Romancing Miss Bronte (2 page)

Martha fed another log of wood to the stove, and when she had disappeared into the washroom behind the kitchen, Tabby spoke up.

“What was ailin’ the boy last night? ’e was makin’ out like the devil’d got into ’im.”

“Just never you mind, Tabby,” Charlotte answered, but of course Tabby knew very well what was ailing him.

“Well, best to let the boy sleep.” Tabby rose, holding her apron full of potato peelings, and emptied it into the compost bucket. “He needs to get over it. Men take t’ drink when their hearts are broken.”

“That sort of indulgence is exactly what’s wrong with him,” Charlotte answered sharply. “He’s been given far too much freedom.”

“Aye, she’s a Jezebel, that Mrs. Robinson. It’s a wicked woman that seduces a young man under her husband’s nose … wicked indeed … an’ her husband sick an’ dyin’, too.”

“Branwell’s twenty-five. He’s not some innocent child. He should have removed himself from temptation. He should have offered his resignation and left the house. That would have been the moral thing to do.”

“Aye, it would’ve been the right thing t’ do, but we’re all of us made of the same stuff, miss, sinners before God, an’ none o’ us do the right thing all the time.”

Charlotte scooped a handful of flour out of the bin and sprinkled it over the meat.

“He’s lost his position now, and he makes no effort to find another one. I’m quite fed up with his moaning around the house.”

Tabby, who often missed vital parts of a conversation, gave a nod and frowned as she gathered up her potatoes. “Aye, miss, it’s sad for us all.”

“It’s so upsetting for Papa,” Charlotte muttered. She fell silent and scooped up the meat and dropped it into a pot on the stove.

They heard the back door open and the dog’s nails clicking on the stone floor, followed by Emily’s light footsteps.

“Emily,” Charlotte called out, “take off your boots before you come in the kitchen. And wipe Keeper’s paws. The floor’s clean.”

They heard her voice, speaking affectionately to the dog, and after a moment the big lumbering mastiff trotted in with Emily behind. She carried an armload of heather in bloom, and her face was fresh and rosy from the wind. She greeted them all with a breezy hello and one of her rare smiles, and then dragged out a bucket for the heather. Her skirt was splattered with mud and wet at the hem from jumping ditches and bogs.

“Where’s yer bonnet, miss?” Tabby scolded.

“On the hook, where it always is.”

Tabby gave an admonishing shake of the head. “You’ll ruin yer complexion like that.”

“It’s after one. Dinner’s going to be late now,” Charlotte said with a hint of accusation.

Emily ignored them while she pumped water into the bucket. She looked over Charlotte’s shoulder at the stew meat browning in lard and said airily, “That’s not enough flour.” She reached into the bin for a handful and sprinkled it into the pot. “Did you save any scraps for Keeper?”

“There,” Charlotte said, indicating a pile at the side of the table.

“Ooooh,” she crooned to the dog. “Look what you’re getting for dinner.” She picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the browning mutton. She was in an ebullient mood. In the summer she came home like this, sweet-natured and impossible to perturb.

“Is Anne back yet?” she asked.

“No.”

“We must all go out this afternoon. It’s divine. A perfect day. We can take our sketchbooks.”

Charlotte cleaned her hands and then reached for the letter in her pocket.

“This came this morning. From Mrs. Busfeild. The vicar’s wife.”

Emily looked up with interest. “What did she say?”

At that moment they heard Branwell’s heavy-footed tread on the stairs, accompanied by a low groan. It was all quite dramatic and intended to draw their attention to his entrance, but his sisters kept their eyes stubbornly fixed on the simmering mutton, their backs to him.

Branwell paused in the doorway, looking ridiculous with his shock of bright red hair flattened against one side of his head, his eyes barely open. He had slept in his clothes, which smelled strongly of smoke. He steadied himself, shook his head violently to throw off the sleep, then rubbed his face briskly.

“Tea. I need some tea. Very strong and very black, thank you.”

“You may get it for yourself, thank you,” Charlotte said. She took Emily in hand and headed for the doorway. “Excuse us, please.”

“Don’t be so cruel,” he whimpered in their faces. “I’m a sad man. A lost man. And if you had ever loved like I love, you’d know how it feels.”

His breath reeked of sour beer, and the girls winced as he stumbled past them. He dropped into a chair and collapsed with his head on the table where the meat and flour had been worked.

“Oh, my head,” he muttered. “Oh, my heart.”

