CHILDHOOD.
The home to which Charlotte and Emily returned was not a very much more
healthy spot than that they left; but it was home. It was windy and
cold, and badly drained. Mr. Bronte was ever striving to stir up his
parishioners to improve the sanitary conditions of the place; but for
many years his efforts were in vain. The canny Yorkshire folk were loth
to put their money underground, and it was hard to make them believe
that the real cause of the frequent epidemics and fevers in Haworth was
such as could be cured by an effective system of subsoil drainage. It
was cheaper and easier to lay the blame at the doors of Providence. So
the parson preached in vain. Well might he preach, for his own house was
in the thick of the evil.
"As you left the Parsonage-gate you looked upon the stonecutter's
chipping-shed, which was piled with slabs ready for use, and to the ear
there was the incessant 'chip, chip' of the recording chisel as it
graved in the 'In Memoriams' of the departed."
So runs Miss Nussey's manuscript. She also tells of the constant sound
of the passing bell; of the frequent burials in the thronged churchyard.
No cheerful, healthy home for sensitive, delicate children.
"From the Parsonage windows the first view was the plot of grass edged
by a wall, a thorn-tree or two, and a few shrubs and currant-bushes that
did not grow. Next to these was the large and half-surrounding
churchyard, so full of gravestones that hardly a strip of grass could be
seen in it."
Beyond this the moors, the wild, barren, treeless moors, that stretch
away for miles and miles, feeding a few herds of mountain sheep,
harbouring some wild conies and hares, giving a nesting-place to the
birds of heaven, and, for the use of man, neither grain nor pasturage,
but quarries of stone and piles of peat luridly smouldering up there on
autumn nights.
Such is the home to which Emily Bronte clung with the passionate love of
the Swiss for his white mountains, with a homesickness in absence that
strained the very cords of life. Yet her childhood in that motherless
home had few of the elements of childish happiness, and its busy
strictness of daily life was saddened by the loss of Maria and
Elizabeth, dear, never-forgotten playfellows. Charlotte, now the eldest
of the family, was only two years older than Emily, but her sense of
responsibility made her seem quite of a different age. It was little
Anne who was Emily's companion--delicate, shrinking, pretty Anne, Miss
Branwell's favourite. Anne could enter only into the easiest or lightest
of her sister's moods, and yet she was so dear that Emily never sought
another friend. So from childhood she grew accustomed to keep her own
confidence upon her deepest thoughts and liveliest fancies.
A quiet regular life--carpet-brushing, sewing, dusting in the morning.
Then some necessary lessons said to their aunt upstairs; then, in the
evening, while Mr. Bronte wrote his sermons in the study and Miss
Branwell sat in her bedroom, the four children, alone in the parlour,
or sitting by the kitchen fire, while Tabby, the servant, moved briskly
about, would write their magazines or make their plays.
There was a great deal about politics still in the plays. Mr. Bronte,
who took a keen interest in the affairs of the world, always told the
children the chief public news of the day, and let them read what
newspapers and magazines they could lay hold on. So the little Brontes
prattled of the Duke of Wellington when other children still have Jack
the Giantkiller for a hero; the Marquis of Douro was their Prince
Charming; their Yahoos, the Catholics; their potent evil genii the
Liberal Ministry.
"Our plays were established," says Charlotte, the family chronicler, in
her history of the year 1829: "'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,'
July, 1827; 'Islanders,' December, 1827. These are our three great plays
that are not kept secret. Emily's and my best plays were established the
1st of December, 1827; the others, March, 1828. Best plays mean secret
plays; they are very nice ones. All our plays are very strange ones.
Their nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always
remember them. The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some wooden
soldiers Branwell had; 'Our Fellows' from AEsop's Fables; and the
'Islanders' from several events which happened. I will sketch out the
origin of our plays more explicitly if I can. First, 'Young Men.' Papa
bought Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when papa came home it
was night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our
door" (the little room over the passage. Anne slept with her aunt) "with
a box of soldiers. Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched up one
and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington! This shall be the
Duke.' When I had said this, Emily likewise took one up and said it
should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers. Mine
was the prettiest of the whole, the tallest and the most perfect in
every part. Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him
'Gravey.' Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we
called him 'Waiting-boy.' Branwell chose his, and called him Bonaparte."
