Brontës (25 page)

Dearden also drew on his own intimacy with the family to take up the cudgels on behalf of Patrick's role as a father. ‘His children were the frequent companions of his walks', Dearden insisted. ‘I have seen him, more than
once, conversing kindly and affably with them in the studio of a clever artist who resided in Keighley; and many others, both in that town and in Haworth, can bear testimony to the fact of his having been often seen accompanied by his young family in his visits to friends, and in his rambles among the hills.'
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It is difficult to recognize in this picture the same ‘domestic hyena'
⁸⁴
described by Mrs Gaskell which sadly remains the popular image of the father of the Brontës. Yet it is entirely consistent with everything we can learn of the man through his life and his work. Patrick was clearly not only concerned for, but interested in, his children. William Dearden is the witness on his behalf again:

We are led to infer from Mrs Gaskell's narrative, that their father – if he felt – at least, did nor manifest much anxiety about their physical and mental welfare; and we are told that the eldest of the motherless group, then at home, by a sort of premature inspiration, under the feeble wing of a maiden aunt, undertook their almost entire supervision. Branwell … told me, when accidentally alluding to this mournful period in the history of his family, that his father watched over his little bereaved flock with truly paternal solicitude and affection – that he was their constant guardian and instructor – and that he took a lively interest in all their innocent amusements.
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The truth of this remark is borne out by Patrick himself in the letters he wrote to Mrs Gaskell as she was preparing her biography of Charlotte, which she actually quoted in the book.

When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte and her brother and sisters, used to invent and act little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington my Daughter Charlotte's Hero, was sure to come off, the conquering hero – when a dispute [would] not infrequently [arise] amongst them regarding [the] comparative merits of him, Buonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar – When the argument got warm, and rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute, according to the best of my judgement.
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The children clearly had no fear of dragging their supposedly ferocious and reclusive father into their games. Equally, Patrick was interested enough to break off from his own demanding work to enter into the spirit of the thing,
listening to the arguments and weighing their merits. On another occasion, Patrick ‘just happened' to have a mask in the house:

When my children were very young, when as far as I can rem[em]ber, the oldest was about ten years of age and the youngest about four – thinking that they knew more, than I had yet discover'd, in order to make them speak with less timidity, I deem'd that if they were put under a sort of cover, I might gain my end – and happen [in] g to have a mask in the house, I told them all to stand, and speak boldly from under \cover of/ the mask – I began with the youngest – I asked what a child like her most wanted – She answer'd, age and experience – I asked the next what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes, a naughty boy, She answered, reason with him, and when he won't listen to reason whip him – I asked Branwell, what was the best way of knowing the difference between the intellects, of men and women – he answer'd by considering the difference between them as to their bodies – I then asked Charlotte, what was the best Book in the world, she answered, the Bible – and what was the next best, she answer'd the Book of Nature – I then asked the next, what was the best mode of education for a woman, she answered, that which would make her rule her house well – Lastly I asked the oldest, what was the best mode of spending time she answer'd, by laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity – I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory –
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Though the anecdote is usually cited as an example of the young Brontës' undoubted precocity, it also demonstrates once more that their father took a keen interest in their personal and intellectual development. One more story, narrated this time by Sarah Garrs, shows that the children enjoyed the usual escapades of childhood: Sarah had been roped into playing a part in one of their plays:

