Emily Brontë
improvement; the patience she had for the leveret and the wolf, things
contemptible and full of harm, yet not so by their own choice; the
patience of acquiescent and hopeless despair.
Branwell's pity was all for himself. He did not spare the pious
household forced into the contamination of his evil habits. "Nothing
happens at Haworth," says Charlotte; "nothing at least of a pleasant
kind. One little incident occurred about a week ago to sting us into
life; but, if it give no more pleasure for you to hear than it does for
us to witness, you will scarcely thank me for adverting to it. It was
merely the arrival of a sheriff's officer on a visit to Branwell,
inviting him either to pay his debts or take a trip to York. Of course
his debts had to be paid. It is not agreeable to lose money, time after
time, in this way; but where is the use of dwelling on such subjects. It
will make him no better."[23]
Reproaches only hardened his heart and made him feel himself more than
ever abused by circumstances and fate. "Sometimes,"[24] says Mr.
Phillips, "he would complain of the way he was treated at home, and, as
an instance, related the following:--
"One of the Sunday-school girls, in whom he and all his house took much
interest, fell very sick, and they were afraid she would not live.
"'I went to see the poor little thing,' he said, 'sat with her
half-an-hour and read a psalm to her and a hymn at her request. I felt
very much like praying with her too,' he added, his voice trembling with
emotion, 'but you see I was not good enough. How dare I pray for
another, who had almost forgotten how to pray for myself? I came away
with a heavy heart, for I felt sure she would die, and went straight
home, where I fell into melancholy musings. I wanted somebody to cheer
me. I often do; but no kind word finds its way to my ears, much less to
my heart. Charlotte observed my depression, and asked what ailed me. So
I told her. She looked at me with a look which I shall never forget, if
I live to be a hundred years old--which I never shall. It was not like
her at all. It wounded me, as if some one had struck me a blow in the
mouth. It involved ever so many things in it. It was a dubious look. It
ran over me, questioning and examining, as if I had been a wild beast.
It said, 'Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear ought?' And then came
the painful, baffled expression which was worse than all. It said, 'I
wonder if that's true?' But, as she left the room, she seemed to accuse
herself of having wronged me, and smiled kindly upon me and said, 'She
is my little scholar and I will go and see her.' I replied not a word. I
was too much cut up. When she was gone, I came over here to the "Black
Bull" and made a night of it in sheer disgust and desperation. Why could
they not give me some credit when I was trying to be good?'"
In such wise the summer of 1846 drew on, wearily enough, with increased
economies in the already frugal household, that Branwell's debts might
honourably be paid, with gathering fears for the father, on whom
dyspepsia and blindness were laying heavy hands. He could no longer see
to read; he, the great walker who loved to ramble alone, could barely
grope his way about; all that was left to him of sight was the ability
to recognise well-known figures standing in a strong light. Yet he still
continued to preach; standing grey and sightless in the pulpit, uttering
what words (perforce unstudied) came to his lips. Himself in his
sorrowful age and stern endurance a most noble and comprehensible
sermon.
His spirits were much depressed; for now he could no longer forget
himself in his lonely studies, no longer walk on the free moors alone
when trouble invaded the narrow house below. He lived now of necessity
in intimate relation with his children; he depended on them. And now he
made acquaintance with the heroic nature of his daughters, and saw the
petty drudgery of their lives, and how worthily they turned it to a
grace in the wearing of it. And now he saw clearly the vain, dependent,
passionate temperament of his son, and knew how, by the lack of
training, the plant had been ruined and draggled in the mire, which
might have beautifully flowered and borne good fruit had it been staked
and supported; the poor espalier thing that could not stand alone.
Nemesis had visited his home. He felt the consequences of his
selfishness, his arrogance, his cold isolation, and bitterly, bitterly
he mourned.
The cataract grew month by month, a thickening veil that blotted out
the world; and month by month the old blind man sat wearily thinking
through the day of his dear son's ruin, for he had ever loved Branwell
the best, and lay at night listening for his footsteps; while below,
alone, his daughter watched as wearily for the prodigal's return.
The three girls looked on and longed to help. All that they could do
they did, Charlotte being her father's constant helper and companion;
but all they could do was little. They would not reconcile themselves to
see him sink into blindness. They busied themselves in collecting what
information they could glean concerning operations upon cataract, and
the names of oculists. But at present there was nothing to do but wait
and endure; for even they, with their limited knowledge, could tell that
their father's eyes were not ready yet for the surgeon's knife.
Meanwhile they worked in secret at their novels. So soon as the poems
had been sent off, and even when it was evident that that venture, too,
had failed, the sisters determined to try and earn a livelihood by
writing. They could no longer leave their home, their father being
helpless and Branwell worse than helpless; yet, with ever-increasing
expenses and no earnings, bare living was difficult to compass. The
future, too, was uncertain; should their father's case prove hopeless,
should he become quite blind, ill, incapable of work, they would be
homeless indeed. With such gloomy boding in their hearts, with such
stern impelling necessity bidding them strive and ever strive again, as
a baffled swimmer strives for land, these three sisters began their
work. Two of them, in after time, were to be known through all the
world, were to be influences for all time to come and, a new glory in
the world not known before their days, were to make up "with Mrs.
