Author: insearchofannebronte@hotmail.com

This week has marked a joyous anniversary in the Brontë calendar, for it was on this week in 1820 that Anne Brontë was born in Thornton, near Bradford. The sixth and final child of the Brontë family, she has gained eternal fame as the youngest of the three writing Brontë sisters – and in my opinion her poetry and prose means that she deserves to be considered the equal of Charlotte and Emily Brontë.

In previous years we’ve marked this anniversary by looking at Anne Brontë’s skills as a writer, and at her place in the Brontë family and the wider world around it. Today we’re going to look at two first person accounts of Anne by those who had met and known her. 

There can little doubt that Anne Brontë was deeply loved by her family. She was the favourite of Aunt Branwell, who became like a second mother to the Brontë siblings, and she and Emily were like twins, walking together arm linked in arm. Charlotte Brontë called Anne the darling of her life, but what did the people of Haworth think?

The first account is from a Sarah Wood. By 1900 she was running a clothier’s shop in Haworth, but as a child she had been taught in Haworth Sunday school – and her teachers were some rather familiar children of the parish priest. Sarah recalled:

‘“Do I remember the Brontës?” was her greeting. “I should rather think I did. Miss Charlotte was my Sunday-school teacher. She was nice. But Miss Anne was my favourite: such a gentle creature.”’

Next we turn to someone who, as a youth, came to know the Brontë family very well. Tabitha Ratcliffe gave an interview in 1910 in her old age. Her maiden name was Tabitha Brown, she was the daughter of Haworth sexton (and friend of Branwell Brontë) John Brown, and the sister of parsonage servant Martha Brown. On occasion, Tabitha too was called upon to act as an additional servant to the Brontë family. She gave this fascinating recollection:

 ‘Her most interesting relic is a photograph on glass of the three sisters. “I believe Charlotte was the lowest and the broadest, and Emily was the tallest. She’d bigger bones and was stronger looking and more masculine, but very nice in her ways,” she comments. “But I used to think Miss Anne looked the nicest and most serious like; she used to teach at Sunday school. I’ve been taught by her and by Charlotte and all.” And it is on Anne that her glance rests as she says, “I think that is a good face.” There is no doubt which of the sisters of Haworth was Mrs Ratcliffe’s favourite.’

In the latter half of the nineteenth century a Haworth church guide was also interviewed, and he too recalled Anne Brontë in glowing terms:

‘Standing beside Charlotte’s last resting-place, I questioned my conductor respecting her, and found him at once ready and willing to oblige me with all the information in his possession. He had been but a little boy, he said, when all the family were living, but he remembered the three sisters well, and had often run errands for Mr Patrick. They used to take a great deal of notice of him when he was little; but Miss Annie was his favourite, perhaps because she always paid him so much attention. Baking-day never came round at the parsonage without her remembering to make a little cake or dumpling for him, and she seldom met him without having something good and sweet to bestow upon him.’

In my latest House Of Brontë video, I look at these accounts, and at just why Anne Brontë is so important today, and why her works are still so rewarding to read:

It was great to see that Anne Brontë was remembered in Thornton, the place of her birth, this weekend. The Brontë Birthplace put together what seemed to be a splendid Anne Brontë event. It looks like it was very well attended, and it has received unanimously positive feedback. I regret that I couldn’t attend due to wedding preparations, but I will certainly get to some of the events put on by the wonderful Brontë Birthplace team later this year. Here is a picture, from their social media, of the volunteers who helped to make the Anne Brontë celebration such a success. Well done to all involved, and to all who attended!

I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post, and in the meantime let’s all join together to say ‘happy 205th birthday Anne Brontë!’

 

Jane Eyre like all the  Brontë novels is an entertaining and enjoyable read, one which works on many levels and which lingers in your mind and heart long after you have turned the last page. It has moments of terror, moments of triumph, moments of hate and moments of love, but there is one particular passage which has become controversial: the Romany fortune teller scene.

This particular scene came to my mind yesterday when I stopped to talk to a Romany lady who was selling lucky heather and charms. It was a scene which seemed to be much more prevalent in my childhood, but now it struck me as being something rarely seen in today’s modern, fast paced world. I happily bought some heather, chatted to the lady and what she said was absolutely fascinating – I was more than happy to cross her palm with silver for the privilege.

