The World Within (29 page)

“Well, indeed,” says Emily. What else is there to say?

“You know, it won’t be as bad as you think it’s going to be.”

Emily looks at her sister. Charlotte has no idea how bad she thinks it’s going to be. But all she says is, “No, probably not.”

Charlotte fiddles with the strings on her nightcap. “One thing, though, Emily …” She stops.

“What?”

“I don’t suppose you were thinking of saying anything at Roe Head about our writing?”

Emily gives her a look.

“No, of course not. Good. But, well, it might be prudent to keep some of your more unusual ideas to yourself. The people there might think you’re a bit … well … odd.”

“Mary didn’t.”

“Not everyone’s like Mary. She’s a bit unusual herself.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t show you up.”

Charlotte flushes. “That isn’t what I meant. You know it isn’t.”

Emily’s not so sure. But rather than go on with this, she lies down. “Let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

Charlotte hesitates, but then she settles down too. Soon she’s breathing deeply. But long after Charlotte has fallen asleep, Emily lies awake, staring at the night sky.

Where will she be tomorrow night? What will she be able to see from her bedroom window?

The stars glitter back at her, cold and distant and silent.

The next morning Emily gets up very early, before anyone else, and takes Grasper for a walk. When they return she rests her hand on his head for a moment before shutting him in the back kitchen. After breakfast she asks Anne to feed him and when Anne looks surprised she says, “You might as well begin today.”

She doesn’t go near the back kitchen again.

As soon as the carriage arrives she climbs into it without a word. She can’t say good-bye or even look at everyone gathered in the lane to see them off — it takes all her willpower not to betray how desperate she feels. Giving them a half wave, she faces in the direction they are going and as they set off she doesn’t glance back.

She’s glad that Charlotte’s quiet on the journey. Emily can guess what her sister might be feeling about going back to Roe Head as a teacher, but she can’t think of a single comforting thing to say. All she can do is sit there, gazing out at the passing scenery without seeing it, dread lying like a heavy stone in her stomach.

When they’re nearly there, Charlotte rouses herself and begins to point out features of the area — “Look, Emily, there’s Kirklees Park … and the Calder Valley beyond” — as if she’s trying to imply:
It’s beautiful here too.

Emily looks dully out of the window. Charlotte’s wasting her time. This pleasant, gentle landscape with its trees and parkland is far too tame, with too many signs of human occupation.

This isn’t her world.

As they turn off the road and pass through a pair of gates, she recognizes the school from Charlotte’s drawing — a grey stone building with bay windows set in an expanse of grass with trees and shrubberies.

Looking at it, she feels a kind of horror. What is she doing here? What does this house have to do with her?

They are shown into an oak-paneled parlor where Miss Wooler greets them graciously enough. The headmistress is shorter and stouter than Emily expected from Charlotte’s admiring description. And rather old to be wearing a white dress.

They are introduced to the other teachers, Miss Wooler’s sisters, but Emily is too anxious to take in which is which. When one of them says, “Come, Miss Brontë, I’ll show you round the house,” it takes Emily a moment to realize that the teacher’s addressing her. With a backward glance at Charlotte, she’s led away.

Her guide — is she the strict one, Miss Catherine? Or is she Miss Eliza? Whoever she is, she doesn’t talk much but goes at a brisk pace, and Emily is left with a confusing impression of staircases and rambling passageways. In one of the upstairs rooms, the teacher points out a bed by the window. “That’s yours. Put your clothes in those drawers and I’ll be back for you shortly.” And Emily is surprised to see her box there, looking out of place in these unfamiliar surroundings.

Left alone, she sinks onto the bed and stares around her. The room is decorated in a style someone must have supposed girls would like — the wallpaper is covered with tiny sprigs of rosebuds, while the curtains are patterned with stiff garlands of unnatural-looking pink roses. There are three other beds in the room and she wonders who they belong to. And then she remembers, with a lurch of her stomach, that she will very likely be sharing hers.

How can she possibly sleep with a stranger?

Fighting her rising panic, she goes to the window and looks out. The bedroom is at the side of the house overlooking a garden — more roses planted in rows in rectangular beds and straight gravel paths. But at least she can see the sky, which today is a clear blue and cloudless. If only she could float up into it and be carried away from this place …

She remembers with a jolt that the teacher will be returning at any moment and she hurries to unpack her things. This doesn’t take long. Then she sits on the bed again and waits.

