by Nancy Moser
“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.
• They married
and went back to their parents’ homes that same day . . . how horrible. The delayed longing. Then the next morning her family commented on the St. Marylebone Church bells ringing. A novelist’s ploy? Nope. It really happened.
• Ba’s family packed up to move at the same time she needed to pack to run away with Robert. Talk about perfect timing. Also, this is one of those moments when we can see God providing a nudge to get us out of our indecisiveness. If Papa hadn’t ordered the move to get the house cleaned (which was odd after living in the house for decades), Ba and Robert wouldn’t have been forced to just do it!
• When I first started writing the book, I was concerned about what to do regarding Elizabeth’s epic poems. I’d read some of them and found them very, very hard to read, much less fathom. When I learned that most nonliterary sorts were only familiar with her love sonnets, I was relieved, for in those sonnets were the words that touched me—they were the story. How ironic that with the depth of her knowledge and expertise in the classics and Greek, the work that has lived on for over 150 years did not come from her head knowledge but from the spillings of her heart.
• And finally, the ending . . . this was my biggest “You’re kidding!” moment. When I found out Ba wrote the sonnets privately and only showed them to Robert years later, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she gave them to him at a time in his life when he desperately needed to know how much she loved him.” Shortly after, I found out that’s exactly what happened! His mother died, he was deep in mourning, and she gave him the sonnets. The fact that Robert pulled her from the edge of death with his love and she did the same for him is beyond romantic perfection.
I found much common ground with Elizabeth—a woman with whom I would have thought I shared little. Yet her family loyalty, her work ethic, her health concerns, her quest for knowledge, her desire to avoid confrontation, her longing for praise, her self-doubt, her inner strength, and her utter joy when life gave her more than she ever imagined . . . can’t we all find parallel threads that traverse these emotions?
And now, for the pièce de résistance. It comes down to this: If Elizabeth had not mentioned Robert’s Pomegranate work in her “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” poem (which she only finished to make two volumes of her work be of equal length, writing nineteen pages in one day), if Cousin John had not sent a copy to Robert’s sister, if Robert had not read that story, if he had not written her a fan letter, if she had not written back, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways would not exist.
Nor would this book.
God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. . . .
Nancy Moser
Fact or Fiction in
How Do I Love Thee?
Chapter 1
The name of the Barrett home—Hope End—is actually not as menacing as it sounds. “Hope end” means “closed valley.” Papa bought it when Ba was three, for £24,000. It consisted of 475 acres near Ledbury. Papa had the huge home rebuilt in a Turkish style, complete with minarets. People came to gawk at it. It was very isolated, which distressed Ba’s mother but probably fed her father’s motives very well.
Torquay and the surrounding area are often called the English Riviera because of the beaches and mild climate.
The “company side of the bed” is Ba’s phrase. I love it.
Balzac’s book Le Père Goriot, which Ba is reading, is about a father who gives everything to his selfish daughters. The father’s last words are: “Don’t let your daughters marry if you love them.” Ba found it “a very painful book.” The comparisons to her own father are obvious. She thought about this book a lot. . . .
Dr. Barry died of rheumatic fever at the end of October 1839.
Little is known about Bro’s romance. It was mentioned after the fact in a letter from Ba to her brother George, indicating that she had wanted to give Bro money so he could marry.
No one knows why Ba’s mother, Mary Barrett, died on October 7, 1828. After having her twelfth child the previous year, she had been well but for some rheumatoid arthritis. She had gone on a trip to Cheltenham and was a bit ill, but was doing fine enough for her son Sam to attend balls. Then suddenly, she was dead. A heart attack is one theory.
The descriptions of Ba’s room at No. 1 Beacon Street—“In the sea” and “from my sofa”—are hers. The apartment is still there, in the middle of town. It looks out on the harbor and is sheltered by the steep rise of Beacon Hill behind it. It is now the Hotel Regina.