I had taken part in a longstanding tradition in this country, and it held a particular fascination for readers in the mid-nineteenth century. One reason why Romany references in both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights seem controversial today is because of their use of a term which we would not readily use today: gipsy. It was, however, in common parlance of the time, used because of the prevailing opinion that in the midst of time these people had originally come from Egypt, bringing their own language and customs with them. Customs which, some said, included the ability to see into the spirit world and tell fortunes.

For middle class Victorians, who made up the vast majority of the book reading public at the time, visiting Romany camps was also seen as an exciting way to pass time, as we see in chapter 18 of Jane Eyre:

“The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred.”

This outing was postponed because of the weather (some things never change), but the suggestion of the visit had planted a seed in the mind of the party’s host – a certain Edward Rochester. It leads to one of Charlotte’s novel’s most divisive moments:
‘I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, “old woman,” – “quite troublesome.”

“Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off,” replied the magistrate.

“No – stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent. “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.” And speaking aloud, he continued – “Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to see her?”

“Surely, colonel,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!”

“But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here.”

“What does she want?” asked Mrs. Eshton.

“‘To tell the gentry their fortunes,’ she says, ma’am; and she swears she must and will do it.”

“What is she like?” inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.

“A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.”

“Why, she’s a real sorceress!” cried Frederick Lynn. “Let us have her in, of course.”

“To be sure,” rejoined his brother; “it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun.”

“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.

“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” chimed in the Dowager Ingram.

“Indeed, mama, but you can – and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. “I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.”

“My darling Blanche! recollect – ”

“I do – I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will – quick, Sam!”

“Yes – yes – yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. “Let her come – it will be excellent sport!”

The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he.

“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.

Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.

“She won’t come now,” said he. “She says it’s not her mission to appear before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one.”

“You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches. Be advised, my angel girl – and – ”

“Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.” “It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?”

“Yes, ma’am – but she looks such a tinkler.”

“Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.”

Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more.

“She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared. “She wishes to know who will be her first visitor.”

“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,” said Colonel Dent.

“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.”

Sam went and returned.

“She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and single.”

“By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn.

Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.

“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause – reflect!” was her mama’s cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.

A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” to wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.

The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.

Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.

“Well, Blanche?” said Lord Ingram.

“What did she say, sister?” asked Mary.

“What did you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?” demanded the Misses Eshton.

“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me. Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you all – my good mama included – ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.”

Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam’s calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram’s had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.

“I am sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all. “She told us such things! She knows all about us!” and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.

Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.

In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam.

“If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?”

“Oh, I will go by all means,” I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye – for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned – and I closed the door quietly behind me.

“If you like, miss,” said Sam, “I’ll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I’ll come in.”

“No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.” Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl – if Sibyl she were – was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.

“Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.

“I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.”

“It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.”

“Did you? You’ve a quick ear.”

“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.”

“You need them all in your trade.”

“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t you tremble?”

“I’m not cold.”

“Why don’t you turn pale?”

“I am not sick.”

“Why don’t you consult my art?”

“I’m not silly.”

The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very deliberately – 

“You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.”

“Prove it,” I rejoined.

“I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.”

She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigour.

“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house.”

“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?”

“In my circumstances.”

“Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are.”

“It would be easy to find you thousands.”

“You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results.”

“I don’t understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life.”

“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.”

“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?”

“To be sure.”

I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.

“It is too fine,” said she. “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there.”

“I believe you,” said I.

“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.”

“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall begin to put some faith in you presently.”

I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.

“I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,” she said, when she had examined me a while. “I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance.”

“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.”

“Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?”

“Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.”

“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat (you see I know your habits) – ”

“You have learned them from the servants.”

“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole – ”

I started to my feet when I heard the name.

“You have – have you?” thought I; “there is diablerie in the business after all, then!”

“Don’t be alarmed,” continued the strange being; “she’s a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?”

“I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.”

“But do you never single one from the rest – or it may be, two?”

“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses me to watch them.”

“What tale do you like best to hear?”

“Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme – courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe – marriage.”

“And do you like that monotonous theme?”

“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.”

“Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you – ”

“I what?”

“You know – and perhaps think well of.”

“I don’t know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.”

“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!”

“He is not at home.”

“A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance – blot him, as it were, out of existence?”