In another play Emily chooses Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhart and Johnny
Lockhart as her representatives; Charlotte the Duke of Wellington, the
Marquis of Douro, Mr. Abernethy, and Christopher North. This last
personage was indeed of great importance in the eyes of the children,
for _Blackwood's Magazine_ was their favourite reading. On their
father's shelves were few novels, and few books of poetry. The
clergyman's study necessarily boasted its works of divinity and
reference; for the children there were only the wild romances of
Southey, the poems of Sir Walter Scott, left by their Cornish mother,
and "some mad Methodist magazines full of miracles and apparitions and
preternatural warnings, ominous dreams and frenzied fanaticism; and the
equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living,"
familiar to readers of 'Shirley.' To counterbalance all this romance and
terror, the children had their interest in politics and _Blackwood's
Magazine_, "the most able periodical there is," says thirteen-year-old
Charlotte. They also saw _John Bull_, "a high Tory, very violent, the
_Leeds Mercury_, _Leeds Intelligencer_, a most excellent Tory
newspaper," and thus became accomplished fanatics in all the burning
questions of the day.
Miss Branwell took care that the girls should not lack more homely
knowledge. Each took her share in the day's work, and learned all
details of it as accurately as any German maiden at her cookery school.
Emily took very kindly to even the hardest housework; there she felt
able and necessary; and, doubtless, upstairs, grimly listening to prim
Miss Branwell's stories of bygone gaieties, this awkward growing girl
was glad to remember that she too was of importance to the household,
despite her tongue-tied brooding.
The girls fared well enough; but not so their brother. Branwell's
brilliant purposelessness, Celtic gaiety, love of amusement and light
heart made him the most charming playfellow, but a very anxious charge.
Friends advised Mr. Bronte to send his son to school, but the peculiar
vanity which made him model his children's youth in all details on his
own forbad him to take their counsel. Since he had fed on potatoes, his
children should eat no meat. Since he had grown up at home as best he
might, why should Patrick Branwell go to school? Every day the father
gave a certain portion of his time to working with his boy; but a
clergyman's time is not his own, and often he was called away on parish
business. Doubtless Mr. Bronte thought these tutorless hours were spent,
as he would have spent them, in earnest preparation of difficult tasks.
But Branwell, with all his father's superficial charm of manner, was
without the underlying strength of will, and he possessed, unchecked,
the temptations to self-indulgence, to which his father seldom yielded,
counteracting them rather by an ascetic regimen of life. These long
afternoons were spent, not in work, but in mischievous companionship
with the wilder spirits of the village, to whom "t' Vicar's Patrick" was
the standard of brilliant leadership in scrapes.
No doubt their admiration flattered Branwell, and he enjoyed the noisy
fun they had together. Nevertheless he did not quite neglect his
sisters. Charlotte has said that at this time she loved him even as her
own soul--a serious phrase upon those serious lips. But it was Emily and
Branwell who were most to each other: bright, shallow, exacting brother;
silent, deep-brooding, unselfish sister, more anxious to give than to
receive. In January, 1831, Charlotte went to school at Miss Wooler's, at
Roe Head, twenty miles away; and Branwell and Emily were thrown yet more
upon each other for sympathy and entertainment.
Charlotte stayed a year and a half at school, and returned in the July
of 1832 to teach Emily and Anne what she had learnt in her absence;
English-French, English and drawing was pretty nearly all the
instruction she could give. Happily genius needs no curriculum.
Nevertheless the sisters toiled to extract their utmost boon from such
advantages as came within their range. Every morning from nine till
half-past twelve they worked at their lessons; then they walked together
over the moors, just coming into flower. These moors knew a different
Emily to the quiet girl of fourteen who helped in the housework and
learned her lessons so regularly at home. On the moors she was gay,
frolicsome, almost wild. She would set the others laughing with her
quaint humorous sallies and genial ways. She was quite at home there,
taking the fledgeling birds in her hands so softly that they were not
afraid, and telling stories to them. A strange figure--tall, slim,
angular, with all her inches not yet grown; a quantity of dark-brown
hair, deep beautiful hazel eyes that could flash with passion, features
somewhat strong and stern, the mouth prominent and resolute.
The sisters, and sometimes Branwell, would go far on the moors;
sometimes four miles to Keighley in the hollow over the ridge, unseen
from the heights, but brooded over always by a dim film of smoke,
seemingly the steam rising from some fiery lake. The sisters now
subscribed to a circulating library at Keighley, and would gladly
undertake the rough walk of eight miles for the sake of bringing back
with them a novel by Scott, or a poem by Southey. At Keighley, too, they
bought their paper. The stationer used to wonder how they could get
through so much.
