In Search of Anne Brontë

by Nick Holland

  There had been no final amen from Emily; indeed, she had not been capable of it. She did believe in eternal life, but not in the constraints of organised religion. Nevertheless, Anne was convinced that she too would be with the angels. Charlotte saw Emily’s death as proof of the more than human powers her sister possessed. She had faced death unbowed, unbroken. She had refused to change in any way; it was as if her unbreakable spirit had defeated death.

  The testimony of William Wood, Tabby’s nephew, shows the depth of struggle that Emily had endured. As the village carpenter, it was William who made Emily’s coffin. He said it was the narrowest he had ever made for an adult. Despite Emily’s unusual height, it was just 16in wide.12 Emily’s funeral procession was led by her father and her beloved dog, Keeper, the ferocious mastiff she had tamed. Keeper sat in the family pew throughout the service, and after returning to the parsonage he stood for days on end howling outside the door to what had been Emily’s room.

  A year that had brought great literary acclaim and success had ended in tragedy. Death had claimed two of the Brontë children within three months of each other, but his work wasn’t finished yet.

  Notes

  1. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.122

  2. Letter to W.S. Williams, 29 September 1848, manuscript now held in the British Library, London

  3. Bell, C. E., and A., Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, p.44

  4. Gérin, Winifred, Anne Brontë, p.259

  5. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.130

  6. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.132

  7. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.142

  8. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.145

  9. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.147

  10. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, pp.152–3

  11. Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights, pp.120–1

  12. Gérin, Winifred, Emily Brontë, p.259

  18

  THE GLORIOUS SUNSET

  I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect, in the hope that you, dear Miss Nussey would give as much of your company as you possibly could to Charlotte and be a sister to her in my stead. But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa’s and Charlotte’s sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practise – humble and limited indeed – but still I should not like them to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose.

  Final letter to Ellen Nussey, 5 April 1849

  It was a mournful Christmas Day in the Haworth Parsonage. Just twenty-eight years earlier it had seemed full of promise, and it was full of life: Patrick was thriving in his new parish with his wife, Maria; their children Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell and Emily were running around happily; and little Anne was in her cradle. Now she, Charlotte and Patrick were all that was left in a house full of ghosts.

  Patrick had lost the daughter who had been almost a surrogate son to him, as well as managing the household as his wife would have done. He had declared Emily, ‘my right hand, nay the very apple of my eye’,1 and now she too had been buried under the unfeeling church floor he had to tread.

  Charlotte had witnessed the death of a sister that she had been in awe of. She had thought that Emily’s strength would never be diminished, but she was wrong. This time she had no guilt to weigh her down, this time she would be strong, because she knew that she had to be. She saw that both her father and her sole remaining sister had taken the death very badly. Anne had become more silent, adopted indeed the silence that had enveloped Emily, as if she were preparing to martyr herself. The sister Anne had loved as much as anything the world could offer was gone; was she also now looking too fervently to the next world?

  On 23 December 1848, Charlotte wrote a heart-rending letter to Ellen Nussey, which starts:

  Emily suffers no more either from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer more in this world – she is gone after a hard, short conflict. She died on Tuesday, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very possible then she might be with us still for weeks and a few hours afterwards she was in Eternity – yes, there is no Emily in Time or on Earth now. Yesterday, we put her poor, wasted mortal frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at present, why should we be otherwise?2

  A little later in the letter, however, Charlotte reveals why she was far from calm in reality, why she was again gripped by fear: ‘I now look at Anne and wish she were well and strong – but she is neither.’3

  Two days later, on Christmas Day, she wrote to W.S. Williams, again expressing both her grief and her concerns for Anne: ‘My father and my sister Anne are far from well … The sight too of my sister Anne’s very still but deep sorrow wakens in me such fear for her that I dare not falter.’4

  At Charlotte’s request, Ellen Nussey now came to stay at Haworth. As Charlotte said, she had never been needed more. She found the whole family in the grip of mourning and Anne in the grip of a disease that had been taking hold seemingly unnoticed since the time of Branwell’s death, and that had probably been in place long before that.

  Anne was coughing again, but she now had severe breathlessness upon any physical exertion. Her favourite white handkerchief with tiny red chevrons emblazoned upon it would often be brought from her mouth with larger red globules of blood, and she suffered from dreadful pains in her side. On 5 January, a leading physician called Dr Teale was called from Leeds. He was a specialist in lung diseases and tuberculosis. Ellen describes what happened on that day of sorrow:

  Anne was looking sweetly pretty and flushed, and in capital spirits for an invalid. While consultations were going on in Mr Brontë’s study, Anne was very lively in conversation, walking around the room supported by me. Mr Brontë joined us after Mr Teale’s departure and, seating himself on the couch, he drew Anne towards him and said, ‘My dear little Anne.’ That was all – but it was understood.5

  Here at last we have a first-hand account of how Anne could not only talk when she wanted to, she could even be ‘very lively in conversation’; alas, it was all a show. The brave façade of happiness was swept away in an instant, and tears flowed involuntarily from Anne’s eyes as she lay back on the couch where her sister Emily had taken her last breath just two weeks earlier. The doctor had confirmed that Anne was in an advanced stage of consumption, and while treatments could perhaps slow down the progress, there was no hope of a cure.

