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Could the ghost of Anne Bronte be residing on the East End? Opera singer Gladys Topping would say so: She reportedly spied an apparition of the youngest Bronte sister ascending a staircase in her home in Quogue in 1962.
“Suddenly, I heard light footsteps, which seemed to be on the stairs. … To my astonishment, I saw the figure of a young woman ascending the stairs,” Ms. Topping told columnist Norton Mockridge of the Toledo Blade in 1966.
“She was dressed in a long, full skirt which she lifted above her ankles. … Her expression was pensive, as though she were locked deep in her own pleasant thoughts. Mentally, I asked, ‘Who?’ and the instant impression I received was ‘Anne Bronte.’”
Born in 1820 and the youngest of the three literary siblings, Anne was also an author, having written a volume of poetry with Charlotte and Emily, as well as two novels. She also worked as a governess for several years before she died at age 29 of tuberculosis.
The ornate Queen Anne staircase on which her ghost was seen set off a transcontinental investigation recently, with an upcoming bicentenary celebration being planned in England in 2016 for the three Bronte sisters. The quest started in Mirfield, Yorkshire, with Imelda Marsden of the Bronte Society.
Liz Rye, a colleague of Ms. Marsden, explained in an email this week: “She recalled the story of the staircase at Blake Hall and wondered what had become of it.” Ms. Rye offered to help.
Blake Hall was a mansion in Mirfield where novelist and poet Anne, 19 at the time, had served as a governess to the Ingham family for nine months in 1839. She looked after two of the then five children, Tom, aged 7, and Mary-Anne, aged 5 or 6. The children “were difficult to manage, and Anne once tied young Tom and his sister to a chair,” said Ms. Rye.
Anne reportedly depicts her experiences there in the first half of her debut novel “Agnes Grey,” renaming the hall “Wellwood” and the Ingham family the “Bloomfields.”
When Blake Hall was demolished in 1954, the interior parts were dismantled and auctioned off—including the staircase, which went to a dealer in London. Ms. Rye learned that the staircase, handcarved in burled yew, had been purchased by a couple on Long Island.
In 1958, Gladys Topping and her husband, Allen, attended the Kensington Antiques Fair in London to decorate their Quogue home, which had been built four years earlier. They met a dealer who sold them this staircase.
Ms. Rye learned that the couple had lived on Beach Lane in Quogue, but it was unclear whether the home in question was still around: “Had the house been torn down and rebuilt? Had it been destroyed by a hurricane?” She was directed to the Quogue Historical Society, whose member Barbara Patterson put together the final missing pieces of the puzzle.
“The phone rang in October, I answered and this very proper English voice said, ‘We’re celebrating the Bronte bicentenary in 2016, and we traced the Queen Anne staircase to Quogue.’” recalled Ms. Patterson, who passed the information on to a colleague. But when Ms. Rye called again two weeks later in search of the same information, “I said, ‘Oh, dear—okay, I’ll do it!’ I write the [society’s] newsletter, so I’m used to doing the research.”
After some investigation of her own, Ms. Patterson found the home in fine condition. “We were relieved to discover the house was still very much intact along with its original staircase,” said Ms. Rye.
Despite Ms. Topping’s brief encounter with Anne Bronte’s ghost, the current homeowners, who wish to remain anonymous, reportedly have not been so lucky. Occult experiences aside, the rich history behind this unusual staircase is undeniable.
“I can just imagine Anne chasing the children up and down those stairs and can picture her hand sliding along that railing, and like to think that this, in some minute way, has contributed to the patina that is still on that staircase today,” said Ms. Rye.
The Bronte bicentenary in England may feature an exhibition and a small booklet on the staircase, as well as various events.
on Jan 12, 2015