“No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced.”

“I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester’s eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?”

“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.”

“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?”

“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.

“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?”

“Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.”

“Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?”

I said nothing.

“You have seen love: have you not? – and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?”

“Humph! Not exactly. Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.”

“What the devil have you seen, then?”

“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?”

“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.”

“Shortly?”

“Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll, – he’s dished – ”

“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.”

“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.”

“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.”

I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She began muttering, – 

“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made, – to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable.

“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious.

“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say, – ‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.’ The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.’

“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans – right plans I deem them – and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution – such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight – to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood – no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet – That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; ‘the play is played out.’”

Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman’s voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass – as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me – on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.

“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice.

“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then – ”

“But the string is in a knot – help me.”

“Break it, sir.”

“There, then – ‘Off, ye lendings!’” And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.

“Now, sir, what a strange idea!”

“But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?”

“With the ladies you must have managed well.”

“But not with you?”

“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.”

“What character did I act? My own?”

“No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out – or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.”

“Do you forgive me, Jane?”

“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not right.”

“Oh, you have been very correct – very careful, very sensible.”

I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole – that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.

“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?”

“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?”

“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing.”

“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.”

“Sit down! – Let me hear what they said about me.”

“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock. Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?”

“A stranger! – no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?”

“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you returned.”

“The devil he did! Did he give his name?”

“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.”

Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.

“Mason! – the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason! – the West Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired.

“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!” He staggered.’

So there we have Jane’s encounter with the fortune-teller, who is of course actually Rochester. So controversial is this scene that it is often deleted or abridged in television and film adaptations of the novel, although the magnificent 1983 adaptation starting Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke included it in full. This post contains images from that adaptation.

It is not only the use of gipsy which renders it a controversial scene, as many say that it shows Rochester’s devious and controlling nature. He has certainly gone to great lengths to draw Jane Eyre’s hidden feelings out of her, but it should also be remembered that Charlotte herself thought of Rochester as a great romantic hero and went to lengths to defend his reputation in letters which drew sharp contrasts between he and Heathcliff.

Interestingly, Branwell Brontë’s great friend Francis Grundy revealed that Branwell often used to consult a famous Haworth fortune teller, an old man that my previous investigations revealed to be Jack Kaye.

I hope to see you again next week for another new Brontë blog post, and may your week and future ahead be a blessed one. Oh, and don’t forget that on this coming Saturday, 18th January, at Thornton’s St. James’s Church there is a special Anne Brontë celebration entitled The Three Anne(s). Proceeds go to help the wonderful Brontë Birthplace project. You can buy tickets online or pay on the day.

 

I hope your new year has got off to a happy start full of health and wealth. Alas, it was not to be in the Brontë household at the start of 1849 for it was on this very day that Anne Brontë was diagnosed with the thing her family dreaded – terminal consumption.

In just a handful of months this terrible disease had claimed her brother Branwell and her beloved sister Emily Brontë, and consumption, what we now call tuberculosis, had not finished with Haworth Parsonage yet.  By the time Emily’s funeral was held Anne was already exhibiting the classic symptoms of couging and shortness of breath upon any exertion. Soon these symptoms would be joined with sleepless nights, fatigue and wasting, and the coughing up of blood – as Anne Brontë’s blood spattered handkerchief shows all too clearly.

Patrick Brontë, all too aaware what these symptoms could mean but still clinging on to some hope asked a Dr Teale to attend the parsonage from Leeds. Teale was a consumption specialist, and Ellen Nussey, who was visiting the parsonage at the time in order to conceal Charlotte Brontë following Emily’s death, gave this moving account of what happened next:

“Anne was looking sweetly pretty and flushed, and in capital spirits for an invalid. While consultations were going on in Mr Brontë‘s study, Anne was very lively in conversation, walking around the room surrounded by me. Mr Brontë joined us after Mr Teale’s departure and, seating himself on the couch, he drew Anne towards him and said, “My dear little Anne.” That was all – but it was understood.’

The final chapter in Anne Brontë’s story had commenced – she had been diagnosed with the final stages of consumption, and there was nothing that medical science of the time could do. Anne’s life would be over all too quickly, and yet when we look back at our distance of two centuries we can see that it was a life of triumph. Anne’s life and works are remembered still, and always will be. I was delighted, therefore, to receive news of a fabulous Anne Brontë event taking place at the Brontë birthplace in Thornton, Bradford on January 18th. The event is called The Three Ann(e)s, and will be a celebration of Anne Brontë’s life with prose and piano. 