  Dr Teale prescribed cod liver oil and carbonate of iron, and he also took steps to prevent the further spread of the disease. Ellen was ordered to return home to Birstall, and Charlotte was told that she could no longer share a bed with Anne, as she had been doing since Emily’s final illness had taken hold.

  Anne had endured many trials and emerged triumphant, but now she was facing the greatest trial of them all, and she found the burden almost impossible to bear. Once more those dreadful religious doubts that had plagued her at Roe Head, and at low intervals throughout her life, returned, and more powerfully than ever. What if she was wrong about it all? What if there was to be no forgiveness for her? What if she would never meet Emily and Branwell in a better world? It was too awful to contemplate, but these thoughts filled every waking moment and prevented sleep at night.

  In the midst of spiritual torment, and suffering terrible physical hardship, she turned one last time to the relief of poetry. The result is called ‘Last Lines’ and is her most powerful work; indeed, it’s like no other poetry in the Brontë canon. Anne first started the composition on 7 January, two days after Dr Teale’s all too final diagnosis:

  A dreadful darkness closes in

  On my bewildered mind;

  O let me suffer and not sin,

&
nbsp; Be tortured yet resigned.

  Through all this world of whelming mist

  Still let me look to Thee,

  And give me courage to resist

  The Tempter till he flee.

  Weary I am – O give me strength

  And leave me not to faint;

  Say Thou wilt comfort me at length

  And pity my complaint.

  I’ve begged to serve Thee heart and soul,

  To sacrifice to Thee,

  No niggard portion, but the whole

  Of my identity.

  I hoped amid the brave and strong

  My portioned task might lie,

  To toil amid the labouring throng

  With purpose pure and high.

  But Thou has fixed another part,

  And Thou has fixed it well;

  I said so with my breaking heart

  When first the anguish fell.

  For Thou hast taken my delight

  And hope of life away,

  And bid me watch the painful night

  And wait the weary day.

  The hope and the delight were Thine;

  I bless Thee for their loan;

  I gave Thee while I deemed them mine

  Too little thanks, I own.

  Shall I with joy Thy blessings share

  And not endure their loss?

  Or hope the martyr’s crown to wear

  And cast away the cross?6

  At this point Anne lay down her pen, physically and mentally she could face no more. She had talked of the fear of sinning, of succumbing to the tempter Satan himself by questioning in her heart the faith she had always clung to. Let me suffer any physical tortures, she says, let me be a martyr, but do not let me suffer this final indignity. This was the lowest point she could possibly reach, whatever else may lay in wait, and she could write no more. And yet, as we will see, she did later take the pen up again and give this remarkable work a completely different ending.

  Anne, so used to hiding all emotion, was now powerless to stop this display of grief, and her mental anguish took a physical toll as well. On 13 January, Charlotte wrote once more to W.S. Williams to ‘unburden her mind’. ‘Anne and I sit alone and in seclusion as you fancy us, but we do not study; Anne cannot study now, she can scarcely read; she occupies Emily’s chair – she does not get well.’7

  This was the spiritual nadir for Anne, and her health had failed to the extent that any movement would bring a sharp, stabbing, almost unbearable pain. She was silent; her vision had worsened. All she desired was to sit in Emily’s chair, nothing else was important to her but to feel some connection with her sister. It seems likely that these black thoughts would have hastened her end with wicked speed, but somehow the next two weeks saw a great change for the better.

  At the lowest ebb a moment of light had burst in upon her. The words that she had heard from Reverend La Trobe returned to her, along with the thirty passages of the Bible that Helen Lawrence so confidently cites to her aunt in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. There was hope, after all. There was more than hope: there was a certainty of redemption and salvation. It was as if a candle had been lit in the darkness, in a second the shadows receded and faith returned. It would not let Anne down again.

