To Walk Invisible

We wove a web in childhood, A web of sunny air;

We took a spring in infancy Of water pure and fair;

We sowed in youth a mustard seed, We cut an almond rod;

We're now grown up to riper age - Are they withered in the sod?

Are they blighted, failed and faded? Are they mouldered back to clay?

For life is darkly shaded And its joys fleet fast away.

What the hell is going on?

Qui sont ces gens?

They'll tear us limb from limb.

I've crossed the Arctic and seen nothing like it.

Down on them instantly.

Run!

Know you that I give into your protection, but not for your own,

these martyrs whom you hold in your hands.

- What's yours called? - Wellesley.

This is Gravey, because he looks a bit grave.

- Mine's called... - Waiting Boy.

Is it? Why?

Because he's a queer-looking little thing, Anne, much like yourself.

- Look who's talking. - This is Sneaky.

Thou art under my protection. I will watch over thy life.

Pray tell you all, one day you shall be kings.

Yes!

Dear Ellen. It was ten o'clock when I got home.

I found Branwell ill.

He is so very often these days, owing to his own fault.

I was not therefore surprised at first,

but when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of his present illness,

I was greatly shocked.

- Charlotte, how was the journey? - Pleasant.

How was Miss Nussey?

Well. Did my box arrive safely?

In our room. We took it up, me and Emily.

- What's? - Branwell, he's been drinking.

He's had a letter from Mr Robinson this last Thursday.

- He's been dismissed. - How does he do it?

- It's every job he's ever had. - I know, but this is different.

How?

Nothing was spelled out in the letter, but he...

Him and Mrs Robinson, I had reason to know that they were...

carrying on with one another and, I don't know,

I can only assume that Mr Robinson's found out and that's what it's about.

Carrying on? How?

Congress? Mr Robinson's wife?

It's why I resigned.

I couldn't look people in the face. I've known for months.

Papa doesn't know. He just knows he's been dismissed. He doesn't know why.

Emily does. I told her. And of course we don't know that that is the reason.

Where is Emily?

You must have some idea what this is about.

Do you think repeating the question enough times, over and over,

is gonna make me able to answer it?

And if not, then someone must write to the man and ask for an explanation.

He hates me. He's not gonna give any kind of an explanation.

It's an excuse to get rid of me.

He's a monster. He's a bully. He's a law unto himself.

- He's an idiot! - Why does he hate you?

Why does he need a reason to get rid of you?

Because... he's old, he's ill and he's jealous of me.

No, no, no, that doesn't make any sense.

There must have been a misunderstanding, hm?

Has someone misrepresented you to him?

Just... God, this house!

Just go to bed and stop asking me fucking questions.

If you don't like this house, don't stay in it.

There's none of us who'll miss you, not when you're like this.

I need to know what happened!

Tell him.

Branwell's been at it with his employer's wife.

She was lonely.

She was lonely.

Tis a shame you're embarked on this course of myopic self-destruction,

for I imagine you and I might, under better circumstances,

have made very stimulating company for one another!

I despise everything you stand for.

Revolution is in the air, and only a fool like you, sir, would ignore it.

If the parson and your Aunt Branwell were in, you'd not make so much din.

They all think you're right quiet and studious down in t' village, you know.

Oh!

Mr Brown's here.

- You fit, lad? - Yeah. I'm just...

Conducting themselves with propriety...

John's here. We're off.

- Don't get up. - No, no, I... I'd like to see him.

- How are you today, John? - Very well, thank you, Mr Bronte.

Good, good. Well, travel safely.

It's a fine day for it, eh?

You look after yourself.

Thank you.

Well, I think with kindness

and understanding and prayer,

we might still be able,

in spite of his naivety and his nonsense,

be able to get him back onto a proper path.

Will you bring us all something back from Liverpool, Father?

You behave yoursen and then we'll see.

You dozy bastard. Getting caught.

Anne left her situation at Thorp Green of her own accord, June 1845.

Branwell left.

