I expected myself to really love The Brontës went to Woolworths. When I did not, I did what any reasonable person would do; tried to make it more entertaining by reading it as a horror novel. Naturally.
Rachel Ferguson’s 1931 novel The Brontës went to Woolworths is another book that plays on the Brontës’ tradition of make-believe. The Carne sisters (Carne was the name of the Brontës’ cousins on the maternal side) live in a world of make-believe. The three sisters (Deirdre, Katrine and Shiel) and their mother have made up elaborate fantasies about a number of people whom they do not really know. Chief among these are the Judge Toddington (“Toddy” to the Carnes) and his less-remarkable wife Lady Mildred. Shiel’s governess, the comparatively dull Miss Martin, is alarmed by the entire family’s willingness to live a make-believe life. She is even more concerned by her young charge’s inability to tell the difference between the real and pretend.
A woman at one of mother’s parties once said to me, “Do you like reading?” which smote us all to silence, for how could one tell her that books are like having a bath or sleeping, or eating bread – absolute necessities which one never thinks of in terms of appreciation. And we all sat waiting for her to say that she had so little time for reading, before ruling her right out for ever and ever.
On the other (and quite apart from all the willful self-delusion and the borderline stalking of the Toddingtons) they are also rather despicable. Lady Mildred’s inferiority (imagined at first; real once they meet and befriend the couple) is signaled throughout by her vocabulary and pronunciation of certain words marking her out as Not One of Us. Katrine can seek a career in the theatre, but a man she works with is acknowledged to be an unfit partner. And governesses are contemptible – Miss Martin is dull for being uncomfortable with their games, but the governess who succeeds her cannot join in without getting it all wrong.
Yet these problems are resolved if you focus on one factor in the book – the Brontës (and those concerned with plot spoilers should stop reading now). The trip to Woolworths mentioned in the title actually happens. The Brontës appear in the story as ghosts. And the real Brontë sisters all worked as governesses.
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