by Nick Holland
When they reached Anne’s cradle they found her smiling contentedly as usual, quietly observing the world around her.
‘He’s gone! You were too late, and the angel is gone!’, shouted Charlotte, and she stamped her feet in frustration.
Patrick laughed heartily at this, which only served to make Charlotte even angrier and more frustrated.
Whether an angel was looking over Anne or not in her childhood we leave you to determine, but it is a tale of Anne’s infancy that both Patrick Brontë and Nancy Garrs would repeat.1 If nothing else, it is a testament to how calm, contented and angelic Anne herself was as a baby.
The loss of Anne’s mother and two eldest sisters irrevocably changed the life she could have had, but she was so young when they happened that she did not comprehend the first loss and soon recovered from the next two. Branwell and especially Charlotte would carry the pain around with them to a much greater measure for the rest of their lives.
Strange as it may sound, then, Anne’s early childhood was a very happy one, you could say idyllic. It was a period that she would look back on with great fondness, as of a time before the sky took on a darkened hue and when she forged the close friendship with a sister that sustained her through all the suffering that was to come.
Aunt Branwell had taken the place of the mother Anne had never fully known, and although of contrasting characters, they were suited to each other’s ways. Aunt Branwell was a woman of very peculiar and precise thinking. After coming to Haworth she put away her make-up and paints, and sold the fancy clothes that she’d worn with pleasure in Penzance and Bradford. Instead, she dressed from head to foot in dark greys and black, as if in perpetual mourning. She clothed herself in the fashion of twenty years before, and therefore all who saw her thought her to be much older than she actually was.
As in all she did, there was method in her madness. Aunt Branwell believed that children should be raised with discipline, first and foremost. By projecting a fierce exterior, she aimed to create obedient and unquestioning young women who would be perfectly suited to a future life as a governess. It did not quite work out like that.
Their surrogate mother was as cold with Emily and Charlotte as the easterly winds that rolled in off the moors around them, but she was much more indulgent with Branwell. She, like Patrick, saw him as the great hope for the Brontë family, and consequently she allowed him many more liberties than she would extend to his sisters.
There was one member of the family, however, that she could be said to have truly loved. Aunt Branwell doted on Anne with as much fervour as the rigidity that she showed to Charlotte and Emily. Who can say why one person loves another? Perhaps it was because Anne bore the name of the mother Elizabeth had loved, or perhaps Anne’s infant helplessness evoked the maternal spirit in her? An even more powerful possible reason for her affection is that of all the Brontës, Anne most obviously had the Branwell family blood flowing through her.
From an early age it was clear that she looked unlike her sisters. Charlotte and Emily shared the same mouth, the same strong facial features, with dark hair and hazel eyes. Although there was a great difference in height between them – Emily growing to be the tallest in the family at over five and a half feet tall, while Charlotte would be several inches shy of five feet, and very conscious of it – it was obvious that they were sisters. Anne took her looks from her mother’s family, having light brown hair that fell in curls and violet eyes that looked out from a fair and delicate complexion. Her frame would always be slim and short, although a little taller than Charlotte’s.
It may be that when Aunt Branwell watched Anne growing up she saw a reminder of her own sisters and for this reason gave her smiles and loving words that were denied to others. For her own part, Anne doted on her aunt like the mother she’d never really known, and would take great interest in everything she had to say, with later consequences that she could not have foreseen.
Aunt Branwell was a very firm follower of the Methodist faith that was then having such an impact on Cornwall and in the north of England. Her spirituality tended more to that favoured by George Whitefield, an early leader of the movement, rather than the more moderate Wesleys. She believed Whitefield’s creed that we live in a harsh and cruel world, and that once we fall into sin we are lost to the fires of hell forever. She would delight in telling Anne about the punishments that such sinners could expect in the afterlife, and her scripture readings would focus on the wrath of God, rather than any hope of redemption. To Aunt Branwell there was no redemption and no loving Father in the heavens. All that was to be done was to strive every day to avoid the temptations that would lead to the devil himself.
So unflinching was she in her views that even the preaching of Patrick, who held a very different idea of his maker, could have no effect on her. Despite her declamations of hellfire and damnation, however, Anne loved her aunt dearly. They shared a room throughout much of Anne’s early life, and she would refuse to sleep until her aunt had planted a goodnight kiss on her forehead. In such ways, the bonds of affection were strengthened between them.
Anne recalls this time in her lines from Agnes Grey, with the word ‘mother’ substituting for aunt:
In my childhood I could not imagine a more afflictive punishment than for my mother to refuse to kiss me at night: the very idea was terrible. More than the idea I never felt, for, happily, I never committed a fault that was deemed worthy of such penalty; but once I remember, for some transgression of my sister’s, our mother thought proper to inflict it upon her: what she felt, I cannot tell; but my sympathetic tears and suffering for her sake I shall not soon forget.2
This illustrates not only Anne’s tender feelings for her aunt but also the characteristic sympathy for others that would continue throughout her life. She could never bear to see another person, or creature, suffering.
