Original subtitles

We wove a web in childhood, a web of sunny air.

We dug a spring in infancy of water pure and fair.

We sowed and used the mustard seed.

We cut an almond rod.

We're now grown up to ripe age.

Are they withered in the sod?

Are they blighted, failed and faded?

Are they moulded back to clay?

For life is darkly shaded.

And its joy fleets fast away.

What the hell is going on?

What's it, y 'all?

They'll tear us limb from limb. I trust the arctic and see nothing like it.

Down on them instantly.

Run!

Know you that I give in to your protection, but not for your own.

These mortals whom you hold in your hands.

What's yours called?

Willously. This is gravy, because he looks a bit grave.

Man's quite... 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, for I tell you all, one day you shall be kings.

Charlotte,

how was the journey? Pleasant.

How was Miss Nessie? Well.

Did my box arrive safely? In our room. We took it up, me and Emily.

What?

Bramwell. He's been drinking.

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

He's been deceased.

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. He... He met Mrs.

Robinson.

I had reason to know that they were...

With one another. And I don't know. I can only assume that Mr. Robinson's

out. And that's what it's about. Carry on now.

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 that. I told her. And of course we don't know

that that is the reason.

Where is Amoy?

What this is about... You keep repeating the question enough times, over and

over. It's certainly going to 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 going to 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.

Has someone misrepresented you two? 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!

Bramwell's been at it with his employee's wife.

She was lonely.

She was lonely.

Mr Brown's here.

conducting themselves with propriety, that...

John's here.

We're off.

Don't get up. No, no.

I'd like to see him.

How are you today, John?

Very well, thank you, Mrs Bronson.

Good, good.

Well, travel safely.

Good to find out, Ray.

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 be ahead, you said.

Then we'll see.

Thank God.

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

Branwell left.

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

with the exception of Branwell, who I hope will be better and do better

hereafter.

I am seldom or ever troubled with nothing to do and merely desiring that

everybody could be as comfortable as myself and as undisponding. Then we

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.

In theory.

What happened?

You heard the shouting.

I had my pillow over me ears so I didn't catch the details.

Look at you.

So he's been mucking about by way of punishment. He's packed off on holiday

a week with Martha's father.

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

I have a question about how you might choose to look at it.

Have you?

Well, if that's how you...

About Gondal?

When we can.

Emily as well?

You've been here with her more than I have. Well, we never talk about it.

Do you?

Right. So?

Not so much.

I relinquished my pen.

Why? Because it frightened me.

Threatened to make the real world seem pointless and colorless and drab.

And that way lies madness.

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

if it makes you happy.

I worry about my eyes.

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

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

You know, 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.

I'm never more alive than when I write.

You're the same, Shirley.

But with no prospective publication.

She's playing at it, isn't it?

Are we playing, then, or what?

Just everybody that we might be getting a bit old.

That.

You weren't saying that two weeks ago in York. No, well... I didn't want to

spoil things in York.

Something I've been thinking for a while.

What did you come out with me for, then?

To talk.

What about?

Things.

Our home. Do you never think about?

What?

The future.

What are we without Papa and Bramwell? Papa won't... He won't live forever and

he's blind. And the house, our house, it belongs to the church trustees, not us.

And Bramwell, what's he doing? What's he thinking? thinking that he is 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 this ludicrous place for five years.

What will we do, Emily?

What will... What will we be?

It was when I came back from Rowhead.

And he was there, at home, Branwell.

And he wasn't supposed to be.

He'd gone, me and Charlotte. He'd gone off back to Rowhead. 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.

Shop 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. Yeah,

you didn't even get there. No, it was just after I arrived at the coaching inn

at St Martin -le -Gram, 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

with no money, so I came home!

Witnesses.

Surely someone must have seen what happened. Oh, there were no witnesses.

Everyone just turned around and went about their business.

Oh, 30 shillings.

Gone.

Then, when Aunt Grandma 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, any royal academy.

He said he was about to get on the high flyer in Bradford with his paintings and

his sketches.

But then, when he was faced with the reality of getting 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.

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.

I could have cheerfully murdered him to start with, but then... Actually, I felt

sorry for him.

They always expected so much of him.

More, probably, than he was ever capable of.

And I just thought, thank God I'm not you.

It's disappointing, I know.

I might agree with him too.

He humiliated me at Thorpe Green and he knew what he was doing.

But we shouldn't give up on him, should we? No, we shouldn't give up on him.

But we should see him for what he is.

Not what he isn't.