The event takes place at St. James’ Church, across from the Old Bell Chapel which saw Anne’s baptism. Doors open at 1.30 and the main event commences at 2pm. Over the course of a fascinating hour pianist Ann Airton and Brontë buff Anne Powell will celebrate Anne using music and words. It’s something that music loving Anne Brontë would definitely have approved of, especially as it’s just one day after Anne’s birthday.

It also marks the start of Bradford’s reign as 2025 City Of Culture. There will also be refreshments and a raffle, and an opportunity to mix with fellow Brontë enthusiasts in the village where the Brontë sisters’ story began. What better way could you spend a Saturday afternoon in January. For more information and tickets just click on this link. Oh, and by the way, the brilliant Brontë Birthplace is also seeking applicants for their Programme Manager position, so take a look at their website if you can help.

I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post.

All too often our encounters with the Brontë stories are tragic ones, especially if we follow them week by week, as we do on this blog. Just last week we marked the tragic early death of Emily Brontë. It was anything but festive, but today we mark a much more joyous occasion as we celebrate the wedding of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell.

It was on this day in 1812 that Patrick and Maria became Mr and Mrs Brontë – marking the beginning of the Brontë story as we know it, the birth of the House of Brontë. Their married life produced six children, and it was a love match – which wasn’t always the case in the early nineteenth century. 

We can still visit the location of their wedding – St. Oswald’s church is in Guiseley, between Leeds and Bradford and three miles north of Woodhouse Grove school where Patrick and Maria first met, probably, in the summer of 1812. I say probably because there is a possibility they had met before, and I will explore that in another blog post. You can see this grand old church at the head of this post.

It was a doubly joyful occasion within St. Oswald’s as it was a double wedding – alongside Patrick and Maria, William Morgan (Patrick’s best friend) married Jane Fennell (Maria’s cousin). John Fennell, Patrick’s employer at the school where he was a Classics examiner, gave away the two brides – Jane and Maria were his daughter and niece.

To add to the unique nature of this event, 400 miles to the south, in Penzance, Cornwall, Charlotte Branwell, sister to Maria and cousin to Jane Fennell, was marrying yet another cousin, Joseph Branwell. On Christmas Day 1884, this Charlotte’s daughter, another Charlotte Branwell, gave this fulsome description to a local newspaper:

‘It was arranged that the two marriages [Patrick and Maria and William and Jane] should be solemnized on the same day as that of Miss Charlotte Branwell’s mother, fixed for 29th December in far off Penzance. And so, whilst the youngest sister of Mrs. Brontë was being married to her cousin, the late Mr Joseph Branwell, the double marriage, as already noted was taking place in Yorkshire. Miss Charlotte Branwell also adds that at Guiseley not only did the Rev. Mr Brontë and the Rev. Mr Morgan perform the marriage ceremony for one another, but the brides acted as bridesmaids for each other. Mr Fennell, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, would have united the young people, but he had to give both brides away. Miss Branwell notes these facts to prove that the arrangement for the three marriages on the same day was no caprice or eccentricity on the part of Mr Brontë, but was made entirely by the brides. She has many a time heard her mother speak of the circumstances. “It is but seldom,” continues Miss Branwell, “that two sisters and four cousins are united in holy matrimony on the same day. Those who were united on that day bore that relationship to each other. Mrs. Brontë (formerly Maria Branwell) and my mother, Charlotte Branwell, were sisters; my father was their cousin; and Jane Fennel was a cousin to them all, her father, the Rev. J. Fennell, having married a Miss Branwell of a former generation.

If the account I have given you is likely to be of any interest you are quite at liberty to use it as you think proper. I really think a deal of eccentricity has been ascribed to Mr Brontë which he never possessed, and from his letters to my dear mother, of which there are some still in existence, I should say he was a very worthy man, but one who had to pass through some great trials in the early death of a truly amiable wife and of a very gifted family.”’

