Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Brontë family
She dragged herself down to the sitting-room, and died there, about two
o'clock. She must have had some horror of dying in that room of death
overhead; for, at noon, when the last pains seized her, she refused to
be taken back to it. Unterrified, indomitable, driven by her immortal
passion for life, she fought terribly. Death took her as she tried to
rise from the sofa and break from her sisters' arms that would have laid
her there. Profoundly, piteously alienated, she must have felt that Anne
and Charlotte were in league with death; that they fought with her and
bound her down; and that in her escape from them she conquered.
Another month and Anne sickened. As Emily died of Branwell's death, so
Emily's death hastened Anne's. Charlotte wrote in the middle of
January: "I can scarcely say that Anne is worse, nor can I say she is
better.... The days pass in a slow, dull march: the nights are the test;
the sudden wakings from restless sleep, the revived knowledge that one
lies in her grave, and another, not at my side, but in a separate and
sick bed." And again in March: "Anne's decline is gradual and
fluctuating, but its nature is not doubtful." And yet again in April:
"If there were no hope beyond this world ... Emily's fate, and that
which threatens Anne, would be heartbreaking. I cannot forget Emily's
death-day; it becomes a more fixed, a darker, a more frequently
recurring idea in my mind than ever. It was very terrible. She was torn,
conscious, panting, reluctant, though resolute, out of a happy life."
Mrs. Oliphant has censured Emily Brontë for the manner of her dying. She
might as well have censured Anne for drawing out the agony. For Anne was
gentle to the end, utterly submissive. She gave death no trouble. She
went, with a last hope, to Scarborough, and died there at the end of
May. She was buried at Scarborough, where she lies alone. It is not easy
to believe that she had no "preference for place", but there is no doubt
that even to that choice of her last resting-place she would have
submitted--gently.
"I got here a little before eight o'clock. All was clean and bright,
waiting for me. Papa and the servants were well, and all received me
with an affection that should have consoled. The dogs seemed in strange
ecstasy. I am certain that they regarded me as the harbinger of others.
The dumb creatures thought that as I was returned, those who had been so
long absent were not far behind.... I felt that the house was all
silent, the rooms were all empty. I remembered where the three were
laid--in what narrow, dark dwellings--never more to reappear on
earth.... I cannot help thinking of their last days, remembering their
sufferings, and what they said and did, and how they looked in mortal
affliction.... To sit in a lonely room, the clock ticking loud through a
still house...." Charlotte could see nothing else before her.
It was July. She had come home after a visit to Miss Nussey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account