We are all in decent health, only that Papa has a complaint in his eyes,

and with the exception of Branwell,

who I hope will be better and do better hereafter.

I am seldom more ever troubled with nothing to do

and merely desiring that everybody could be

as comfortable as myself and as undesponding,

for then we should have a very tolerable world of it.

They've set off.

Good.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think it's nice having everybody back at home.

Mm. In theory.

- What happened? - You heard the shouting.

Had me pillow over me ears, so I didn't catch the details.

Lucky you.

So he's... been mucking about and by way of punishment

he's packed off on holiday for a week with Martha's father?

Packed off on holiday for a week or got shot of for a few days.

It's all a question of how you might choose to look at it, Tabby.

- Oh, well, if that's how you feel... - (BARKS)

Have you nothing better to do? Oh, I've got plenty to do.

Sit down.

- Do you still write stories? - Sometimes.

About Gondal?

When we can.

Emily as well?

You've been here with her more than I have.

- We never talk about it. - Never?

Do you... write still?

- Not so much. - What about the infernal world?

I relinquished my pen.

- Why? - Because it frightened me.

Threatened to make the real world seem...

pointless and colourless and drab.

And that way lies madness.

You know, the real world is what it is, but we must live in it, so...

You should write if it makes you happy.

I worry about my eyes.

And I think as well, when I got that reply from Southey,

"Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life."

At the time I brushed it off,

but the longer I've dwelt on it, the older I've got,

the more I've thought... what's the point?

The point, for me...

is I'm never more alive than when I write.

You're the same surely.

But with no prospect of publication... it's just playing at it, isn't it?

Are we playing, then, or what?

Does it ever bother you that we might be getting a bit old for that?

You weren't saying that two weeks ago in York.

No, well... I didn't want to spoil things in York.

It's something I've been thinking for a while.

Well, what did you come out with me for, then?

- To talk. - What about?

Things, about our home.

- Do you never think about... - What?

The future. What are we without Papa and Branwell?

Papa won't... he won't live forever, and he's blind.

And that house, our house, it belongs to the church trustees, not us.

And Branwell, what's he doing, what's he thinking

that he has such a hopeless grasp on the realities of what comes next?

Are we nothing to him? Does he even see us?

If we don't make something of ourselves, and God knows we've been trying...

I've been trying. I was a governess at that ludicrous place for five years.

What will we do, Emily? What will... What will we be?

It was when I came back from Roe Head and he was there,

at home, Branwell.

And he wasn't supposed to be.

You'd gone, you and Charlotte, gone off back to Roe Head,

and he was supposed to be in London

trying to get his foot in the door at the Royal Academy.

That's when I knew what a liar he was.

- Sharpers? - Thieves!

So, what, they attacked you? You were robbed?

- Four of them? - I think four.

In broad daylight? That's... Well, surely someone saw what happened.

What, you didn't even get there?

No, it was just after I arrived at the coaching inn at St Martin le Grand,

and I knew my way around from the maps in my head,

but London, the whole thing is so much bigger than I imagined.

And you didn't tell me how big it was, did you?

And I didn't know who to turn to with no money, so I came home!

Well... witnesses. Surely someone must have seen what happened.

No, there were no witnesses.

Everyone just turned around and went about their business.

So all 30 shillings... gone?

Yes!

Then when Aunt Branwell went to bed and Papa went back to his study,

I said to him, "You're lying."

And he admitted it.

He didn't even make it to London, never mind any business at any Royal Academy.

He said he was about to get on the Highflyer in Bradford

with his paintings and his sketches.

But then, when he was faced with the reality of setting off for London,

he realised that they just... weren't that good.

They might look well enough at home, but next to a Lawrence or a Gainsborough...

So he fortified himself, he said,

to get the courage to get on the next coach, which was his intention.

But he didn't.

He spent four days in Bradford, drunk and miserable and dreaming up some trash

that he thought everyone at home would be blown enough to believe.

He spent 30 shillings on drink in four days?