Patrick and Maria, William and Jane, Joseph and Charlotte all ended the year on a high, and in my own way I am too. I’ve loved sharing lots of Brontë blog posts with you throughout the year, and I’m enjoying making videos for my new YouTube channel The House Of Brontë.

Today’s post is very appropriate for me too, as I look forward to my own wedding next year. 2025 promises to be a wonderful year for me, so thank you for all your support as always. I hope to see you here on Thursday for a special New Year’s Day Brontë blog post.

We’ve made it to another Christmas, and I hope yours is just as joyful and happy as mine is! I’m typing this on Christmas Day itself, and there’s lots of love and no bah humbug, so who could ask for more? As is traditional on this Brontë blog we are going to celebrate the big day with an Anne Brontë Christmas poem! I’ll intersperse it with some bizarre Victorian Christmas cards too – like this one!

It’s all too easy to think of the Brontë lives as relentlessly miserable, but in fact they also enjoyed moments of great happiness – especially when they were all together as a family. We can easily imagine Emily Brontë at the piano, with Anne singing in her quiet yet sweet voice. Tabby and Martha, the loyal Brontë servants, would be cooking up a treat for everyone to enjoy – I’m sure there would even be a scrap or two left over for the family pets as well!

They may, in later years, have received Christmas cards. I mentioned in a Christmas post from 2019 how the first Christmas modern card was invented by Sir Henry Cole in 1843, but recent research indicates that the origins of Christmas cards may in fact be much earlier.

I leave you now to enjoy Christmas with your loved ones, I hope it’s a truly special one for you. You can also catch my take on the Brontë Christmas on my YouTube channel The House Of Brontë. Thank you so much for all your positive comments, and to all who have subscribed and shared. It means a lot to me.

Here then is Anne Brontë’s ‘Music On Christmas Morning’, and may I wish you all a very merry Christmas! I will see you on Sunday, as always, for another new Brontë blog post.

‘Music I love – but never strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine –
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes born.
Though Darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel’s voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice;
To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The Powers of Darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.
While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.
With them – I celebrate His birth –
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good will to men, and peace on Earth,
To us a saviour-king is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan’s power is overthrown!
A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell must renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed.
And Satan’s self must now confess,
That Christ has earned a Right to bless:
Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,
And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:
The captive’s galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our king;
And He that gave his blood for men
Will lead us home to God again.’

Christmas day draws ever nearer, and preparations are going full swing across the world, but the run up to the big day isn’t always a cheery one. It can be a challenging time, a time of grief, loss and confusion, as the residents of Haworth Parsonage found out as Christmas 1848 loomed.

On 19th December 1848 the great genius Emily Brontë died, aged just 30 years old. All round them in the following days celebrations were in full swing, but for the Brontë family in the parsonage things would never be the same again. Little could they have known that whilst they suffered a personal and insurmountable loss the world of literature had suffered a great loss too. 

Charlotte Brontë turned, as she so often did, to her pen to help her deal with her grief, and two letters she sent in the aftermath of Emily’s death paint a very moving, very mournful, picture. The first letter was sent to W. S. Williams, of Charlotte’s publishing house, on 20th December 1848:

“My dear sir, when I wrote in such haste to Dr. Epps, disease was making rapid strides, nor has it lingered since, the galloping consumption has merited its name – neither physician nor medicine are needed more. Tuesday night and morning saw the last hours, the last agonies, proudly ensured till the end. Yesterday Emily Jane Brontë died in the arms of those who loved her.

Thus the strange dispensation is completed – it is incomprehensible as yet to mortal intelligence. The last three months – ever since my brother’s death seem to us like a long, terrible dream. We look for support to God – and thus far he mercifully enables us to maintain our self-control in the midst of affliction whose bitterness none could have calculated on.”

Three days later Charlotte Brontë wrote to Ellen Nussey, the friend to whom she had last written on the mourning of Emily’s passing just four days earlier:

“Dear Ellen, Emily suffers no more either from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer more in this world – she is gone after a hard, short conflict. She died on Tuesday, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very possible then she might be with us still for weeks and a few hours afterwards she was in Eternity – Yes – there is no Emily in Time or on Earth now – yesterday, we put her poor, wasted mortal frame quietly under the Church pavement. We are very calm at present, why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over – the spectacle of the pain of Death is gone by – the funeral day is past – we feel she is at peace, no need now to tremble for the hard frost and keen wind – Emily does not feel them. She has died in a time of promise – we saw her torn from life in its prime – but it is God’s will, and the place where she is gone is better than that she has left.”

