In Search of Anne Brontë

by Nick Holland

  All that remained now, as the sisters still waited excitedly for their poetry to appear, was to write the books themselves. Anne’s book was already practically finished, and Emily was also well advanced with her contribution, which would become known to the world as Wuthering Heights. It is the Brontë book that contains the least amount of biographical data, although it is possible to see some of Branwell’s excesses reflected in both Heathcliffe and Linton, and the landscape itself was dearly familiar to the author. Emily had the least real world experience to draw upon of the sisters, but she had also become used to letting her imagination take full flight, unhindered by what society expected. It is this furious creativity that produced a book of such amazing strength and power from a woman who was on the surface shy and reserved.

  Charlotte had an idea in mind for her contribution and, like Anne’s novel, it was based upon an unfulfilled love, although one of a very different nature. Her volume was called The Professor, a novel set in a Belgian school where a young half-English girl falls in love with her stern professor. The professor himself, William Crimsworth, is the protagonist of the novel, and although his circumstances are very different from Constantin Heger – Crimsworth is a young man who travels to Belgium to escape problems in England – it is clear that Charlotte’s real life unrequited love is the inspiration.

  Anne’s novel Agnes Grey takes a look at matters of the heart as well, but it also set out to provide instruction for its readers and society as a whole. She firmly believed that her prose could be used to educate and inform as well as entertain, and indeed that these were the most important aspects of writing. As a teacher or governess she could teach a handful of people at a time, but as a writer she could reach out to an unlimited number of people. She set out this personal manifesto in her preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

  Be it understood, I shall not limit my ambition to this [giving innocent pleasure] – or even to producing ‘a perfect work of art’: time and talents so spent, I should consider wasted and misapplied. Such humble talents as God has given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use, if I am able to amuse I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.7

  Whilst this famous defence of her writing and character was in direct response to criticism of her second novel, it is also relevant to Agnes Grey. Anne’s début is a novel that isn’t afraid to show both sides of life, from the sweet beauty of love to the cruelty that uncontrolled children can exert and the harsh way that high society can treat those they deem beneath them.

  To ignore the autobiographical elements of Agnes Grey would be to do a disservice to Anne Brontë, especially as there are so many of them. At the very start of the novel she explains how she will lay bare her true history, shielded by her obscurity and the changing of some names. Readers of the time, unaware of the author, would take this to be a dramatic device where Agnes is saying she has changed the names of some of her characters, but in reality Anne is talking about the change of name from Brontë to Bell. It is this that makes her ‘not fear to venture’ into print.

  Anne’s preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall also confirms how much real life events and people were used in Agnes Grey, when she writes, ‘The story of “Agnes Grey” was accused of extravagant over-colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration.’8

  Some readers could not believe that children could be as cruel as those portrayed in the Bloomfield household, or that a mother could view the marriages of her daughters so cynically as that found in the Murray household. Anne here is defending the truth in these portrayals, and in her writing as in life, Anne was ever a seeker after truth.

  The novel begins with Agnes at home in the parsonage that she shares with her sister, her mother and her father, a priest in the Church of England. He falls into money troubles, and Agnes resolves to try her hand as a governess because she wants to alleviate the financial strain on the family, as well as seeing something of the world. Her first position is with the unbearably cruel children of the Bloomfield family, modelled closely on the Inghams of Mirfield, and on trying her luck again, she becomes governess to the Murray family, who in many ways resemble the Robinsons that Anne was serving at the time she was working on the novel.

  Whilst the first two sections of the novel are based closely on the life she knew, the third is based on the life that she never had the chance to know. Agnes’ father has died and she sets up a school with her mother in a town only referred to as ‘A’, but which from the descriptions given is clearly identifiable as Scarborough. Her main concern when journeying to this town is that she will never more see Reverend Edmund Weston, the curate she has fallen in love with and who closely resembles William Weightman in character and deeds.

  One day Agnes is walking along the Scarborough beachfront (still disguised as town ‘A’ of course) when a familiar terrier, her beloved Snap, runs up to her. Agnes is amazed, as she had left him behind when the Murray family had sold him to a rat catcher, but then she looks up and sees Weston with him. He has bought the dog, and he has also been trying to track Agnes down. She learns that he has now become vicar of his own parish just 2 miles from Scarborough, and he wastes no time in wooing her in the formal manner of the nineteenth century.