The Brontë family were soon to gain a new servant who would become very dear to them all. It was at the time that Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily were at school. Nancy Garrs had announced that she was to marry, and Patrick, taking advice from his sister-in-law, decided that an old servant was better than a young one such as Sarah Garrs. Nancy and Sarah would continue to be a presence in the parsonage whenever needed, but their permanent place was taken by Tabitha Aykroyd.
Tabby, as she became known to the Brontë children, was then in her 50s, and as typical a model of Yorkshire woman as you could find. She was as broad as she was tall, with hands that always seemed covered in flour. Her black hair was tied back tightly, away from a round face that had the lines of a life well lived. Her accent at first seemed impenetrable to the children, but they soon had great fun imitating her. At this she would call them ‘divil’s childer’, but a smile was never far from her face, and always in her warm heart.
Tabby held great affection for all the children, but as with Nancy and Sarah, she looked most smilingly upon the youngest. She was always ‘dear Anne’ or ‘pretty little Anne’. If left with these temptations alone, she could perhaps have grown up a self-loving or vainglorious child, but Aunt Branwell would guard against that with her constant warnings of how the sins of pride and vanity are punished.
One reason that Anne was so prized was because she was so very frail and delicate. In the same way that our eyes are drawn to a tiny snowdrop that is surrounded by a blanket of grander flora, so all eyes looked to Anne. She was never to have the physical strength that her sisters possessed, and she suffered with asthma from the earliest age. A sudden draught, such as would often blow through the parsonage, would send her shivering to the nearest chair accompanied by wheezing and gasps for air. At these times she would often feel five fingers intertwine with hers.
Emily, although an infant herself, had decided that Anne needed to be cared for and that she was the person to do it. She would wrap her cloak around her younger sister and rock her gently backwards and forwards until the attack subsided. With tears of gratitude, Anne would look up at the face that meant mor
e to her than any other at that time. With Emily beside her, Anne knew she was safe, as did everyone who came near her. Within her woman’s body, Emily had a strength and power that could not be denied, and that would ever refuse to be cowed.
For three months, the time between Charlotte leaving for Cowan Bridge and Emily being sent after her, Anne and Emily barely left each other’s side. Childlike promises were made that nothing would ever come between them. They took to holding hands everywhere they went, or Emily would have one arm draped protectively around her sister’s shoulder, and they became the whole universe to each other.
It may seem strange that a girl who was so strident with those she knew, could be so timid in the presence of others, but this is how it came to pass. Emily had all she needed in her sister and the land around her home that she loved, and she feared the intrusion of anything else. This increased Anne’s own natural timidity, until they found it hard to speak to anybody they did not know. At times, when visitors came to the parsonage to see Reverend Brontë, Emily and Anne would hide under tables or in closets, arms huddled around each other for protection against the terror that was other people.
Emily’s departure for the school in Westmorland was a dreadful thing for the sensitive young Anne to endure. She was left solely to the teachings of her aunt and would go to bed at night praying that she would not die and be cast into the pits of hell. Without Emily to comfort her, everything seemed oppressive, and she felt a cold melancholia creep over her.
How Anne’s heart leaped when her father brought Charlotte and Emily home from Morecambe. Her childish thoughts were too undeveloped to understand the true cost of the loss of her eldest sibling Maria and the impending loss of Elizabeth, but they revelled in an ecstasy at seeing Emily again and feeling her hand once more in her own.
Their temperaments were alike in every way, and people talked of them being inseparable like twins, despite the difference in their appearances. Nothing delighted them more than nature itself, and in Haworth they were truly blessed. Some people revel in lush greenness, in a superabundance of plants and flowers or in tall majestic trees towering as far as the eyes can see. Emily and Anne had none of that. They had bleak moors that stretched all around them, covered in moss, heather or mud, depending upon the seasons, and bedecked by hardy little flowers in the brief summer. Nothing could have been more magical to them or more suited to their character. It was simple, it had no pretence, it had the power of magic about it.
As young children they were taken for a daily walk on the moors that lay directly at the foot of the parsonage. Their aunt did not like to walk, having no appreciation for nature, so they were instead taken by Tabby, Nancy or Sarah – or even Branwell when no one else could be found. He liked to think of himself as a man about the house, the great protector, even though he was a child still and much smaller in stature than Emily. As he marched in front of his troop, he imagined he was the Duke of Wellington surveying Waterloo. These were happy, carefree times that Anne would remember with fondness and clarity.
Sarah Garrs later recalled these early excursions on the moors. ‘Their afternoon walks, as they all sallied forth, each comfortably clad, were a joy. Their fun knew no bounds. It was never expressed wildly. Bright and often dry, but deep, it occasioned many a merry burst of laughter. They enjoyed a game of romps, and played with zest.’3
On the moors the girls were at one with the world, completely at ease with nature’s power in a way that they would never feel in the company of people. On one day in particular, they felt its strength in a way that would mark them forever.
