Heathcliff's Tale (15 page)

‘My son—for this was indeed the son I had prayed for before falling victim to my sad fancies—did not in the least resemble Heathcliff, and for this the Good Lord must be thanked. He was the image of my darling brother Edgar when he was a child, and I named him Linton.
He was my one and only reason for remaining alive, and I love him with all my heart.

‘My greatest fear, at present, is that Heathcliff, father and legal guardian of young Linton, will discover us here and remove his son, who is now twelve years old. I cannot bear the idea of losing him to a godless heathen such as Heathcliff.

‘But, after twelve years expiating those sins embraced so ardently in my youth, the end of my calm and contentment is in sight. I know myself to be ill; my brother, relenting at last on receiving news of my decline, comes tomorrow to bid me farewell and take my son north with him, to Thrushcross Grange. Edgar promises to guard Linton vigilantly; but I know Heathcliff and I tremble: he will be altogether too near, too near…'

Here Isabella's story breaks off. It was dark by the time I left the sooty bank above Leeds and made my way home. I did not light the lamps when I entered my room, but lay down on my bed and lay there awake all night.

We have here attempted to show, as we conceive it, the dawning of understanding on the part of Henry Newby when confronted by the evidence regarding authorship of the ‘lost' successor to
Wuthering Heights.
Only an objective approach we feel can uncover the truth and reveal the genius of the much maligned Branwell Brontë.

A man in his early or mid thirties—bearded, bookish, stooping—makes his way slowly up the village street of Haworth towards the Parsonage. If his progress is noted, it causes no surprise: Mr Newby, appointed biographer of the late Branwell Brontë some year or two back by his uncle, the publisher Thomas Cautley Newby, has become a frequent visitor to the home of the now-celebrated Brontë sisters. Nearly everyone with any connection to the family has been interviewed exhaustively, from the loyal Martha Brown, servant to the Reverend Patrick Brontë, to William Wood, village carpenter and nephew of Tabby, maid and nurse to Charlotte, Anne and Emily. Wood had told his story several times, this concerning the extreme slenderness of the coffin he had been commissioned to make for Miss Emily. In recording the measurements, he said he had never in all his experience made so narrow a shell for an adult: at 5 feet 7 inches by 16 inches its width would have been better suited to a child.

The reason for the delay in publication of Henry Newby's Life of Branwell Brontë, is due to the unfortunate case of libel brought against his uncle, the London publisher; and a resulting state of bankruptcy only now about to be discharged. It is a sign of the publisher's determination
to continue believing in his nephew's assertions on the subject of the authorship of
Wuthering Heights
, that the volume is scheduled to go to press as soon as the final pages are completed and the manuscript sent down post-haste to Mortimer Street. The hubbub surrounding the discovery of the true identities of Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell—and the cult that has grown up around the Parsonage—(this thanks both to Ellen Nussey, a close friend of Charlotte, and Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell)—have not affected the decision to go ahead with the biography of Branwell, considered by now to be by far the least talented and interesting member of the family. Thomas, who likes to boast of a ‘nose' for a good book or a commercially successful venture, is confident in his nephew's powers of detection, and his ability, doubtless inherited, to sniff out the truth in a scandalous story. Henry has passed many trying seasons in attempting to ‘get behind' the romance of Branwell and his employer's wife, Mrs Robinson. He has, albeit with reluctance, passed innumerable nights in the Black Bull (he has forsworn alcohol and can be seen sipping at tea or some other beverage unlikely to have been consumed by his subject) and he has paced the graveyard countless times, observing the headstone of the young man who liked, in the fantasy life so much more appealing to him than the reality of his sad failures and drunken blundering, to see himself as Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland. (Henry Newby has also, naturally, been shown the tiny books written by the acclaimed sisters, these outlining the exploits of the inhabitants of the kingdoms of Angria [Charlotte's domain] and Gondal [Emily's].) The niece of old Tabby, repeating lore of past days here at Haworth, has described to the biographer the terrible sultriness of an afternoon forty years back, when the moor rose up and suffered an earthquake which nearly killed the Brontë children, Emily then being six years old and Branwell seven.