It's not fair on him.

Sometimes things Charlotte does.

Hmm.

Well, Charlotte has her own demons.

What demons?

Look, you know how low she's been for months.

It's the point of making herself ill and convincing herself she's going blind.

Yes. Well, you know when we were in Brussels?

Monsieur Eger.

Yes.

I was very taken with him.

Not when I was there. This was after Aunt Grandma died, when I stayed home.

She became good with him.

He was married.

That's why she left, finished.

I don't think she'd have told me, unless she felt guilty.

Having feelings for a married man, well, yes, I suppose. Oh, well, no, not that

exactly. It was... She went to confession.

To confess her guilt.

Confession is in a Catholic church.

She had no -one to talk to, so of course then she felt guilty about setting foot

inside a Catholic church.

She wrote to me. Don't tell the bar.

So...

She went to a Catholic church to confess her guilt about having feelings for

Monsieur Hedgett, but then she had to write him to confess her guilt about

to confession.

I don't like the Catholic church any more than I like any other kind of

organised hypocrisy, but I do think there's something to be said for being

to get something off your chest.

Of course, I absolved her.

She actually spoke to him, didn't she? And the point is, she's made herself ill

with obsession and guilt and...

God knows what else.

Disappointment over a married man.

Bramwell's blithely waiting and does that, never mind the consequence.

So, if she is animated about it, then that's why.

Shut up, people.

Hide.

My dear Leyland, I returned yesterday from a week's journey to Liverpool and

North Wales.

But I found during my absence that wherever I went, a certain woman robed

black and calling herself Misery walked by my side and leant on my arm as

affectionately as if she were my legal wife.

Like some other husbands, I could have spared her presence.

The food we're about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.

Amen.

Is she feeding those dogs again?

No.

Let's see.

Amor.

Tell us something about Liverpool.

Or the docks. were extraordinary. Uh -huh. We saw a black man, a blackamoor,

a Creole who really was black.

It was so dark, Papa.

Uh -huh. And I spoke to him.

Didn't really understand what he was saying. I don't think he understood a

I was saying either.

But it was just fascinating. I think he was something on one of the ships.

If you don't get on top of this habit,

when things don't go right for you, if you can't exercise some restraint, then

it'll take over your life, Bronwyn.

I'm being ridiculous.

I'm not being ridiculous.

This will destroy you.

Potentially, you still have so much to offer Bronwyn.

You need a plan.

I've got plans.

Have you?

And can you share them with anyone?

Do you know what I've realised?

What?

There's no money in poetry.

Novels. That's where the money is.

Whilst the composition of a poem demands the utmost stretch of a man's

intellect.

And for what?

Ten pounds at best.

I could have a tune, smoke a cigar.

I don't have a novel written.

No one will publish a novel by an unknown author.

I've had nine poems published in the Halifax Guardian.

It's only Halifax, I know, but it is widely enough read.

You'd need a good story for a novel.

Oh, when was I ever short of a story?

Are you still thinking about going to Paris?

I don't think it's likely.

At the moment.

Why?

Might do you good.

Are you still hell -bent on making yourself poor?

I'm not poor.

I'm just struggling.

This is so very different to a man.

Another felt inferior.

Of you.

Intellectually.

Why is it that we have so very few opportunities?

You or I could do almost anything we set our minds to, but no.

Or we can realistically find this a school, a modest school that no one

come to.

Why is it that the woman's lot is to be perpetually infantilised?

Or else invisible and powerless to do anything about it.

Did he never write back to you, then?

Is he?

No.

Hans says you've written some poems.

Have you ever thought about publishing them? No.

The thing

is, you see, I've written some verses too.

And if between us we could accumulate enough material to think about

a full volume... And I've been pored over and rubbished and ridiculed by

who might choose to waste their money on it. Not like me.

He comes with whips and winds, with evening's wandering airs, with that

dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars.

Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire, and visions rise and change

that kill me with desire.

High -waving heather neath stormy blasts bending, midnight and moonlight and

bright shining stars.

Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending.

Earth writhing to heaven and heaven descending.

Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending.

Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

Then dawned the invisible.

The unseen, its truth revealed.

My outward sense had gone. My inward essence failed.

Its wings are almost free. Its home, its harbour found.

Measuring the gulf is... dupes and dares the final bound.

Oh, dreadful is the check, intense the agony, when the ear begins to hear and

the eye begins to see, when the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think

the soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain.

Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less. The more that anguish

racks, the earlier it will bless.