Other days they went over Stanbury Moor to the Waterfall, a romantic
glen in the heathy side of the hill where a little stream drips over
great boulders, and where some slender delicate birches spring, a wonder
in this barren country. This was a favourite haunt of Emily, and indeed
they all loved the spot. Here they would use some of their paper, for
they still kept up their old habit of writing tales and poems, and loved
to scribble out of doors. And some of it they would use in drawing,
since at this time they were taking lessons, and Emily and Charlotte
were devoted to the art: Charlotte making copies with minuteness and
exact fidelity; Emily drawing animals and still-life with far greater
freedom and certainty of touch. Some of Charlotte's paper, also, must
have gone in letter-writing. She had made friends at school, an event of
great importance to that narrow circle. One of these friends, the
dearest, was unknown to Haworth. Many a time must Emily and Anne have
listened to accounts of the pretty, accomplished, lively girl, a
favourite in many homes, who had won the heart of their shy plain
sister. She was, indeed, used to a very different life, this fair young
girl, but her bright youth and social pleasures did not blind her to the
fact that oddly-dressed, old-fashioned Charlotte Bronte was the most
remarkable person of her acquaintance. She was the first, outside
Charlotte's home, to discover her true character and genius; and that at
an age, in a position, when most girls would be too busy with visions of
a happy future for themselves to sympathise with the strange activities,
the morbid sensitiveness, of such a mind as Charlotte possessed. But so
early this girl loved her; and lives still, the last to have an intimate
recollection of the ways, persons and habits of the Bronte household.
In September, 1832, Charlotte left home again on a fortnight's visit to
the home of this dear friend. Branwell took her there. He had probably
never been from home before. He was in wild spirits at the beauty of the
house and grounds, inspecting, criticising everything, pouring out a
stream of comments, rich in studio terms, taking views in every
direction of the old battlemented house, and choosing "bits" that he
would like to paint, delighting the whole family with his bright
cleverness, and happy Irish ways. Meanwhile Charlotte looked on, shy and
dull. "I leave you in Paradise!" cried Branwell, and betook himself over
the moor to make fine stories of his visit to Emily and Anne in the bare
little parlour at Haworth.
Charlotte's friend, Ellen, sent her home laden with apples for her two
young sisters: "Elles disent qu'elles sont sur que Mademoiselle E. est
tres-aimable et bonne; l'une et l'autre sont extremement impatientes de
vous voir; j'espere que dans peu de mois elles auront ce plaisir----" So
writes Charlotte in the quaint Anglo-French that the friends wrote to
each other for practice. But winter was approaching, and winter is
dreary at Haworth. Miss Branwell persuaded the eager girls to put off
their visitor till summer made the moors warm and dry, and beautiful, so
that the young people could spend much of their time out of doors. In
the summer of 1833 Ellen came to Haworth.
Miss Ellen Nussey is the only person living who knew Emily Bronte on
terms of intimate equality, and her testimony carries out that of those
humbler friends who helped the parson's busy daughter in her cooking and
cleaning; from all alike we hear of an active, genial, warm-hearted
girl, full of humour and feeling to those she knew, though shy and cold
in her bearing to strangers. A different being to the fierce impassioned
Vestal who has seated herself in Emily's place of remembrance.
In 1833 Emily was nearly fifteen, a tall long-armed girl, full grown,
elastic of tread; with a slight figure that looked queenly in her best
dresses, but loose and boyish when she slouched over the moors,
whistling to her dogs, and taking long strides over the rough earth. A
tall, thin, loose-jointed girl--not ugly, but with irregular features
and a pallid thick complexion. Her dark brown hair was naturally
beautiful, and in later days looked well, loosely fastened with a tall
comb at the back of her head; but in 1833 she wore it in an unbecoming
tight curl and frizz. She had very beautiful eyes of hazel colour.
"Kind, kindling, liquid eyes," says the friend who survives all that
household. She had an aquiline nose, a large expressive, prominent
mouth. She talked little. No grace or style in dress belonged to Emily,
but under her awkward clothes her natural movements had the lithe beauty
of the wild creatures that she loved. She was a great walker, spending
all her leisure on the moors. She loved the freedom there, the large
air. She loved the creatures, too. Never was a soul with a more
passionate love of Mother Earth, of every weed and flower, of every
bird, beast, and insect that lived. She would have peopled the house
with pets had not Miss Branwell kept her niece's love of animals in due
subjection. Only one dog was allowed, who was admitted into the parlour
at stated hours, but out of doors Emily made friends with all the beasts
and birds. She would come home carrying in her hands some young bird or
rabbit, and softly talking to it as she came. "Ee, Miss Emily," the
young servant would say, "one would think the bird could understand
you." "I am sure it can," Emily would answer. "Oh, I am sure it can."