Browning, the perfect trinity of English female fame."[25] But with
little thought of this, heavily and very wearily, they set out upon
their undertaking.
Every evening when the sewing was put away the writing was begun, the
three sisters, sitting round the table, or more often marching round and
round the room as in their schoolgirl days, would hold solemn council
over the progress of their work. The division of chapters, the naming of
characters, the progress of events, was then decided, so that each lent
a hand to the other's work. Then, such deliberations done, the paper
would be drawn out, and the casual notes of the day corrected and writ
fair; and for an hour or more there would be no sound save the
scratching of pens on the paper and the gusty wailing of the wind
outside.
Such methodical work makes rapid progress. In a few months each sister
had a novel completed. Charlotte, a grave and quiet study of Belgian
life and character, 'The Professor;' Anne, a painstaking account of a
governess's trials, which she entitled 'Agnes Grey.' Emily's story was
very different, and less perceptibly interwoven with her own experience.
We all know at least the name of 'Wuthering Heights.'
The novels were sent off, and at first seemed even less likely of
success than the school had been, or the book of verses. Publisher after
publisher rejected them; then, thinking that perhaps it was not cunning
to send the three novels in a batch, since the ill-success of one might
prejudice all, the sisters sent them separately to try their chance. But
ever with the same result--month after month, came rejection.
At home affairs continued no less disheartening. Branwell often laid up
with violent fits of sickness, Mr. Bronte becoming more utterly blind.
At last, in the end of July, Emily and Charlotte set out for Manchester
to consult an oculist. There they heard of Mr. Wilson as the best, and
to him they went; but only to find that no decisive opinion could be
given until their father's eyes had been examined. Yet, not
disheartened, they went back to Haworth; for at least they had
discovered a physician and had made sure that, even at their father's
advanced age, an operation might prove successful. Therefore, at the end
of August, Charlotte, who was her father's chief companion and the most
easily spared from home, took old Mr. Bronte to Manchester. Mr. Wilson
pronounced his eyes ready for the operation, and the old man and his
daughter went into lodgings for a month. "I wonder how Emily and Anne
will get on at home with Branwell," says Charlotte, accustomed to be the
guide and leader of that little household.
Hardly enough, no doubt; for Anne was little fitted now to struggle
against fate. She never had completely rallied from the prolonged misery
of her sojourn with Branwell in that fatal house which was to blight
their future and be blighted by them. She grew weaker and weaker, that
"gentle little one," so tender, so ill fitted to her rugged and gloomy
path of life. Emily looked on with a breaking heart; trouble encompassed
her on every side; her father blind in Manchester; her brother drinking
himself to death at home; her sister failing, paling day by day; and
every now and then a letter would come announcing that such and such a
firm of publishers had no use for 'Agnes Grey' and 'Wuthering Heights.'
Charlotte in Manchester fared little better. 'The Professor' had been
returned to her on the very day of her father's operation, when
(bearing this unspoken-of blow as best she might) she had to stay in the
room while the cataract was removed from his eyes. Exercise makes
courage strong; that evening, when her father in his darkened room might
no longer speak or be spoken to, that very evening she began 'Jane
Eyre.'
This was being braver than brave Emily, who has left us nothing, save a
few verses, written later than 'Wuthering Heights.' But at Haworth there
was labour and to spare for every instant of the busy days, and
Charlotte, in Manchester, found her unaccustomed leisure and unoccupied
confinement very dreary.
Towards the end of September Mr. Bronte was pronounced on a fair way to
recovery, and he and Charlotte set out for Haworth. It was a happy
home-coming, for things had prospered better than Charlotte had dared to
hope during the latter weeks of her absence. Every day the old man grew
stronger, and little by little his sight came back. He could see the
glorious purple of the moors, Emily's moors, no less beloved in her
sorrowing womanhood than in her happy hoyden time of youth. He could see
his children's faces, and the miserable change in Branwell's features.
He began to be able to read a little, a very little at a time, and by
November was sufficiently recovered to take the whole duty of the three
Sunday services upon himself.
Not long after this time, three members of that quiet household were
still further cheered by learning that 'Agnes Grey' and 'Wuthering
Heights' had found acceptance at the hands of a publisher. Acceptance;
but upon impoverishing terms. Still, for so much they were thankful. To
write, and bury unread the things one has written, is playing music upon
a dumb piano. Who plays, would fain be heard.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 22: George Searle Phillips.]
[Footnote 23: Mrs. Gaskell.]
[Footnote 24: 'Branwell Bronte.' G. S. Phillips.]
[Footnote 25: A. C. Swinburne. 'Note on Charlotte Bronte.']
CHAPTER XIV.
'WUTHERING HEIGHTS:' ITS ORIGIN.