Love and Marriage
In 1841, John Kenyon, formerly a school-fellow of Browning's father, now
an elderly lover of literature and of literary society, childless,
wealthy, generous-hearted, proposed to Browning that he should call upon
Elizabeth Barrett, Kenyon's cousin once removed, who was already
distinguished as a writer of ardent and original verse. Browning
consented, but the poetess "through some blind dislike of seeing
strangers"--as she afterwards told a correspondent--declined, alleging,
not untruly, as a ground of refusal, that she was then ailing in
health.[35] Three years later Kenyon sent his cousin's new volumes of
_Poems_ as a gift to Sarianna Browning; her brother, lately returned
from Italy, read these volumes with delight and admiration, and found on
one of the pages a reference in verse to his "Pomegranates" of a kind
that could not but give him a vivid moment of pleasure. Might he not
relieve his sense of obligation by telling Miss Barrett, in a letter,
that he admired her work? Mr Kenyon encouraged the suggestion, and
though to love and be silent might on the whole have been more to
Browning's liking, he wrote--January 10, 1845--and writing truthfully he
wrote enthusiastically.[36] Miss Barrett, never quite recovered from a
riding accident in early girlhood, and stricken down for long in both
soul and body by the shock of her brother's death by drowning, lay from
day to day and month to month, in an upper room of her father's house in
Wimpole Street, occupied, upon her sofa, with her books and papers--her
Greek dramatists and her Elizabethan poets--shut out from the world,
with windows for ever closed, and with only an occasional female
visitor, to gossip of the social and literary life of London. Never was
a spirit of more vivid fire enclosed within a tomb. The letter from
Browning, "the author of _Paracelsus_ and King of the mystics," threw
her, she says, "into ecstasics." Her reply has a thrill of pleasure
running through its graceful half-restraint, and she holds out a hope
that when spring shall arrive a meeting in the invalid chamber between
her and her new correspondent may be possible.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
_From a drawing in chalk by_ FIELD TALFOURD _in the National Portrait
Gallery_.]
From the first a headlong yet delicate speed was in her pen; from the
first there was much to say. "Oh, for a horse with wings!" Mr Browning,
who had praised her poems, must tell her their faults. He must himself
speak out in noble verse, not merely utter himself through the masks of
_dramatis personae_. Can she, as he alleges, really help him by her
sympathy, by her counsel? Let him put ceremony aside and treat her _en
bon camerade_; he will find her "an honest man on the whole." She
intends to set about knowing him as much as possible immediately. What
poets have been his literary sponsors? Are not the critics wrong to deny
contemporary genius? What poems are those now in his portfolio? Is
not Æschylus the divinest of divine Greek spirits? but how inadequately
her correspondent has spoken of Dante! Shall they indeed--as he
suggests--write something together? And then--is he duly careful of his
health, careful against overwork? And is not gladness a duty? to give
back to the world the joy that God has given to his poet? Though,
indeed, to lean out of the window of this House of Life is for some the
required, perhaps the happiest attitude.
And why--replies the second voice--lean out of the window? His own foot
is only on the stair. Where are the faults of her poems, of which she
had inquired? Yes, he will speak out, and he is now planning such a poem
as she demands. But she it is, who has indeed spoken out in her verse?
In his portfolio is a drama about a Moor of Othello's country, one
Luria, with strange entanglings among his Florentines. See this, and
this, how grandly it is said in the Greek of Eschylus! But Dante, all
Dante is in his heart and head. And he has seen Tennyson face to face;
and he knows and loves Carlyle; and he has visited Sorrento and trod
upon Monte Calvano. Oh, the world in this year 1845 must be studied,
though solitude is best. He has been "polking" all night, and walked
home while the morning thrushes piped; and it is true that his head
aches. She shall read and amend his manuscript poems. To hear from her
is better than to see anybody else. But when shall he see her too?