Emily and Charlotte stared at him in sheer disgust. Only Tabby came to his aid, waving them out of the kitchen.

“I’ll get the lad’s tea,” she said, and with slow, painful steps she hobbled to the stove to put on the kettle.

Branwell lifted his head a little. His cheek was white with flour. “You’re an angel, Tabby.” He smiled. It was a grotesque smile, with his eyes half-closed.

“Aye,” she said, “but it’ll take more than a crippled old angel to beat the devil out o’ ye.”

In the dining room, they found Flossy, Anne’s fat little black-and-white spaniel, nested on the sofa. Emily shooed him off and plopped down, stretching her legs before her. Her stockings were stained with mud and a toe peeked through a hole. She wiggled the toe triumphantly. Keeper followed her in, still panting heavily. He circled briefly and dropped with a thud onto the cool wood floor.

“Here,” Charlotte said, handing over the letter. “It’s the same thing we heard from the Whites. She believes our situation is too retired for a boarding school, that we’re too isolated, et cetera, et cetera.”

They heard the door handle turn; Flossy’s ears pricked up. Anne entered quietly.

“Tabby said I should find you.” She spoke softly, her large violet eyes swelling with curiosity as she untied her bonnet and laid it on the table.

Emily patted the sofa. “It’s a reply from Mrs. Busfeild. Come sit down.”

The two sisters read the letter together, their lean bare arms intertwined and their heads inclined in a way that hinted of an exclusive bond. In appearance they were strikingly similar, with their long faces and sensual, pouting lips that in another time would have been thought alluring. Anne came off the better of the two, having retained something
sweet and as close to prettiness as any of them would ever have. On Emily, the same features left an impression of haughtiness, as if her very nature had stamped itself on the contours of her face.

Charlotte paced the room nervously with tiny steps.

“We are remote, yes, but she wouldn’t get those same terms in a boarding school in a larger town. And the fact that we have only enough room to take in a few girls is an advantage.”

Emily finished the letter and glanced up. “Moderate or not, if there are no pupils, then there are no pupils.”

“Are you saying we should give up?”

Emily shrugged. “Even if someone should show an interest, do you think any mother in her right mind would entrust her daughter to our keeping, with a drunken brother and blind father stumbling around the house?”

Anne added, “She’s right, Charlotte. We must rethink our scheme in the light of our present predicament.”

Charlotte stopped pacing and turned to face her sisters. Her taut little body seemed to lose its fire.

“I’m deluding myself. I know I am.”

Emily and Anne stared at her solemnly.

“I’ve heard Branwell talk about finding a job on the railway,” Anne said. “Then he’d be gone. And things would be back to normal.”

“But it’s all talk,” Charlotte replied. “I’m afraid that’s all he’s ever been good for. He’s done nothing with his life. After all the sacrifices we made so that he could go to London and follow his dreams … and then he never made it out of Bradford …”

“That wasn’t entirely his fault,” Emily said.

“Papa would have found the money if he had shown the resolve. All of his boasting, it’s all come to nothing.”

“We mustn’t give up on him yet,” Anne said.

They were all disappointed in him—the prodigy, the wildly talented brother who entertained everyone who met him with his stunning flashes of wit and raw brainpower.

As children they had forged a unique bond, creating imaginary worlds of astonishing complexity and spinning them into tales that had brought excitement and enchantment to their lonely lives in this dull little village. Just as Emily and Anne had belonged to each other, Charlotte had belonged to Branwell. She alone was his true intellectual equal. But intellect was a useless quality in a girl, and so Charlotte kept her hopes bound up tightly in her imagination. She locked them into her little boxes, her writing desks and secret drawers, and she watched her brother walk out into the world to live his dreams in her stead. He would be a great artist or poet. She would fly up to Olympia on his wings.

When he failed—recklessly, wantonly—no one was as disappointed as she.

Emily said, “Even if Branwell found a position, we have Papa to deal with now. He needs more and more of our time.”

“But what else is left to us? If not this school?” Charlotte asked.

There was a hint of desperation in her voice. They knew what this scheme of opening a school meant to her. It represented more than a means of income and independence. It was a way to keep alive what she had brought back from Brussels.

As Charlotte stewed, Anne watched her with sympathetic eyes. Not so Emily. Emily slid from the sofa and crept over to the great mastiff that lay in twitching slumber on the floor. As she crawled up to him, he raised his big head. She lay down beside him and draped an arm over his barrel chest; he fell back with a deep sigh, blissfully content.