And robed in fires of hell, O bright with heavenly shine, If it but held

the vision is divine.

Somebody has been in my room.

Somebody? Somebody has been through my things and not had the wit when they put

them back to realise that everything was in a certain order.

Who? We haven't. I haven't. You haven't. You wouldn't. I know that.

Branwell's in Halifax. It's safe to assume Papa couldn't see to do it in any

way. Why would he bother?

Tabby's got better things to do and Martha can't read that well. Yet she

has too much dignity and respect for other people's things. I shouldn't have.

I know.

But I'm not sorry.

I mean, I am sorry.

Look, Emily, your poems are... They're extraordinary.

I know they're private, I know they're personal. They're a thousand and one

things, but they're not something to keep hidden.

I admit, it's curiosity, but not idle curiosity, I hope, but something more

noble. Noble? Going into people's bedrooms? Going through people's face?

woman, no one has ever written poetry like this.

Nothing I've read, nothing I can think of, nothing published is equal.

Emily, they're exceptional. They're astonishing. I couldn't breathe when I

reading them.

I know you're angry, and I know what I did is unforgivable, except please see

that it isn't.

You disgust me.

You can't begin to imagine how much...

You stay out of my room, and you don't speak to me. You don't speak to me

generally, and you don't speak to me specifically about your misguided,

groovy little publishing clums.

What on earth is the matter? Gee, there's been in people's bedrooms, going

through people's things.

I'm going to lock this door.

Gee.

What happened?

Charlotte. Nothing.

There's nothing. I went to the bedroom.

Oh.

And, um, where is Branwell?

Halifax. He's where?

Halifax. Oh.

Is he due in tonight?

Or have we to lock the back door?

I'd imagine he's taking a key.

Right.

All right.

I made a mistake.

It's a president.

That's... Have you read them?

They're not without charm.

I'm writing this, too.

It's a novel.

It's not Gondola and Baldy.

It's more about how things are in the real world.

It's about being a governess.

It's about things I've seen and heard and witnessed.

This is beautiful, isn't it?

I won't be ready to try and publish.

I won't be ready to risk failure.

Who knows?

This is what we've done all our lives, right?

We've lived in our heads.

Don't regard the attempt to do this with a bit of venal.

It's more venal than all noses and covenants is what we find in such a

So long as we approach it carefully and wisely.

Don't make fools of ourselves.

The plan would be to try to publish a volume of poetry first.

And then, if that met with a modicum of success and something of a name was

established, we could each write the work of fiction.

I'm tired with writing something about Russell.

I mean, I don't even know if that's etiquette, but I can write to a

house and find out.

Your poems are... ...confident... ...and charming, and... ...I'm no great poet

myself, but... ...Emily's contribution could... ...elevate small volume into

something... ...actually worth spending a few showings on.

I feel sorry for her.

Why?

There's no reason I feel sorry for Brenda.

So much was expected of her.

Being the eldest.

Not even the eldest. By accident, the eldest.

Bossy. She was bossy when the rhyming Elizabeth was still alive. I remember

It did me.

Being the bossy that's done to their growth.

She's ambitious.

For all of us.

I can see nothing wrong with that.

I realise some people might think it's poker, but, Emily,

writing. And if we're cautious, if we're clever, and we are, and if we disguise

our real selves and our sex... Right, that's done.

Happy, I'm off down the hill.

It's wonderful how quiet they all think she is in the village, and how loud she

is at home.

You can come with me if you want.

Have you ever thought about writing something that's not Gondor?

Something more, not princesses and emperors, more just what happens in the

world.

You know, when I worked in Halley's House, at that school at Law Hill?

Yes. Miss Pratchett, that ran it, she told me the tale, and I've often thought

it would be a story, a novel.

What was it about?

This man, this lad, Jack Sharp. Have I never told you this?

It serves us well enough, but it's not an attractive building, I know. It has a

rather curious history. It was built out of... A fight, apparently, 60 years ago

by a man called Jack Sharp.

So, there's this family, the Walkers. They own Waterpuff All, this big house,

just above Hallowax.

It's been in the family for generations. They're woolen manufacturers, aren't

they all?

Anyway, John Walker has four children, two boys and two girls, and he's adopted

this nephew, Jack Sharp.

Richard and John, the two sons, were educated well, and they ended up making

their livings in London.

Jack stayed at home with the girls, Grace and Mary, and he was trained up to

take over the family business, which suited everyone, because it seems he'd

always been old Mr Walker's favourite, the truth be told.