So proceed from January to May the letters of Rudel and the still
invisible Lady of Wimpole Street. It was happy comradeship on her part,
but on his it was already love. His spirit had recognised, had touched,
a spirit, which included all that he most needed, and union with which
would be the most certain and substantial prize offered by life. There
was nothing fatuous in this inward assurance; it was the simplest and
most self-evidencing truth. The word "mistrustful"--"do not see me as
long as you are mistrustful of"--with its implied appeal to her generous
confidence, precipitated the visit. How could she be mistrustful? Of
course he may come: but the wish to do so was unwisely exorbitant. On
the afternoon of May 20th, 1845, Browning first set eyes on his future
wife, a little figure, which did not rise from the sofa, pale ringleted
face, great eager, wistfully pathetic eyes. He believed that she was
suffering from some incurable disease of the spine, and that whatever
remained to her of life must be spent in this prostrate manner of an
invalid.
A movement of what can only be imperfectly described as pity entered
into his feeling for her: it was less pity than the joy of believing
that he could confer as well as receive. But his first thought on
leaving was only the fear that he might have stayed too long or might
have spoken too loud. The visit was on Tuesday. On Thursday, Browning
wrote the only letter of the correspondence which has been destroyed,
one which overflowed with gratitude, and was immediately and rightly
interpreted by the receiver as tending towards an offer, implied here,
but not expressed, of marriage. It was read in pain and agitation; her
heart indeed, but not her will, was shaken; and, after a sleepless
night, she wrote words effective to bar--as she believed--all further
advance in a direction fatal to his happiness. The intemperate things
he had said must be wholly forgotten between them; or else she will not
see him again; friends, comrades in the life of the intellect they might
continue to be. For once and once only Browning lied to Miss Barrett,
and he lied a little awkwardly; his letter was only one of too
boisterous gratitude; his punishment--that of one infinitely her
inferior--was undeserved; let her return to him the offending letter.
Returned accordingly it was, and immediately destroyed by the writer. In
happier days, Miss Barrett hoped to recover what then would have been
added to a hoard which she treasured; but, Browning could not preserve
the words which she had condemned.
Wise guardian-angels smile at each other, gently and graciously, when a
lover is commanded to withdraw and to reappear in the character of a
friend. An incoming tide may seem for a while to pause; but by and by we
look and the rock is covered. Browning very dutifully submitted and
became a literary counsellor and comrade. The first stadium in the
progress of his fortunes opened in January and closed before the end of
May; the second closed at the end of August. To a friend Miss Barrett,
assured that he never could be more, might well be generous; visits were
permitted, and it was left to Browning to fix the days; the postal
shuttle threw swift and swifter threads between New Cross, Hatcham, and
50 Wimpole Street. The verse of Tennyson, the novels of George Sand were
discussed; her translations from the Greek were considered; his
manuscript poems were left for her corrections; but transcription must
not weary him into headaches; she would herself by and by act as an
amanuensis. Each of the correspondents could not rest happy until the
other had been proved to be in every intellectual and moral quality the
superior. Browning's praise could not be withheld; it seemed to his
friend--and she wrote always with crystalline sincerity--to be an
illusion which humbled her. Glad memories of Italy, sad memories of
England and the invalid life were exchanged; there is nothing that she
can teach him--she declares--except grief. And yet to him the day of his
visit is his light through the dark week. He is like an Eastern Jew who
creeps through alleys in the meanest garb, destitute to all wayfarers'
eyes, who yet possesses a hidden palace-hall of marble and gold. Even in
matters ecclesiastical, the footsteps of the two friends had moved with
one consent; each of them preferred a chapel to a church; each was
Puritan in a love of simplicity in the things of religion; each disowned
the Puritan narrowness, and the grey aridity of certain schools of
dissent. On June 14--with the warranty of her published poem which had
told of flowers sent in a letter--Browning encloses in his envelope a
yellow rose; and again and again summer flowers arrive bringing colour
and sweetness into the dim city room. Once Miss Barrett can report that
she has been out of doors, and with no fainting-fit, yet unable to
venture in the carriage as far as the Park; still her bodily strength is
no better than that of a tired bird; she is moreover, years older than
her friend (the difference was in fact that between thirty-nine and
thirty-three); and the thunder of a July storm has shaken her nerves.
There is some thought of her seeking health as far off as Malta or even
Alexandria; but her father will jestingly have it that there is nothing
wrong with her except "obstinacy and dry toast." Thus cordially, gladly,
sadly, and always with quick leapings of the indomitable flame of the
spirit, these letters of friend to friend run on during the midsummer
days. Browning was willing and happy to wait; a confidence possessed him
that in the end he would be known fully and aright.