  Weston visits Agnes one evening and asks her to accompany him on a walk. He seems agitated, and Agnes feels a state of dread growing within her, but then they reach the top of a hill and look down at the sunset over the Scarborough bay, a scene that cannot help but bring to mind Anne’s portrait of ‘Sunrise Over Sea’. What happens next is understated and yet effortlessly romantic:

  ‘My house is desolate yet, Miss Grey’, he smilingly observed, ‘and I am now acquainted with all the ladies in my parish, and several in this town too; and many others I know by sight and report; but not one of them will suit me for a companion: in fact there is only one person in the world that will; and that is yourself and I want to know your decision?’9

  Agnes is taken aback, although it is what she has hoped and prayed for. She tells Weston that she would need to ask permission of her mother, to which he replies that he has already asked for permission from her, and obtained it. He continues:

  ‘And so now I have overruled your objections on her account. Have you any other?’

  ‘No – none.’

  ‘You love me then?’ said he, fervently pressing my hand.

  ‘Yes.’10

  Here, at last, Anne could be bold: she has candidly put before the public what she could not reveal to her most intimate friend. She is declaring her love for William Weightman, and what’s more she is giving herself the happy ending that she was never allowed in real life: the dream that she had carried around with her since receiving the Valentine’s card in 1840, the dream that even Weightman’s death could not take from her. Anne ends the scene at that point but then goes on to say that she, that is Agnes, and Weston marry and have children. He is not perfect, she is careful to point out, but he is well loved by his parish, and she defies anyone to blame him as a pastor, a husband or a father.

  Agnes also talks of how they, like all couples, must prepare themselves for the final separation, which she deems ‘the greatest of all afflictions to the survivor’,11 yet by looking ahead to their reunion in heaven, even that can be borne. We can imagine the racing of Anne’s heart, the lump in the throat and the tears running down her cheeks as she wrote this.

  The book ends on another understated note:

  Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements: and by practising the economy we learned in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those wh
o need it.

  And now I think I have said sufficient.12

  A stunningly simple end, and simply beautiful. Agnes Grey did not, and still does not, garner the recognition it deserved, for reasons we will come to, and yet it is like no other Brontë novel. It is calm, quiet and yet leaves a powerful impression on you. It is a literary embodiment of the author herself, as Charlotte would later admit.

  Not everyone has failed to recognise the brilliance of the book, and the acclaimed Irish novelist George Moore was especially fulsome in his praise. He declared that ‘Agnes Grey is the most perfect prose narrative in English literature … a narrative simple and beautiful as a muslin dress … We know that we are reading a masterpiece. Nothing short of genius could have set them before us so plainly and yet with restraint.’13

  Moore also praises Anne herself: ‘If Anne Brontë had lived ten years longer she would have taken a place beside Jane Austen, perhaps even a higher place.’14

  This plain, simple and self-effacing genius would have experienced the thrill of anticipation when her novel was duly packaged up with Wuthering Heights and The Professor, and sent to the first publisher on a list that Charlotte had obtained from Aylott & Jones. The first terse rejection letter was not long in arriving, and it was to be the first of many.

  Their attempts to gain a publisher were not helped by the fact that the same parcel was sent time after time, with the previous address crossed out and replaced by a new one. In Charlotte’s biographical notice of her sisters, she explains, ‘These manuscripts were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an ignominious and abrupt dismissal.’15

  Many people would have given up by this point, but Anne and her sisters realised that to end this dream would be an admission of ultimate failure. If this hope that had burned so brightly was extinguished, what did they have left? The package was sent on its weary way again and again, and it always seemed to find its way home to Haworth, but in July 1847 something magical happened.

  A letter arrived at the parsonage addressed, as usual in these circumstances, to Mr C. Bell Esq., but this time it did not contain the standard terse rejection they had grown so familiar with. The publisher Thomas Cautley Newby of London had seen merit in the books that other publishers had missed, and he was prepared to make an offer. He would publish Anne and Emily’s books, but they would have to pay £50 up front towards the cost of publishing. This would be reimbursed when and if the publisher recouped that sum in sales. The two sisters were elated, but for Charlotte it was another blow: the publisher declined to accept The Professor.

  Anne clasped Emily’s hands once more, just as she had done when they were children heading out to the moors. This was the moment they had dreamed of brought to reality. People had seen merit in their writing: their dream could now expand and reach out to new horizons. They would become successful authors to rank alongside Dickens and Thackeray, bringing out a stream of successful novels that would inform and educate as well as entertain. They would make enough money to look after their father in his old age and to fit themselves in the life of their choosing.

  Such were Anne’s thoughts as she stood reading the letter again and again, tears of happiness glistening in her blue eyes. Only then did she notice the pensive look on Charlotte’s face, and at once she understood the emotions encompassing the older sister who had been eclipsed by those younger than herself. Anne took Charlotte’s hands in hers and felt her sister’s fingers squeeze hers appreciatively. ‘Don’t give up, Charlotte,’ she urged. Charlotte was not to give up.

