Brontës (51 page)

How few would believe that from sources purely imaginery such happiness could be derived – Pen cannot pourtray the deep Interest of the scenes, of the continued trains of events, I have witnessed in that little room with the low narrow bed & bare \white-washed/ walls – twenty miles away – What a treasure is thought! What a privilege is reverie – I am thankful that I have the power of solacing myself with the dream of creations whose reality I shall never behold – May I never lose that power may I never feel it growing weaker – If I should how little pleasure will life afford me – its lapses of shade are so wide so gloomy Its gleams of sunshine so limited & dim –!
⁴⁰

That liberty, so vital to Emily, which Charlotte took pains to imply to the outside world was physical and dependent on the moorlands of home, was actually the liberty of mind and imagination. Home was the only place which could offer her the unbridled indulgence of Gondal fantasy.

Emily's place at school was immediately taken by Anne, whose dependence on Gondal was much less extreme than her sister's.
⁴¹
Anne's career at Roe Head was undistinguished. Quiet and diligent, she left no abiding impression on either her teachers or her school-fellows, though she apparently won the prize for good conduct in December 1836 and made at least one, much younger friend. Even Charlotte made only passing references to her presence: Anne tells her that George Nussey had just gone past or appears as a ‘quiet image, sitting at her lessons on the opposite side of the table –'.
⁴²
Yet this apparent ordinariness concealed a struggle that was just as intense, if not as dramatic, as Emily's. It was the first time that Anne, now nearly sixteen, had ever left home to go to school. All her life she had been the cherished and protected ‘little one', the baby of the family, who was always spoken of in terms of more than ordinary affection. Patrick had initially dismissed the idea of sending her away to school, preferring to keep ‘my dear little Anne' at home for another year ‘under her Aunt's tuition, and my own'.
⁴³

Later, as a governess, Anne was to pour out her longing for home in poetry and there is no reason to believe that she was not just as homesick at Roe Head as Emily. Like her older sister Charlotte, however, Anne had a core of steel, a sense of duty and obligation which seems to have been flawed, if not altogether missing, in Emily. She could not fail to be aware that financial sacrifices were being made at home and by Charlotte, whose teaching salary was almost totally absorbed in the cost of providing her with an education. ‘After clothing herself and Anne,' Charlotte was to confess to
Mary Taylor, ‘there was nothing left, though she had hoped to be able to save something.'
⁴⁴
Like Charlotte, Anne clearly believed it was her duty to get an education that would enable her to earn her own living. She therefore bravely embarked upon her schooldays, pragmatically determined to make the best of things.

Charlotte herself was faced with an uphill task, but she made a determined effort to succeed in her chosen profession, throwing all her energies into teaching. There would appear to have been no more than about half a dozen boarding pupils, though Charlotte's weariness suggests that there may have been more day pupils. Of those whose names are mentioned, Anne Brontë was by far the oldest at nearly sixteen; Ann Cook, Anne's friend, and her sister, Ellen, were ten- and eight-year-old sisters from Dewsbury; there were the Miss Uptons, a Miss Caris, and Charlotte's
bêtes noires
, the Misses Lister and Marriott, who were possibly related.
⁴⁵
Most of Charlotte's day was taken up with the endless routine of taking and hearing lessons, supervising the girls during their hours of study or escorting them on their daily walks. Here and there she was able to snatch the odd half hour for herself. These opportunities, doubly precious because they were so rare, she seized upon to dream or write about her beloved Angria. Branwell, deeply immersed in the chronicling of Angria at home, fed her imagination with bulletins on the latest developments.

About a week since I got a letter from Branwell containing a most exquisitely characteristic epistle from Northangerland to his daughter – It is astonishing what a soothing and delightful tone that letter seemed to speak – I lived on its contents for days, <&> in every pause of employment – it came chiming in like some sweet bar of music – bringing with it agreeable thoughts such as I had for many weeks been a stranger to –
⁴⁶

So compulsive was Charlotte's need to escape from the mundanities of life at Roe Head that the exotic Angrian figures and scenes of her imagination acquired a reality of their own. One particular moment in the winter term of 1835 made such a deep impression on her that she wrote about it on her return home at Christmas.