On August 25th came a great outpouring of feeling from Miss Barrett. She
took her friend so far into her confidence as to speak plainly of the
household difficulties caused by her father's autocratic temper. The
conversation was immediately followed by a letter in which she
endeavoured to soften or qualify the impression her words had given, and
her heart, now astir and craving sympathy, led her on to write of her
most sorrowful and sacred memories--those connected with her brother's
death. Browning was deeply moved, most grateful for her trust in him,
but she had forbidden him to notice the record of her grief. He longed
to return confidence with confidence, to tell what was urgent in his
heart. But the bar of three months since had not been removed, and he
hesitated to speak. His two days' silence was unintelligible to his
friend and caused her inexpressible anxiety. Could any words of hers
have displeased him? Or was he seriously unwell? She wrote on August
30th a little letter asking "the alms of just one line" to relieve her
fears. When snow-wreaths are loosened, a breath will bring down the
avalanche. It was impossible to receive this appeal and not to declare
briefly, decisively, his unqualified trust in her, his entire devotion,
his assured knowledge of what would constitute his supreme happiness.
Miss Barrett's reply is perfect in its disinterested safe-guarding of
his freedom and his future good as she conceived it. She is deeply
grateful, but she cannot allow him to empty his water-gourds into the
sand. What could she give that it would not be ungenerous to give? Yet
his part has not been altogether the harder of the two. The subject must
be left. Such subjects, however, could not be left until the facts were
ascertained. Browning would not urge her a step beyond her actual
feelings, but he must know whether her refusal was based solely on her
view of his supposed interests. And with the true delicacy of frankness
she admits that even the sense of her own unworthiness is not the
insuperable obstacle. No--but is she not a confirmed invalid? She
thought that she had done living when he came and sought her out. If he
would be wise, all these thoughts of her must be abandoned. Such an
answer brought a great calm to Browning's heart; he did not desire to
press her further; let things rest; it is for her to judge; if what she
regards as an obstacle should be removed, she will certainly then act in
his best interests; to himself this matter of health creates no
difficulty; to sit by her for an hour a day, to write out what was in
him for the world, and so to save his soul, would be to attain his ideal
in life. What woman would not be moved to the inmost depths by such
words? She insists that his noble extravagances must in no wise bind
him; but all the bitternesses of life have been taken away from her;
henceforth she is his for everything except to do him harm; the future
rests with God and with him. And amid the letters containing these
grave sentences, so full of fate, first appears a reference to the pet
name of her childhood--the "Ba" which is all that here serves, like
Swift's "little language," to indulge a foolish tenderness; and the
translator of _Prometheus_ is able to put Greek characters to their most
delightful use in her "[Greek: o philtate]."
In love-poetry of the Middle Age the allegorical personage named
"Danger" plays a considerable part, and it is to be feared that Danger
too often signified a husband. In Wimpole Street that alarming personage
always meant a father. Edward Moulton Barrett was a man of integrity in
business, of fortitude in adversity, of a certain stern piety, and from
the superior position of a domestic autocrat he could even indulge
himself in occasional fiats of affection. We need not question that
there were springs of water in the rock, and in earlier days they had
flowed freely. But now if at night he visited his ailing daughter's room
for a few minutes and prayed with her and for her, it meant that on such
an occasion she was not too criminal to merit the pious intercession. If
he called her "puss," it meant that she had not recently been an
undutiful child of thirty-nine or forty years old. A circus-trainer
probably rewards his educated dogs and horses with like amiable
familiarities, and he is probably regarded by his troupe with affection
mingled with awe. Mr Barrett had been appointed circus-trainer by the
divine authority of parentage. No one visited 50 Wimpole Street, where
there were grown-up sons as well as daughters, without special
permission from the lord of the castle; he authorised the visits of Mr
Browning, the poet, being fondly assured that Mr Browning's intentions
were not those of a burglar, or--worse--an amorous knight-errant. If any
daughter of his conceived the possibility of transferring her prime love
and loyalty from himself to another, she was even as Aholah and Aholibah
who doted upon the Assyrians, captains, and rulers clothed most
gorgeously, all of them desirable young men. "If a prince of Eldorado"
said Elizabeth Barrett to her sister Arabel, "should come with a
pedigree of lineal descent from some signory in the moon in one hand,
and a ticket of good behaviour from the nearest Independent chapel in
the other--" "Why, even then," interrupted Arabel, "it would not _do_"
One admirable trait, however, Mr Moulton Barrett did possess--he was
nearly always away from home till six o'clock.