Emily had never concerned herself with their finances. Her material needs were few; she still wore the old-fashioned gigot-sleeved dresses she’d been wearing since she was fifteen. Charlotte did her best to keep them mended, but they were worn and faded, and Emily had no interest in making new ones for herself.

After their aunt had died, Emily had laid claim to the task of caretaker to their father. She ran the house and left the unpleasant business of wage earning to everyone else.

“It would be nice if we could all stay home together,” Emily sighed.

Anne replied, “That was the great advantage of our school. There would be inconveniences, to be sure, but we would be home and together.”

Charlotte frowned. “I cannot brace myself to go back into a home as a governess. I don’t have the temperament for it.”

“Nor do I,” Emily said.

“Well, that certainly goes without saying.”

They had all three tried their hand at service. Only Anne had endured.

Charlotte turned to Anne. “How you survived five years at Thorp Green, I’ll never know.”

“Oh, but the Robinson girls weren’t so difficult once they got older.”

Anne had been reticent, had said next to nothing about Branwell’s dismissal. It was Anne who had found him the position at Thorp Green as tutor to the little boy. He had stayed for two years and fallen madly in love with the mother.

Charlotte tried again, prodding gently, “My poor Anne, was it too dreadful? You must have heard things.”

“There were rumors, but I thought they were nothing more than that. I could see that Mrs. Robinson was very fond of him. But so was everyone else. He was very well liked.” She paused to take a deep breath, then pronounced firmly, “And you mustn’t suppose that I left because of his conduct—I am not so weakhearted. I quit my post because the girls had grown up and didn’t need me anymore. And I, for one, have no intention of being a burden on this family. I shall find myself another position.”

Charlotte said, “Oh, Annie, how willing you are to deny yourself for others.”

Anne’s face flushed with pleasure at this rare bit of recognition from her older sister. “I deny myself as you have done, Charlotte. Out of duty.”

Charlotte gave a lighthearted shrug. “Well, I suppose the last resort is to marry.”

“Oh, she’s in a witty mood now,” Emily said.

“Charlotte, dear, you’re the only one who’s had an offer of marriage,” Anne said.

“Yes, from Ellen’s brother,” Charlotte said wryly. “I fancy that was more like a business proposal. And I imagine it will be the only one I shall ever get.”

“Annie’s the pretty one.” Emily smiled. “I vote her most likely to snare a husband.”

Anne blushed again and smiled in return.

“Well, we all know Emily’s not going to find a man—neglectful creature that she is. Look at that hole in her stocking.”

Emily stretched her leg into the air for all to admire her toe.

“Take it off and leave it for me to mend. If you keep wearing it, the hole will only grow bigger.”

“I shall find myself a gypsy husband,” Emily said dreamily. “Tall, violently passionate, and very much like a Walter Scott hero.”

“Oh yes,” Charlotte tittered. “I think we would all like one like that.”

“Not I,” Anne frowned.

“In truth, I cannot imagine living anywhere but here,” Emily said wistfully.

Charlotte grew somber again. “Well, the reality is that Papa will not live forever. And when he’s gone we’ll be chased out of here. How shall we survive? Where shall we go?”

“Oh, Tally, that’s too many questions to answer all at once.”

The door was thrown open and Branwell entered. He wore his spectacles on the end of his nose and had donned a dressing gown over his shirt and trousers—a faded old woolen thing with the pockets coming unstitched. Breakfast had revived him and he shuffled in energetically humming a tune, clutching a fistful of dog-eared pages.

“Ah! Here you are!” he cried.

The girls stared at him with closed faces.

“Oh, such sourpusses,” he said good-naturedly. “But I have an announcement that will put a smile on your faces.”

“You’ve taken an offer of employment,” Charlotte said dryly.

“God forbid, no. I’m speaking of literary exertion. I have the materials for a respectably sized volume of poetry, and if I were in London personally I might perhaps try Henry Moxon. He’s a well-known patron of the sons of rhyme, though I dare say the poor man often smarts for his liberality in publishing hideous trash.” He gave a sigh of tedium. “It all seems so hopeless. A book of verse like this that requires the utmost stretch of the intellect—why, I’d be lucky to get ten pounds for it. But a novel—I could get two hundred pounds for a novel. That’s what’s really salable in today’s reading world. And I could dash off a piece of commercial fiction in the time it takes to smoke a cigar and hum a tune.”