Brontës (43 page)

Ellen Nussey's description of the parsonage suggests that it was an austere and comfortless home: the Brontës' lack of money meant that the furnishings were ‘scant and bare' and she implied that because Patrick was ‘remarkably independent of the luxuries and comforts of life' he chose to impose this on his children. Though by comparison with Ellen's own, much wealthier home the parsonage appeared sparsely furnished and unfashionable, it was nothing like as austere as she suggests. The son of the Haworth tailor, who had been sent to do some work at the parsonage, was fascinated by the pictures in the study; noticing his interest, Patrick took him round and explained the various subjects depicted. These included black-and-white engravings of a number of dramatic pictures by John Martin, the celebrated allegorical painter of biblical scenes. The tailor's son mentioned ‘The Last Judgement' and ‘The Plains of Heaven', and the 1861 bill of sale for the parsonage lists ‘The Deluge', ‘Belshazzar's Feast' and ‘Joshua commanding the Sun to Stand'. There may also have been an engraving of Martin's ‘Queen Esther', as the thirteen-year-old Branwell copied the picture in December 1830. In addition, there were at least three other framed engravings, ‘St Paul preaching at Athens', ‘The Resurrection announced to the Apostles' and ‘The Passage of the Red Sea', and two oil paintings, ‘Bolton Abbey' and ‘Kirkstall Abbey', the last two of which were also copied by Charlotte.
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The presence of so many pictures in a financially
hard-pressed household is an indication of the importance the Brontës attached to art.

Towards the end of Ellen's visit, there was a clubbing together of pocket money to secure an excursion to Bolton Abbey. Branwell procured a phaeton to convey the little party of young people and they set off from the parsonage at between five and six in the morning. Though this was his first trip to Bolton Abbey, ‘Branwell seemed to know every inch of the way, could tell the names of the hills that would be driven over, or walked over, their exact height above the sea, the views to be seen, and the places to be passed through.' The only pall on the occasion was the mortification which the Brontës felt when their ‘shabby-looking conveyance' was regarded with disdain by the hotel attendants at the Devonshire Arms where they breakfasted. No doubt this was not helped by Ellen's family arriving in ‘a handsome carriage-and-pair' to take her home. The two parties had a pleasant walk in the abbey grounds, Emily and Anne barely speaking, except to each other, but Branwell, who was ‘in a phrensy of pleasure', talking ‘fast and brilliantly' and amusing everyone. ‘He had any amount of poetry ready for quotation, and this day he was well off in an appreciative audience whenever he chose to recite', Ellen explained, adding, somewhat grudgingly, ‘it was one of the things he did well'.
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Ellen's visit to Haworth had lasted only a fortnight, but she won the hearts of all at the parsonage, as Charlotte was delighted to tell her:

Were I to tell you of the impression you have made on every one here you would accuse me of flattery. Papa and Aunt are continually adducing you as an example for me to shape my actions and behaviour by, Emily & Anne say ‘they never saw any one they liked so well as Miss Nussey' and Tabby whom you have absolutely fascinated talks a great deal more nonsense about your Ladyship than I chuse to repeat
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The only incident of note, Charlotte reported, in the two months since her visit was that Emily had been very ill with what was described as ‘erysipelas', or red and painful inflammation of the arm, resulting in severe bilious attacks and a general weakness. Her arm eventually had to be cut to remove the infection.
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Though it is pure speculation, it is tempting to identify this ‘illness' with the incident Charlotte described to Mrs Gaskell and put into her novel
Shirley
. Emily, whose love of animals was always stronger than any concern for her own wellbeing, had seen a dog running past the parsonage
with its head lolling and its tongue hanging out. Thinking only to relieve it, she went out to give it a drink of water, only to have it snap at her and draw blood. Well aware of the dangers if the dog was rabid and had infected her, Emily went straight into the kitchen and, taking one of Tabby's red-hot irons from the fire, cauterized the wound herself. The bite and the cauterization could well have caused the inflammation and consequent biliousness which the doctor and her family diagnosed as erysipelas; her own powerful imagination, alive to the horrors of rabies, may have contributed to her general weakness. With characteristic fortitude, Emily told no one of the incident until all danger of infection was past, fearing that her family might over-react and make an intolerable fuss over her.
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As usual, Charlotte's letter to Ellen made no reference to the important developments which were taking place in the Glasstown stories. One of the most significant was Branwell's rapid erosion of the Marquis of Douro's clean-cut, romantic image in the second half of 1833. This had remained relatively unchanged since Charlotte had described him in December 1829:

In appearance he strongly resembles his noble mother. He has the same tall, slender shape, the same fine and slightly Roman nose. His eyes, however, are large and brown like his father's, and his hair is dark auburn, curly and glossy, much like what his father's was when he was young His character also resembles the Duchess's, mild and humane but very courageous, grateful for any favour that is done and ready to forgive injuries, kind to others and disinterested in himself. His mind is of the highest order, elegant and cultivated. His genius is lofty and soaring, but he delights to dwell among pensive thoughts and ideas rather than to roam in the bright regions of fancy.
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Branwell made the marquis plunge into the dissipation of the Elysium Society where, presiding in the absence of Ellrington, he is an enthusiastic participant in the gambling, card playing, drinking and fighting. This was only the beginning of his fall from grace. In November, Branwell wrote a story describing Napoleon's invasion of Glasstown from Frenchysland. The marquis, like Ellrington, is appointed one of the leaders of the Verdopolitan army. Instead of setting his former example of moral rectitude and inspiring his troops in their fight against overwhelming odds, the marquis imperils the whole enterprise by leading a mutiny when some of his men are disciplined. Even more seriously, when the ministry refuse to allow the army to consolidate its success in battle against the French by raising more
money, men and arms, the marquis and Ellrington lead a military coup, execute the Prime Minister, Earl St Clair, and set up a ruling Council of Six.
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The Machiavellian Ellrington is, of course, manoeuvring behind the scenes and is the prime instigator of the coup, but he prefers to remain an
éminence grise
while the marquis enjoys the limelight. In the space of three books and six months, therefore, Branwell turned his sister's effete and lovelorn hero into a hardened soldier, a proud, overbearing and ruthless tyrant.