Emily’s final moments were spent upon the couch which can still be found in Haworth Parsonage’s dining room – that’s it at the head of this post. This day in 1848 marked the funeral of Emily Jane Brontë. The world would never see her like again, but we can still turn to her incredible novel and her wonderful poetry. Poetry like ‘The Old Stoic’, below, in which Emily set out her attitude to life, and death. Its final words now adorn the Brontë memorial at Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner.

‘Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish’d with the morn:
And, if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, ‘Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!’
Yea, as my swift days near their goal,
‘Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.’

We remember Emily Brontë today and her faithful dog Keeper who, as Ellen Nussey said, lost all his former cheerfulness after Emily’s death and his role as chief mourner at her funeral. Let us turn now to cheerier matters, and I hope to see you on Wednesday for my traditional Christmas morning Brontë blog post.

Christmas is exactly ten days away – have you bought your presents and sent your cards yet? Perhaps you like to send one of those ‘round robin’ letters to family and friends updating them on the situation in your home. Charlotte Brontë sent something very similar to best friend Ellen (Nell) Nussey on this day in 1846, so I reproduce it for you below.

Being written by Charlotte Brontë, as masterful a letter writer as she was a novelist, this is rather better than the standard circular you might receive today. Not for Charlotte the usual platitudes, although she does provide that most English of conversation openers: an update on the weather.

We also hear how Anne Brontë is battling bravely against illness, and of how they are experiencing problems of a very different kind with brother Branwell Brontë – a man very much beholden to his demons at this time. The letter of 15th December 1846 follows:

“I hope you are not frozen up; the cold here is dreadful. I do not remember such a series of North-Pole days. England might really have taken a slide up into the Arctic Zone; the sky looks like ice; the earth is frozen; the wind is as keen as a two-edged blade. We have all had severe colds and coughs in consequence of the weather. Poor Anne has suffered greatly from asthma, but is now, we are glad to say, rather better. She had two nights last week when her cough and difficulty of breathing were painful indeed to hear and witness, and must have been most distressing to suffer; she bore it, as she bears all affliction, without one complaint, only sighing now and then when nearly worn out. She has an extraordinary heroism of endurance. I admire, but I certainly could not imitate her.

Meantime, I fear you dear Nell, must have had your fair share of miseries; the habitation of economical gentility would not be the most desirable in the world at this season – and I imagine you must often have longed to be back in your Mother’s warm room or at Brookroyd drawing-room’s comfortable fireside. Write soon again and let me know how you are.

You say I am “to tell you plenty”, what would you have me say – nothing happens at Haworth – nothing at least of a pleasant kind. One little incident occurred about a week ago to sting us to life, but it gives no more pleasure for you to hear it than it did 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 it is ten times worse to witness the shabbiness of his behaviour on such occasions. But where is the use of dwelling on this subject, it will make him no better.

I am glad to hear that Mary Hurst is likely to marry well – is her intended a clergyman? I have not heard any further tidings from Mary Taylor. I send you the last French newspaper, several have missed coming – I don’t know why. Do you intend paying a visit to Sussex before you return home? Write again soon – your last epistle was very interesting –

I am dear Nell, Yours in spirit & flesh, CB”

North-pole days notwithstanding I hope you can join me next Sunday for another, and increasingly festive, Brontë blog post.

 

December rushes on apace, if you haven’t yet got your Christmas decorations up then it’s probably time to get that old faithful tree down from the attic and start untangling the fairy lights. In today’s post we’re going to look at a seasonal depiction in one of the great Brontë novels.

When we think of Christmas in a Brontë novel we probably think of its depiction in Wuthering Heights. It was the subjects of my latest YouTube video on my House Of Brontë channel, where we look at Emily Brontë’s description of a tense Christmas feast enlivened by the arrival of the Gimmerton band.
A grand house is also the scene for another festive celebration – but this time it appears in Charlotte Brontë’s final completed novel Villette. The grand La Terrase is the setting this time, as the grand family of the Count de Bassompierre, once known by the more down to earth name Home, celebrate an English style Christmas in the heart of Belgium:

‘Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.