There is only one important character in the forthcoming work—a work which should ‘prove', conclusively, the authorship of the famous novel as being that of the maligned and neglected Branwell—and that character is the sexton John Brown, whose leonine head, against a backdrop of stormy sky, the young Brontë had painted to such effect. Brown, after a first brief meeting with the biographer (and it was possible, as Newby noted with discomfort, that, despite his beard and much-aged appearance, Brown retained some memory of an earlier occasion in a shepherd's house, and his own revelation of the identity of the author of
Wuthering Heights
there) had politely declined to meet Newby further.

Today, for no reason known to this solicitor's clerk now attempting to revive the fortunes of a shady publishing house, Newby had been informed that John Brown will meet him at last, and at the Parsonage. It was known that old Patrick, for many years the vicar of the parish, was by now—in 1861—gravely ill and considered to be on his deathbed. Newby could only suppose that a worsening of the Reverend's condition had caused the change of mind in John Brown; and if the budding biographer felt a hint of petulance at the prospect of hearing from the horse's mouth (if the orifice providing the pronouncements of the sexton could be so termed) on the subject of the death of Branwell Brontë once again—‘John! I am dying!' followed by the arrival of the Reverend Patrick, Branwell staggering to his feet, crying ‘Father' and then falling dead—he made a sincere effort not to show it. That the scene might be re-enacted, for the benefit of a pious future reading public, was highly probable; certainly, Branwell's odes and ballads and pitiful scribblings would be brought forth, if not the sixpenny packets of opium pills or fivepenny ‘squibs of gin' with which he had frequently found oblivion. A reporter for the
Halifax Guardian
, a Mr Dearden, had already written to
Henry insisting that Branwell Brontë had professed himself the author of
Wuthering Heights
and that clues in the manuscript would, when demonstrated, bring conclusive proof of his authorship.

The coming rendezvous was not the only cause for Newby's sense of dread. He knew, in order to satisfy his uncle and (he hoped) restore the rocky finances obtaining in Mortimer Street, that any salacious detail appertaining to the sole male sibling in the Brontë family would increase sales considerably. He had the Mrs Robinson affair off pat and had sent a précis of it to London; and the Will ‘proving' that lady's loyalty to her husband had been despatched to Newby & Sons in Leeds, so the fine print could properly be deciphered. Yet, apart from tirades delivered in drunkenness at the Black Bull, and blasphemous utterances hushed up by the devoted John Brown, there was no real scandal to attach to Branwell, other than the claim by this untalented nondescript that he was responsible for his younger sister's novel. Newby hoped, but not with a sense of coming success, that he would dig up something buried by the sexton and (probably) by Miss Charlotte Brontë, a something that would cause grave disapproval and also titillate the readers.

At first, the interview with the ancient Patrick Brontë and the still-robust John Brown went much as had been expected. The parson of Haworth, eager to spell out his son's virtues, insisted on leading the way up to the small room which had been shared by Branwell and his father for many mortifying years, the impecunious situation of the son reflected in the child's bed next to his parent, which Branwell had had to occupy. Here, as Newby had feared, the story of ‘John I'm dying' and the respectful staggering to his feet of the sad Branwell Brontë at the sight of his parent, were indeed repeated, John Brown standing just as respectfully while Patrick Brontë played out his part. Newby had become accustomed to the repetition
of stories, usually described as memories, which appeared to become fixed in a kind of gelatine of unalterability each time they were brought out. He could not count the number of times he had heard of Branwell setting his bedclothes on fire—nor of the occasions, so many were they, of Emily's death and the mournful vigil of her dog Keeper. (Tales of Emily's own violent savagery towards her dog came out only at the Black Bull when a ‘friend of the family' had his tongue loosened by a drink, paid for, if reluctantly, by the firm of Thomas Cautley Newby.) It often seemed to the apprentice biographer that there was only a limited supply of stories about his subject—as there had been with Jesus: perhaps they could be told over and over again, and by different people, but they were actually the same—and sometimes Newby doubted whether Branwell, dead three months at the time of his first visit to the Parsonage, had not been a mythical son in the family.

