Branwell faced the new year of 1836 in confident mood: if his future as yet appeared unclear it was only because he had a plethora of talents. If his artistic schemes never materialized then a career in letters beckoned. For the moment he would hedge his bets by pursuing both.
For the rest of his family the second half of 1835 had not been a particularly happy time. Charlotte had taken up her post as a teacher at Roe Head with deep reluctance. ‘Did I not once say Ellen you ought to be thankful for your independence?’ she asked her friend. ‘I felt what I said at the time, and I repeat it now with double earnestness’. At least, however, as she also admitted, ‘my lines have fallen in pleasant places’.30 She was going to a place she knew, to work for Miss Wooler whom she loved and respected; her sister Emily would be with her and both Ellen and Mary Taylor would be near at hand. It is probable, too, that the prospect of teaching young girls was not as yet unpleasant to her. It is often forgotten in the despair and bitterness of her later experiences, particularly as a governess, that Charlotte could devise no happier fate for the heroines of her novels, if they had no hope of marriage, than to run their own school.31
Though she was now entering the teaching profession, Charlotte herself was, at nineteen, very much of a marriageable age. As yet no suitor had approached her, but as an independent young woman earning her own living at Roe Head she might well attract the attention of a prospective husband. She was, after all, replacing a teacher who had left Roe Head to get married.32 It was undoubtedly the possibility of her forming an unsuitable attachment, away from the careful supervision of her father and aunt, that prompted Patrick to write once more to his old friend, Elizabeth Firth Franks:
As two of my dear children, are soon to be placed near you, I take the liberty of writing to you a few lines, in order to request both you and Mr Franks, to be so kind, as to interpose with your advice and counsel, to them, in any case of necessity – and if expedient to write to Miss Branwell, or me, if our interference should be requisite. I will charge them, strictly, to attend to what you may advise … They, both, have good abilities, & as far as I can judge their principles are good also, but they are very young, and unacquainted with the ways of this delusive, and insnaring world, and though, they will be placed under the superintendence, of Miss Wooler, who will I doubt not, do what she can for their good, Yet, I am well aware, that neither they, nor any other, can ever, in this land of probation, lie beyond the reach of temptation.33
Aware of how indignant such a letter would make Charlotte, Patrick did not tell either of his daughters that he had written, contenting himself with the thought that Mrs Franks would be his eyes and ears.
In the end, however, it was not Charlotte but Emily who was to cause the family concern. Apart from the brief six months she had spent at the Clergy Daughters’ School nearly ten years earlier, she had never spent any length of time away from home before. As if to reinforce the separation from her family, her first full day at school actually fell on her seventeenth birthday, the first she had ever passed away from home. Life as a schoolgirl at Roe Head had been difficult for Charlotte and it is unlikely to have been any easier for Emily, despite the advantages she had over her sister. She was neither as absolutely alone nor as unprepared as Charlotte had been, having had the benefit of lessons from her older sister based on what Charlotte herself had learnt at Roe Head. On the other hand, she had several disadvantages. Her relationship to a teacher may have made her vulnerable to unpleasantness from, or even ostracism by, her fellow pupils. The round of school routine would leave the sisters little time for private conversation and Charlotte may have slept in her own room away from the dormitory.34 Perhaps most important of all was her age, for at seventeen she would have been one of the oldest pupils in the school. Miss Wooler’s practice of teaching new girls separately until they had reached the required standard to join the rest of the class must have been particularly galling when pupils much younger than herself had already earned their places. Even when she joined them, she is likely to have been self-conscious both physically and mentally. Being tall for her age, she must have attracted even more malicious attention than Charlotte had done by her inexpensive and unfashionable clothing. Her intelligence, which a later teacher was to rate more highly than Charlotte’s,35 must have added to her frustration with the learning by rote which formed such a large part of the school syllabus.
Added to all these problems was the fact that the pervasive nature of school routine effectively ensured that Emily had no time to spend in Gondal fantasies. Though nothing remains of the Gondal stories written before 1838, there is no doubt that these had already reached the same levels of complexity and sophistication as Charlotte and Branwell’s Angria.36 Until now, Emily had always been free to let her imagination wander at will: though she had had lessons and household duties to perform, so long as these were completed satisfactorily, the rest of her time had been at her own disposal. Now, for the first time in her life, virtually every hour of her day was organized for her and there was scarcely a spare moment even to think about Gondal, let alone write about it. She could not even indulge in Gondal talk, for Anne, her playing partner, was far away at home in Haworth. For Emily the need to follow through her Gondal fantasies was so intense that it transcended the bounds of the imagination and affected her physical wellbeing. Deprived of the stimulus of Gondal, she had nothing to make the rigid routine of daily school life bearable.
