Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  Like some other husbands, I could have spared her presence.96

  It was scarcely surprising that Branwell should find his home no longer ‘Bright as of yore’ on his return. Though the full weight of the Brontës’ wrath was to fall on Mrs Robinson, the ‘diabolical seducer’ as Patrick called her,97 the atmosphere at the parsonage was undoubtedly disapproving. It was not simply that Branwell had committed mortal sin in breaking the seventh commandment, but that he was unwilling or unable to disentangle himself from the relationship: his only wish, amounting almost to monomania, was to return to Mrs Robinson. Patrick was unremittingly stern with his son; Emily simply seems to have found him irritating.98 But it was Charlotte – who had always been the closest to him and who, having fallen in love with a married man herself, should have been the most sympathetic to his plight – who proved to be his harshest critic. Her hostility to him seems to have been inflamed by her always burning sense of injustice. She had had to bear her suffering in silence and exert a rigid self-control to prevent herself giving way to her abiding sense of desolation and loss. Branwell, on the other hand, was totally self-indulgent in his pain, telling his story to anyone who would listen. While her love for Monsieur Heger remained a closely guarded secret for over seventy years, known or guessed by only a few people, Branwell’s passion for Mrs Robinson was immediately common knowledge throughout the township.

  Charlotte’s bitterness and contempt for Branwell were voiced in her letters to Ellen Nussey, who lent a more than usually sympathetic ear. Her own brother, George, had had a mental breakdown at the beginning of the year and by the summer his condition had deteriorated to the point that he had had to be sent to Dr Belcombe’s private asylum at York for treatment. Another brother, Joseph, was an alcoholic whose behaviour paralleled that of Branwell. The two friends commiserated with one another:

  You say well in speaking of Branwell that no sufferings are so awful as those brought on by dissipation – alas! I see the truth of this observation daily proved – Ann and Mercy must have a weary and burdensome life of it – in waiting upon their unhappy brother – it seems grievous indeed that those who have not sinned should suffer so largely.99

  There is a palpable sense of personal injury here which is a subcurrent throughout Charlotte’s complaints about her brother. It was not so much Branwell’s self-pity and attempts to seek oblivion in drink which grated, but the fact that he inflicted them on his family and Charlotte herself. It has to be said that she aggravated her own sense of martyrdom by refusing either to take up Ellen’s invitations to Brookroyd or to allow Ellen to visit Haworth: ‘Branwell makes no effort to seek a situation –’, she reported angrily, ‘and while he is at home I will invite no one to come and share our discomfort.’ Again she told Ellen, ‘Branwell offers no prospect of hope – he professes to be too ill to think of seeking for employment – he makes comfort scant at home.’100 Charlotte even complained to her old schoolmistress, Margaret Woolen:

  You ask about Branwell; he never thinks of seeking employment and I begin to fear that he has rendered himself incapable of filling any respectable station in life, besides, if money were at his disposal he would use it only to his own injury – the faculty of self-government is, I fear almost destroyed in him101

  There is a double standard here, as in all Charlotte’s remarks on Branwell’s misdoings at this time. She accuses him of failing to look for employment yet she herself had been unemployed for two years, effectively allowing herself to be kept by her father and Anne. It was no excuse that she was needed at home, however much she might have comforted herself with the thought, as Emily was clearly a perfectly competent housekeeper who could manage without her assistance, as she had done while Charlotte was in Brussels. Although she had formed a rather wild ambition to go to Paris in search of a situation,102 she had done nothing concrete to find herself a post. Similarly, she criticized Branwell’s lack of self-control, with its devastating effect on the family, yet, despite the rigorous suppression of her own emotions and refusal to make scenes or voice her unhappiness, as Branwell did, her deep depression had similarly been inflicted on family and friends alike. Her only outlet for her pent-up feelings was her correspondence with Monsieur Heger, which was becoming increasingly uninhibited and anguished even as she became more censorious of her brother’s conduct.

