Brontës (171 page)

The fact that she was thus effectively gagged turned Ellen's hatred towards Arthur into paranoia. Writing to George Smith, for whom she had hoped to produce a
Cornhill
article on Charlotte, she let loose the full venom of her nature: ‘it would be wise of him to be civil even at some [cost?] to himself—', she threatened. ‘I have a letter respecting him which I would in his place give almost a fortune to possess … if you think it right you can give him a hint that he has not all the power on his side'.
⁸⁸
In sharp contrast to Ellen's vitriolic outpourings, Arthur made very few comments on the situation, privately confessing only, ‘I find it hard to “forget & forgive” her for her proceedings in reference to my dear Wife.'
⁸⁹

Ellen made several attempts to circumvent Arthur and publish her letters from Charlotte but met with little success.
⁹⁰
In the end, she had to be content with her role as the oracle to be consulted by all who wished to learn more about the Brontës. Ironically, this probably gave her more influence than any account she might have penned as, despite increasingly slender means, she held open house to biographers, reporters and admirers of her friend. Sinking into a querulous, embittered and impoverished old age, her only pleasure became her ‘little chats' with visitors who would listen spellbound to the reminiscences of one who had been the friend of Charlotte Brontë.
⁹¹
She died at the end of November 1897, aged eighty, and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter's Church at Birstall. Her obituary declared her to have been ‘a woman of exceptional intellectual power and personality'.
⁹²
Ellen Nussey had finally become a part of the myth of the Brontës which she had done so much to create and perpetuate.

That the myth has survived is a tribute to the emotive power of Mrs Gaskell's
Life of Charlotte Brontë
, which surely lives up to Patrick's expectation that it ‘will stand in the first rank, of Biographies, till the end of time'.
⁹³
It is, however, a flawed masterpiece. Mrs Gaskell was a supreme writer of fiction but she too easily identified what she perceived to be the facts of Charlotte's life with the themes of her own novels: Charlotte and her sisters thus became the dutiful, long-suffering daughters and Branwell
the wastrel son of a harsh, unbending father.
⁹⁴
The portrayal of Charlotte as the martyred heroine of a tragic life, driven by duty and stoically enduring her fate, served its purpose at the time. Charlotte's wicked sense of humour, her sarcasm, her childhood
joie de vivre
which enlivens the juvenilia, are completely ignored. So, too, are her prejudices, her unpleasant habit of always seeing the worst in people, her bossiness against which her sisters rebelled, her flirtations with William Weightman and George Smith and her traumatic love for Monsieur Heger. What remains may be a more perfect human being, but it was not Charlotte Brontë. Mrs Gaskell's Emily, too, reduced to a series of vignettes illustrating her unusual strength of character, betrays nothing of the obsession with Gondal which made her almost incapable of leading a life outside the sanctuary of her home but led her to the creation of the strange and wonderful world of
Wuthering Heights
. Anne is simply a cipher, the youngest child, whose boldness in defying convention by adopting a plain heroine in
Agnes Grey
and advocating startlingly unorthodox religious beliefs and women's rights in
The Tenant ofWildfell Hall finds
no place in Mrs Gaskell's portrait. Most of all, however, it was the men in Charlotte's life who suffered at her biographer's hands. The Patrick Brontë who took such tender care of his young children, campaigned incessantly on behalf of the poor of his parish and espoused unfashionable liberal causes is unrecognizable in her malicious caricature of a selfish and eccentric recluse. Similarly, the Branwell who was his family's pride and joy, the leader and innovator, artist, poet, musician and writer, is barely touched upon, despite the fact that, without him, there would probably have been no Currer, Ellis or Acton Bell.

For all her faults, Mrs Gaskell at least ensured that the lives of the Brontës would be as perennially fascinating to future generations as their novels. The trickle of visitors to Haworth, which began in the 1850s, has now become a mighty flood: hundreds of thousands of Brontë enthusiasts, from every part of the globe, come each year to walk the moors which were such an inspiration to the family and to visit the once obscure parsonage which housed such febrile talent. The very ordinariness of the surroundings makes the Brontës' achievements all the more extraordinary. They had neither wealth nor power and therefore lacked the richness and diversity of experience which these can bring; what they did have was the vicarious experience of books and an irrepressible creativity which more than supplied their place. More than anything else, however, they had each other. As children they had needed no other companions and in the sometimes heated,
often intense, but always affectionate rivalry between them, they had each found a place and a voice. Even as adults they tended to exclude others: though self-sufficient as a unit, they were dependent on each other for the mutual support and criticism which underpinned their lives and illumined their literary efforts. Without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language would never have been written.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Line drawings.

