Brontës (97 page)

If Branwell did linger at all it would have been to observe the grand opening of the York and Scarborough Railway, which took place on Monday, 7 July,
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three days after the Robinsons left Thorp Green. Given Branwell's past career on the railway and his continuing interest in the subject, one could well imagine that he would wish to see the celebrations, which were marked by processions and speeches.

The Robinsons had been at Scarborough – and Branwell at Haworth – for almost two weeks before Branwell received his letter of instant dismissal. The gossip in Haworth, recounted many years later by the sister of Nancy Garrs, was that the gardener at Thorp Green had surprised Branwell and Mrs Robinson together in the boathouse and had informed the lady's husband. This story was certainly current in 1856 when George Smith's detectives were told by Patrick Brontë himself that ‘A gardener – whose name he did not know – had definite proofs of guilt and had informed, as he understood, Mrs—'s husband.' This seems as good an explanation as any for the suddenness of the blow which befell Branwell. It is highly probable that he would have had an assignation with Mrs Robinson on the eve of their separation for the holiday, and there may have been a boathouse on the banks of the Ouse, just over half a mile from the house and therefore eminently suitable for a clandestine meeting. Perhaps, after conducting a
secret affair undiscovered for two years, they had grown careless and did not notice that they were observed. It is more likely, however, that the assignation took place in the boathouse on the shore at Scarborough, just below the Robinsons' lodgings at The Cliff.
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This would explain the delay between the Robinsons' departure for Scarborough and the sending of the letter of dismissal. If Branwell was supposed to be at home, but had indiscreetly followed his mistress to Scarborough and was recognized by the family servant, then discovery of the affair was almost inevitable.

The identity of the gardener lends some support to this story. He was a Robert Pottage and his wife also worked for the Robinsons. Despite his job Pottage seems to have accompanied the Robinsons to Scarborough, perhaps to assist the groom, William Allison, with the horses and luggage on the journey. On 5 July, among the expenses for the journey, Mr Robinson records a payment of £110s. to ‘Pottage and to band'. While the coupling of the two items suggests that the payment was regarded by Mr Robinson as of trifling importance, it is just possible that it might have been a gratuity for information given. It is not clear whether Pottage remained in Scarborough or returned immediately to Thorp Green. If he had not already divulged his secret in person, he then had a much-needed opportunity to mull over his predicament – he was certain to incur Mrs Robinson's wrath if he betrayed her to her husband, but equally he would fall foul of Mr Robinson if the affair came to light by other means. Having decided that he owed his loyalty to his employer, he may then have revealed what he had seen in a letter to Mr Robinson. Though it may be pure coincidence, Pottage did not last long in the Robinsons' employment: he ‘left and finish'd all up' at Thorp Green on 13 February 1846 and left Little Ouseburn altogether on 23 March, only two months before Mr Robinson died.
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As Mr Robinson's rapidly failing health had been evident to all and his death was now imminent, one cannot help wondering whether Pottage decided to leave before the management of the estate fell entirely into the hands of his vengeful widow.

Mr Robinson's letter certainly sounds like the immediate reaction of a betrayed husband; his language was strong, though he may not have gone so far as to threaten to shoot his former tutor if he returned to Thorp Green as Branwell claimed.
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What is surprising is that – as far as one can tell – the revelation of the affair led to no breach with his wife. He remained as open-handed with her as he had always been, even during the holiday in Scarborough when he must have taken his decision to sack Branwell,
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and,
though he cut his eldest daughter out of his will for making her runaway match, his erring wife suffered no such hardship. This suggests that Mrs Robinson was able to divert her husband's anger onto Branwell and depict herself as the innocent and unwilling recipient of his attentions. The alternative, that there really was no affair and that Branwell was dismissed for some other reason, does not square with the rest of the evidence.

Perhaps the most damning indications of Mrs Robinson's guilt came after the dismissal. There seems to be no other explanation for the large sums of money Branwell received from Thorp Green or the visit of Mrs Robinson's coachman, apparently sent by her;
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nor indeed for the continuing correspondence with both Ann Marshall and Dr Crosby, who relayed information about Mrs Robinson while also conveniently keeping him at a distance.

Branwell's first reaction to his dismissal was characteristically dramatic, as Charlotte reported to Ellen:

We have had sad work with Branwell since – he thought of nothing but stunning or drowning his distress of mind – no one in the house could have rest – and at last we have been obliged to send him from home for a week with some one to look after him –
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Though Branwell had over-indulged many times before, he did not become a habitual drinker until the abrupt ending of his affair with Mrs Robinson.
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Charlotte's use of the word ‘stunning' as well as ‘drowning' his distress also suggests that Branwell may have tried opiates as well as alcohol in an attempt to find relief in oblivion. At this stage, however, he was still capable of pulling himself together, at least temporarily. He had been despatched, in the company of John Brown, to the west coast, from where he wrote on 31 July to a sceptical Charlotte:

[he] expresses some sense of contrition for his frantic folly – he promises amendment on his return – but so long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace in the house – We must all I fear prepare for a season of distress and disquietude —
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In fact, Branwell's brief trip from home does seem to have had the effect of calming him down. Though Liverpool may seem a strange choice of destination it was immensely popular with holidaymakers from the West
Riding, who could travel there cheaply and quickly on the Manchester and Leeds Railway. Liverpool was then the starting point for taking pleasure steamers along the beautiful coast of North Wales and to the Isle of Man and across the Mersey to the new town of Birkenhead. Branwell and John Brown certainly took the trip along the Welsh coast, for Branwell not only sketched Penmaenmawr mountain from the sea but also later wrote a poem inspired by it.
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Even during the steamer trip he seems to have found some relief in poetry, writing at least one poem, titled ‘Lydia Gisborne' in Greek letters, which gives an insight into his agitated state.

Cannot my soul depart

Where will it fly?

Asks my tormented heart,

Willing to die.

When will this restlessness

Tossing in sleeplessness –

Stranger to happiness –

Slumbering lie.

Cannot I chase away

Life in my tomb

Rather than pass away

Lifetime in gloom,

With sorrows employing

Their arts in destroying

The power of enjoying

The comforts of home?

Home it is not with me

Bright as of yore

Joys are forgot with me

\Taught to deplore/

My
home has ta'en its rest

In an afflicted breast

That I have often pressed

But – may no more.
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By the end of his short holiday Branwell had recovered enough of his former spirits to be able to write with black humour to his old friend, the Halifax sculptor, J. B. Leyland:

I returned yesterday from a week's journey to Liverpool and North Wales, but I found during my absence that wherever I went a certain woman robed in black, and calling herself'MISERY' walked by my side, and leant on my arm as affectionately as if she were my legal wife.

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