When a schoolgirl herself, Charlotte had been able to turn her imaginative powers to good account by telling stories which won her friends, but Emily’s extreme reticence, which Ellen had remarked on two years earlier, made this impossible for her. After the quiet and privacy of life at Haworth Parsonage, it must have been anathema to the seventeen-year-old Emily to be compelled to spend all her waking and sleeping hours in the company of boisterous, unimaginative and unsympathetic girls whom Charlotte herself, in one of her more vitriolic moods, described as ‘fat-headed oafs’. Though having at least some time to herself, Charlotte, too, suffered from the loss of privacy attendant on boarding school life.
The Ladies went into the school-room to do their exercises & I crept up
If Charlotte felt the need for privacy, how much more must Emily have done when she had to share even her bed with one of her fellow pupils? At seventeen, too, it must have been difficult to change the habits of the past ten years and adapt to the oppressive rigidity of the daily routine. Her misery was compounded by the fact that from the schoolroom and dormitory windows she could see the surrounding moorland hills slowly turning from the green and russet hues of summer to the glorious purple of flowering heather as July gave way to August and September.38 A tantalizing reminder of her own beloved moors at Haworth, which she was free to wander at will, this served only to reinforce the confining atmosphere of school. Her homesickness became so overpowering that she became literally ill, as Charlotte later explained:
Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very secluded, but unrestricted and inartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindliest auspices), was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me – I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall.39
Emily’s symptoms, so forcibly recalling the spectre of the consumption which had carried off Maria and Elizabeth, did not allow of any delay. By the end of October, just three mo
nths after setting out for Roe Head, Emily was back again in the regenerative atmosphere of her home at Haworth. She was fortunate that Charlotte, too, was suffering from the enforced deprivation of her own imaginative world: it was quite true that ‘nobody knew what ailed her but me’, for who else but one of her own siblings could have recognized the importance of allowing the imagination free rein? That such freedom was inextricably linked with home, Charlotte also recognized quite clearly. Eighteen months later, when her own sense of deprivation was beginning to overpower her, she wrote:
How few would believe that from sources purely imaginery such happiness could be derived – Pen cannot pourtray the deep Interest of the scenes, of the continued trains of events, I have witnessed in that little room with the low narrow bed & bare white-washed/ walls – twenty miles away – What a treasure is thought! What a privilege is reverie – I am thankful that I have the power of solacing myself with the dream of creations whose reality I shall never behold – May I never lose that power may I never feel it growing weaker – If I should how little pleasure will life afford me – its lapses of shade are so wide so gloomy Its gleams of sunshine so limited & dim –!40
That liberty, so vital to Emily, which Charlotte took pains to imply to the outside world was physical and dependent on the moorlands of home, was actually the liberty of mind and imagination. Home was the only place which could offer her the unbridled indulgence of Gondal fantasy.
Emily’s place at school was immediately taken by Anne, whose dependence on Gondal was much less extreme than her sister’s.41 Anne’s career at Roe Head was undistinguished. Quiet and diligent, she left no abiding impression on either her teachers or her school-fellows, though she apparently won the prize for good conduct in December 1836 and made at least one, much younger friend. Even Charlotte made only passing references to her presence: Anne tells her that George Nussey had just gone past or appears as a ‘quiet
Later, as a governess, Anne was to pour out her longing for home in poetry and there is no reason to believe that she was not just as homesick at Roe Head as Emily. Like her older sister Charlotte, however, Anne had a core of steel, a sense of duty and obligation which seems to have been flawed, if not altogether missing, in Emily. She could not fail to be aware that financial sacrifices were being made at home and by Charlotte, whose teaching salary was almost totally absorbed in the cost of providing her with an education. ‘After clothing herself and Anne,’ Charlotte was to confess to Mary Taylor, ‘there was nothing left, though she had hoped to be able to save something.’44 Like Charlotte, Anne clearly believed it was her duty to get an education that would enable her to earn her own living. She therefore bravely embarked upon her schooldays, pragmatically determined to make the best of things.
Charlotte herself was faced with an uphill task, but she made a determined effort to succeed in her chosen profession, throwing all her energies into teaching. There would appear to have been no more than about half a dozen boarding pupils, though Charlotte’s weariness suggests that there may have been more day pupils. Of those whose names are mentioned, Anne Brontë was by far the oldest at nearly sixteen; Ann Cook, Anne’s friend, and her sister, Ellen, were ten- and eight-year-old sisters from Dewsbury; there were the Miss Uptons, a Miss Caris, and Charlotte’s bêtes noires, the Misses Lister and Marriott, who were possibly related.45 Most of Charlotte’s day was taken up with the endless routine of taking and hearing lessons, supervising the girls during their hours of study or escorting them on their daily walks. Here and there she was able to snatch the odd half hour for herself. These opportunities, doubly precious because they were so rare, she seized upon to dream or write about her beloved Angria. Branwell, deeply immersed in the chronicling of Angria at home, fed her imagination with bulletins on the latest developments.