All the assertions and repetitions of Branwell's genius led to a reverie—Newby could describe the odd sense of enlightenment which descended on him in that little room only in those terms, though he also admitted it had been the sight of the ‘little lamp' trimmed so devotedly by Emily which inspired it. The lamp sat by the window (it had once been in the stone-flagged hall) and was known by now, in popular legend, to have been the guiding light for Branwell when he stumbled home from the inn. People spoke with reverence of the time passed by Emily as she waited for the return of her brother late at night; of three years expecting, as her poem declared, ‘the messenger of Hope'. Newby had been shown the lines at the outset of his quest to write the life of Branwell … ‘The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far …'

The interview ends; Patrick Brontë falls silent and shuffles from the room. John Brown enquires, in cordial tone, whether Mr Newby will accompany him to the Black
Bull. It is clear that he has further ‘proof of Branwell Brontë's authorship to divulge: his will be the most controversial chapter in the biography. But Mr Newby refuses. He asks if he may visit Emily's room, the small study above the downstairs room where once (though he does not say so) he found the burning fragments of a book. Mr Newby says he would like to look through some of the Gondal poems, and understand the invented kingdom inhabited by the youngest sister and Branwell. It will help him to understand the genius of Branwell Brontë.

And John Brown, who says he is certain that the Reverend Mr Brontë will have no objection at all, goes down the winding stone stair and out across the hall of the Parsonage into Church Lane.

We can come to no better conclusion as to the authorship of these fragments from the possible successor to
Wuthering Heights
than did the suffering but resolute Henry Newby himself Sometimes, it seems that Branwell Brontë is incontestably their creator; at others, a woman's hand is clearly indicated. Compassion for Henry, whose return visit to Haworth Parsonage was as gruelling as his first—if not more so, for he was ‘hearing voices' by this stage—can be succeeded by relief that he found his vocation at last, passing from non-reader to one who devours novels and continuing through the fields of biography to discover his voice at last as a writer of historical fiction. In that mode, he may finally have discovered the truth of the impossible relationship between his hero, Heathcliff, and his heroine Emily Brontë.

I stayed a long time in the room where all those years ago I felt the presence of the just-dead Emily Brontë, and suffered—or so I thought—along with her at the cruel ending of a brilliant young life.

Now, I faced the cruel reality of another set of facts: the truth of the authorship of the novel published under the name of Ellis Bell—and, for that matter, the truth about the identity of those (or he or she) who had penned the chapters and pages I had found or had foisted upon me since my first coming to Haworth. And for this I suffered still more—so I regret to admit—than I had at learning of the early death of a young poet and writer: I suffered for my own character and the damage I permitted to be done in my name—viz. appending it to a volume of biography which set out to prove a lie. I knew—as well as the good John Brown and old Mr Brontë knew—that Branwell Brontë was not the author of
Wuthering Heights
; he might have invented some of the continuation of the story of those Godless people, for all I knew (and I did not wish to dwell on my youthful folly when it came to believing in their exploits and their passions), and he might yet supply a footnote in history as one who had followed his sister in her extraordinary
venture. But Branwell was not a writer—he was more of a painter, I concluded, as I sat in that meagre study where genius had blossomed, and looked at his portrait of poor Emily. I could not and would not defame the true author of a masterpiece in order to please a publisher or for financial gain. Emily, with her ‘little lamp' must shine unburnished for eternity.

Thoughts like these led me to sit on, while the day, a kind of spring day where the light is permanently on the edge of extinguishing itself altogether—the trees in the graveyard black still and sombre as spectral widows, a faint haze hanging around the path leading out to a darkened moor, and no sense of resolution to be seen anywhere—encouraged me to gaze longer at the portrait, this undecided also in its delineation of a young woman's earnest face. I knew, as I gazed, that I had seen this face; and I was aware, also, that this was an impossibility, for Emily had lain below me in the churchyard, as she did now, at the time of my first coming to the Parsonage. Yet—and as I contemplated her, she seemed to turn slightly and to direct a glance at me, as if surprised at some secret pleasure I might for an instant understand—I knew where I had seen her, and I shrank back into my chair.