The girls would take their friend [for] long walks on the moor. When
they went very far, Tabby, their old factotum, insisted on escorting
them, unless Branwell took that duty on himself, for they were still
"childer" in her eyes. Emily and Anne walked together. They and Branwell
would ford the streams and place stepping-stones for the elder girls. At
every point of view, at every flower, the happy little party would stop
to talk, admire, and theorise in concert. Emily's reserve had vanished
as morning mists. She was full of glee and gladness, on her own demesne,
no longer awkward and silent. On fine days Emily and Anne would persuade
the others to walk to the Waterfall which made an island of brilliant
green turf in the midst of the heather, set with clear springs, shaded
with here and there a silver birch, and dotted with grey boulders,
beautiful resting-places. Here the four girls--the "quartette" as they
called themselves--would go and sit and listen to Ellen's stories of the
world they had not seen. Or Emily, half-reclining on a slab of stone,
would play like a young child with the tadpoles in the water, making
them swim about, and she would fall to moralising on the strong and the
weak, the brave and the cowardly, as she chased the creatures with her
hand. Having rested, they would trudge home again a merry party, save
when they met some wandering villager. Then the parson's three
daughters would walk on, hushed and timid.
At nine the sewing was put by, and the four girls would talk and laugh,
pacing round the parlour. Miss Branwell went to bed early, and the young
people were left alone in the curtainless clean parlour, with its grey
walls and horse-hair furniture. But with good company no room is poorly
furnished; and they had much to say, and much to listen to, on nights
when Branwell was at home. Oftenest they must have missed him; since,
whenever a visitor stayed at the "Black Bull," the little inn across the
churchyard, the landlord would send up for "T' Vicar's Patrick" to come
and amuse the guests with his brilliant rhodomontade.
Not much writing went on in Ellen's presence, but gay discussion, making
of stories, and serious argument. They would talk sometimes of dead
Maria and Elizabeth, always remembered with an intensity of love. About
eight o'clock Mr. Bronte would call the household to family prayers: and
an hour afterwards he used to bolt the front door, and go upstairs to
bed, always stopping at the sitting-room with a kindly admonition to the
"children" not to be late. At last the girls would stop their chatter,
and retire for the night, Emily giving her bed to the visitor and taking
a share of the servants' room herself.
At breakfast the next morning Ellen used to listen with shrinking
amazement to the stories of wild horror that Mr. Bronte loved to relate,
fearful stories of superstitious Ireland, or barbarous legends of the
rough dwellers on the moors; Ellen would turn pale and cold to hear
them. Sometimes she marvelled as she caught sight of Emily's face,
relaxed from its company rigour, while she stooped down to hand her
porridge-bowl to the dog: she wore a strange expression, gratified,
pleased, as though she had gained something which seemed to complete a
picture in her mind. For this silent Emily, talking little save in rare
bursts of wild spirits; this energetic housewife, cooking and cleaning
as though she had no other aim in view than the providing for the day's
comfort; this was the same Emily who at five years of age used to
startle the nursery with her fantastic fairy stories. Two lives went on
side by side in her heart, neither ever mingling with or interrupting
the other. Practical housewife with capable hands, dreamer of strange
horrors: each self was independent of the companion to which it was
linked by day and night. People in those days knew her but as she
seemed--"T' Vicar's Emily"--a shy awkward girl, never teaching in the
Sunday school like her sisters, never talking with the villagers like
merry Branwell, but very good and hearty in helping the sick and
distressed: not pretty in the village estimation--a "slinky lass," no
prim, trim little body like pretty Anne, nor with Charlotte Bronte's
taste in dress; just a clever lass with a spirit of her own. So the
village judged her. At home they loved her with her strong feelings,
untidy frocks, indomitable will, and ready contempt for the
common-place; she was appreciated as a dear and necessary member of the
household. Of Emily's deeper self, her violent genius, neither friend
nor neighbour dreamed in those days. And to-day it is only this Emily
who is remembered.
Days went on, pleasant days of autumn, in which Charlotte and her friend
roamed across the blooming moors, in which Anne and Emily would take
their little stools and big desks into the garden, and sit and scribble
under the currant-bushes, stopping now and then to pluck the ripe fruit.
Then came chill October, bringing cold winds and rain. Ellen went home,
leaving an empty chair in the quartette, leaving Charlotte lonelier, and
even Emily and Anne a little dull. "They never liked any one as well as
you," says Charlotte.
Winter came, more than usually unhealthy that year, and the moors behind
the house were impassable with snow and rain. Miss Branwell continually
bemoaned the warm and flowery winters of Penzance, shivering over the
fire in her bedroom; Mr. Bronte was ill; outside the air was filled with
the mournful sound of the passing bell. But the four young people
sitting round the parlour hearth-place were not cold or miserable. They
were dreaming of a happy and glorious future, a great career in Art; not
for Charlotte, not for Emily or Anne, they were only girls; their dreams
were for the hope and promise of the house--for Branwell.