  There was another source of inspiration that Anne called upon for her spiritual renewal, a letter she had received in December 1848 from the Reverend David Thom, an evangelical preacher from Liverpool. He had felt compelled to write to her in praise of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, defending it against the accusations of ungodliness that some critics had branded upon it. He also praised its use of the doctrine of universal salvation and affirmed it was one that he too firmly believed in. She had received other appreciative letters from readers, but this one was very special to her, so much so that even in the midst of torment following Emily’s death, and while struggling with her own as yet undiagnosed illness, she replied to him. The letter is dated 30 December 1848, and she begins by pleading ill health for her delayed reply. She then writes:

  I have seen so little of controversial Theology that I was not aware the doctrine of Universal Salvation had so able and ardent an advocate as yourself; but I have cherished it from my very childhood – with a trembling hope at first, and afterwards with a firm and glad conviction of its truth. I drew it secretly from my own heart and from the word of God before I knew that any other held it. And since then it has ever been a source of true delight to me to find the same views either timidly suggested or boldly advocated by benevolent and thoughtful minds; and I now believe there are many more believers than professors in that consoling creed … I thankfully cherish this belief; I honour those who hold it; and I would that all men had the same view of man’s hopes and God’s unbounded goodness as he had given to us.8

  This belief that she cherished so much, this ‘controversial theology’ that could only be hinted at, had been tested to the utmost, but at the final battle it emerged triumphant. Her father and sister could not fail to notice the difference. Her face took on an enigmatic smile, she talked again, and more freely than ever before. Anne’s health even showed signs of improvement, her walking was improving and she now took delight in reading once more. And, almost incredibly, she returned to ‘Last Lines’ and crafted a new ending. To the original poem of fear and despair, Anne added a further twenty-eight lines that create a stark contrast:

  These weary hours will not be lost,

  These days of passive misery,

  These nights of darkness anguish tost

  If I can fix my heart on thee.

  Weak and weary though I lie,

  Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,

  Still I may lift to Heaven mine eyes,

  And strive and labour not in vain,

  That inward strife against the sins

  That ever wait on suffering;

  To watch and strike where first begins

  Each ill that would corruption bring,

  That secret labour to sustain

  With humble patience every blow,

  To gather fortitude from pain

  And hope and holiness from woe.

  Thus let me serve Thee from my heart

  Whatever be my written fate,

  Whether thus early to depart

  Or yet awhile to wait.

  If Thou shouldst bring me back to life

  More humbled I should be;

  More wise, more strengthened for the strife,

  More apt to lean on Thee.

  Should Death be standing at the gate

  Thus should I keep my vow;

  But, Lord, whate’er my future fate

  So let me serve Thee now.9

  This section is not only different in character to the first half of ‘Last Lines’, it is also written in a firmer, more confident hand, giving a clear delineation of where Anne put down the work and then recommenced it. The top of the manuscript reads ‘Jan 7th’, and at the bottom she has written ‘Finished. Jan. 28, 1849’. We gain, therefore, a great insight into the struggle that she went through over this three-week period. She has moved from anger and doubt, a period where she questions all her beliefs, to a time of acceptance and redemption. She has regained mastery of her body and spirit, and never more would the ‘dark night of the soul’ have any power over her.

  Anne was still in great pain, although this could fluctuate from day to day, giving herself and her family joy on one day and despair on the next, but now she would internalise it as she had always done. Taking Emily as an example, she would not allow pain and illness to beat her. With what little time God had given her, she would not complain and allow self-pity to intrude.

  A key difference between Emily’s struggle and that of Anne is that Anne allowed herself to submit to medical treatment, and indeed she actively sought it out. Whilst the end result was inevitably the same, it did allow her to enjoy brief periods where the ravages of consumption were less intense, and it prolonged her life for weeks.

  Recognising
Anne’s willingness to receive help, in stark contrast to Emily, Charlotte’s kindly publisher made an offer. George Smith had been charmed by the gentle and modest genius Anne on her visit to London, and he took a keen interest in the Brontë family as a whole. After receiving a letter from Charlotte detailing Dr Teale’s diagnosis, Smith wrote to the parsonage, offering to pay at his own expense for one of the very best consumption experts in London, Dr John Forbes, to visit Anne and provide a suitable treatment. Patrick was loathe to accept favours, but in this case he would have accepted any help that he thought could prove effective. He realised, however, that the initial diagnosis was undoubtedly correct and that even this great doctor could do no more than Dr Teale had done. The offer was politely declined, but Charlotte wrote to Dr Forbes describing Anne’s condition and the subsequent prescription. Forbes wrote back saying that he was aware of Dr Teale and trusted his judgement, and that he too would have prescribed cod liver oil in this instance.10 There was nothing more to be done.

  Anne continued to take the medicine, but the taste was disgusting to her. She complained that it smelled and tasted like train oil, but she still forced herself to consume it for as long as she could. Eventually she could take it no longer, every attempt to swallow the oil was making her sick, and she was rapidly losing weight to an alarming degree. Other medicines were substituted, of which Anne believed ‘Gobold’s Vegetable Balsam’ to be particularly efficacious, and she also used a respirator that Ellen had bought for her.