Father and son came at last to the château: for the Count de Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance: both were white—two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying, “Papa, papa, you look like an enormous Polar bear.”

The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.

“Come, then,” said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some little chamois.

Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten; her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took her sire’s cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men do look on what is the apple of their eye.

“Mrs. Bretton,” said he: “what am I to do with this daughter or daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don’t you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?”

“She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine,” said Mrs. Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm’s length.

“Come, mamma,” said he, “by way of compromise, and to secure for us inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup, and toast Old England here, on the hearth.”

So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to and fro—happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen—Mrs. Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl, and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round, reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as Graham’s christening-cup.

“Here’s to Auld Lang Syne!” said the Count; holding the glancing cup on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.—

  “We twa ha’ paidlet i’ the burn

      Fra morning sun till dine,

  But seas between us braid ha’ roared

      Sin’ auld lang syne.

  “And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup,

      And surely I’ll be mine;

  And we’ll taste a cup o’ kindness yet

      For auld lang syne.”

“Scotch! Scotch!” cried Paulina; “papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic.”

“And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?” asked her father. “Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she is a strange little mortal.”

“Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe.”

Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly, “he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter’s lips, and he had listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old acquaintance.”

Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de fée, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of her mortal privileges.

“Let me taste,” said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the shelf of the dresser out of her reach.

Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John had not been unobservant of the fairy’s dance; he had watched it, and he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his mother’s house charmed him, for it set him at ease: again she seemed a child for him—again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words proved that the old days of “little Polly” had been recalled to his mind by this evening’s child-like light-heartedness.

“Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?”

“I think I said so. I think I intimated as much.”

“Couldn’t consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it, but couldn’t do it.”

“Why? I am quite well now: it can’t break my collar-bone again, or dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?”

“No; nor dew.”

“I don’t want dew; I don’t like dew: but what is it?”

“Ale—strong ale—old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born.”

“It must be curious: is it good?”

“Excessively good.”

And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.

“I should like a little,” said Paulina, looking up; “I never had any ‘old October:’ is it sweet?”

“Perilously sweet,” said Graham.

She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it was a gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by which its brim was courted.

“A little more—a little more,” said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. “It smells of spice and sugar, but I can’t taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy.”

He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: “Don’t tell my mother or Lucy; they wouldn’t approve.”

“Nor do I,” said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: “I find it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath. Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no more.”

And, with a slight bend—careless, but as graceful as her dance—she glided from him and rejoined her father.

I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of seventeen.’

Within this vignette we see glimpses of the festive celebrations Charlotte Brontë must have known, with the passing of the wassail cup, and the singing of Auld Lang Syne, the song set down by Robbie Burns so popular on New Year’s Day today, and which we know Anne Brontë had a copy of in her handwritten music book – as we see in the image above.

Whatever your plans are for this weekend and for all of this festive month to come, I hope you get to pass round a wassail cup with your loved ones, and I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

We’ve entered Advent and that big day draws ever nearer. We’ll be looking at Christmas in the Brontë lives and works on this blog throughout December, as usual, but I’ll also be looking at it on my new YouTube channel.

If you haven’t checked it out, it’s called The House of Brontë and I’ll be looking at all things Brontë-related, as well as telling the story of this remarkable family from beginning to end.

In today’s video I look at Emily Brontë’s depiction of Christmas within Wuthering Heights and consider what that tells us about Christmas in Haworth Parsonage.

If you want to see more of my House Of Brontë videos just click the ‘subscribe’ button on YouTube. On Sunday it will be business as usual here with another new Brontë blog post, I hope you can join me then.

December has begun, a busy month for most of us, but especially for a certain couple back in December 1812. Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell had first met just months earlier, but already their wedding was fixed for 29th December – with that came not only the vows which would tie them together forever, and set literary history in process, but also a change of home. Patrick Brontë would be saying goodbye to Lousy Thorn Farm.

Both these people had already travelled a long way from the place of their birth, especially by early 19th century standards – the railway had yet to be invented, and long journeys were expensive and made by coach, ship or a combination of the two. Journeys such as the 400 miles or so that Maria made from Cornwall to the West Riding of Yorkshire were arduous and sometimes perilous – it was common for people to make their will before undertaking such a journey.

