‘In summer she [Elizabeth] spent part of the afternoon in reading aloud to Mr Brontë. In the winter evenings she must have enjoyed this; for she and Mr Brontë had often to finish their discussions on what she had read when we all met for tea. She would be very lively and intelligent, and tilt arguments against Mr Brontë without fear9.’
This is an illuminating and touching scene; we see Elizabeth’s intelligence and her forthright spirit, but we also see her characteristic kindness. Patrick Brontë suffered from cataracts and, although he later had them cut away without anaesthetic, in his advancing years he was partially blind. Even in his late middle age, as here, Patrick’s eyesight was so poor that he found it hard to read, but without being asked, Elizabeth made it her daily task to read to him and bring some light into his darkening world.
Her theological debates with Patrick were mirrored in the discussions she had with Anne, and she was delighted to find that from an early age her youngest niece shared her enthusiasm for the scriptures and for debating their finer points. These were regular conversations in their shared room, but Anne later committed an example of them to paper in a little-known article hidden away in the archives of the Brotherton Library in Leeds.
Amidst their collection is a manuscript notebook in which Arthur Bell Nicholls, Charlotte’s widower, wrote out by hand some of his late wife’s poetry that had remained unpublished. The book he used must have been one that had been in Charlotte’s possession, for the first eleven pages contain an unfinished dialogue between two people named simply C and S. Arthur has then turned the book around and started from what would have been the back of the book, so that his transcription of Charlotte’s poems has the reverse orientation to this original work.
The handwriting shows without a doubt that the unfinished dialogue is by Anne Brontë10, and it is a philosophical and theological discussion between C, who believes in the Bible, and S, who doesn’t. We can guess that C & S represent Christ and Satan, although they seem to be on friendly terms with each other, but the atheistic character of S may also represent Emily Brontë as the C character says:
‘Intimate as we have been from our childhood, we have always been strangely reserved upon the subject of religion11.’
The opening of this piece is especially interesting as S berates C for still believing in the doctrines drummed into him by his nurse and mother:
‘My dear C – it is most surprising that a man of your information and discernment should not yet have cast aside the prejudices instilled into him by his nurse and mother.’
‘And is it because your mother has taught you to believe in the Bible, that you now refuse to credit it?’
‘Not precisely; but because my mother taught me this doctrine I was doubly anxious to examine it for myself12.’
Once again, Anne is walking upon autobiographical ground, and as in Agnes Grey the word ‘mother’ is used as a reference to her aunt. From it we see how Anne welcomed the Bible studies and doctrinal debates with Elizabeth, whereas their shared beliefs were soon abandoned by Emily.
Anne became an enthusiastic Biblical scholar, even studying it in its original Greek to ensure that it had been translated correctly, and this allowed her as an adult to tilt arguments against Elizabeth without fear, just as her aunt did against her father, and just as Helen does against her aunt in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
‘Oh, Helen! Where did you learn all this?’
‘In the Bible, aunt. I have searched it through, and found nearly thirty passages, all tending to support the same theory13.’
Elizabeth’s influence on Anne’s education and character could be seen in more than just her love of the Bible; it was also evident in the kind, gentle nature that she became famous for, and her belief in the importance of family. Whereas Elizabeth showed this by moving to Haworth to raise her sister’s children, Anne demonstrated it by such actions as finding her brother Branwell a job when it seemed he had little hope of finding one.
The love that Elizabeth had held for the infant Anne never diminished, and indeed it strengthened as she saw the fine woman she was becoming. It was with something approaching maternal pride that Elizabeth unrolled a certificate Anne placed into her hands in December 1836. It read:
‘A prize for good conduct presented to Miss A. Brontë with Miss Wooler’s kind love, Roe Head, Dec. 14th 1836.’
Miss Margaret Wooler was headmistress at Roe Head School at Mirfield, a town 18 miles south-west of Haworth. In January 1831, Charlotte was sent to Roe Head for her first formal schooling in five-and-a-half years. Elizabeth and Patrick had decided that whilst the children had made good progress under their joint tutelage, a more formal education would help them polish the accomplishments they would need to work as a governess.