The design that Miss Barrett should winter abroad was still under
consideration, but the place now fixed upon was Pisa. Suddenly, in
mid-September, she finds herself obliged to announce that "it is all
over with Pisa." Her father had vetoed the undutiful project, and had
ceased to pay her his evening visits; only in his separate and private
orisons were all her sins remembered. To admit the fact that he did not
love her enough to give her a chance of recovery was bitter, yet it
could not be denied. Her life was now a thing of value to herself, for
it was precious to another. She beat against the bars of her cage;
planned a rebellious flight; made inquiries respecting ships and berths;
but she could not travel alone; and she would not subject either of her
sisters to the heavy displeasure of the ruler of the house. Robert
Browning held strong opinions on the duty of resisting evil, and if evil
assume the guise of parental authority it is none the _less_--he
believed--to be resisted. To submit to the will of another is often
easy; to act on one's own best judgment is hard; our faculties were
given us to put to use; to be passively obedient is really to evade
probation--so with almost excessive emphasis Browning set forth a
cardinal article of his creed; but Elizabeth Barrett was not, like him,
"ever a fighter," and, after all, London in 1845 was not bleak and grey
as it had been a year previously--"for reasons," to adopt a reiterated
word of the correspondence, "for reasons."
On two later occasions Browning sang the same battle-hymn against the
enemies of God and with a little too much vehemence--not to say
truculence--as is the way with earnest believers. His gentler
correspondent could not tolerate the thought of duelling, and she
disapproved of punishment by death. Browning argues that for one who
values the good opinion of society--not for himself--that good opinion
is a possession which may, like other possessions, be defended at the
risk of a man's life, and as for capital punishment, is not evil to be
suppressed at any price? Is not a miscreant to be expelled out of God's
world? The difference of opinion was the first that had arisen between
the friends, and Browning's words carried with them a certain sense of
pain in the thought that they could in any thing stand apart. Happily
the theoretical fire-eater had faith superior to his own
arguments;--faith in a woman's insight as finer than his own;--and he is
let off with a gratified rebuke for preternatural submissiveness and for
arraying her in pontifical garments of authority which hang loose upon
so small a figure. The other application of his doctrine of resisting
evil was even more trying to her feelings and the preacher was instant
certainly out of season. Not the least important personage in the
Wimpole Street house was Miss Barrett's devoted companion Flush. Loyal
and loving to his mistress Flushie always was; yet to his lot some
canine errors fell; he eyed a visitor's umbrella with suspicion; he
resented perhaps the presence of a rival; he did not behave nicely to a
poet who had not written verses in his honour; for which he was duly
rebuked by his mistress--the punishment was not capital--and was
propitiated with bags of cakes by the intruder. When the day for their
flight drew near Miss Barrett proposed somewhat timidly that her maid
Wilson should accompany her to Italy, but she was gratefully confident
that Flush could not be left behind. Just at this anxious moment a
dreadful thing befell; a gang of dog-stealers, presided over by the
arch-fiend Taylor, bore Flushie away into the horror of some obscure and
vulgar London alley. He was a difficult dog to capture and his ransom
must be in proportion to his resistance. There was a terrible tradition
of a lady who had haggled about the sum demanded and had received her
dog's head in a parcel. Miss Barrett was eager to part with her six
guineas and rescue her faithful companion from misery. Was this an
occasion for preaching from ethical heights the sin of making a
composition with evil-doers? Yet Browning, still "a fighter" and armed
with desperate logic, must needs declaim vehemently against the iniquity
of such a bargain. It is something to rejoice at that he was dexterously
worsted in argument, being compelled to admit that if Italian banditti
were to carry off his "Ba," he would pay down every farthing he might
have in the world to recover her, and this before he entered on that
chase of fifty years which was not to terminate until he had shot down
with his own hand the receiver of the infamous bribe.
