Brontës (94 page)

Charlotte had made it a condition of coming to stay that she should be left to enjoy Ellen's company in peace and not be dragged out ‘a visiting'. This was not to be, of course, with the gregarious Ellen as a companion. There were two or three visits to the Wright family at North Lees Hall, which Miss Wright returned, and the architect called in daily, despite the fact that the builders no longer required his presence.
³⁶
Writing to her friend, Mary Gorham, on 22 July, Ellen revealed that they had also taken a trip along the valley to Castleton to see the famous caverns where the semi-precious mineral Blue John was mined and worked into jewellery and ornaments.

We have been to Castleton & the Miss Halls accompanied us through the caverns & were very lively & noisy – another party came in soon after – a gentleman & lady – they crossed the river Styx together to our great amusement. We could not discover whether \they/ were brother & sister or what, but the lady was very
sweet looking, & the gentleman twice addressed a word or two to me once when we passed them in the caverns & to say good morning when they left … Charlotte was very much pleased with the caverns but the mirth of [the] Miss Halls was rather displeasing to her –
³⁷

For Charlotte, who liked to contemplate the beauties of nature in silence, Ellen's choice of companions was extraordinarily insensitive; it was not surprising that she found their silly behaviour displeasing. At least, however, she had had the opportunity to see the caverns and, because they had borrowed a pony, they were able to drive a little further up the dale and view the dramatic sight of Peveril Castle clinging precariously to the spectacular cliffs above Peak Cavern. For Charlotte the trip must have been made twice as exciting by the knowledge that this was where Sir Walter Scott, one of the greatest influences on her juvenile writings, had set his novel
Peveril of the Peak
.

All in all, despite minor irritations, Charlotte's visit to Hathersage was such a success in lifting her spirits that Ellen had little difficulty in persuading her to stay on for a third week. With her usual cunning, Ellen had written to Emily beforehand to obviate any protests from Charlotte that she was needed at home. This had elicited one of Emily's rare letters, a cheerful if brief note giving her approval to the plan.

Dear Miss Ellen,

If you have set your heart on Charlotte staying another week she has our united consent: I for one will take everything easy on Sunday – I'm glad she is enjoying herself: let her make the most of the next seven days & return stout and hearty –

[Love to her and you from Anne & myself and tell her all are well at home.

Yours affecty –

EJ Brontë]
³⁸

The concern which Ellen had evidently expressed about Sunday was because this was one of the most important days of the Haworth Church calendar, the annual Sunday school services, when the preacher was a visiting clergyman. This year the Reverend P. Egglestone of Heptonstall was coming to preach the afternoon sermon and no less a figure than the vicar of Bradford, Dr Scoresby, was preaching in the evening.
³⁹
The arrangements for hospitality at the parsonage would therefore have been more important than usual.

Emily's cheerfulness reflected both her contentment in her role as housekeeper and, more importantly, her fulfilment as a writer. From the volume of her poetry one can deduce that she had been working steadily since the new year, producing a number of poems, including five which she herself judged worthy of publication the following year.
⁴⁰
This is confirmed by her diary paper, written for her twenty-seventh birthday, 30 July 1845:

The Gondals still flo[u]rish bright as ever I am at present writing a work on the First Wars – Anne has been writing some articles on this and a book by Henry Sophona – We intend sticking firm by the rascals as long as they delight us which I am glad to say they do at present –
⁴¹

Emily seems to have been completely unaware that Anne no longer shared her own unabated enthusiasm for Gondal. In her last half year at Thorp Green Anne's poetry had grown progressively more autobiographical and more unhappy in tone, even when it retained its Gondal context.
⁴²
She had still been able to find some solace in the imaginary world as a retreat from reality when she wrote this poem on 24 January:

Call me away; there's nothing here,

That wins my soul to stay;

Then let me leave this prospect drear;

And hasten far away.

To our belovèd land I'll flee,

Our land of thought and soul,

Where I have roved so oft with thee,

Beyond the Worlds controll.
⁴³

Though it may be reading too much into what may be written in Gondal character, by 1 June she had moved into a state of depression and self-loathing which only piety could cure.