Then, when Richard, the eldest son, died in some tragic accident somewhere, old

Mr Walker decided to leave the district, and he leaves Jack in charge of his

business and Waterclough Hall.

Eventually, some years later, old Mr Walker himself dies, and the remaining

John, in London, inherits everything and gives Jack Sharp, who he'd never liked,

Notice to vacate the property falls with. But John Walker Jr. has the law on

side, and after enough wrangling in court, Jack Sharp has to vacate the

property, whether he likes it or not. But not before he's trashed the place

taken anything of value.

Furniture, the silver, the plate, the linen.

You can only imagine what they all went through.

The anger and the bitterness.

And then he built his own home, a new house here at Law Hill.

The spot. It's chosen very carefully, people believe, because it looks down on

Watercloth Hall.

And then he filled it with the stash he pulled in from the hall, like he was

goading John Walker to come and fetch it. If he dared, and if he dared, I

it. But the worst thing that Jack Sharp did, one of old Mr Walker's sisters had

a son, grown up by then, called Samstead.

And Jack Sharp apprenticed him in the trade, just like he himself had been

apprenticed by old Mr Walker.

And he gladly, calculously, bit by bit, indulged and degraded Samstead with

gambling. And we'll have us do feckless for knowing about it. Why would you do

that? He did it to cause as much misery and humiliation to the walkers as he

could. I know.

What's that?

Angers.

Anyway, if we're writing novels, I imagine we'll need more paper.

Of course we're not going to use our real names. But must they be men's

When a man writes something, it's what he's written that's judged. When a woman

writes something, it's her that's judged.

We must select the poems we want to use.

And then, yes, if we're to be taken seriously and judged fairly and make

anything resembling a prophet, we must walk invisible.

What about names for neither men nor women?

Dear Ellen, I reached home a little after 2 o 'clock or 7 right yesterday.

Emily and Anne were gone to Keatley to meet me.

Unfortunately, I hadn't been by the old road while they were gone by the new.

They were missed each other.

Back home.

Ah, Charlotte.

Miss Bronte.

Miss Tickle.

I went into the room where Branwell was to speak to him.

It was very forced work to address him.

I might have spared myself the trouble if he took no notice.

Bramwell? They made no reply.

Bramwell?

He was stupefied.

Bramwell, what's this?

That's for you.

I opened it by mistake. It said Esquire.

Proof pages.

How much are you paying them for the privilege of being published?

I assume you're paying them.

I assume you've all clubbed together.

I assume they're not paying you.

You've been sick.

I didn't confirm or deny. I made no reply.

I don't care about him knowing we're paying them. It's a means to an end as

as I'm concerned. I care about him talking to people about us.

Where's he got the money from anyway? He's getting it up to date. He screwed a

sovereign out of Papa yesterday.

He claimed to have some press in Matlin. Papa said no. And the next thing you

know, he's giving it to him. God knows how or why. And he's trotting off down

the hill to get it changed to the black box. Perhaps when he's sober, he'll not

even remember he's seen our proof sheet.

I'll write Dale and Jones and ask them to address their correspondence

differently in future.

What are they angry about?

What can we do?

We can't include him the way he is now. He's unmanageable.

We'd never get anything agreed or done. And anyway, why would North Angolans

want to publish with it?

Well, the system couldn't afford to contribute to the cost.

We're doing the right thing, Anne.

It's hard, it's tough, but I'm sorry. He'd drag us down with him if we let

Right, come on. Bigger off.

That way.

Shift.

Hello, Joe.

Well, I never.

Hey!

How

you

doing,

lad?

I've resolved this morning to keep myself busy.

Go on.

Sorry.

Me too.

I thought I was going to see Joe Prokosher.

I thought I might write something to set to music, and he'd be the man.

And he's still there, isn't he, at the church?

So far as I know, yeah.

Have you not thought any more about going abroad?

Not, uh, no.

I haven't seen any vacancies.

At least nothing, you know.

Not with the way things are at the moment.

Are things at home?

If I live with people who don't speak the same languages as I do... Honestly,

Joe, I could be with some tribe from some far -flung corner of the globe for

I have in common with them.

They despise me.

And I... I only live then because I'm such a fucking pauper.

They need to get married, all three.

Only you'd have them.

Who'd have any of us?

What a ridiculous fit we've become.

You'd get it. You'd see.

What would I see?

She's the kind of woman that can change a man's life.

His whole, everything.

You've got to look forward, though, eh?

