In my new novel, The
Garden of Bewitchment, two sisters are obsessed with all things Brontë and one in particular has an unhealthy
adoration of Brontë brother, Branwell. She becomes convinced of his actual presence
in her life even though he has been dead for decades at the time the novel is
set.
The real Branwell
Brontë was a complex character who became addicted to alcohol and opiates and
caused his father and sisters much grief through his shortcomings. They loved
him dearly, but his entire adulthood seems to have been marred by self-doubt,
lack of confidence and personal failures. The classic under-achiever, he died
young, at the age of just 31. He proclaimed he had done nothing ‘either great
or good.
He was a talented
portrait artist and at some stage – probably around 1834 (or so it is believed)
– he decided to paint a group portrait of his three sisters – Emily, Charlotte
and Anne. This famous group painting hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in
London and is the only time the three writers were ever painted together.
Behind them stands a pillar and for many years that’s all it was. Until someone
decided to take a closer look.
The painting
itself had something of a chequered history. It was forgotten altogether,
folded up and dumped on top of a wardrobe where it was discovered in 1906 by
Mary Anna, the second wife of Charlotte Brontë’s husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls.
With the
bicentenary of Branwell’s birth in 1817 looming, an examination was undertaken
to discover precisely what was going on behind the mysterious pillar which, as
time marched on, was gradually revealing a ghostly image.
Modern techniques
showed that the painting had originally comprised all four siblings but,
probably almost immediately, Branwell had taken the decision to paint himself
out. Various theories have been offered for this. Maybe he felt his presence
unbalanced the picture, maybe he felt he wasn’t worthy to share centre stage
with his prodigiously talented sisters. We will never know the truth, but his
decision acts as an uncanny metaphor for his life.
He seems to have
been a man of extremes – an all-or-nothing character. When he fell in love, it
was with every morsel of his soul and being. Sadly the object of his affections
- Mrs Lydia Robinson -was already married. Still he pursued her and Charlotte’s
biographer, the writer Mrs Gaskell, described her as Branwell’s ‘paramour’.
When Mr Robinson died, Branwell’s hopes of marrying his widow were dashed when
she promptly upped and married someone else – someone who could provide her
with a more prosperous lifestyle.
Similarly,
Branwell’s drinking and drug use rapidly grew to excess and he frequently
didn’t even need to pay for the drinks himself. A noted raconteur, his talent
to entertain, especially when fuelled by a few glasses of alcoholic beverage,
brought him to the attention of the landlord of the local Haworth hostelry, the Black Bull.
Whenever a stranger would stay there overnight, Branwell would be sent for to
come and entertain with his stories and erudite chatter. The shrewd landlord
could then be sure of keeping his guest on his premises until bedtime, rather
than losing him to one of the other drinking establishments in the village.
Branwell would then make his unsteady way back home to the parsonage a few
yards away.
While his official cause of death would be recorded as chronic
bronchitis and ‘marasmus’ (wasting of the body), and tuberculosis (rife in
Haworth and elsewhere at the time), his excessive alcohol and opiate
consumption cannot have had anything other than a detrimental effect on his
already impaired health.
But he had
started out with so much promise. As children, the four surviving Brontë
siblings (two older sisters - Maria and Elizabeth - died in childhood), lived a
fairly insular life, educated by their over-protective father, who was
understandably anxious not to lose more of his offspring (Maria and Elizabeth
had been sent away to school where they contracted their fatal illnesses). Their
father, the incumbent rector of Haworth, bought Branwell a tin of toy soldiers
which he love to play with. Before long, he and his sisters were creating
stories for them, giving them names and characters and sending them on heroic
adventures, wars and battles in their fictional worlds of Angria and
Northangerland. All of these were faithfully transcribed in the most exquisite
miniature magazines full of poems and stories of heroism which survive to this
day (in the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth).
Much was expected
of Branwell. He was self-confident, an excellent orator and his talents as a
poet, artist and translator of the classics were encouraged by the entire
family. As the only boy, with sisters who, as time went on, seemed unlikely to
marry, he would need to be able to provide for them. Their father, the Reverend
Patrick Brontë, was not a man of independent means. Charlotte, Emily and Anne
found work as governesses - but unhappily. Charlotte would find an outlet for her
misery in writing thinly veiled accounts of her life in Jane Eyre while Emily’s unhappiness took her down the even darker
road of Wuthering Heights. Anne
Brontë’s Agnes Grey is an almost
autobiographical account of its author’s time as a governess at Blake Hall,
where her charges were spoiled and unruly and her employers unsupportive of her
attempts to instil discipline.
Sadly, artistic and cultural success eluded
Branwell culminating in a disastrous trip to London where he was due to
submit his drawings to the Royal Academy. The rpecise detail of what happened there remains a mystery but
when he returned he was a changed man and it is at that point his life began to
unravel. He drifted from job to job, generally losing positions as a result of
his excessive drinking and resulting absenteeism.
His disastrous
love affair with Lydia Robinson left him devastated. By now he was convinced he
was a failure and would never amount to anything. Like the ghost in the
picture, he was fading away. Unlike the ghost in the picture, he would not
re-emerge.
Branwell’s
sketches of himself are quite cruel. In his most famous one, he accentuates his
long thin nose and in another - A Parody, perhaps
the saddest of the lot – he portrays himself on his death bed with the figure
of death waiting by his bedside.
It didn’t have
long to wait. Two months after drawing it, Branwell was dead.
(If you want to
learn more about the tragic Brontë brother, I recommend the classic biography The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë by
Daphne Du Maurier. The Brontë Parsonage in Haworth is beautifully restored and
contains a replica of Branwell’s room. Well worth a visit. Their website is Bronte Parsonage)
In my story, Branwell returns - to Claire at least. Death has changed him and the classic warning, 'Be careful what you wish for', echoes through the rooms of Heather Cottage...
ANNOUNCING:
ANNOUNCING:
Blackwell's
University Bookshop in Liverpool is hosting my official book launch for
Garden of Bewitchment on Thursday February 20th at 6.30p.m. If you can
get there, I will be delighted to welcome you. We shall be talking about
the ghostly, the Gothic, and anything else that crops up.
The
event is ticket only - but the tickets are FREE. Booking couldn't be
simpler. Either click onto Facebook or Evenbrite at the links
highlighted below;
Don’t play the game.
In 1893, Evelyn and
Claire leave their home in a Yorkshire town for life in a rural retreat on
their beloved moors. But when a strange toy garden mysteriously appears, a
chain of increasingly terrifying events is unleashed. Neighbour Matthew Dixon
befriends Evelyn, but seems to have more than one secret to hide. Then the
horror really begins. The Garden of Bewitchment is all too real and something
is threatening the lives and sanity of the women. Evelyn no longer knows who -
or what - to believe. And time is running out.
"Cavendish draws from the best conventions of the genre in this eerie
gothic novel about a woman’s sanity slowly unraveling within the
hallways of a mysterious mansion." – Publishers Weekly