As an escaping Prince, with a counterpane for a robe, I stepped from a window on the limb of a cherry-tree, which broke and let me down. There was great consternation among the children, as it was Mr Brontës favourite tree, under which he often sat. I carried off the branch and blackened the place with soot, but the next day, Mr Brontë detained them a moment and began with the youngest, asking each pleasantly, ‘Who spoiled my tree?' The answer was, ‘Not I,' until it came to my turn. They were always loyal and true.
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This again is a far cry from Mrs Gaskell's picture of the subdued children closeted in their ‘study', listening to the seven-year-old Maria reading the newspapers. If Mrs Gaskell, and those who have followed in her path, are so wide of the mark in their description of the Brontës' childhood, what then was life at Haworth parsonage really like at this time? Fortunately, Sarah Garrs, the person who was probably most involved in their day-to-day care, has left her own account of a typical day.
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After the children had been washed and dressed, the day began with the whole family, including the servants, assembling in Patrick's study for prayers. The children then accompanied him across the hall for a ‘plain but abundant' breakfast of porridge and milk, bread and butter. Apart from the baby, Anne, they then returned to the study for a morning session of lessons with their father. Once that was over, they were then committed to Sarah's care till dinner-time: she taught the girls how to sew and, by the age of five, Charlotte had made a linen chemise for her own wear, aided only in the cutting out and basting by Sarah. The children dined at two o'clock with their father. They were given plain roast or boiled meat and for dessert there were bread and rice puddings, custards and other slightly sweetened preparations of eggs and milk. While Patrick went out to do his parish visiting in the afternoons, the children walked out on the moors every day unless the weather was too bad. These walks were the highlight of their day:

Their afternoon walks, as they sallied forth, each neatly and comfortably clad, were a joy. Their fun knew no bounds. It never was expressed wildly. Bright and often dry, but deep, it occasioned many a merry burst of laughter. They enjoyed a game of romps, and played with zest.

On their return home they found tea waiting for them in the kitchen. Patrick came in later and took his tea in his study. When the tea-tray was removed, he gathered the children about him ‘for recitation and talk, giving them oral lessons in history, biography or travel' while the girls sewed.
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While their mother was still alive and able to listen to them, the children said their nightly prayers at her bedside, kissed her goodnight and went to their own ‘warm clean beds'. On Sunday evenings, the whole family gathered in Patrick's study once more for Bible study and catechism: the servants were again included but, as Sarah noted, they were always treated as superiors in the presence of the children.
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Sarah's account would suggest that the Brontës had a perfectly normal
childhood. Though the loss of their mother at such an early age could not be anything other than a personal tragedy for the children she left behind, its importance should not be exaggerated. It was, after all, a commonplace occurrence – much more commonplace than it is today – and therefore accepted more readily. In a more pious age, too, there was the comfort of knowing that she had gone to a better place and that her soul, if not her body, was immortal. In later life, Charlotte, who always said that she began to observe and analyse character at five years old, had no more than two or three memories of her mother, including one of her playing with Branwell in the parlour one evening.
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Though she and her brother and sisters felt the lack of a mother figure, their real mother, as a person, was someone the younger four simply did not remember. Her loss, terrible though it may have been at the time, did not permanently blight their young lives.

Their home life was secure and stable, with their father always ready to spend time with them, despite the pressures of his own work. Their aunt, too, was an ‘affectionate mother', supervising their lessons and their household work and nursing the infant Anne.
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Nancy and Sarah Garrs were playmates and confidantes, closely involved, as we have seen, in the children's games.

Like all large families, particularly those with children close together in age, the Brontës were self-sufficient. They had no need to seek friends of their own age in the town when they had companions with the same tastes and enthusiasms in their own home. Maria, as the eldest, seems to have taken the lead. Sarah Garrs tells us that ‘Their “games” were founded upon what Maria read to them from the newspapers, and the tales brought forth from the father's mines of tradition, history, and romance. Nothing escaped them.'
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Mrs Gaskell found the idea of small children reading the newspapers unnerving in its precocity and later biographers have assumed that they read newspapers because they had no other, more suitable books.
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In fact, the local newspapers of this period, such as the
Leeds Mercury
and the
Leeds Intelligencer,
were a fascinating source of information and had plenty to interest bright young children. The political reports and coverage of parliamentary debates were written in a lively – sometimes even libellous – strain that brought the characters vividly to life. There was no nonsense about editorial fairhandedness and political neutrality: the papers screamed their political affiliation from every page with a savagery that sometimes amounted to hysteria. Though Patrick and his family were Tory, they took or had access to Whig papers too, so that the children were able to
recognize political bias and see the arguments from both ends of the spectrum. Patrick used to say that he could converse with Maria on any of the leading topics of the day as freely and with as much pleasure as with any adult.
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Though the newspapers undoubtedly provided the political raw material which was to feed the Brontës' hero-worship of men like the Duke of Wellington, they had many other elements too. They carried reviews of books and magazines, including extensive quotation of interesting incidents from new works and old. There were descriptions of the latest fashions and accounts of life in high society, complete with all its scandal and gossip. There was also the local news where, sandwiched between the lurid detail of the criminal courts and the trivia of outsize mushrooms and other ‘amazing phenomena', the Brontës would frequently see their father's name. Here was endless material for the children's plays and stories.

Patrick, in the meantime, was as busy as ever. Despite his extensive duties he found time for his special interests. In the summer of 1822 there was a national effort on behalf of the Irish poor who were suffering extreme deprivation and hardship. Henry Heap, the vicar of Bradford, preached a sermon and raised a subscription on their behalf and it seems likely that Patrick would have followed suit. Perhaps coincidentally, Patrick's own mother is said to have died in Ireland in the course of this year, so that the strongest remaining tie between him and the land of his birth had now been broken.
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On 17 December there was a meeting of the Keighley Auxiliary Bible Society, chaired by Patrick's friend, the Reverend Theodore Dury; although Patrick's name is not mentioned, it is likely that he was there, particularly as William Morgan was one of the main speakers. If he did attend, he would have met, possibly for the first time, the Reverend William Carus Wilson, vicar of Tunstall in Westmorland, who was soon to play such an important role in his family's life.
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The winter of 1822 was one of the most severe in living memory; it snowed solidly for five days and nights, cutting off Clayton Heights and Blackstone Edge, and preventing the mail and stage coaches getting through.
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Nevertheless, Patrick seems to have been a fairly frequent visitor to Keighley over the winter, giving rise to local gossip. Though he had been friendly with Theodore Dury since at least as far back as his days at Thornton, when he had preached for the Missionary Society in Keighley, it was now said that Patrick had proposed to Isabella Dury, the vicar's sister. Whether the rumour was true or not, Isabella wrote to her friend, Miss Mariner, daughter of a Keighley manufacturer:

I heard before I left Keighley that my brother & I had quarrelled about poor Mr Bronte; I beg if you ever hear such a report that you will contradict it as I can assure you it is perfectly unfounded, I think I never should be so very silly as to have the most distant idea of marrying anybody who had not some fortune, and six children into the bargain. It is too ridiculous to imagine any truth in it.
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It seems likely enough that Patrick had proposed to Isabella Dury. Like Elizabeth Firth, she was a gentlewoman of independent means and therefore a suitable stepmother for his children; presumably, too, like her brother, she was of the Evangelical persuasion so she would have been a fitting wife for Patrick.

It is a measure of his desperation at this time that when Isabella Dury also turned him down, Patrick's thoughts turned back fifteen years to the days of his first curacy at Wethersfield and to a woman who had then welcomed his attentions. When Patrick was at the beginning of his career, Mary Burder's religion had stood in the way of their marriage but now, as perpetual curate of Haworth, he felt secure enough to risk a wife who might not be prepared to give up her faith for his. Undoubtedly, there would have been grave difficulties but Patrick was determined on remarriage as the only solution to his problems. Two months after his presumed rejection by Isabella Dury, Patrick wrote a tentative letter to Mary Burder's mother, sounding out the ground and trying to discover whether Mary had married in the intervening years. The excuse for his letter, having lost contact with Wethersfield for so many years, was that he intended to travel south in the summer and might pass through the neighbourhood. ‘I long to revisit the scene of my first ministerial labours,' he told her, ‘and to see some of my old friends.' He took care, however, to give Mrs Burder a brief résumé of his career to date, mentioning his wife, ‘a very amiable and respectable Lady, who has been dead for nearly two years, so that I am now left a widower', but not his six children. On the offchance that Mary was still unmarried, he made sure that her mother was aware of his eligibility as a potential suitor: he had been at Haworth for three years, he explained,