The journey of Miss Barrett to Pisa having been for the present
abandoned, friendship, now acknowledged to be more than friendship,
resumed its accustomed ways. Visits, it was agreed, were not to be too
frequent--three in each fortnight might prudently be ventured; but
Wednesday might have to be exchanged for Thursday or Saturday for
Monday, if on the first elected day Miss Mitford--dear and generous
friend--threatened to come with her talk, talk, talk, or Mrs Jameson
with her drawings and art-criticism, or some unknown lion-huntress who
had thrown her toils, or kindly Mr Kenyon, who knew of Browning's
visits, and who when he called would peer through his all-scrutinising
spectacles with an air of excessive penetration or too extreme
unconsciousness. And there were times--later on--when an avalanche of
aunts and uncles would precipitate itself on Wimpole
Street--perspicacious aunts and amiable uncles who were wished as far
off as Seringapatam, and who wrung from an impatient niece--to whom
indeed they were dear--the cry "The barbarians are upon us." Miss
Barrett's sisters, the gentle Henrietta, who preferred a waltz to the
best sermon of an Independent minister, and the more serious Arabel, who
preferred the sermon of an Independent minister to the best waltz, were
informed of the actual state of affairs. They were trustworthy and
sympathetic; Henrietta had special reasons of her own for sympathy;
Captain Surtees Cook, who afterwards became her husband, might be
discussing affairs with her in the drawing-room at the same time that Mr
Browning the poet--"the man of the pomegranates" as he was named by Mr
Barrett--held converse on literature with Elizabeth in the upper
chamber. The household was honeycombed with treasons.
For the humours of superficial situations and passing incidents Miss
Barrett had a lively sense, and she found some relief in playing with
them; but with a nature essentially truthful like hers the necessity of
concealment was a cause of distress. The position was no less painful to
Browning, and in the end it became intolerable. Yet while there were
obstructions and winding ways in the shallows, in the depths were
flawless truth and inviolable love. What sentimental persons fancy and
grow effusive over was here the simplest and yet always a miraculous
reality--"He of the heavens and earth brought us together so
wonderfully, holding two souls in his hand."[37] In the most
illuminating words of each correspondent no merely private, or peculiar
feeling is expressed; it is the common wave of human passion, the common
love of man and woman, that here leaps from the depths to the height,
and over which the iris of beauty ever and anon appears with--it is
true--an unusual intensity. And so in reading the letters we have no
sense of prying into secrets; there are no secrets to be discovered;
what is most intimate is most common; only here what is most common
rises up to its highest point of attainment. "I never thought of being
happy through you or by you or in you even, your good was all my idea
of good, and _is_" "Let me be too near to be seen.... Once I used to be
more uneasy, and to think that I ought to _make_ you see me. But Love is
better than sight." "I love your love too much. And _that_ is the worst
fault, my beloved, I can ever find in my love of _you_." These are
sentences that tell of what can be no private possession, being as
liberal and free as our light and air. And if the shadow of a cloud
appears--appears and passes away--it is a shadow that has floated over
many other hearts beside that of the writer: "How dreadfully natural it
would be to me, seem to me, if you _did_ leave off loving me! How it
would be like the sun's setting ... and no more wonder. Only, more
darkness." The old exchange of tokens, the old symbolisms--a lock of
hair, a ring, a picture, a child's penholder--are good enough for these
lovers, as they had been for others before them. What is diffused
through many of the letters is gathered up and is delivered from the
alloy of superficial circumstance in the "Sonnets from the Portuguese."
in reading which we are in the presence of womanhood--womanhood
delivered from death by love and from darkness by; light--as much as in
that of an individual woman. And the disclosure in poems and in letters
being without reserve affects us as no disclosure, but simply as an
adequate expression of the truth universal.