Oppressed with sin and wo,

A burdened heart I bear,

Opposed by many a mighty foe:

But I will not despair.

With this polluted heart,

I dare to come to Thee,

Holy and Mighty as Thou art:

For Thou wilt pardon me.
⁴⁴

In her diary paper, which she wrote on Thursday, 31 July, ‘sitting in the Dining Room in the Rocking Chair before the fire with my feet on the fender', Anne's disillusionment with Gondal is quite clearly spelt out.

Emily is engeaged in writing the Emperor Julius's life She has read some of it and I want very much to hear the rest – She is writing some poetry too I wonder what it is about – I have begun the third volume of passages in the life of an Individual, I wish I had finished it – … We have not yet finished our Gondal chronicles that we began three years and a half ago when will they be done? – The Gondals are at present in a sad state the Republicans are uppermost but the Royalists are not quite overcome – the young sovereigns with their brothers and sisters are still at the palace of Instruction – The Unique Society above half a year ago were wrecked on a dezart Island as they were returning from Gaaldin – they are still there but we have not played at them much yet – The Gondals in general are not in first rate playing condition – will they improve?
⁴⁵

The railway trip to York with Emily a month earlier had obviously done little to stimulate Anne's interest in Gondal, even though she had joined in playing at the characters.

Anne's diary paper, in sharp contrast to Emily's, reveals a depression that extends beyond the disappointment with Gondal. This was perhaps inevitable given the uncertainty of her future, now that she had finally resigned her post at Thorp Green; it is likely, too, that she was worried about what had already happened there and apprehensive about what might happen in her absence.

Yesterday was Emily's birthday and the time when we should have opened our 1845 [sic: should be 1841] paper but by mistake we opened it to day instead. How many things have happened since it was written – some pleasant some far otherwise – Yet I was then at Thorp Green and now I am only just escaped from it – I was wishing to leave [?it] then and if I had known that I had four years longer to stay how wretched I should have been – volume of Sophala –> but during my stay I have had some very unpleasant and undreamt of experience of human nature – … I wonder how we shall all be and where and how situated on the thirtyeth of July 1848 When if we are all alive Emily will be just 30 I shall be in my 29th year Charlotte in her 33rd and Branwell in his 32nd and what changes shall we have seen and known and shall we be much changed ourselves? I hope not – for the worse at least – I for my part cannot well be
flatter
or older in mind than I am now –
⁴⁶

Despite their closeness, Emily seems to have had little sympathy with Anne's low spirits. Indeed, it is curious that Emily should ever have gained the reputation for being the most sympathetic of the Brontës, particularly in her dealings with Branwell,
⁴⁷
as all the evidence points to the fact that she was so absorbed in herself and her literary creations that she had little time for the genuine suffering of her family. Her attitude at this time seems to have been brusque to the point of heartlessness. This is understandable where Charlotte was concerned, since her problems were largely self-inflicted, but it is surprising to find Emily equally unsympathetic towards Anne, who was the victim of circumstances beyond her control. Her impatience with her siblings is evident in her diary paper.

I should have mentioned that last summer the school scheme was revived in full vigor – We had prospectuses printed despatched letters to all aquaintances imparting our plans and did our little all – but it was found no go – now I dont desire a school at all and none of us have any great longing for it – we have cash enough for our present wants with a prospect of accumolation – we are all in decent health – only that papa has a complaint in his eyes and with the exception of B[ranwell] who I hope will be better and do better, hereafter. I am quite contented for myself – not as idle as formerly, altogether as hearty and having learnt to make the most of the present and hope for the future with less fidget [i] ness that I cannot do all I wish – seldom or [n]ever troubled with nothing to do and merely desiring that every body could be as comfortable as myself and as undesponding and then we should have a very tolerable world of it –

It was all very well for Emily to feel irritation at the rest of her family's despondency, but her place was secure and she was no longer expected to go out into the world to earn her living like them. Her preoccupations are neatly summed up at the end of her paper.