Roe Head was a very different school to Cowan Bridge, and the enlightened Miss Wooler provided a safe and happy environment for her pupils to grow. It was here that Charlotte made her lifelong friends Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor, both of whom would come to know Elizabeth Branwell, Ellen on friendly terms but Mary rather less so.
After just over a year at Roe Head, Charlotte returned to Haworth and she was then charged with the task of teaching her younger sisters what she had learned at the school. In July 1835, however, Charlotte returned to Roe Head, this time in the capacity of teacher. The salary was low, but the terms of her employment also allowed her to take a sister for a free education. This was too good an offer to resist and naturally Emily, as the next oldest daughter, was chosen to accompany Charlotte to Mirfield. Within weeks of arriving, however, the painfully shy Emily had become homesick to the point where she had virtually stopped talking and eating. With the demise of her sisters Maria and Elizabeth still on her mind, Charlotte wrote to her father suggesting that if Emily wasn’t sent home she would die. Given the family history it’s little surprise that Patrick did indeed call Emily back to Haworth, where she made a complete recovery.
The offer of free education still stood, but Patrick and Elizabeth had at first been reticent to send Anne, then 14, to school. In a letter to Anne’s godmother Elizabeth Franks (the Elizabeth Firth who had rejected his proposal), Patrick wrote:
‘My dear little Anne I intend to keep at home for another year under her Aunt’s tuition and my own14.’
This same letter is also notable for its opening request to Elizabeth, who lived near to Roe Head, to keep a watchful eye on the young Brontës:
‘As two of my dear children, are soon to be placed near you, I take the liberty of writing to you a few lines, in order to request both you and Mr. Franks to be so kind, as to interpose with your advice and counsel, to them in any case of necessity – and if expedient to write to Miss Branwell, or me, if our interference should be requisite15.’
It is significant that Patrick makes Elizabeth Branwell the first point of contact if the Franks should need to write to them regarding the girls, showing that she now had the dominant role in the upbringing of the sisters.
After some discussion between father and aunt, Anne was sent to take Emily’s place at Roe Head in October 1835, and as the certificate of 1836 shows it was an environment in which she thrived. Like Emily, and to a lesser degree Charlotte, Anne could be painfully shy in company, yet she battled to overcome this. As well as winning plaudits for her studies she also made a great friend in her fellow pupil Ellen Cook who:
‘attached herself strongly to Anne B. and Anne bestowed upon her a great deal of quiet affection and genial notice16.’
Elizabeth was thrilled at the progress her beloved niece was making on both fronts, but she received news of an altogether less welcome kind in late 1837. Anne had suffered a sudden, or at least sudden as far as Charlotte was concerned, physical collapse brought on by mental anguish. Anne had become increasingly worried that she and those she loved were destined for hell, and her troubled mind hastened a physical sickness that culminated in an attack of gastric fever, what we now know as typhoid. It was a frequently deadly condition and we are tol
d that Anne’s ‘life hung on a slender thread17’. At Anne’s request, a priest named James la Trobe was called for, and Anne recovered enough to be sent home to Haworth.
Elizabeth is often, unfairly, blamed for Anne’s Roe Head breakdown, and for subsequent dark moments of religious doubt that appeared throughout her life. The cause of Anne’s fear of hell came not from her aunt, but from the hard-line Calvinist preachers then in abundance in the West Riding of Yorkshire. They believed that sin could never be fully be forgiven, and that once a sin had been committed, the perpetrator was damned to an eternal hell. This was completely at odds with Anne’s belief in a loving and forgiving God, and it was a deep examination of these two opposing views that had such a dramatic effect upon her health.