It was 2 September 1824. Although just 4½ at the time, the power and devastation Anne was about to witness would have been a memory that stayed with her throughout her life. The morning had seen heavy rain, as indeed had the week leading up to it. Emily and Anne were feeling miserable at their enforced incarceration, two young girls who longed to be allowed out to play. At last the rains stopped, and they begged to be allowed out. Their aunt would hear nothing of it, but Patrick, a keen walker himself, took their side and said that exercise and fresh air was good for children. Dressed against the elements, they strode forth: Nancy and Sarah Garrs, Anne, Emily, Charlotte and Branwell.
They had walked nearly 2 miles across the moors towards Ponden when the skies suddenly darkened. A great rolling roar could be heard and was then silent. A shower of hailstones came from nowhere and pinged off the children’s skin but then vanished as quickly as it started. By now, the sky was as dark as if it was night-time. Nancy and Sarah realised that something was terribly wrong, and they rushed the children towards a building on the horizon. As they got closer they heard a voice calling from the building, urging them to run as fast as they could. This would be Anne’s first encounter with Ponden Hall, a building that was to play a central part in her second novel.
Their father too sensed that all was not well. He was at an upstairs window in the parsonage, looking out at the moors and longing to see his family return, but instead he was to see something that nobody in Haworth had seen before or since. It is now recorded as the Crow Hill Bog Burst, although at the time people referred to it as an earthquake.4
There was another huge roar, followed by a sound as if the earth was being torn apart. It was heard as far away as Leeds. A violent storm erupted all around the children, and then a huge torrent of mud and water took to the sky, 7ft in height. It rolled onwards, consuming all in its path. Boulders that had seemed great and immovable were lifted up and hurled a mile from where they had started. Thankfully they had found the shelter of a porch just in time. Sarah Garrs covered the children in her cloak and warned them not to watch. Only one pair of eyes disobeyed her. Emily was staring out at the dreadful storm and the destruction it was bringing, with wonder and happiness. Now she saw what nature could do, she loved it even more. What had been silent and still could possess a power within it that was unstoppable. This was how she wanted to be.
The landslip, and subsequent explosion, were caused by the recent storms and flooding eroding the moorland landscape. The Leeds Mercury reported the 7ft-high torrent of peat, mud and water that plunged from Crow Hill towards Ponden and added, ‘Somebody gave alarm, and thereby saved the lives of some children who would otherwise have been swept away.’ The damage caused by the explosion can still be seen on the scarred and cratered moors today.
The great storm passed as quickly as it began, and the group walked home as swiftly as they could over the rain sodden and difficult terrain, realising the distress their absence would be causing their father. Indeed, before they reached Haworth, Patrick ran to them and embraced his children with tears rolling down his cheeks. Unable to watch any longer, he too had braved the storm, and he was now covered in mud from head to foot. The whole party shed tears of relief, except for Emily. A wide smile still played on her face, and her dark eyes sparkled as Anne had never seen before. We can imagine Emily whispering to her beloved sister, ‘I did that.’
As they grew older, they were allowed to go out on to the beautiful moors, where Anne would spend so many happy times with the sister she loved so much, in their own company. Emily had by then become a free spirit that nobody could dissuade from doing what she thought was right. Sometimes they would walk up to 20 miles in a day, but Emily knew every stone and every stream of the landscape. Anne’s hand held in hers, they were invincible children of nature. As Anne left Haworth on her final journey to Scarborough, she knew that she would never see those moors again, but in her mind she wondered whether Emily saw them still. In her heart she knew that if Emily could leave her celestial home and roam them again, that would be her choice.
A year after the death of her sisters, on 22 May 1850, Charlotte wrote, in a letter to W.S. Williams:
I am free to walk on the moors – but when I go out there alone everything reminds me of the time when others were with me and then the moors seem a wilderness, featureless, solitary, saddening. My sister Emily had a particular love for them, and ther
e is not a knoll of heather, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry leaf not a fluttering lark or linnet but reminds me of her. The distant prospects were Anne’s delight, and when I look round, she is in the blue tints, the pale mists, the waves and shadows of the horizon. In the hill-country silence their poetry comes by lines and stanzas into my mind: once I loved it – now I dare not read it – and am driven often to wish I could taste one draught of oblivion and forget much that, while mind remains, I never shall forget.6
Notes
1. Gérin, Winifred, Anne Brontë, p.13
2. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, pp.25–6
3. Harland, Marion, Charlotte Brontë at Home, p.18
4. Barker, Juliet, The Brontës, pp.130–2
5. Leeds Mercury, 11 September 1824
6. Smith, Margaret (Ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 2, p.403
4
YOUTHFUL EXPLORATIONS
The other was a slender girl,
Blooming and young and fair,
The snowy neck was shaded with
The long bright sunny hair
And those deep eyes of watery blue
So sweetly sad they seem’d
And every feature in her face
With pensive sorrow teem’d
The youth beheld her saddened air
And smiling cheerfully
He said ‘How pleasant is the land
Of sunny Araby!’
‘Alexander and Zenobia’
Anne was the youngest of the Brontë children, but she was much loved by her siblings, her father and her aunt, and they did all they could to make sure that she was included in the older children’s games. With no mother to learn from, Anne turned instead to her sisters and brother for inspiration, and she would hang on every word they said, while striving to emulate all they did. In this way she grew quickly in mind if not in body.