Perhaps surprisingly, Charlotte does not seem to have reacted to Branwell's perversion of her favourite character. Similarly, she seems to have been quite happy to sit back and let him dictate the course of events in the Glasstown kingdoms. In October, while she made a number of false starts on new stories which she eventually grouped together and called ‘Arthuriana: or Odds and Ends', he began a new story, ‘The Politics of Verdopolis'.
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Despite its title, the book was largely taken up with introducing a new heroine, Mary Percy, the proud and haughty, beautiful and intellectual seventeen-year-old daughter of Viscount Ellrington by his first wife, Mary Henrietta, who had died at the age of twenty-one. The rest of the story, inspired by the agitation throughout the United Kingdom in the build-up to and in the wake of the Reform Bill of 1832, is taken up with the dissolution of the Glasstown Parliament and the subsequent general election. There are lively scenes depicting the preparation for the campaign and the hustings, which must reflect Branwell's personal experience of electioneering the previous year. Despite its beautiful heroine, who was to become a leading figure in future juvenilia, the story is far removed from the exotic locations and magical interventionism of Charlotte's Glasstown. For the first time the location is typically English: Percy Hall is an ancient country house, set in oak woodlands and deer-filled parklands, rather than the almost oriental splendour of Verdopolis. Branwell's evocative description of the place, which Charlotte found inspirational,
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was to set a new tone of realism in the juvenilia which removed it one stage further from its original African concept.

This approach was consolidated in the next two books Branwell wrote. Five days after finishing ‘Politics in Verdopolis', he began ‘An Historical Narrative of the “War of Enroachment”', which was followed immediately by ‘An Historical Narrative of the War of Aggression'.
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Between them, these two stories turned the world of the Glasstown Confederacy upside down, threatening its very existence by the invasion of highly trained French
armies rather than native Ashantees. In its defence, the Verdopolitans march out to the eastern city of Angria, with its villages of Zamorna and Northangerland. Continuing the theme he had begun in ‘Politics in Verdopolis', Branwell gave Angria an English, even specifically Yorkshire setting. The Angrians are depicted as stubborn and unhelpful provincials, epitomized by their leader Warner Howard Warner who lives in a thinly disguised Haworth (Howard), ‘a wild villiage seated amid barren uncultivated Hills'.
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Despite the mutiny led by Ellrington and Douro and overwhelming numbers of French opposing them, the Glasstown army wins a famous victory at the Heights of Velino. Even at such a glorious moment, Branwell cannot resist a dig at his sister. Lord Lofty is killed in the battle leading a gallant charge against the enemy in an effort to wipe out the stains ‘so needlessly stuck to his character from the ridiculous transactions mentioned in a manner so lively in “Arthuriana” by Lord Chas Wellesly'.
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The military coup which puts Ellrington and the Marquis of Douro in total control of the government of Verdopolis, as well as its armies, is followed up by a second great victory ‘on the feilds of Zamorna and Northangerland' which decided ‘the fate of all Africa'.
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On this auspicious note Branwell ended his last story of the year 1833. The victory had indeed decided not only the fate of all Africa but also the future course of the juvenilia. The focus of interest would now move on from the exotic and Babylonic city of Glasstown to the more prosaic and provincial world.

Chapter Eight

ANGRIANS ARISE!

The increasing amount of time spent in writing at the parsonage did not go unnoticed. Patrick could not be unaware that his children were spending many hours poring over their manuscripts but when he saw the minute cramped hand in which they were writing he was deeply concerned. His children's eyesight would be strained, their posture ruined and, perhaps more importantly, there was something obsessively and unhealthily secret about the sheer volume of diminutive writing. He clearly knew at least something of its nature, for he observed to Mrs Gaskell that as the children grew older ‘their compositions and plots were more matur'd, and had less of romance and more of taste, and judgement'.
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Wisely, Patrick made no attempt to put a stop to the writing but he did encourage them to channel their energies into less secretive projects. At Christmas 1833, he presented Charlotte with a manuscript notebook in which he had written on the top of the first page, ‘1833. All that is written in this book, must be in a good, plain
and legible hand
. PB.' Charlotte made an effort to please her father
by copying into it a series of long poems on heroic subjects which were unconnected with the imaginary worlds and therefore fit for public consumption. The first, ‘Richard Coeur de Lion & Blondel', was written on 27 December 1833, the second, ‘Death of Darius Codomanus', on 2 May 1834 and the third, ‘Saul', on 7 October 1834.
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She added only two more poems during the course of the next year, so Patrick's attempt to give a less introverted direction to his daughter's writing failed miserably.

Charlotte was far too absorbed in the delicious prospects held out by the creation of a new kingdom of Angria to allow herself to be deflected from writing about the imaginary worlds for long. The marquis and Ellrington had both been rewarded for their services in defeating the French: taking their titles from the site of their great victory in Angria, the marquis had become Duke of Zamorna, Ellrington the Earl of Northangerland. This was not enough to satisfy the ambition of either man, however, and Zamorna now demanded that the huge, fertile but thinly populated eastern province of Angria should be ceded to him unconditionally and that he should be allowed to rule it as its monarch. In a great speech to the Assembly, Branwell had Northangerland support Zamorna's claim: