The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family

by Juliet Barker

Charlotte claimed that it was her wish to commence a school, as indeed everyone now expected her to do. She had sufficient money and qualifications for the undertaking but, she asserted, there was now an insuperable barrier to her attaining the objective for which she had striven so long: her father’s health. I have felt for some months that I ought not to be away from him – and I feel now that it would be too selfish to leave him (at least so long as Branwell and Anne are absent) in order to pursue selfish interests of my own –77 Though this argument has been universally accepted by Charlotte’s friends and biographers, it was disingenuous. It would obviously have been a greater comfort to Patrick to know that his children were all well placed to earn their livings for the foreseeable future than to have them unemployed at home and dependent on his own inadequate salary. The parsonage was comfortably run with the assistance of two loyal and reliable servants, Tabby Aykroyd and Martha Brown; more importantly, he had Emily to act as his housekeeper and, when necessary, as his amanuensis. There was no need for Charlotte to remain at home. Her father’s ill health was simply a convenient excuse for her own depression of spirits and resultant lethargy which were the real reasons for her reluctance to make a new start.