Never shall I Charlotte Brontë forget what a voice of wild & wailing music Now came thrillingly to my mind's almost to my body's ear nor how distinctly I sitting in the schoolroom at Roe-head <& saw> saw the Duke of Zamorna
leaning against that obelisk with the mute marble Victory above him, the fern waving at his feet his black horse turned loose grazing among the heather, the moonlight so mild & so exquisitely tranquil sleeping upon that vast & vacant road & the African sky quivering & shaking with stars expanded above all, I was quite gone I had really utterly forgot where I was and all the gloom & cheerlessness of my situation I felt myself breathing quick & short as I beheld the Duke lifting up his sable crest which undulated as the plume of a hearse waves to the wind & knew that that music which as mournfully triumphant as the Scriptural verse

‘Oh Grave where is thy sting Oh Death where

is thy Victory'

was exciting him & quickening his ever rapid pulse ‘Miss Brontë what are you thinking about?' said a voice that dissipated all the charm & Miss Lister thrust her little rough black head into my face, ‘Sic transit' &c.
⁴⁷

The Christmas holidays at the end of 1835 must have come as a welcome relief. At home, where there was the stimulation and encouragement of a sympathetic brother and sisters, the Angrian dream could be followed through without interruption and recorded at blissful length. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that as soon as she arrived home Charlotte launched into a long poem looking back over the foundation of the imaginary worlds and celebrating their continued power to excite her.

When I sat 'neath a strange roof-tree

With nought I knew or loved around me

Oh how my heart shrank back to thee

Then I felt how fast thy ties had bound \me/ …

Then sadly I longed for my own dear home

For a sight of the old familliar faces

I drew near the casement & sat in its gloom

And looked forth on the tempests desolate traces

Ever anon that wolfish breeze

The dead leaves & sere from their boughs was shaking

And I gazed on the hills through the leafless trees

And felt as if my heart was breaking

Where was I e're an hour had past

Still list'ning to that dreary blast

Still in that mirthless lifeless room

Cramped, chilled & deadened by its gloom

No! thanks to that bright darling dream

Its power had shot one kindling gleam

Its voice had sent one wakening cry

And bade me lay my sorrows by

And called me earnestly to come

And borne me to my moorland home

I heard no more the senseless sound

Of task & chat that hummed around

I saw no more that grisly night

Closing the day's sepulchral light
⁴⁸

For a few brief weeks, Charlotte was free to indulge her fantasies though the need to do so was less compelling in the liberating atmosphere of home.

Charlotte and Anne discovered that all had not gone smoothly at home in their absence. Their father, too, had had a difficult six months. The campaign by Dissenters to disestablish the Church of England, which Patrick had so vigorously opposed in his quarrel with John Winterbotham, the Baptist minister, had suddenly taken on a new and alarming form. On 22 September 1835, the annual meeting had been held in Haworth Church to elect the surveyors and constable and lay a rate on the parish to cover church expenses for the forthcoming year. The former constable had been a political partisan in the summer Parliamentary elections, so his candidature was vehemently contested. Even more stormy was the attempt to impose a church rate which met with ‘the most marked opposition by the people generally. They seemed to be fully determined not to submit any longer to the gross injustice of taxing all to support the religion of one sect.'
⁴⁹