The scene leading up to Bro’s accident . . . It is not known what Ba and Bro argued about the last time they were together, only that they parted with “a pettish word.” Considering that Lady Flora died on July 5 and Ba was obsessed with the gossip about it, and Bro’s accident was on July 11, it seems possible that his boredom and his penchant for being reckless might have led him to act rashly. This is my supposition, but it seems to make sense connecting the two events.
Chapter 2
I do not know where the name Flush came from. My description in this chapter is a guess.
As for the description of Ba’s bedroom on Wimpole Street: It was on the top floor at the back of the house, faced southwest, overlooked “star-raking chimneys,” had a window box, overgrown ivy, a painted shade, bookshelves, an armoire, a dresser, a table for her writing (and the table with a railing Cousin John had made for her), as well as a sofa she often used as a bed. And yet, I also found hints of a real bed, so I put in both a sofa and a bed. Pretty crowded, yet she often had all her family visit. I assume it had a fireplace. I read that Arabel slept in Ba’s room, but I couldn’t figure out how that would work, so I chose not to mention it.
Papa took a 24-year lease on Wimpole Street. That’s hard to imagine, but he was obviously hunkering down—and was confident his children would remain in the family home forever.
I have assumed 50 Wimpole Street was a standard London row home; it would have the kitchen in the basement and perhaps a delivery entrance there. The ground floor (the street level) would have a dining room, the first floor (the second floor to Americans) would contain the drawing room, with the bedrooms above that. There would probably not be any running water. Metal pipes did not come into existence in London until after the 1840s. Even then the water system was run by private companies that only turned the water on for a few hours a day until 1871.
Wimpole Street has many claims to fame. The Barrett home at 50 Wimpole Street is now a hospital run by Britain’s National Health Service. Paul McCartney, of Beatles fame, moved into the attic rooms of 57 Wimpole Street, which was opposite the Barrett residence. It was actually the family home of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Jane Asher, and was where he stayed for almost three years. While living there, Paul, with John Lennon, wrote many of the Beatles’ most famous songs, including their first American number one hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which was written in the basement. “Yesterday” was also apparently written there on the family piano. In Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Mr. Rushworth takes a house on Wimpole Street after his marriage. Professor Henry Higgins lived at 27A Wimpole Street in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
There are two movies made about the Barretts: The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) starring Jennifer Jones and John Gielgud, and an earlier 1934 version starring Norma Shearer and Charles Laughton. Jennifer Jones dedicated a plaque at 50 Wimpole Street, and a figure of the actress as Elizabeth was unveiled at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.
You may be familiar with the famous “Pinkie” painting by Thomas Lawrence, a 1794 painting of a young girl in white with a pink bonnet and sash. This was Papa’s sister, Sarah, when she was eleven. It was painted before she and her brothers left Jamaica to finish their schooling in England. She died a year later of TB. Papa owned this painting, but I don’t know if it was displayed in the Wimpole Street house.
The gossip I mention in this book is real. Isolated from the world at large, Ba loved her gossip.
Chapter 3
Their nicknames: Ba was for baby, Bro for b
rother. Arabella was called Arabel, and Henrietta was often Addles. Charles was Stormie, Octavius and Septimus were Occy and Sette. Alfred was nicknamed Daisy as a boy. No one knows why. I’m not sure if they called him that as an adult, but it seemed such a silly name that I decided to let Alfred just be Alfred. Daisy for a grown man? I couldn’t do it.
Papa’s childhood: Edward Barrett’s indulgent mother did him no favors. He was permitted to live in a dream world of his own. He never had to discipline himself by academic studies or learn how to get along with other people. He never had to assume many responsibilities and so became willful, isolated, and insensitive. Papa inherited money from his grandfather, and £30,000 from an uncle—a huge amount. But then . . . in 1831-32 everything fell apart when there was a slave rebellion in Jamaica and much of the Barrett plantation was destroyed. Papa went from being landed gentry to having to work. Money and an overindulgent mother explain a lot.