Author

Abstract

Charlotte arrived home on 3 January 1844. The journey, about which we hear nothing in fiction, must have been a dispiriting one, but she would have found all the family at home. Ellen Nussey was away in Chichester with her brother, and Mr Brontë’s sight was failing. The winter was a harsh one with snow on the ground at the end of February. Anne and Branwell left for the Robinsons’ before 23 January, and Charlotte thought they were doing well. Plans for the school took some time in maturing and when matured produced no very satisfactory results. In March Charlotte visited Ellen in Yorkshire, Mary Taylor returned in April, and Ellen visited Haworth at the beginning of July. We have a hitherto unpublished diary of Ellen Nussey’s for this year, a scrappy and unsatisfactory document, but one that confirms these comings and goings. Ellen was at Haworth from 1 to 22 July. On 8 July she was at Ponden Hall, where there was plenty of fun and fatigue, on 16 July she walked to a bridge, and on 21 July she attended the Haworth School festival. When Ellen arrived back she commented that home looked almost a paradise. There are two cryptic references to ‘High Water’ in this diary which scholars are welcome to seize upon as palindromes of Wuthering Heights or Wildfell Hall, or alternatives to Hell, but which probably refer to the weather or the plumbing.¹