One obstacle to the prospective marriage was steadily diminishing in
magnitude; Miss Barrett, with a new joy in life, new hopes, new
interests, gained in health and strength from month to month. The winter
of 1845-46 was unusually mild. In January one day she walked--walked,
and was not carried--downstairs to the drawing-room. Spring came early
that year; in the first week of February lilacs and hawthorn were in
bud, elders in leaf, thrushes and white-throats in full song. In April
Miss Barrett gave pledges of her confidence in the future by buying a
bonnet; a little like a Quaker's, it seemed to her, but the learned
pronounced it fashionable. Early in May, that bonnet, with its owner and
Arabel and Flush, appeared in Regent's Park, while sunshine was
filtering through the leaves. The invalid left her carriage, set foot
upon the green grass, reached up and plucked a little laburnum blossom
("for reasons"), saw the "strange people moving about like phantoms of
life," and felt that she alone and the idea of one who was absent were
real--"and Flush," she adds with a touch of remorse, "and Flush a little
too." Many drives and walks followed; at the end of May she feloniously
gathered some pansies, the flowers of Paracelsus, and this
notwithstanding the protest of Arabel, in the Botanical Gardens, and
felt the unspeakable beauty of the common grass. Later in the year wild
roses were found at Hampstead; and on a memorable day the
invalid--almost perfect in health--was guided by kind and learned Mrs
Jameson through the pictures and statues of the poet Rogers's
collection. On yet another occasion it was Mr Kenyon who drove her to
see the strange new sight of the Great Western train coming in; the
spectators procured chairs, but the rush of people and the earth-thunder
of the engine almost overcame Miss Barrett's nerves, which on a later
trial shrank also from the more harmonious thunder of the organ of the
Abbey. Sundays came when she enjoyed the privilege of sitting if not in
a pew at least in the secluded vestry of a Chapel, and joining unseen
in those simple forms of prayer and praise which she valued most.
Altogether something like a miracle in the healing of the sick had been
effected.
Money difficulty there was none. Browning, it is true, was not in a
position to undertake the expenses of even such a simple household
economy as they both desired. He was prepared to seek for any honourable
service--diplomatic or other--if that were necessary. But Miss Barrett
was resolved against task-work which might divert him from his proper
vocation as a poet. And, thanks to the affection of an uncle, she had
means--some £400 a year, capable of considerable increase by
re-investment of the principal--which were enough for two persons who
could be content with plain living in Italy. Browning still urged that
he should be the bread-winner; he implored that her money should be made
over to her own family, so that no prejudice against his action could be
founded on any mercenary feeling; but she remained firm, and would
consent only to its transference to her two sisters in the event of his
death. And so the matter rested and was dismissed from the thoughts of
both the friends.
Having the great patience of love, Browning would not put the least
pressure upon Miss Barrett as to the date of their marriage; if waiting
long was for her good, then he would wait. But matters seemed tending
towards the desired end. In January he begged her to "begin thinking";
before that month had closed it was agreed that they should look forward
to the late summer or early autumn as the time of their departure to
Italy. Not until March would Miss Barrett permit Browning to fetter his
free will by any engagement; then, to satisfy his urgent desire, she
declared that she was willing to chain him, rivet him--"Do you feel how
the little fine chain twists round and round you? do you hear the stroke
of the riveting?" But the links were of a kind to be loosed if need be
at a moment's notice. June came, and with it a proposal from a
well-intentioned friend, Miss Bayley, to accompany her to Italy, if, by
and by, such a change of abode seemed likely to benefit her health. Miss
Barrett was prepared to accept the offer if it seemed right to Browning,
or was ready, if he thought it expedient, to wait for another year. His
voice was given, with such decision as was possible, in favour of their
adhering to the plan formed for the end of summer; they both felt the
present position hazardous and tormenting; to wear the mask for another
year would suffocate them; they were "standing on hot scythes."
Accordingly during the summer weeks there is much poring over
guide-books to Italy; much weighing of the merits of this place of
residence and of that. Shall it be Sorrento? Shall it be La Cava? or
Pisa? or Ravenna? or, for the matter of that, would not Seven Dials be
as happy a choice as any, if only they could live and work side by side?
There is much balancing of the comparative ease and the comparative cost
of routes, the final decision being in favour of reaching Italy by way
of France. And as the time draws nearer there is much searching of
time-tables, in the art of mastering which Robert Browning seems hardly
to have been an expert. May Mr Kenyon be told? Or is it not kinder and
wiser to spare him the responsibility of knowing? Mrs Jameson, who had
made a friendly proposal similar to that of Miss Bayley,--may she be
half-told? Or shall she be invited to join the travellers on their way?
What books shall be brought? What baggage? And how may a box and a
carpet bag be conveyed out of 50 Wimpole Street with least observation?
