Mrs. Gaskell writes: 'All the disgraceful details came out. Branwell was in no state to conceal his agony of remorse, or, strange to say, his agony of guilty love, from any dread of shame. He gave passionate way to his feelings; he shocked and distressed those loving sisters inexpressibly; the blind father sat stunned, sorely tempted to curse the profligate woman who had tempted his boy—his only son—into the deep disgrace of deadly crime.
'All the variations of spirits and of temper—the reckless gaiety, the moping gloom of many months were now explained. There was a reason deeper than any mere indulgence of appetite, to account for his intemperance; he began his career as an habitual drunkard to drown remorse.
'The pitiable part, as far as he was concerned, was the yearning love he still bore to the woman who had got so strong a hold upon him. It is true, that she professed equal love; we shall see how her professions held good. There was a strange lingering of conscience, when, meeting her clandestinely by appointment at Harrogate some months after, he refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed; there was some good left in this corrupted, weak young man, even to the very last of his miserable days. The case presents the reverse of the usual features: the man became the victim; the man's life was blighted, and crushed out of him by suffering, and guilt entailed by guilt; the man's family were stung by keenest shame. The woman—to think of her father's pious name—the blood of honourable families mixed in her veins—her early home, underneath whose roof-tree sat those whose names are held saint-like for their good deeds,—she goes flaunting about to this day in respectable society; a showy woman for her age; kept afloat by her reputed wealth. I see her name in county papers, as one of those who patronize the Christmas balls; and I hear of her in London drawing-rooms. Now let us read, not merely of the suffering of her guilty accomplice, but of the misery she caused to innocent victims, whose premature deaths may, in part, be laid at her door.'[ [11]
Mrs. Gaskell further states: 'A few months later the invalid husband of the woman with whom he had intrigued, died. Branwell had been looking forward to this event with guilty hope. After her husband's death, his paramour would be free; strange as it seems, the young man still loved her passionately, and now he imagined the time was come when they might look forward to being married, and live together without reproach or blame. She had offered to elope with him; she had written to him perpetually; she had sent him money—twenty pounds at a time; he remembered the criminal advances she had made; she had braved shame, and her children's menaced disclosures, for his sake; he thought she must love him; he little knew how bad a depraved woman can be.'[ [12]
As Mrs. Gaskell had formed no conception of the possible state of Branwell's mind, she seems to have known no reason for doubting the absolute truth of what she had heard; and, with an overweening confidence, and with no deficient expression of righteous indignation, she deals with the episode in this startling manner.
In support of the charges thus made, Mrs. Gaskell refers to the contents of the will of the lady's husband, by which, she says, what property he left to his wife was so left on the condition that she never saw Branwell again; and she adds that, on the death of her husband, the lady sent her coachman to Haworth; for, at the very time when the will was being read, she did not know but that Branwell might be on his way to her. Mrs. Gaskell furthers says that, after the interview with the coachman, Branwell was found utterly prostrated by the intimation that he must never again even see the lady whom he thought he might then marry.[ [13]
The biographer of Charlotte, having obtained her information from the floating rumours of Haworth, formed an inconsiderate, erroneous, and hasty opinion on this affair and its supposed consequences. But she found many circumstances in the proceedings of Branwell and his sisters which failed to corroborate her views, and that were, in fact, at variance with what would naturally have been expected had Branwell's misconduct really been of so deep a dye as she states. In order to bring out fully the force of what she here says, Mrs. Gaskell had, previously, as we have seen, in speaking of Charlotte's stay in Brussels eighteen months before, alluded to intelligence from home calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears respecting Branwell. Yet, in the January of 1844, shortly after her return from Brussels, Charlotte told her friend 'E' that Anne and Branwell were 'both wonderfully valued in their situations.' And again, writing of the year 1845, Mrs. Gaskell says: 'He was so beguiled by this mature and wicked woman, that he went home for his holidays reluctantly, stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing them all by his extraordinary conduct—at one time in the highest spirits; at another, in the deepest depression—accusing himself of blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on insanity. Charlotte and her sister suffered acutely from his mysterious behaviour … an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds that he might turn out their deep disgrace.'[ [14] And it must be added that, when in the expurgated edition the opening of this passage was omitted, Mrs. Gaskell inserted—following where she ascribes to the sisters an 'indistinct dread,'—these words: 'caused partly by his own conduct, partly by expressions of agonizing suspicion in Anne's letters home.'[ [15] But we know, from Charlotte's letter to her friend, that, when she had returned home and found Branwell ill, which she says he was often, she was not therefore shocked at first, but, when Anne informed her of the immediate cause of his present illness, she was very greatly shocked, showing clearly enough that Branwell's dismissal and its cause were a complete surprise to her when she heard of them. How, then, could Anne's letters home have contained expressions of 'agonizing suspicion'?
Mrs. Gaskell found it necessary to summarize the portion of Charlotte's letter which contained these expressions of surprise, and, in her version, significantly enough, the obvious inconsistency is lost. The succeeding part also has suffered mutilation in Mrs. Gaskell's work, Charlotte's allusion to Branwell's 'frantic folly,' and the sentence, 'He promises amendment on his return,' being entirely omitted. Mr. Wemyss Reid, in publishing this letter, points out the circumstance, and says that 'Mrs. Gaskell could not bring herself to speak of such flagrant sins as those of which young Brontë had been guilty under the name of folly, nor could she conceive that there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had fallen so low in vice.'[ [16] And, if we disregard Mrs. Gaskell's view of 'what should have been' Charlotte's feelings, and read the letter with the real state of the case before us, we shall at once see that, as Branwell had not fallen low in vice, the term 'frantic folly,' which his sister employed in speaking of his conduct, was precisely that which justly described it.
The simple truth respecting Branwell's conduct is this: he had been too fond of company and had not escaped its penalty. Doubtless Anne occasionally saw influences upon her brother which she would have wished entirely absent. Moreover he had, as we have seen, become wildly in love. Reluctantly at first, and, from what we know of him, he may, probably, in his latest vacation have accused himself of 'blackest guilt.' But there is reason to believe that on this episode, as on others connected with Branwell Brontë, we have been told not a little of what must have ensued from a standpoint of initial error.
Of the principal accusations which Mrs. Gaskell brings against Mrs. —— I shall have to speak when I come to consider the consequences to Branwell of the final defeat of his hopes; but it may be said here that it is clear the lady never wrote letters to Branwell at all. She carefully avoided doing anything that might implicate her in the matter of Branwell's strange passion, and, so far as any provision of the husband's will, which was dated near the end of the year, is concerned, Branwell Brontë might never have existed. Mrs. Gaskell cannot have seen the document.