The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte by James Tully

him that, and, apart from his words, I could tell from how he spoke that even after all this time he still feels how shaken he was. As he said, he felt that he was going back to the blackmailing nightmare from which only Master Branwell’s death had set him free – and worse. Suddenly he felt totally lost and with no way to turn.
    He tried his hardest to reason with her, and I have little doubt that he used all his old charm – which I know more than a little about – but it was no good. In her way, when her mind was firmly made up about something, Miss Emily stood her ground with a steady will, and he was able to do nothing against it although it filled him with rage. Seeing that he was doing no good, he decided to change his manner. He made a show of weakening, and begged for time to think, and that seemed to soften her towards him, for she agreed.
    It was not time to think that he wanted though, it was time to plan, because, in his heart, he already knew what he had to do. Just as Master Branwell’s death had ended one vexation, so Miss Emily’s would rid him of the danger that
she
now posed.
    In his own words, that he spoke to me in quite a hard voice, he knew that she would have to go.
    [] At first sight, I thought that Martha’s suggestion that Emily was pregnant, or thought that she might be, was almost beyond belief, but as I conducted my research certain facts emerged which gave credence to it. Therefore, although I appreciate fully how preposterous the whole idea will appear to Emily’s fans, all I can ask is that, like me, they keep an open mind.
    As we shall see, Emily refused steadfastly to be examined by a doctor, or even to try a prescription sent by one, until the day she died. Nobody, however, not even her sisters, has ever given a reason for such an apparent aversion to the medical profession.
    Charlotte was in frequent correspondence with Mr W.S. Williams, who was a reader for her publishers, and in a letter dated 22 November 1848 she commented upon Emily’s attitude: ‘. . . my sister would not see the most skilful physician in England if he were brought to her just now, nor would she follow his prescription.’
    On the following day she continued in the same vein to Ellen Nussey: ‘. . . she declares “no poisoning doctor shall come near her.”’
    I find it hard to understand why Emily should have felt as she did. I can find no mention of her ever having been ill, during her adult life, until then, and so she could have had no adverse personal experience likely to have set her against doctors. What, then, could have been the reason for her behaviour?
    One explanation may be that she had lost whatever faith she had in Dr Wheelhouse and his colleagues after she witnessed his inaccurate diagnosis of the cause of Branwell’s death. Were that the case, then the phrase ‘poisoning doctor’ may well have been the result of a subconscious connection between whatever killed her brother and the doctor who failed to detect it.
    In the normal course of events, I would have expected Emily to have scoffed at the idea of a doctor when she was in the early stages of whatever ailed her. It would have been very much in character for her to have scorned the idea of ‘a cold and a cough’ meriting any consideration. However, there is no obvious reason why she should have refused even ‘the most skilful physician in England’ when she began to feel
really
ill, unless she was, indeed, pregnant – or even supposed that she was. In either of those events there would have been a very good, and apparent, motive.
    Older readers will remember – and it is not
that
long ago – when to become an unmarried mother was one of the quickest ways of becoming ostracized and reviled. Being the daughter of a clergyman, Emily would probably have suffered more than most, and then there would have been the child to consider. The present trendy term