Haworth, with its large Dissenting population and a double burden of dues, payable both to its own church and to the parish church in Bradford, was in the forefront of what was to become a national and annual campaign to oppose the granting of church rates. Even more seriously, the chief role in the anti-church rate lobby was assumed by James Greenwood, the Baptist mill owner of Bridge End Mills in Haworth. He was not only a more influential and heavyweight opponent than Winterbotham, but also, following
a family dispute, was at loggerheads with his brother, Joseph Greenwood of Spring Head, who was the main church trustee.
⁵⁰
As the churchwardens already had a surplus of ten pounds from the rate of the previous year, the Anglicans were not in a good position to argue their need. James Greenwood took the lead in denouncing as ‘impolitic and improper' a proposal from one of the churchwardens, George Taylor, that they should draw on the poor rate once the ten pounds had been expended. He followed this up by taking advantage of the turbulent state of the meeting to propose that the question of laying a church rate should be deferred to the following year. Though this might appear a compromise position, it was effectively a victory for the Dissenters, who had successfully fought off the imposition of a church rate. This left the churchwardens (and Patrick) with the impossible task of maintaining and repairing the church for a year out of a sum of only ten pounds – which would not even pay the salaries of the two parish clerks.
⁵¹

The sudden refusal to approve a church rate, which in the past had always gone through on the nod, seems to have thrown Patrick into a panic. The spectre of a disestablished Church of England loomed closer, achieved, not by Parliamentary measure, but by the wilful and concerted opposition of determined Dissenters at the local level. James Greenwood's influence could only be counteracted by promoting his brother. The day after the meeting, Patrick wrote to the Earl of Harewood, urgently renewing his plea to have Joseph Greenwood appointed to the magistracy. Two weeks later he signed a petition got up by the gentlemen of Keighley, requesting the earl, as Lord Lieutenant, to act swiftly in replacing the late Mr Ferrand in the magistracy. Fearing to be thought too importunate, Patrick wrote once more to the earl, explaining that the petition did not originate or have any connection with him and that he had not divulged the contents of the earl's letters to himself.
⁵²
No positive response was forthcoming and on 26 December Patrick wrote in a state of high excitement and distress to Henry Heap, vicar of Bradford, asking him to intervene and lead a personal deputation to the Lord Lieutenant.

Our case is now becoming very Urgent, as the Enemies, of the Church, in this place, are in active cooperation, and are determined to apply to Government, through the medium of Lord Morpeth, and Mr Baines, in order, to have a Whig Magistrate appointed for Haworth,
over the head of the Lord Lieutenant
!!! – as they
have
already,
insolently
, and
shamefully
done in many other parts of the
Kingdom – I wish, that the Lord Lieutenant, could be informed of this, as soon as
possible
– I have written to his Lordship, on the subject, so frequently, that I am ashamed to trouble Him in this way, any more –
⁵³

Heap reluctantly forwarded Patrick's letter, apologizing for its vehemence by pointing out that Patrick ‘is a very warm Conservative', but adding his own, rather weary, plea: ‘If Mr Greenwood could be soon admitted to the Privilege of becoming a Magistrate for that truly important part of my Parish, I should be grateful to your Lordship –'.
⁵⁴
At last galvanized into action, the Lord Lieutenant made enquiries about Joseph Greenwood's suitability and put arrangements in train for his appointment. Patrick's campaign, which had lasted well over a year, was finally vindicated when Greenwood was sworn in as a Justice of the Peace on 28 June 1836.
⁵⁵

The problems Patrick was facing with the Dissenters in Haworth came at a time when he was increasingly unable to cope with the sheer weight of his parish duties. The population had expanded by over a third since he had first become minister of Haworth. With nearly 6,000 people in the chapelry, the number of funerals and baptisms had increased dramatically. In 1834 and again in 1835 he performed 135 burials, compared with around a hundred in his first few years. Even more startling was the number of baptisms, which reflects not only the population increase but also an active campaign on Patrick's part. By 1834 these had risen to 286, rising again to 301 – an average of twenty-five baptisms a month – the following year. On occasions, he personally baptized twenty children a day.
⁵⁶
Once in a while one of the neighbouring clerics, such as Thomas Brooksbank Charnock, son of the former minister of Haworth,
⁵⁷
would help out, but most of the ceaseless round of duty was performed by the fifty-eight-year-old Patrick himself. Permanent assistance had now become an absolute necessity and at about the same time as his daughters returned from Roe Head, Patrick employed a curate.