How Do I Love Thee? (47 page)

He put a hand on my cheek and drew my head to his chest. I thought of one of the last sonnets I had written, soon before our marriage. I quoted to him the first lines . . . “ ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’ The list is long, Robert. Very long. And will grow longer still.”

He smiled. “Then let us begin with number one. . . .”

E
PILOGUE

Elizabeth never intended to publish the sonnets, but Robert considered them masterful, at an equal with the sonnets by Shakespeare. At his insistence, they were published in a volume of her poems in 1850 under the odd title
Sonnets From the Portuguese.
It was purposely odd, as the couple wanted to veil the love poems in something ambiguous. In actuality Elizabeth was “the Portuguese.” The poem that preceded the sonnets in the volume was called “Catarina to Camoens” and it was a favourite of Robert’s, bringing him to tears. And since he likened Catarina to Elizabeth, and Catarina was Portuguese . . . They realized people would think it meant from the Portuguese language, but they didn’t care.

Although the Brownings stayed in Casa Guidi for years, they never felt settled there and traveled extensively, often subletting their apartment. They visited Rome, Venice, and Paris, and hoped to travel to Jerusalem and beyond, but Elizabeth’s health and their income held them back. Her lungs were still affected by cold weather. And yet, considering the lack of good medical care, they were very adventurous.

After five years away, they also traveled back to England. Robert was hesitant to visit his family’s home, so went alone at first. He found his father in love with a much younger cousin, and his sister Sarianna happily running the household. They had moved on with their lives. Robert disapproved of his father’s courtship and forced an end to it, which led the elder Browning (and Sarianna) to move to Paris.

Both Elizabeth and Robert continued to send letters to Papa, trying to reconcile. In response they received a packet containing all the letters Elizabeth had ever sent—unopened—along with a scathing letter that astonished both of them in its hatred and vindictiveness. Perhaps Papa had never loved her at all. . . .

Elizabeth’s sister Henrietta finally married Surtees Cook on April 6, 1850, and moved to the country in Somerset, where they eventually had three children. They had asked for Papa’s approval, but he sent a harsh note condemning her for the insult and threatened to disown her. They eloped. Afterwards, visiting Papa at Wimpole Street, they encountered a “grand battle scene in the drawing room.” But in this case, the brothers were on Henrietta’s side. Eventually, the brothers came to forgive Elizabeth too.

Elizabeth’s other sister, Arabel, never married and continued her charity work while living at home. In her later years, she too came to question her father’s love, and his hold over her. . . .

Alfred was also disinherited when he married his cousin Lizzie in Paris, when he was thirty-five. She was twenty-two, and as a child had lived with the Barretts on Wimpole Street because her mother was mentally unbalanced.

The brothers and Arabel continued to live in the family home until their father’s death on April 17, 1857, from erysipelas—St. Anthony’s fire—a skin disease that could poison the blood. Soon afterwards, with astonishing speed, all the remaining Wimpole children embraced their freedom and moved out of the house.

Elizabeth grieved her father’s death deeply, the regret of never being able to reconcile devastating her. She wrote to Arabel: “My soul is bitter even unto death.” Papa had died “without a word, without a sign. It is like slamming a door on me as he went out.” She hoped “that what he did and the extreme views he took” were the result of “a false theory . . . he did hold by the Lord and walk straight as he saw . . . but as for me, in these days of anguish I have wished—well, there is no use now of writing what—but I did love him. . . . Certainly I would have given my life for his life—yet he went without a word.”

Their son, Pen, met his grandfather once by accident. If Papa found out the Brownings were in town, he usually sent the entire family away to prevent contact. But a few times he didn’t know, and the Brownings visited Wimpole Street on the sly. On one occasion, Pen was playing boisterously with his uncle George when his grandfather came into the room and “stood looking for two or three minutes.”

“Whose child is that?”

“Ba’s child.”

“What is the child doing here?”

Elizabeth wrote, “Not a word more—not a natural movement or quickening of the breath.”

Oddly, as a mother, Elizabeth dressed Pen in elegant, embroidered, and lacy clothes and refused to allow his hair to be cut. He looked like an Italian prince from the past. Photos, even at age twelve, show him looking very girlish. Robert was against this, but bowed to her wishes.

After Papa’s death, Occy married and had two children, but his wife, Charlotte, died in the final childbirth.

Sette and Stormie went off to Jamaica to work on the waning Barrett plantations. Stormie had two children (Eva and Arabella) by a woman of color, and ended up marrying their mulatto governess, Anne Margaret Young.

As for the Brownings’ writing, over the years, Robert and Elizabeth worked on new projects. Robert had a collection of fifty poems published in 1855:
Men and Women.
He was very proud of this work, but the critics panned it, and the first printing of two hundred copies was sold out, then put out of print. He was very disappointed, as he’d hoped it would be a success and he could provide for his family. “As to my own poems,” he said, “they must be left to Providence.” They were. This collection is still printed and studied today, but during his lifetime, it was a discouragement. He did not write another collection of poems until 1864, three years after Elizabeth’s death. Instead, he dabbled in painting and sculpting.

