Brontës (78 page)

And, but by night, a visible birth

To all its stars is given;

And, fast as fades departing day,

When silent marsh or moorland grey

Mid evening's mist declines

Then, slowly stealing, star on star,

As night sweeps forward, from afar,

More clear and countless shines.
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This was the first of thirteen poems by Branwell which the
Halifax Guardian
published over the next six years. Eight of them, including this one, were revisions of pieces written in 1837–8; two more drew on Angrian themes and probably also dated from that period. All but two were published by Branwell under his favourite pseudonym, Northangerland, suggesting that despite his confidence in his ability he was diffident when it came to publicly acknowledging his authorship.
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The only poem which Branwell published under his own initials, ‘P.B.B.', was an eight-line squib ‘On the Melbourne Ministry', which appeared in the
Halifax Guardian
on 14 August 1841. Necessarily a composition of the moment, it celebrated the fall of the Whig Government after the July elections and the return to power of Sir Robert Peel and the Conservatives. No doubt Branwell, who had been excluded from the election activities at Haworth, attended the celebratory tea parties at the Murgatroyd Arms and the Lord Nelson in Luddenden.
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Though these two poems were the only ones to be published while Branwell was still at Luddenden Foot, his notebooks reveal that he was constantly employed in new poetic composition as well as revision of the old. The sheer quantity and quality of this poetry gives the lie to claims that his year on the railway at Luddenden Foot was simply a period of debauchery and defeatism. Interestingly, too, these poems were the most overtly autobiographical he had yet written, suggesting a new and reflective maturity. There is some evidence to indicate that Branwell felt he had not made the most of his talents. In a poem written from his lodgings at Brearley Hall on 8 August 1841, he wrote:

When I look back on former life

I scarcely know what I have been

So swift the change from strife to strife

That passes oer the wildering scene

I only feel that every power –

And thou hadst given much to me

Was spent upon the present hour

Was never turned My God to thee
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Similarly, on 19 December, a visit to Luddenden Church brought him to the realization that he was losing his sense of direction for the future because of his preoccupation with and absorption in the present.

O God! while I in pleasures wiles

Count hours and years as one

And deem that wrapt in pleasures smil[e]s

My joys can neer be done

Give me the stern sustaining power

To look into the past

And see the darkly shadowed hour

Which \I/ must meet at last
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Such sentiments were the exception to the rule, however, for most of Branwell's poems written at Luddenden Foot were charged with ambition, energy and optimism. Though Charlotte's evident scorn at the lowliness of his position may have stung his pride, Branwell felt that his present, comparatively humble station in life was no impediment to future greatness. The voice of ambition continued to call:

Amid the worlds wide din around

I hear from far a solemn Sound

That says “Remember Me!” …

I when I heard it sat amid

The bustle of a Town like room

Neath skies, with smoke stain'd vapours hid,

By windows, made to show their gloom –

The desk that held my Ledger book

Beneath the thundering rattle shook

Of Engines passing by

The bustle of the approaching train

Was all I hoped to rouse the brain

Or startle apathy
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Branwell evidently took comfort in comparing his own lowly position to that of men who had gone on to achieve greatness. The storms of a typically grim December day,

The desolate earth – The Wintry Sky –

The ceas[e]less rain showers driving by –

The farewell of the year

did not depress him but rather inspired him to remember the victories of mankind in the face of adversity. Citing Galileo, Tasso, Milton, Johnson, Cowper and Burns – all except Galileo, significantly, writers – he went on to consider how each of them had overcome poverty, low birth, imprisonment, even physical disability, to achieve immortality. Similarly, in the autumn of 1841 he wrote the first of three versions of a long poem about Horatio Nelson, which was evidently inspired by ‘Nelsoni Mors', a poem by his father's Cambridge friend, Henry Kirke White. The poem followed Nelson from his unpromising childhood to his glorious death at Trafalgar. In choosing his subject, Branwell must have been aware of the similarities in their backgrounds: Nelson, too, was a parsonage child and had lost his mother at an early age.
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In writing these poems, Branwell had an eye to publication. He may even have intended to write a whole series of poems on great men of the past, as he twice drew up a list of potential subjects, in each case marking off the ones he had covered.
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Clearly he had no shortage of inspiration and, though he may have suffered periodic bouts of depression, his literary output and the achievement of his ambition to publish suggests that he had everything to look forward to.