It was deeply repugnant to Miss Barrett's feelings to practise reserve
on such a matter as this with her father. Her happier companion had
informed his father and mother of their plans, and had obtained from the
elder Mr Browning a sum of money, asked for as a loan rather than a
gift, sufficient to cover the immediate expenses of the journey. Mr
Barrett was entitled to all respect, and as for affection he received
from his daughter enough to make the appearance of disloyalty to him
carry a real pang to her heart. But she believed that she had virtually
no choice; her nerves were not of iron; the roaring of the Great Western
express she might face but not an angry father. A loud voice, and a
violent "scene," such as she had witnessed, until she fainted, when
Henrietta was the culprit, would have put an end to the Italian project
through mere physical collapse and ruin. Far better therefore to
withdraw quietly from the house, and trust to the effect of a subsequent
pleading in all earnestness for reconciliation.
[Illustration: Yours very truly, Robert Browning. _From an engraving by_
J.G. ARMYTAGE.]
As summer passed into early autumn the sense of dangers and difficulties
accumulating grew acute. "The ground," wrote Browning, "is crumbling
from beneath our feet with its chances and opportunities." In one of the
early days of August a thunder-storm with torrents of rain detained him
for longer than usual at Wimpole Street; the lightning was the lesser
terror of the day, for in the evening entered Mr Barrett to his daughter
with disagreeable questioning, and presently came the words--accompanied
by a gaze of stern displeasure--"It appears that _that man_ has spent
the whole day with you." The louring cloud passed, but it was felt that
visits to be prudent must be rare; for the first time a week went by
without a meeting. Early in September George Barrett, a kindly brother
distinguished by his constant air of dignity and importance, was
commissioned to hire a country house for the family at Dover or Reigate
or Tunbridge, while paperers and painters were to busy themselves at
Wimpole Street. The moment for immediate action had come; else all
chance of Italy might be lost for the year 1846. "We must be married
directly," wrote Browning on the morning when this intelligence arrived.
Next day a marriage license was procured. On the following morning,
Saturday, September 12th, accompanied by her maid Wilson, Miss Barrett,
after a sleepless night, left her father's house with feet that
trembled; she procured a fly, fortified her shaken nerves with a dose of
sal volatile at a chemist's shop, and drove to Marylebone Church, where
the marriage service was celebrated in the presence of two witnesses. As
she stood and knelt her central feeling was one of measureless trust, a
deep rest upon assured foundations; other women who had stood there
supported by their nearest kinsfolk--parents or sisters--had one
happiness she did not know; she needed it less because she was happier
than they.[38] Then husband and wife parted. Mrs Browning drove to
the house of her blind friend, Mr Boyd, who had been made aware of the
engagement. On his sitting-room sofa she rested and sipped his Cyprus
wine; by and by arrived her sisters with grave faces; the carriage was
driven to Hampstead Heath for the soothing happiness of the autumnal air
and sunshine; after which the three sisters returned to their father's
house; the wedding-ring was regretfully taken off; and the prayer arose
in Mrs Browning's heart that if sorrow or injury should ever follow upon
what had happened that day for either of the two, it might all fall upon
her.
Browning did not again visit at 50 Wimpole Street; it was enough to know
that his wife was well, and kept all these things gladly, tremblingly,
in her heart. For himself he felt that come what might his life had
"borne flower and fruit."[39] On the Monday week which succeeded the
marriage the Barrett family were to move to the country house that had
been taken at Little Bookham. On Saturday afternoon, a week having gone
by since the wedding, Mrs Browning and Wilson, left what had been her
home. Flush was warned to make no demonstration, and he behaved with
admirable discretion. It was "dreadful" to cause pain to her father by a
voluntary act; but another feeling sustained her:--"You _only_! As if
one said _God only_. And we shall have _Him_ beside, I pray of Him." At
Hodgson's, the stationer and bookseller's, they found Browning, and a
little later husband and wife, with the brave Wilson and the discreet
Flush, were speeding from Vauxhall to Southampton, in good time to catch
the boat for Havre. A north wind blew them vehemently from the English
coast. In the newspaper announcements of the wedding the date was to be
omitted, and Browning rejected the suggestion that on this occasion, and
with reference to the great event of his life, he should be defined to
the public as "the author of _Paracelsus_."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: _Letters of E.B.B._, i. 288.]
[Footnote 36: See _Letters of R.B. and E.B.B_., i. 281.]
[Footnote 37: E.B.B. to R.B., March 30, 1846.]
[Footnote 38: E.B.B. to R.B., Sept. 14, 1846.]
[Footnote 39: R.B. to E.B.B., Sept. 14, 1846.]