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

by Juliet Barker

The vexed question of Charlotte’s relationship with Monsieur Heger has haunted Brontë scholars since the revelation, at the beginning of this century, of the letters she wrote to him after her return to England. Their passionate and frank admissions of attachment might suggest that there was even an adulterous affair, particularly as Monsieur Heger’s side of the correspondence is missing. One of his surviving letters, written to another former pupil several decades later, suggests otherwise. Though this relationship was beyond all doubt entirely proper, the letter breathes an intimacy and sensuality which a susceptible woman would find deeply erotic. ‘I only have to think of you to see you’, he told the lady in question. I often give myself the pleasure when my duties are over, when the light fades. I postpone lighting the gas lamp in my library, I sit down, smoking my cigar, and with a hearty will I evoke your image – and you come (without wishing to, I dare say) but I see you, I talk with you – you, with that little air, affectionate undoubtedly, but independent and resolute, firmly determined not to allow any opinion without being previously convinced, demanding to be convinced before allowing yourself to submit – in fact, just as I knew you, my dear L –, and as I have esteemed and loved you25 This could be Mr Rochester talking to Jane Eyre. It was hardly surprising that Charlotte was seduced – mentally and morally, if not physically. ‘He made much of her, & drew her ou...