Emily Brontë
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.
CHAPTER V.
GOING TO SCHOOL.
Emily was now sixteen years old, and though the people in the village
called her "t' cleverest o' t' Bronte childer," she had little to show
of her cleverness. Her education was as home-made as her gowns, not such
as would give distinction to a governess; and a governess Emily would
have to be. The Bronte sisters were too severe and noble in their
theories of life ever to contemplate marriage as a means of livelihood;
but even worldly sisters would have owned that there was little chance
of impatient Emily marrying at all. She was almost violent in her
dislike of strangers. The first time that Ellen stayed at Haworth,
Charlotte was ill one day and could not go out with her friend. To their
surprise Emily volunteered to take the stranger a walk over the moors.
Charlotte waited anxiously for their return, fearing some outbreak of
impatience or disdain on the part of her untamable sister. The two girls
at last came home. "How did Emily behave?" asked Charlotte, eagerly,
drawing her friend aside. She had behaved well; she had shown her true
self, her noble, energetic, truthful soul, and from that day there was a
real friendship between the gentle Ellen and the intractable Emily; but
none the less does Charlotte's question reveal in how different a manner
the girl regarded strangers as a rule. In after days when the curates,
looking for Mr. Bronte in his study, occasionally found Emily there
instead, they used to beat such a hasty retreat that it was quite an
established joke at the Parsonage that Emily appeared to the outer world
in the likeness of an old bear. She hated strange faces and strange
places. Her sisters must have seen that such a temperament, if it made
her unlikely to attract a husband or to wish to attract one, also
rendered her lamentably unfit to earn her living as a governess. In
those days they could not tell that the defect was incurable, a
congenital infirmity of nature; and doubtless Charlotte, the wise elder
sister, thought she had found a cure for both the narrow education and
the narrow sympathies when she suggested that Emily should go to school.
She writes to her friend in July, 1835:--
"I had hoped to have had the extreme pleasure of seeing you
at Haworth this summer, but human affairs are mutable, and
human resolutions must bend to the course of events. We are
all about to divide, break up, separate. Emily is going to
school, Branwell is going to London, and I am going to be a
governess. This last determination I formed myself, knowing
I should have to take the step sometime, and 'better sune as
syne,' to use a Scotch proverb; and knowing well that Papa
would have enough to do with his limited income, should
Branwell be placed at the Royal Academy and Emily at Roe
Head. Where am I going to reside? you will ask. Within four
miles of you, at a place neither of us are unacquainted
with, being no other than the identical Roe Head mentioned
above. Yes! I am going to teach in the very school where I
was myself taught. Miss Wooler made me the offer, and I
preferred it to one or two proposals of private
governess-ship which I had before received. I am sad--very
sad--at the thoughts of leaving home; but
duty--necessity--these are stern mistresses, who will not be
disobeyed. Did I not once say you ought to be thankful for
your independence? I felt what I said at the time, and I