  I tell you frankly … that I have tried to forget you, for the remembrance of a person whom one believes one must never see again and whom, nevertheless, one greatly respects, exhausts the spirit too much and when one has suffered that kind of anxiety for one or two years, one is ready to do anything to recover peace of mind. I have done everything, I have sought out occupation, I have absolutely forbidden myself the pleasure of speaking of you – even to Emily but I cannot conquer either my regrets or my impatience – this is humiliating – not to know how to be master of one’s own thoughts, to be slave to a regret, a memory, slave to a dominating and fixed idea which tyrannizes one’s spirit.103

  It is not surprising that Charlotte had no sympathy to spare for her brother when her own suffering, from the identical cause, was so extreme. It must have been doubly galling to be forced to witness his extravagant and very public displays of grief when her own pride forbade her to find relief in such indulgence.

  While it is easy to empathize with Charlotte because we see events through her eyes, it is important to redress the balance in Branwell’s favour. Her claims, for instance, that he had given no thought to finding employment are patently untrue. Rather surprisingly, Branwell contemplated a return to the railways. A new line had been proposed, commencing at Hebden Bridge, running through a tunnel under Cock Hill to Oxenhope and then on to Keighley via Haworth and Oakworth. The scheme had the great commercial advantage of linking up the Manchester and Liverpool Railway with the Leeds and Bradford Railway and there is no doubt that, had it been carried out, it would have transformed the prosperity of Haworth. For this reason, Patrick Brontë and most of the principal inhabitants of Haworth lent their names as promoters of the plan and Joseph Greenwood of Spring Head took a place on the provisional board of directors. Applications for shares were advertised in the Leeds Intelligencer on 11 October 1845 and, at about the same time, Branwell himself applied for the post of Secretary to the new Railway, blithely declaring, ‘I trust to be able to produce full testimonials as to my qualifications and Securities, if required, to any probable amount.’104

  Despite any influence his father may have had with the board, Branwell’s prospective employers were clearly unimpressed with the fact that he had lost his previous post on the railways for failing to keep proper accounts. As Charlotte remarked bitterly to Ellen:

  the place (a Secretaryship to a Railroad Committee) is given to another person Branwell still remains at home and while he is here – you shall not come – I am more confirmed in that resolution the more I know of him – I wish I could say one word to you in his favour – but I cannot – therefore I will hold my tongue.105

  In fact, had Branwell secured the position, he would not have held it for long. The proposal to build the railway coincided with the ‘Railway Panic’ when large numbers of schemes folded and investors lost heavily in the process: the plan was abandoned and Haworth had to wait another twenty-two years for its rail link.

  This failure does not seem to have deterred Branwell, for he continued to badger Francis Grundy with requests for employment on the railways and even considered the possibility of going to the Continent when he saw no openings in Britain. In the meantime, he busied himself with acting as a go-between for his old friend J.B. Leyland, and John Brown, the latter being responsible for lettering and erecting a memorial in Haworth Church to Joseph Midgeley of Oldfield which Leyland had carved.106 The renewal of this particular friendship led to a revival of Branwell’s spirits; though still harping upon his disappointment, his letters became increasingly chatty and irreverent in tone and were frequently illustrated with hastily sketched and wittily captioned vignettes. />
  More importantly, Leyland encouraged him to take up his writing again in earnest. Branwell had two new poems published in the Halifax Guardian in the early winter of 1845, both of them inspired by the abrupt ending of his liaison with Mrs Robinson. The first of these, ‘Real Rest’, published on 8 November, pictures a corpse floating on the water and envies its peace in death.

  I have an outward frame unlike to thine,

  Warm with young life – not cold in death’s decline;

  An eye that sees the sunny light of heaven –

  A heart by pleasure thrilled – by anguish riven –

  But in exchange for thy untroubled calm,

  Thy gift of cold oblivions healing balm,

  I’d give my youth – my health – my life to come, And share thy slumbers in thy ocean tomb.107

  The second, ‘Penmaenmawr’, which was published on 20 December, was much more overt in its references to Mrs Robinson – intentionally so, as Branwell told Leyland in a covering letter enclosing a copy of the poem.