p. vi: Ruined castle by Emily,
c
. 1835 (Princeton University Library)

p. xvi: The results of Sorrow; by Branwell, autumn 1846 (Mary Pearson's Commonplace Book, in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

p. 1: Country Scene by Anne, 15 December 1836

p. 35: Kirkstall Abbey by Charlotte, undated

p. 72: Mother and Child by Charlotte, undated (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

p. 103: ‘The Whinchat' by Emily, 1 April 1829 (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

p. 134: Lady on a Bridge by Anne, undated

p. 165: Lord Byron by Charlotte,
c
. 1833 (private collection)

p. 198: ‘Grasper – from life' by Emily, January 1834

p. 234: ‘Angrians Arise!' armorial triumph from the manuscript of The Rising of the ‘Angrians' by Branwell, 7 January 1836 (Princeton University Library)

p. 263: ‘Countess Blessington' by Charlotte, 1833 (private collection)

p. 298: ‘Alexander Percy Esqr M.P.' by Branwell, autumn 1846 (Mary Pearson's Commonplace Book, in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

p. 332: ‘Bendigo “taking a sight'” by Branwell, 10 September 1845 (Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds)

p. 373: Self-portrait by Branwell, autumn 1846 (Mary Pearson's Commonplace Book, in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

p. 408: Merlin Hawk by Emily, 27 October 1841

p. 448: Continental Castles by Anne, 22 March 1836

p. 484: Marquis of Douro by Charlotte,
c
. 1833 (private collection)

p. 521: ‘Our Lady of greif' by Branwell, 28 April 1846 (Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds)

p. 564: ‘Gondal Poems' notebook heading by Emily, February 1844

p. 601: Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell autographs, sent to Mr F. Enoch, 23 July 1846

p. 641:
‘Patrick
Reid “turned off”, without his cap' by Branwell, January 1848 (Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds)

p. 673: Mary Percy at Alnwick by Charlotte, undated

p. 709: ‘Ashburnham Church On the Valley-Land' by Charlotte, August 1845

p. 744: ‘English Lady' by Charlotte, 15 October 1834

p. 777: Mill by a Stream by Charlotte,
c
. 1842–3 (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

p. 814: ‘The North Wind' by Emily, undated (Mrs Felicity Craven)

p. 850: ‘Zamorna. 35' by Branwell, undated

p. 883: ‘The Cross of Rievaulx' by Charlotte, 23 June 1836

p. 916: Pine Tree by Emily,
c
. 1842

p. 954: ‘Resurgam tombstone by Branwell, 15 May 1842 (Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds)

Plate Section One

p. 1. Pillar portrait. Branwell's painting of the three sisters (National Portrait Gallery)

p. 2. Maria Branwell (Brontë Society)

p. 3. Aunt Branwell (Brontë Society)

p. 4. Patrick Brontë (Getty Images)

p. 5. Church Lane, Haworth (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 6. Haworth Parsonage (Brontë Society)

p. 7. Charlotte's early ‘little books' (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 8. A watercolour by Charlotte (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 9. ‘Young Men's Magazine', written by Charlotte in 1830 (Brontë Society)

p. 10. Map of the Glasstown Confederacy, drawn by Branwell (British Library)

p. 11. Roe Head School

p. 12. Miss Wooler, headmistress of Roe Head

p. 13. Ellen Nussey (Brontë Society)

p. 14. Mary Taylor (Brontë Society)

p. 15. Portrait of Anne, drawn by Charlotte in 1833 (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 16. The Gun Group, painted by Branwell (Brontë Parsonage Museum/ The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 17. Emily's diary paper, 1837 (Brontë Society)

Plate Section Two

p. 18. ‘Liberty or Bondage', one of Patrick's campaigning letters, 1837 (British Newspaper Library)

p. 19. Grasper, drawn by Emily in 1834 (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 20. Keeper, drawn by Emily in 1838 (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 21. Blake Hall, Mirfield

p. 22. William Weightman, drawn by Charlotte (Brontë Society)

p. 23. A self-portrait drawn by Branwell in 1840 (Brontë Parsonage Museum/ The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 24. Lydia Robinson (Walsall Area Health Authority)

p. 25. ‘On Ouse's grassy banks, last Whitsuntide', by Branwell (Brontë Society)

p. 26. The Heger family (by courtesy of Monsieur René Pechère, Brussels)

p. 27. Pensionnat Heger, Brussels

p. 28. Charlotte's caricature of herself in a letter to Ellen Nussey (Brontë Society)

p. 29. Prospectus for the proposed school at Haworth Parsonage (Brontë Society)

p. 30. George Smith (Brontë Society)

p. 31. William Smith Williams (Brontë Society)

p. 32. Charlotte Brontë, drawn by Richmond (National Portrait Gallery)

p. 33. Mrs Gaskell, drawn by Richmond (National Portrait Gallery)

p. 34. The Dining Room at the Brontë Parsonage (Brontë Parsonage Museum/ The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 35. Arthur Bell Nicholls (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

p. 36. Charlotte's going away dress (Brontë Parsonage Museum/The Bridgeman Art Library)

All uncredited reproductions are from the author's collection, out of copyright, or untraceable.

ABBREVIATIONS

I: NAMES