Elizabeth Branwell was far from being a Calvinist, and it was not her religious views that drove her niece to despair. Grimshaw, whom Elizabeth so admired, was a fiery preacher but he believed in a loving God that offered hope for all mankind, as did the leader of his movement John Wesley. In this aspect of doctrine, that of eternal and unforgivable sin, Wesleyans such as Elizabeth were diametrically opposed to the Calvinists. It is notable that, close to death, Anne had asked to speak to James la Trobe rather than the Calvinist priests of the Mirfield area. La Trobe was not a Church of England priest, but a Moravian. The Moravians had originally come to England in exile from central Europe, and they were noted for their belief in the forgiving power of God and a belief in redemption for all. The proximity of Moravian belief to that of Elizabeth Branwell is shown by the fact that Wesley himself, before becoming head of his own movement, associated with the Moravian church18.
Anne’s return to Haworth at the end of 1837 brought an emotional reunion for aunt and niece. We know that both were noted for crying at moments of happiness or sadness, so the tears fell while they hugged each other close. Other than returns for Christmas and summer holidays, Anne had been away from Haworth, and the aunt she’d become so close to, for more than two years.
Elizabeth found that Anne had grown in more than just a physical sense in her time at Roe Head; she was now a learned and eloquent, at least with those she knew, woman, and had found an independent streak as well. Anne’s father and siblings were shocked when, just over a year after her return from school, she announced that she intended to find a position as a governess as she wanted to make her way in the world. This was less of a shock to Elizabeth however, who remembered how her sister Maria, Anne’s mother, had once taken the same course. In April 1839, Anne was back in Mirfield as governess to the Ingham family of Blake Hall. As anyone who has read Agnes Grey knows, this was a far from successful move, as the Ingham children (hidden behind the name of Bloomfield in Anne’s novel) were cruel and unwilling to learn. Anne had entertained particularly high hopes for this family as they had been recommended by her aunt Elizabeth who knew that Blake Hall had been a centre of Wesleyanism and often visited by Grimshaw and Wesley alike19. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s confidence was misplaced and Anne returned from her first post as governess, disheartened but not defeated, in December 1839.
Elizabeth had missed Anne greatly during her time as a governess and her time at school. She had missed their shared prayers and their discussions on the Bible, and missed the company of a person whose character was so attuned to hers. In those years, however, Elizabeth had found comfort in the company of the other Brontë sibling who held a special place in her heart; a person very different to her youngest niece in many ways.
Chapter 12
Their Darling Truant
‘While from the old Rectory, his distant home,
“All hands” to seek their darling truant roam,
And one – his mother – with instinctive love,
Like that which guides aright the timid dove -
Finds her dear child – his cheeks all rain bedewed,
The unconscious victim of those tempests rude,
And, panting, asks him why he tarries there?
Does he not dread his fate – his danger fear?
That child replies – all smiling in the storm -
“Mother – what is this Fear? – I never saw its form!”
Ah! oft, since then, he heard the tempests sound,
Oft saw far mightier waters surging round,
Oft stood unshaken – death and danger near,
Yet saw no more than then the phantom Fear!’
Branwell Brontë, The Triumph of Mind over Body
A false yet enduring impression of Elizabeth Branwell is that she was an overly strict woman who did much to halt the enjoyment of her nephew and nieces at Haworth Parsonage, and of those who worked within it. One reason for this is the depiction of her within Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1857 biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë:
‘Miss Branwell was unaware of the fermentation of unoccupied talent going on around her. She was not her niece’s confidante – perhaps no one so much older could have been … next to her nephew, the docile, pensive Anne was her favourite … In general, notwithstanding that Miss Branwell might be occasionally unreasonable, she and her nieces went on smoothly enough; and though they might now and then be annoyed at petty tyranny, she still inspired them with sincere respect and not a little affection1.’
Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Brontë is an important historical document, given that she knew many of the people featured within it, and it’s also superbly written, as should be expected from the author of masterpieces such as Cranford and North and South, but it is also deeply flawed in places. With the passage of time, and access to further documentation and testimonies, it is now acknowledged, for example, that her depiction of Patrick Brontë as a cold, sometimes cruel man is far from the truth. Her assertion that he didn’t let his children eat meat and kept them to a rigid and dull diet caused Patrick particular pain, and it’s also patently untrue as we have the evidence of servants such as Nancy Garrs to the contrary, and evidence from Emily and Anne Brontë’s diary paper of 1835 in which they record:
‘We are going to have for Dinner Boiled Beef Turnips, potato’s and applepudding2.’