In 1850 Elizabeth was in contention to be named England’s poet laureate (when Wordsworth died). A supporter wrote, “There is no living poet of either sex who can prefer a higher claim than Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” However, Tennyson received the honour. In 1856, her novel in verse,
Aurora Leigh
, was published. It was the story of a woman artist who chose her art over a man, and a young, poor girl, who loved her illegitimate child. The theme focused on the difficulties of being a woman—no matter what your class. The story resonated with people, and it was a huge success in England, Italy, and America.

Robert was finally able to become the main provider for his family thanks to Elizabeth’s cousin, John Kenyon. When Kenyon died in December 1856, he left the Brownings eleven thousand pounds, with sixty-five hundred going to Robert and forty-five hundred going to Elizabeth. No one could ever again accuse Robert of living off his wife. Henrietta only received one hundred pounds, and Papa refused to give Kenyon’s estate her address. Papa received nothing and was incensed. It didn’t help that before Kenyon’s death Elizabeth had dedicated
Aurora Leigh
to him—a fact that must have infuriated Papa if he had found out, and surely he did. . . .

After her father’s death, and then Henrietta’s death (probably from a gynecological tumor in 1860), Elizabeth found herself in a state of searching. Unfortunately, she became interested in spiritualism and mediums, and became enamored with one medium in particular, an American, Sophia Eckley. Robert was vehemently against all of it, but Elizabeth desperately needed to reach Bro, Henrietta, Papa, Cousin John, her brother Sam, her mother . . .

This was the one battle between them in an otherwise idyllic marriage. Only when Elizabeth allowed herself to realize the messages from the dead that Sophia conjured up contained Americanisms that would never have been used by her loved ones did she wake up and see the truth.

Elizabeth never fully recovered from the passing of her father and sister. “As for me, I’m made of brown paper and tear at a touch.”

She died on June 29, 1861, aged fifty-five, in Robert’s arms. Robert lived another twenty-eight years, but never remarried—although there were plenty of women who were interested. One woman broke off their relationship, saying “the spiritual ménage à trois she was having with Robert and the memory of Elizabeth was going to cause her much more pain than pleasure.”

Of the Brownings’ marriage, author Julia Markus says, “Whatever had altered, trust had not. They breathed with each other’s breath. At the beginning they saw the other as a brilliant poet, an amazing intellect, a compassionate and strangely similar heart. They learned their differences through the years. Neither gave over to the other. Each remained a complex and thrilled person. Both believed the years they spent in Italy together, her last years and his middle years, were the only years in which they really lived. Daring to marry secretly and to leave England to fend for themselves, they had actually brought each other to life.”

Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life—
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife
Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure
Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;
Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (Sonnet 24)

Dear Reader

Truth is stranger than fiction. Actually, in the case of Elizabeth and Robert Browning’s love story, it’s better than fiction.

You might think the following odd, but when I write these biographical novels I don’t get too far ahead of myself with research. I know the basics, then set in from the beginning and research as I write the scenes. The nice thing about this method is that I am often surprised by what I discover. Elizabeth’s story has a bevy of plot elements that always make a good story: a shipwreck, an attic retreat, an oppressive father, love letters, clandestine meetings, a secret marriage, an escape to Italy, the birth of a child, and happily ever after. Sigh.

Elizabeth—holed up in her attic sanctum—constantly surprised me by providing real-life incidents that were every bit as interesting as anything I could have made up—or more so.

Here are a few examples of when real life made a good run with my imagination:

•  It was ideal that Robert’s family dynamics were the opposite of the Barretts’. He had experience in the world but had never been hurt or emotionally challenged, and Ba had little experience with the world but had been emotionally tested. Two opposites, come together to make a whole. I couldn’t have cast it better.

•  Ba tread carefully with Robert, not wanting to share too soon the grief of Bro’s death. Don’t we all do this? Wait until we can trust someone before we share the pains from our past?

•  Robert moved too fast with his effusive letter after their first meeting, and Ba was frightened by it. The delicate dance of love is the epitome of a good story.

•  Ba sacrificed her trip to Pisa for Papa—for nothing. He didn’t even acknowledge it. This made me so mad, and yet it was exactly what Ba needed to realize Papa’s love
took
far more than it
gave
. What great motivation to move her from the present into a future with Robert.

•  It was incredibly poignant when Papa stopped coming up for evening prayers. That man!

•  Ba was ignited by spring because she was in love, went on a drive, and picked a flower for Robert as an offering. Where’s the violin music swelling in the background?

•  The conversations between the Hedleys and Cousin John were perfect examples of misdirection—Ba believes they are on to her plans, while they are actually talking about Henrietta and Surtees. Ooh, the sweet tension.

•  The idea of a recluse who lives in silence being overstimulated by music and running from the music of a church organ . . . it’s so visual.

•  In order to marry Robert (who had little income) and move to Europe, Ba needed money. Their marriage was possible only because she was the one Barrett child to have a sizable inheritance and income. A coincidence? I think not.