  I ought to tell you why I wish anything of so personal a nature to appear in print.

  I have no other way, not pregnant with danger, of communicating with one whom I cannot help loving. Printed lines with my usual signature ‘Northangerland’ would excite no suspicion … I sent through a private channel one letter of comfort in her great and agonizing present afflictions, but I recalled it through dread of the consequences of a discovery.

  Though written in November, the poem harked back to his voyage on the steamer from Liverpool along the coast of North Wales. ‘These lines only have one merit’, he told Leyland,

  – that of really expressing my feelings while sailing under the Welsh mountain – When the band on board the steamer struck up ‘Ye banks and braes’ – and God knows that, for many different reasons, those feelings were far enough from pleasure.108

  Had Branwell seriously intended Mrs Robinson to see the poem he would surely have submitted it to the Yorkshire Gazette, which he knew the family read, but this was possibly too great a risk. Even if Henry Bellerby had been willing to print a poem by the recently disgraced and dismissed Robinson tutor, anyone at Thorp Green familiar with Branwell’s poetic aspirations would have recognized his Northangerland pseudonym. While Branwell may have fondly believed Mr Robinson was ignorant of his pen name, the poem contained lines which would undoubtedly have raised his former employer’s suspicions.

  I knew a flower whose leaves were meant to bloom

  Till Death should snatch it to adorn the tomb,

  Now, blanching ’neath the blight of hopeless grief

  With never blooming and yet living leaf;

  A flower on which my mind would wish to shine,

  If but one beam could break from mind like mine:

  I had an ear which could on accents dwell

  That might as well say ‘perish’ as ‘farewell’ –

  An eye which saw, far off, a tender form

  Beaten, unsheltered, by affliction’s storm –

  An arm – a lip – that trembled to embrace

  My Angel’s gentle breast and sorrowing face –

  A mind that clung to Ouse’s fertile side

  While tossing – objectless – on Menai’s tide!109

  If Mrs Robinson did get to see the Halifax Guardian, then these lines must have caused her great alarm. While it might be amusing to have a young man writing her ardent love poetry in private, it was a different thing to have him blazoning his passion across the pages of the local newspapers in progressively more indiscreet verse. It is therefore a matter for speculation whether the sums of money which Mrs Robinson sent Branwell over the next few years were an attempt to buy his silence and persuade him not to publish further poems which might lead to a public discovery of their affair. Certainly it is the case that this was the last of Branwell’s published poems to have any bearing on his relationship with Mrs Robinson.

  The measured tones and carefully worked lines of ‘Penmaenmawr’ are in stark contrast to the hastily scribbled verses Branwell had poured out in the first frantic reaction to his dismissal. Even so, the poem ends with a plea for peace of mind that was still proving elusive.

  Oh soul! that draw’st yon mighty hill and me

  Into communion of vague unity,

  Tell me, can I obtain the stony brow

  That fronts the storm, as much unbroken now

  As when it once upheld the fortress proud,

  Now gone, like its own morning cap of cloud?

  Its breast is stone. Can I have one of steel,

  T’endure – inflict – defend – yet never feel?

  It stood as firm when haughty Edward’s word

  Gave hill and dale to England’s fire and sword,

  As when white sails and steam-smoke tracked the sea,

  And all the world breathed peace, but waves and me.

  Let me, like it, arise o’er mortal care;

  All evils bear, yet never know despair;

  Unshrinking face the griefs I now deplore,

  And stand, through storm and shine, like moveless

  PENMAENMAWR.110

  In addition to his efforts for the Halifax Guardian, Branwell even seems to have contemplated yet another assault on Blackwood’s Magazine, sending Leyland a copy of his lines for his prior approval.111

  Branwell had not merely occupied himself with poetry, but had also embarked on a major new project. Just as he had always done, from the days of their childhood when he had been the innovator in their juvenile writings to the publishing of his poetry in more recent years, Branwell was the first member of his family to tread a new path, in seeing the potential of the novel as a marketable commodity and setting about writing one for publication. He explained the inception of his book to Leyland.