Gaskell also came under fire for a scene in which she depicts Patrick destroying a pair of his wife’s shoes, whilst completely misreading his motivation for doing so. On this matter, Ellen Nussey wrote a strongly worded letter to Mrs Gaskell in Patrick’s defence:
‘The anecdote of the little coloured shoes produced a mental sting that no time would obliterate and I feel that all commonplace readers would fail to see the spartan nature of the act unless you plainly pointed it out to them and I was intending to ask you to make very clear and distinct comments on Mr. B’s character. I don’t wish anything you have said suppressed only I think your readers will have to be taught to think kindly of Mr. B3.’
Much of Elizabeth Gaskell’s inadvertent misinformation regarding Patrick came from the testimony of Martha Wright, the maid who had been dismissed by him and was now settling scores, and we can also see her influence in her depiction of Elizabeth Branwell. Such testimony would have carried even more weight in this case, as while Gaskell knew Patrick Brontë, Elizabeth Branwell had been dead for eight years by the time she made the acquaintance of her niece Charlotte.
Given these factors it is perhaps understandable that Gaskell misrepresented Elizabeth’s character and influence upon the Brontës, but it is one that needs correcting. Her depiction given earlier is wholly unfair, not least in its strange assertion that she could not possibly have been the confidante of her charges because of the age difference. Elizabeth Branwell was forty years older than Charlotte, but many children have made confidantes of parents or grandparents with larger age gaps than that. It is possible that, in this instance, Elizabeth Gaskell is projecting her own thoughts and experiences onto siblings that, with the one exception of Charlotte, she didn’t know.
Gaskell’s early life mirrors that of the Brontës in many respects. Like them, she lost her mother, another Elizabeth, at a very early age; in her case, just thirt
een months. Her father, a former clergyman in the Unitarian church, suffered severe mental anguish after the death of his wife, with the result that Elizabeth Stevenson, as she was known before her marriage to William Gaskell, was sent to Knutsford to be raised by her aunt, Hannah Lumb4. Under these circumstances, Gaskell’s depiction of the Brontës’ relationship with their Aunt Branwell may reflect her own relationship with her Aunt Lumb.
There is as little evidence that Elizabeth Branwell was tyrannical as there is for the similar charge against Patrick; indeed, less so, as whilst Reverend Brontë was a kindly and loving father, he admitted in a letter to Elizabeth Gaskell that he could have a warm temper at times:
‘I do not deny that I am somewhat eccentric. Had I been numbered among the calm, sedate, concentric men of the world, I should not have been as I now am, and I should, in all probability never have had such children as mine have been5.’
In these circumstances, Elizabeth provided much needed discipline to balance Patrick’s eccentricity. She was in some ways a perfectionist, and liked to adhere rigidly to a timetable so that Haworth villagers said they would know exactly what the Brontës would be doing at each time of the day6. This was far from a tyranny; however, it was a vital necessity within the Brontë household, and her experience with the offspring of her sister, Charlotte Branwell, had taught Elizabeth that all children need boundaries in order to thrive.
When we look beyond the dour image Mrs Gaskell presented of Elizabeth, we find that far from dampening the natural exuberance and fun of the Brontë children, she did much to encourage it, within the boundaries and constraints that she knew needed setting. Elizabeth, far from being the solemn-faced old maid that some imagine, had often a youthful twinkle in her eye, as remembered by Ellen Nussey:
‘She [Elizabeth Branwell] gave one the idea that she had been a belle among her home acquaintances. She took snuff out of a very pretty gold snuff-box, which she sometimes presented to you with a little laugh, as if she enjoyed the slight shock and astonishment visible in your countenance7.’
Aunt Branwell and the Brontë Legacy Page 12