About a week since I got a letter from Branwell containing a most exquisitely characteristic epistle from Northangerland to his daughter – It is astonishing what a soothing and delightful tone that letter seemed to speak – I lived on its contents for days, <&> in every pause of employment – it came chiming in like some sweet bar of music – bringing with it agreeable thoughts such as I had for many weeks been a stranger to –46
So compulsive was Charlotte’s need to escape from the mundanities of life at Roe Head that the exotic Angrian figures and scenes of her imagination acquired a reality of their own. One particular moment in the winter term of 1835 made such a deep impression on her that she wrote about it on her return home at Christmas.
Never shall I Charlotte Brontë forget what a voice of wild & wailing music Now came thrillingly to my mind’s almost to my body’s ear nor how distinctly I sitting in the schoolroom at Roe-head <& saw> saw the Duke of Zamorna leaning against that obelisk with the mute marble Victory above him, the fern waving at his feet his black horse turned loose grazing among the heather, the moonlight so mild & so exquisitely tranquil sleeping upon that vast & vacant road & the African sky quivering & shaking with stars expanded above all, I was quite gone I had really utterly forgot where I was and all the gloom & cheerlessness of my situation I felt myself breathing quick & short as I beheld
‘Oh Grave where is thy sting Oh Death where
is thy Victory’
was exciting him & quickening his ever rapid pulse ‘Miss Brontë what are you thinking about?’ said a voice that dissipated all the charm & Miss Lister thrust her little rough black head into my face, ‘Sic transit’ &c. 47
The Christmas holidays at the end of 1835 must have come as a welcome relief. At home, where there was the stimulation and encouragement of a sympathetic brother and sisters, the Angrian dream could be followed through without interruption and recorded at blissful length. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that as soon as she arrived home Charlotte launched into a long poem looking back over the foundation of the imaginary worlds and celebrating their continued power to excite her.
When I sat ’neath a strange roof-tree
With nought I knew or
Oh how my heart
Then I felt how fast thy ties had bound me/ …
Then
For a sight of the old familliar faces
I drew near the casement & sat in its gloom
And looked forth on the tempests desolate traces
The dead leaves & sere from their boughs
And I gazed on the hills through the leafless trees
And felt as if my heart was breaking
Where was I e’re an hour had past
Still list’ning to that dreary blast
Still in that mirthless lifeless room
Cramped, chilled & deadened by its gloom
No! thanks to that bright darling dream
Its power had shot one kindling gleam
Its voice had sent one wakening cry
And bade me lay my sorrows by
And called me earnestly to come
And borne me to my moorland home
Of task & chat that hummed around
I saw no more that
grisly night
Closing the day’s sepulchral light48
For a few brief weeks, Charlotte was free to indulge her fantasies though the need to do so was less compelling in the liberating atmosphere of home.
Charlotte and Anne discovered that all had not gone smoothly at home in their absence. Their father, too, had had a difficult six months. The campaign by Dissenters to disestablish the Church of England, which Patrick had so vigorously opposed in his quarrel with John Winterbotham, the Baptist minister, had suddenly taken on a new and alarming form. On 22 September 1835, the annual meeting had been held in Haworth Church to elect the surveyors and constable and lay a rate on the parish to cover church expenses for the forthcoming year. The former constable had been a political partisan in the summer Parliamentary elections, so his candidature was vehemently contested. Even more stormy was the attempt to impose a church rate which met with ‘the most marked opposition by the people generally. They seemed to be fully determined not to submit any longer to the gross injustice of taxing all to support the religion of one sect.’49
Haworth, with its large Dissenting population and a double burden of dues, payable both to its own church and to the parish church in Bradford, was in the forefront of what was to become a national and annual campaign to oppose the granting of church rates. Even more seriously, the chief role in the anti-church rate lobby was assumed by James Greenwood, the Baptist mill owner of Bridge End Mills in Haworth. He was not only a more influential and heavyweight opponent than Winterbotham, but also, following a family dispute, was at loggerheads with his brother, Joseph Greenwood of Spring Head, who was the main church trustee.50 As the churchwardens already had a surplus of ten pounds from the rate of the previous year, the Anglicans were not in a good position to argue their need. James Greenwood took the lead in denouncing as ‘impolitic and improper’ a proposal from one of the churchwardens, George Taylor, that they should draw on the poor rate once the ten pounds had been expended. He followed this up by taking advantage of the turbulent state of the meeting to propose that the question of laying a church rate should be deferred to the following year. Though this might appear a compromise position, it was effectively a victory for the Dissenters, who had successfully fought off the imposition of a church rate. This left the churchwardens (and Patrick) with the impossible task of maintaining and repairing the church for a year out of a sum of only ten pounds – which would not even pay the salaries of the two parish clerks.51
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