Not back.

We've talked about this.

It'll be dead soon and it'll be off the book.

Same room that shone down since we were children.

Since our ancestors were children.

So tiny, really.

Aren't we? So... So unimportant.

All of us.

That's right.

I love you dogs.

Who's that black bull looking for there?

Who? It's some dark green.

Who?

I don't know if I see her.

Mr Bronte.

Someone's dead.

Mr Robinson.

He passed away three weeks this last Tuesday.

Did you not know?

No.

How could I?

Well, it's been in papers.

We don't get the York papers.

You're advised to stay away.

Does she not want me to go to her?

She didn't say that.

No, it isn't hers.

Mr Evans, one of the trustees of Mr Robinson's will.

Apparently.

He said if he sees you, he'll shoot you.

Did he send you?

No.

She did.

She was concerned you might turn up and Mr Evans might feel obliged to do as he

threatened.

But as well as that, you should know by the terms of the will...

That if she marries again, she'll forfeit any right to a husband's

What?

Every penny.

And the house.

She asked me not to tell you how wretched she is.

You'd not recognise her, Mr Bronte.

She's worn herself out these past few months in attendance upon him.

And then the last few days before his death, his manner was so mild, so...

..conciliatory.

It's a pity to see her kneeling at her prayers... ..in tears.

I suppose we can only guess at what torments of conscience she might be

through.

Now... But she

sent you?

Hmm.

To beg you to think of your own safety, Mr Bronte.

And her sanity.

Which, below stairs, we fear hangs by a thread.

I don't give a damn about my own safety.

No.

But the thing is... It's never

going to happen, Mr Bronte.

Do you understand?

You're advised to stay away.

What do you want, you little bugger? You have to come.

Mr. Dowsett, Black Bull says you have to come.

Now what?

God knows, sir.

There were a fellow here and... Paddy.

Come on, man.

What's up?

The state is in it. I know you've done right.

Come on, lad.

Come on, you're all right.

I've been out of days, bud.

Nothing I do works.

Hey, let's get you home.

Where are we going to pitch?

Say, you'll live.

I don't want to go home.

I don't want to go home.

Well, where do you want to go, then?

Keithley.

I think myself should be better off at home. No, no.

I need to go to Top Green, John. I need to go to Top Green. Fair enough.

But not just now.

Look. Today, I missed it.

This is the right sit.

Well, you can.

I can't, obviously.

It's two o 'clock in the afternoon. I have to get to work.

Mr. Nichols, he's, uh... He's had a bad do.

He's had a bit of bad news.

Down you go.

Purple.

Calm down.

Please keep your voice down. Ah, shut up! I hate you!

Calm down.

You told me to calm down.

I don't want you telling me anything.

My house.

Nothing wrong with me.

Look at him. Look at him, mate.

Stop looking at me with your stupid empty faces!

Just please stop looking at me! Stop!

I didn't hurt him.

What do you want, lad?

You've had everything.

Boom, sick.

Dear Ellen, we have been somewhat more harassed than usual lately.

The death of Mr. Robinson has served Bromwell for a pretext to throw all

him into hubbub and confusion.

He has become intolerable.

To Papa, he allows referee the day, no night, and he is continually screwing

money out of him, sometimes threatening that he'll kill himself if it's withheld

from him.

He says Mrs. Robinson is now insane, but her mind is a complete wreck owing to

remorse for her conduct towards Mr. Robinson, whose end disappears with hate

bad stress of mind, and grief for having lost him.

I do not know how much to believe of what he says.

he now declares that he neither can nor will do anything for himself good

situations have been offered more than once for which by a fortnight's work he

might have qualified himself but he will do nothing except drink and make his

old wretches

Are they still fighting?

Are you going to be alright?

When I go to Manchester with Papa.

Yeah, it's only three weeks.

I'm more concerned about when he comes back. He'll be rest and quiet, not...

did you get what you wanted?

Yeah, you. Are you proud of yourself, eh?

Wandering money out for a blind man, a man practically in his 70s. Fuck off.

Hey, come back here and say that.

Yeah, go on, have a go, see what happens. I haven't time.

No? Must hit the blind in the elderly, then, is it? Otherwise, I would. Of

course you would.

Nothing. Did he just hit you?

Don't make a fuss.

I feel I need to get my story finished by the end of this week.

There's a handful of passages I'd like to look at again.

But then, depending on where you and Anna... Or the professor's finished.

As much as it ever will be.

Perhaps we could aim to get more.