It was therefore a severe blow to his self-esteem when he was summarily dismissed from the Leeds and Manchester Railway. A company audit of the Luddenden Foot ledgers at the end of March 1842 revealed that they were ‘in a very confused state' and, more seriously, that there was a shortfall of fu is £1 1s. 7d.in the accounts. Though not suspected of theft or fraud, Branwell was held responsible: the amount was deducted from his quarter's salary and he was discharged from the company's service.
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According to Grundy, he was ‘convicted of constant and culpable carelessness', the result
of his wandering off on rambles round the hills leaving only his porter in charge. According to Leyland, it was to Mr Woolven, his ‘fellow-assistant', that Branwell entrusted the running of the station. There are problems with both these claims. Branwell took his duties at Luddenden Foot seriously enough to forgo the pleasure of returning home over Christmas, for instance, even though he must have known that Charlotte and Emily were about to go abroad. Woolven was in fact stationed at Hebden Bridge and, far from being Branwell's assistant, was actually appointed to investigate his books with the company auditor. Branwell's clerk would appear to have been the twenty-five-year-old William Spence, who lived, like Branwell, at Brearley. It would therefore appear that if Branwell did neglect his duties, he left the station in the charge of either William Spence or Henry Killiner, the thirty-year-old railway porter.
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Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, Branwell was responsible, morally and officially, for the missing money. Despite ‘a memorial from certain merchants, mill-owners & residents of Luddenden Foot, interceding for the re-employment of Mr Bronte' his dismissal was confirmed by a meeting of the board of directors on 11 April, and Branwell found himself unemployed once more.
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Though dismissal in such circumstances was deeply humiliating and discreditable, there is evidence to suggest the affair was not as serious as it appears at first sight. The Leeds and Manchester Railway was famous for taking an unusually hard line with its staff. Any employee whose neglect, however unintentional, caused an accident could expect instant arrest and prosecution for dereliction of duty. As accidents happened frequently on the new line, this was not a rare event. Drunkenness was regarded as an extremely serious offence: one engine driver who reported for duty in a state of inebriation was not only prosecuted but sentenced to two months' hard labour.
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Had Branwell been suspected of either fraud or dereliction of duty, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted. Similarly, the facts that, within two months of his dismissal, Branwell sought Grundy's help in obtaining a new post on the same railway and that, four years later, it was intimated to him that he might be considered for one, suggest that his crime was not serious enough to disqualify him from ever working for the company again.
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Perhaps fortunately, by the time Branwell returned to Haworth at the beginning of April only his father and aunt were at home. Anne was at Thorp Green and Charlotte and Emily were in their school in Brussels. They had been escorted there by their father who, despite a disinclination
to leave home which had grown stronger over the years, determined that his daughters should have his protection for their first trip outside the north of England. The journey came at a time of considerable inconvenience to himself. On 7 January 1842, the Bradford churchwardens had again pressed their demand for a church rate of £76 12s. 10d. to be laid in Haworth chapelry. While Patrick had supported the opponents in their resistance to the previous demand, he was now outspoken in his denunciation of the Bradford churchwardens. He opened the meeting by declaring from the chair that

the rate now demanded, had not, according to his opinion, the sanction of either law or custom, having been laid in quite an unusual way, contrary to the vote and voice of a great majority of the rate payers … He entreated the body of the ratepayers then before him to consider the dilemma in which the chapelwardens of Haworth were placed, by having such a heavy demand pressed upon them at this time when even the poor's rate could only with the greatest difficulty be obtained and hoped that all parties, both Whigs, Radicals, Tories, Dissenters, Methodists, and Churchmen would unite heartily to save them from the jeopardy and peril to which they are exposed by the strange and unprecedented proceedings of the Bradford churchwardens … The Rev. gentleman then told the people that his mind was quite made up never more to attempt a compulsory Church Rate either for Bradford or Haworth so long as the law stood as it does.
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The meeting had avoided confrontation by using the time-honoured tactic of adjourning the discussion to a future date, but it also agreed to a Dissenting proposal that any legal costs which might be incurred by the Haworth churchwardens in their opposition to Bradford should be indemnified by the vestry. Three weeks later, Patrick wrote to the
Bradford Observer
, defending his stance and, in a side-swipe at Dr Scoresby, pointing out that ‘The mainspring of all this may, in some measure, be traced to the anomalous circumstance of having a parish within a parish.'
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The suffering in Haworth township had reached new levels as the winter progressed and trade showed no sign of recovery. Again, Patrick was deeply involved in trying to alleviate the hardship of his parishioners. A general subscription was set up among the gentlemen and tradesmen of the chapelry which raised ‘large amounts' to augment a further grant of £200 from the London Committee for the Relief of the Distressed Manufacturers. The money was again put to good practical use in the purchase of shirting and
coating, sheets and bed coverlets, fifty pairs of clogs, twenty packs of best oatmeal and 200 loads of coal for the most destitute.
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It was, therefore, neither a good nor a tactful time for the parson to absent himself on a jaunt to foreign parts. Nevertheless, Patrick's duty to his daughters spoke more loudly than his duty to his parish. In a conscientious effort to do the best he could for his children, he drew up a little notebook of handy French phrases to use on the journey, noting at the beginning:

The following conversational terms, Suited to a traveller, in France, or any part of the Continent of Europe – are taken from Surenne's. New French Manual – for 1840 And \with those in my pocket book/ will be sufficient, for me – And must be fully mastered, and ready – Semper – All these, must be kept semper. There are first the French – 2 – the right pronunciation – and lastly the English. –

Revd. P.B. A.B. –, Haworth, near Bradford – Yorkshire.
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Most of the useful phrases (often misspelt) were concerned with food and drink, accommodation and travelling by diligence. They show the age-old traveller's concerns from ‘Les draps sont ils sees? = La dra sontil see? = Are the sheets air'd?' to ‘S'il vous plait montrez moi le priver = Sil voo play mon-tray moa la priva = If you please shew me the privy' – the last, curiously, entered under the heading ‘Post Office'.
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Patrick, Charlotte and Emily set off for Brussels on 8 February 1842.
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The plan was that they would be accompanied by Mary and Joe Taylor, who had both done the journey several times before. They travelled together by train from Leeds to London, arriving at Euston Station late in the evening after a journey of eleven hours. Despite having seasoned travellers with them, it was apparently Patrick who determined their choice of hotel. In his student days at Cambridge and later, when curate of Wethersfield, he had sometimes stayed at the Chapter Coffee House in Paternoster Row. Once the haunt of the eighteenth-century literati, a place to see and be seen, it had become a sort of gentleman's club where university students and clergymen could spend a few days in London. It was hardly an appropriate place for three young ladies to stay, but they could have done worse. The Chapter Coffee House lay in the heart of the City, within the shadow of St Paul's; Paternoster Row was barred to all but pedestrian traffic, making it a haven of peace in the bustling confusion that filled the surrounding
wstreets. Though the writers and poets had long since moved on to more fashionable areas, it retained its bookish air with wholesale stationers, booksellers and publishers lining each side of the narrow flagged street.
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