  Notes

  1. Halifax Guardian, 5 June 1841

  2. Bell, C., E. and A., Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, p.155

  3. Barker, Juliet, The Brontës, p.580

  4. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 1, p.530

  5. Hargreaves, G.D. ‘The Publishing of “Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell”’, Brontë Society Transactions 1969, p.298

  6. The Brontës, Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal, p.492

  7. Brontë, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, p.4

  8. Brontë, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, p.3

  9. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.152

  10. Ibid.

  11. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.153

  12. Ibid.

  13. Moore, George, Conversations in Ebury Street, p.221

  14. Ibid.

  15. Brontë, Charlotte, Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell, p.3

  13

  LIGHT FROM DARKNESS

  I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.

  Agnes Grey

  The line above is just one example of the humour that can be found in both Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to an extent not seen in either of her sisters’ works. Despite her reputation for being stern and serious, Anne also had a well-developed, if self-deprecating, sense of humour. She certainly was taken by surprise with the offer from Thomas Newby, and the contract that she and Emily entered so readily into proved anything but sensible.

  At the moment the sisters first sent their three novels out into the world they had vowed they would not pay to have them published, as they had done with their book of poetry. Whilst they still had a significant portion of their aunt’s legacy intact, there was no telling how long the funds would have to last them. As time passed, this brave resolve began to weaken. When the offer from Thomas Newby arrived, Anne and Emily must have thought that this was the final chance to get their work published. The long list of publishers they had started with had now become a very short list; this was all or nothing. Could they really give up now, and write off the physical and mental effort they had invested in the project, for the sake of £50, especially when they had that sum to hand?

  Charlotte felt instinctively that this was not a good deal for her sisters. For the £50 sum the publisher had offered to print 350 copies, yet they had already found how hard it was to sell just two copies of their poems. It was true that novels were much more fashionable than poems, and the market for them was consequentially much bigger, yet she saw that there was a great likelihood of her sisters never seeing their money again.

  What was Charlotte to do? She saw how excited the letter had made her younger sisters: they looked healthy, happy and full of life in a way that she had not seen since their youth. She also knew how stubborn Emily could be. If you wanted Emily to follow a course of action, it was best to suggest the exact opposite. No, she must bite her tongue for once in her life. Anne and Emily were now adults; they could and must make their own decision, even if it was one that Charlotte strongly disagreed with.

  In this instance Charlotte could not be accused of jealousy or insincerity. It had been a big blow when she opened that envelope, as she always did before handing the contents to her eager sisters, and read what was within it. Anne and Emily had written novels that were good enough to be published, and yet nobody was interested in what she had to offer. The product of her mind was not sufficiently illuminating; she had been found to be distinctly average. A stinging resentment and battered pride held mastery of Charlotte for a few seconds, the letter trembling within her hands, but these emotions were quickly superseded by the glow of filial love.

  The judgement on The Professor was to be a lasting one, and Charlotte would not find a publisher for it in her lifetime, although she never gave up trying; yet the judgement of the book is actually an unjustly harsh one. Whilst not matching the brilliance of other Brontë novels, it is still a well-structured and well-written book, and an entertaining read. Much of it would be recycled, modified and improved for her later novel Villette.

  Over the previous year and a half Charlotte had become used to rejection, but she had also taken steps to defend herself against it. If they did not like The Professor, and she had more than enough proof that they assuredly did not, she would write something different and see if that suited their tastes better. The wr
iting bug now had Charlotte firmly in its grip; it was one that she could not and would not shake off.

  This second novel was conceived and started during the time that her début work was doing the rounds of the remaining publishing houses. Thanks to Elizabeth Gaskell, in her trailblazing biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë, we know exactly when this work was begun, and it came at a moment when a particular darkness was gripping the family.

  It was August 1846, and Patrick Brontë was by this time in his 70th year. He had always suffered from extreme short-sightedness, as did Charlotte, and both would be reliant upon their slim pairs of eyeglasses. As Patrick got older his eyesight began to diminish rapidly, to the extent that he could no longer read or go out for walks, as he once loved to do. His daughters would take turns reading for him, but the darkness continued to encroach upon the light.

  A specialist doctor was sought, and he diagnosed that Patrick was suffering from cataracts. These not only made it hard for him to live his usual life, he was also finding it hard to carry out his ecclesiastical duties, relying more and more upon his new curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. It was intimated that a specialist surgeon in Manchester might be able to perform an operation known as couching, which could produce successful results. This involved depressing the lens of the eyes to restore or at least improve vision. Charlotte made the journey by rail to Manchester in the company of Emily to question the surgeon directly.

  Once again Anne had been left at home whilst Charlotte chose her other sister as a travelling companion. With her usual stoicism, she complained not and set about being nursemaid to both her 69-year-old father and her 29-year-old brother, who was now suffering increasingly from bouts of ‘illness’ and whose behaviour was becoming even more unpredictable.