Maddalena De Leo writes:
At
the end of July I was again in inspiring Penzance after five years,
this time as the Italian BS representative with my member friend
Caterina Lerro and two other Italian Brontëites. We toured the town
and had an external look at Maria Branwell’s house, still closed
and without life, just to take souvenir photos on its door.
Afterwards at sunset I proudly showed my mates historic Chapel Street
with its important buildings such as St. Mary’s church, the Admiral
Benbow’s inn, the one described in the opening scene of Stevenson’s
Treasure
Island,
the Union Hotel, where it is believed the news of the battle of
Trafalgar was first announced, and the Egyptian House.
After
some time our appetite brought us to have dinner in The Tremenheere
Wetherspoon pub in High Street, just aside the white marble statue of
renown Penzance hero Humphry Davy. While there, looking around for a
free table to sit, I made a welcome discovery, something I hadn’t
found out in Summer 2010 when I had meticulously looked for any
Brontë tracks in their mother’s birthtown. I saw in front of me on
the left side of the pub a quite large gold framed panel reproducing
the famous three sisters’ images and the ‘Gun portrait’
including Branwell in its centre, followed by a short explanation
entitled ‘Penzance Literary links’; on the right below Reverend
Patrick Brontë’s photo in old age and on the left lower side the
portrait of the lady maybe thought to be Maria Branwell, the
children’s mother and the Reverend’s wife. Of course I rejoiced
for my discovery since it seemed absolutely impossible there is
nothing in Penzance to commemorate the Brontës but on looking at the
presumed Maria’s portrait I found out there is a mistake in the
panel: the woman is not Maria Branwell at all but another much older
one, presumably her own mother Anne Carne, since poor Maria died of
cancer when she was just 38. I then enthusiastically took photos of
me sitting just at the table nearby the panel.
Despite
the mistaken picture my second staying in Penzance was surprisingly
lucky and I felt fulfilled in my new search.