Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (443 page)

Mrs Thurston evidently did not understand the Banisters peroration and her mild eyes asked from Percy’s face an explanation of the awful word; but that face, instead of consternation, expressed ecstatic pleasure as its lips whispered

“At last they are at home!”

“Oh but my friend” pleaded the Banister “think of the wives — stop they are not married — well then, of their children, poor little souls, sent adrift on the stormy ocean of this world — ”

“Egad! They have been adrift since they were hatched Mat!”

“Well, but their mothers — ”

“What? The childrens mothers, or the Saint’s Hector?”

“You are not yet out of the shell — I mean the bonds of Satan — Percy. Do you know that Quashia and O’ Connor are in the lock up, and will be brought this morning before Thurston and — worst of all — before Sir John Sinclair!”

On hearing that last name Mrs Thurston’s pale cheek turned yet paler and she asked

“Then has my uncle arrived from Scotland?”

“He has — because he foresaw the evil to come like a double sighted Highlander as he is!”

Percy frowned on the lady as he noticed her change of countenance and then rose, turning to Montmorency with the remark that he supposed the poor devils wanted bail and he was sure that neither Jerry or Gordon would give it without a consideration so he supposed he must go down to Ardmore — ‘but’ he concluded, as he left the room with his friend I shall be back with your hus — with Thurston.”

Mrs Thurston stood alone in the room, and as she saw the tall athletic gentleman in the dark green Newmarket Coat ride off by the side of his danger boding companion she involuntarily clasped her hands and exclaimed

“Oh God! My life is changed!”

Forethoughts of events to come gathered round her like tide waves round a stone, and like such waves overwhelmed her. Consciousness of what she has done that morning flashed like lightning through her soul, and though one thud of her mind prayed for God’s mercy and another third enquired, “had she sinned at all!’ the last third compelled he to fall on her knees, bury her face in the sopha cushion, and utter, amid sobs and at intervals, her scarcely coherent prayer.

“Oh God forgive me if thou cans’t! I do not know how much I have angered thee — I do not know whether or not I sin in daring to pray to thee — I only know that I cannot help myself, that I am going whither my every feeling leads me, and that, come what may, into thy hands I must fall. The world will now judge ill of me — My sisterhood will shun me — Snares will surround me — my life will be endangered, a long dark future may be preparing for me and Hell itself may rise to meet meat my comings; But how can I shake off what my heart clings to? How can I vow to thee that I will forget him who seems all I have hoped for and never have obtained? How can I return to silent submission under heartless tyranny and keep any promise to hate the name of love?

I loved this world — I longed to see it happy — I did all I could to please whom I could — I gave myself to one who promised what he did not perform — I still kept to my promises and smiled away sorrow when I could, or hid it when misery overmastered the smile — Through all I felt blameless and could each night place my trust in Thee. What, then, can I do now? I
cannot
hate him — I
 
cannot
forget him — He has made me love him, and yet I must cast his image aside or live, a traitor to my vow, and a sinner in thy sight.

“My God, I
cannot
cast him aside! I should lie if I promised it — I long to be his own,but I have, through my life longed to be
Thine
own. I cannot be both, and now I must try to long to be in my grave.

Where, my God, is thy compassion, and why is it denied to me? Am I doomed to an endless agony; and, if so, wherefore am I doomed? I am as thou hast formed me — I feel as thou hast caused me — I act as thou permittest — I suffer what thou willest — I am thine with whom to do what thou pleasest —
but
— I am another’s also!

Forgive me if I pray for him this night when I shall not dare to pray for myself. Forgive me if my eyes turn from the daily repeated scene of sorrow to the seldom coming hour of joy. I ask Thee to
forgive
me but I dare not hope it, so I must entirely trust myself to my darkening fate and to Thine own almighty power!”

Mrs Thurstons white forehead and raven curls were turned toward heaven as she rose with streaming eyes — she dried them with a white handkercheif which she thought her own, but flushed as she noticed the letters “A.P.” IN THE CORNER, AND THEN hurriedly left the room to
try
to fulfill her duties.

A self-portrait

Brother to the famous Brontë sisters, Branwell was a painter and poet.
 
He was the only son of the Brontë family, but his literary works never achieved the interest or success of his sisters, and later in life he became addicted to alcohol and laudanum.
 
His severe addictions masked the onset of tuberculosis, and his family did not realise that he was seriously ill until he collapsed outside the house and a local doctor identified him as being in the disease’s terminal stages. He died shortly afterwards.

Self caricature of Branwell in bed waiting to die, 1847

CONTENTS

Lydia Gisborne

Penmaenmawr (excerpt)

Sir Henry Tunstall (excerpt)

Thorp Green

Lydia Gisborne

On Ouse’s grassy banks - last Whitsuntide,

I sat, with fears and pleasures, in my soul

Commingled, as ‘it roamed without control,’

O’er present hours and through a future wide

Where love, me thought, should keep, my heart beside

Her, whose own prison home I looked upon:

But, as I looked, descended summer’s sun,

And did not its descent my hopes deride?

The sky though blue was soon to change to grey -

I, on that day, next year must own no smile -

And as those waves, to Humber far away,

Were gliding - so, though that hour might beguile

My Hopes, they too, to woe’s far deeper sea,

Rolled past the shores of Joy’s now dim and distant isle.

Penmaenmawr (excerpt)

 
             
I knew a flower whose leaves were meant to bloom

Till Death should snatch it to adorn the tomb,

Now, blanching ‘neath the blight of hopeless grief

With never blooming and yet living leaf;

A flower on which my mind would wish to shine,

If but one beam could break from mind like mine:

I had an ear which could on accents dwell

That might as well say ‘perish’ as ‘farewell’ -

An eye which saw, far off, a tender form

Beaten, unsheltered, by affliction’s storm -

An arm - a lip - that trembled to embrace

My Angel’s gentle breast and sorrowing face

A mind that clung to Ouse’s fertile side

While tossing - objectless - on Menai’s tide!

Sir Henry Tunstall (excerpt)

They fancied, when they saw me home returning,

That all my soul to meet with them was yearning,

That every wave I’d bless which bore me hither;

They thought my spring of life could never wither.

That in the dry the green leaf I could keep,

As pliable as youth to laugh or weep;

They did not think how oft my eyesight turned

Toward the skies where Indian Sunshine burned,

That I had perhaps left an associate band,

That I had farewells even for that wild Land;

They did not think my head and heart were older,

My strength more broken and my feelings colder,

That spring was hastening into autumn sere -

And leafless trees make loveliest prospects drear -

That sixteen years the same ground travel o’er

Till each wears out the mark which each has left before.