Maria Branwell herself experienced just how dangerous the journey could be – although she, thankfully, arrived safely, her belongings which were sent after her in a trunk were lost at sea when the ship carrying them was wrecked in a storm. 

Patrick had crossed the sea on his journey from County Down, in what is now Northern Ireland, to England, via Cambridge, and although he remained in close contact with his relatives he never saw the country of his birth again. By 1812 he was in his mid thirties and Maria in her late twenties, but when they met they realised that their life had changed forever. We can see this in a moving letter sent by Maria to her fiance on 24th October:

‘Unless my love for you were very great how could I so contentedly give up my home and all my friends… Yet these have lost their weight… the anticipation of sharing with you all the pleasures and pains, the cares and anxieties of life, of contributing to your comfort and becoming the companion of your pilgrimage, is more delightful to me than any other prospect which this world can possibly present.’

As December opened, plans for the wedding were heading into overdrive. As Brontë fans and regular readers of my blog may remember this wasn’t any old wedding – it was a triple wedding! At the same ceremony that would see Maria and Patrick wed, Maria’s cousin Jane and Patrick’s best friend William also wed. On the same day and at the same time, although in distant Cornwall, Maria’s sister (and Jane’s cousin) Charlotte Branwell was marrying yet another cousin Joseph Branwell. In 1884 this Charlotte Branwell’s daughter, another Charlotte Branwell, later gave this summary to a Cornish newspaper:

‘It was arranged that the two marriages [Patrick and Maria and William and Jane] should be solemnized on the same day as that of Miss Charlotte Branwell’s mother, fixed for 29th December in far off Penzance. And so, whilst the youngest sister of Mrs. Brontë was being married to her cousin, the late Mr Joseph Branwell, the double marriage, as already noted, was taking place in Yorkshire. Miss Charlotte Branwell also adds that at Guiseley not only did the Rev. Mr Brontë and the Rev. Mr Morgan perform the marriage ceremony for one another, but the brides acted as bridesmaids for each other. Mr Fennell, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, would have united the young people, but he had to give both brides away. Miss Branwell notes these facts to prove that the arrangement for the three marriages on the same day was no caprice or eccentricity on the part of Mr Brontë, but was made entirely by the brides. She has many a time heard her mother speak of the circumstances. “It is but seldom,” continues Miss Branwell, “that two sisters and four cousins are united in holy matrimony on the same day. Those who were united on that day bore that relationship to each other. Mrs. Brontë (formerly Maria Branwell) and my mother, Charlotte Branwell, were sisters; my father was their cousin; and Jane Fennell was a cousin to them all, her father, the Rev. J. Fennell, having married a Miss Branwell of a former generation. If the account I have given you is likely to be of any interest you are quite at liberty to use it as you think proper. I really think a deal of eccentricity has been ascribed to Mr Brontë which he never possessed, and from his letters to my dear mother, of which there are some still in existence, I should say he was a very worthy man, but one who had to pass through some great trials in the early death of a truly amiable wife and of a very gifted family.”’

That’s all clear as mud isn’t it, but what is clear is that the start of December 1812 must have seen lots of excitement and lots of planning. In another letter, dated 5th December, we hear that Maria is anticipating the baking:

‘We intend to set about making the cakes here next week, but as fifteen or twenty persons whom you mention live probably in your neighbourhood, I think it will be most convenient for Mrs Bedford to make a small one for the purpose of distributing there, which will save us the difficulty of sending so far.’

Mrs Bedford was presumably Patrick’s landlady for at the time he, as vicar of the parish of Hartshead cum Clifton (near Mirfield, which Anne Brontë would come to know so well), was renting accommodation at the less than delightfully named Lousy Thorn Farm in Hartshead.

What Patrick’s accommodation looked like we have little way of knowing – the building fell into disrepair, but it is now being restored and is currently called Thornbush Farm. The plan is to turn it into a Brontë visitor attraction, so I hope that comes to fruition!

After their marriage Patrick and Maria Brontë began their married life in a new home together – and this building still stands today. It is Clough House in Hightown near Liversedge, and the site bears a plaque remembering its illustrious former residents. The building itself can be seen at the head of this post.

Whatever your December plans are, I hope they progress smoothly and happily, and I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post – on Sunday at the usual time, I’m sorry that today’s post was a day later than usual, December can be a hectic month for all of us!