Tabby has just been teasing me to turn as formerly to ‘pilloputate' – Anne and I should have picked the black currants if it had been fine and sunshiny. I must hurry off now to my turning and ironing I have plenty of work on hands and writing and am altogether full of business with best wishes for the whole House till 1848 – July 30th and as much longer as may be I conclude

EJ Brontë
⁴⁸

The diary papers are as interesting for what they omit as for what they include. The one subject which must have been foremost in every member of the Brontë family's mind was barely touched upon. Emily's entry was cryptic in its brevity.

Anne left her situation at Thorp Green of her own accord – June 1845 Branwell left – July 1845
⁴⁹

That there was a world of difference between the two departures was merely suggested by the omission in Branwell's case of those four all-important words ‘of [his] own accord'. Anne's diary note was equally unforthcoming, not even mentioning the fact that her brother had left Thorp Green.

Branwell has left Luddenden foot and been a Tutor at Thorp Green and had much tribulation and ill health he was very ill on Tuesday but he went with John Brown to Liverpool where he now is I suppose and we hope he will be better and do better in future –
⁵⁰

This unnatural reticence on a subject which was to have such a devastating and far-reaching effect on all the family has haunted Brontë scholars ever since, particularly as the Robinsons themselves refused to offer any public explanation. Was there a mystery about Branwell's sudden dismissal from Thorp Green? Did he genuinely have an affair with his Mrs Robinson, as he claimed? Or was there a more sinister reason? Every possible explanation has been put forward, from Branwell's having used his undoubted skills in handwriting to forge his employer's signature to the suggestion that he corrupted and seduced the young Edmund Robinson who was alone in his care.
⁵¹
Though Branwell sank very low, he did not sink into criminality: had he forged documents or made homosexual advances to his pupil there was no need for the Robinsons themselves to suppress the evidence, rather a positive duty to expose and prosecute their former tutor. On the whole it has
been generally accepted that Branwell's story was substantially true: he did have an affair with Mrs Robinson, as he claimed and as his family and Mrs Gaskell undoubtedly believed. What has remained in doubt is Mrs Robinson's complicity: was she simply the innocent object of a young man's fantasies or was she ‘that bad woman who corrupted Branwell Brontë'?
⁵²
Fortunately, new evidence has come to light which allows us to make a more informed judgement on the causes of Branwell's dismissal.

The first account of what had happened was given by Charlotte to Ellen Nussey. She had arrived home from Hathersage at ten o'clock on Saturday night, 26 July, totally unprepared for what was to follow.

I found Branwell ill – he is so very often owing to his own fault – I was not therefore shocked at first – but when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of his present illness I was greatly shocked, he had last Thursday received a note from Mr Robinson sternly dismissing him intimating that he had discovered his proceedings which he characterised as bad beyond expression and charging him on pain of exposure to break off instantly and for ever all communication with every member of his family –
⁵³

This sounds as though Charlotte was quoting directly from Mr Robinson's letter, though she gives no indication of what Branwell's fault had been. The fact that Branwell was threatened with ‘exposure' suggests that his employer did not suspect any collusion with members of his family who would similarly be ‘exposed' by any revelations about Branwell. On the other hand, the fact that he was forbidden to communicate with
every
member of the Robinson family might suggest that one of them was equally implicated in Branwell's transgression. This, too, is the only conclusion one can draw from the silence of Mrs Robinson and her children when Mrs Gaskell published her
Life of Charlotte Brontë
, which all but named Mrs Robinson as the ‘depraved woman' who had tempted Branwell into ‘the deep disgrace of deadly crime'.
⁵⁴
It is true that Mrs Robinson, now Lady Scott, sought and published a legal retraction of Mrs Gaskell's accusations but one would have thought that the simplest and most obvious method of disproving the story was for the Robinsons to set forth the real reasons for Branwell's dismissal. Yet they conspicuously failed to do this, which suggests that there was at least some element of truth in the charges.