he could endure no longer, and craved leave for some hope. I could only entreat him to leave me then and promise a reply on the morrow. I asked him if he had spoken to papa. He said he dared not. I think I half led, half put him out of the room. When he was gone I immediately went to papa, and told him what had taken place. Agitation and anger disproportionate to the occasion ensued; if I had loved Mr. Nicholls, and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used, it would have transported me past my patience; as it was, my blood boiled with a sense of injustice. But papa worked himself into a state not to be trifled with: the veins on his temples started up like whip-cord, and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot. I made haste to promise that Mr. Nicholls should on the morrow have a distinct refusal.
‘I wrote yesterday and got this note. There is no need to add to this statement any comment. Papa’s vehement antipathy to the bare thought of any one thinking of me as a wife, and Mr. Nicholls’s distress, both give me pain. Attachment to Mr. Nicholls you are aware I never entertained, but the poignant pity inspired by his state on Monday evening, by the hurried revelation of his sufferings for many months, is something galling and irksome. That he cared something for me, and wanted me to care for him, I have long suspected, but I did not know the degree or strength of his feelings. Dear Nell, good-bye.—Yours faithfully,
‘C. Brontë.