  I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted my hours of time snatched from downright illness, to the composition of a three volume Novel – one volume of which is completed – and along with the two forthcoming ones, has been really the result of half a dozen by past years of thoughts about, and experience in, this crooked path of life.

  I felt that I must rouse myself to attempt some-thing while roasting daily and nightly over a slow fire – to wile away my torment and I knew that in the present state of the publishing and reading world a Novel is the most saleable article so that where ten pounds would be offered for a work the production of which would require the utmost stretch of a man’s intellect – two hundred pounds would be a refused offer for three volumes whose composition would require the smoking of a cigar and the humming of a tune.

  My Novel is the result of years of thought and if it gives a vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil – veiled by the cloak of deceit which must enwrap man and woman – If it records as faithfully as the pages that unveil man’s heart in Hamlet or Lear the conflicting feelings and clashing pursuits in our uncertain path through life I shall be as much gratified (and as much astonished) as I should be if in betting that I could jump over the Mersey I jumped over the Irish Sea. It would not be more pleasant to light on Dublin instead of Birkenhead than to leap from the present bathos of fictitious literature on to the firmly fixed rock honourd by the foot of a Smollet or Feilding.

  That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble Theseus who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him – but meanwhile I can try my utmost to rouse from almost killing cares, and that alone will be its own reward.112

  Branwell’s ‘Novel’ was indeed the result of years of thought, for it appears that it was a reworking of an Angrian story he had written as early as December 1837. His choice of this particular story and his treatment of it were obviously influenced by his affair with Mrs Robinson. The story was that of Maria, the beautiful wife of the dissolute William Thurston, and her seduction by Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland.

  In the original, Maria was drawn to Percy’s romantic character
, ‘that strange union … of debauched profligacy and impassioned feeling and restless ambition, and which then was but beginning to be overclouded by his after embittered melancholy’ and her interest was stimulated by ‘the story of his life, its ceaseless wanderings and rumoured crimes’. In common with Percy’s other conquests she is already half in love with him before she meets him and is a ready and willing victim; Percy wins her over simply because he is Percy and irresistible to women.113 In the new version, which Branwell titled ‘And the Weary are at Rest’, Maria Thurston is a virtuous woman driven into Percy’s arms, despite herself, because she is a neglected wife who longs for love.

  Mrs Maria Thurston had known enough of Sorrow, and God had intended her to both know and feel enough of love. She had before her a man capable of exciting every feeling that a woman can know – She had, as the possesor of her own person, a man, if I can write him down as such, who could not gain more than momentarily – her feelings, and who never could fill them at all. She had lost thoughts of him except/ in her ideas of dread of him and so many years had elapsed since he had bestowed on her even one moment of, I fear, selfish fondness, that the remem/brance of her bridal days caused the astonishment which one feels when thinking that ones childhood took for truth the gibberish of a nursery tale.114

  Maria Thurston had thus become a portrait of Mrs Robinson, who had herself attracted Branwell’s sympathy by her claims of marital neglect. Maria is pious, like Mrs Robinson, and is thus deeply torn by the conflict of her faith and her illicit love. When she finally succumbs to Percy’s attentions she falls weeping to her knees and offers a ‘scarcely coherent prayer’:

  O God forgive me if thou can’st! I do not know how much I have angered thee – I do not know whether or not I sin in daring to pray to thee – I only know that I cannot help myself, that I am going whither my every feeling leads me, and that, come what may, into thy hands I must fall. The world will now judge ill of me – My sisterhood will shun me – snares will surround me – my life will be endangered,