Every now and again there’s a burst of noise from downstairs, girls’ voices, excited and shrill, and laughter. She wishes she could just stay here in this quiet bedroom, that she doesn’t have to go down and face them. But finally the teacher looks in and beckons her and she’s forced to follow her down the stairs.

“The schoolroom,” says the teacher, opening the door with a flourish.

As they enter the room, silence falls and all heads turn in her direction.

Although she lowers her eyes immediately, she has the impression that she’s come upon a troop of exotic creatures like the flamingos in an Audubon watercolor. When she lifts her gaze she sees flowers — pink, blue, lilac — floating on delicate muslins or some shiny material she doesn’t recognize; bare arms and shoulders; gleaming, elaborate topknots; and finally a blur of faces in which the eyes stare hard at her, curious, assessing …

She looks away. Now that she’s seen these girls she can tell that Charlotte’s advice was pointless. In her drab green dress, with her hair hanging down, lank and loose, she doesn’t even have to open her mouth for them to judge her as odd. And then she thinks of Mary. Mary can’t have fitted in here very well either. But she would have been brave enough to be herself and not pay any attention to what they thought of her.

Emily squares her shoulders. She will try to be like Mary. Instead of being afraid of their judging her, she simply won’t care.

The teacher breaks the silence. “Girls, this is Miss Brontë, who is coming to join you. I know you’ll make her feel welcome.” And with that she turns on her heel and leaves the room.

Almost immediately a girl with brown hair and eyes and creamy skin comes forward and, holding out her hand, says, “Hello. I’m Julia, Julia Caris.” After a moment’s hesitation, Emily shakes the hand and mumbles her name, but of course they all know it already, and from somewhere at the back of the room she hears a mocking echo: “Emilee Brontee.”

“That’s an unusual name.” The girl is looking at her, not unkindly.

“It means ‘thunder’ in Greek,” Emily blurts out. And realizes immediately that she’s made a mistake.

There’s a ripple of sniggers round the room and the same voice as before calls out, “Oooh! Thunder!” in mock fear.

Julia frowns and goes to say something, but Emily turns away and walks over to the window. There’s a surprised silence and then someone laughs, and a voice calls, “Well done, Julia. Perhaps your welcome wasn’t warm enough!” There’s a general tittering, and after a moment they all start talking again.

Emily stares out across the garden, her heart racing. She can hear what the other girls are saying and it’s all trivial nonsense. She can’t hear anyone discussing an interesting subject, anyone who talks like Mary.

She focuses on the view in front of her. There are hills, certainly, as Charlotte promised, but the landscape has been spoiled by a great industrial sprawl with chimneys belching smoke.

But she has nowhere else to look, nowhere else to go.

When a bell rings she follows the others into a dining room. She’s glad to sit down — she feels exhausted, worn out with the strangeness of it all. She takes a bite from a slice of bread and butter, but, after struggling to swallow it, she puts the rest back on her plate; she manages a few sips from a cup of tea that she nurses until it’s cold and is taken from her. Then she sits silent and ignored in the midst of the chatter going on around her.

She looks for Charlotte and sees her across the room at the teachers’ table, listening to Miss Wooler, nodding. To Charlotte, she remembers, this house is familiar, the teachers known to her. She isn’t surrounded by strangers.

She thinks of Anne and Branwell having their tea in the kitchen with Tabby. They’ll find it strange without her and Charlotte. She imagines Anne, too upset to eat. And Grasper whining at the door, waiting for her to come home.

A longing to be there with them rises in her throat, so painful it threatens to choke her.

She slams the door on that vision.

She mustn’t think of them. That’s the only way she’ll survive this.

After tea she follows the others back into the schoolroom, where the girls form small knots and talk on, chirruping away like a flock of birds. How can they have so much to say to one another? All this inane chatter.

Better to be silent if there’s nothing worthwhile to say.

She takes up her position by the window again until a teacher looks in and says, “Off to bed now, young ladies.” There’s a general movement to the hall, where lit candles have been put out for them, and, having picked one up, Emily trails behind the others.

Most of the older girls head toward the same door, so she follows them, and there in the corner by the window is the bed with her nightgown on the pillow.

While waiting her turn at one of the washstands, she secretly observes the other girls. There are only six after all, though downstairs there seemed far more of them. It looks as if they’re all paired up for sleeping which means — oh, blessed relief — she can sleep by herself.

She relaxes just a little bit.

One girl, Lydia, seems to be their ringleader. With her blonde hair and blue eyes she’s striking to look at, but her expression is petulant and dissatisfied.

As soon as they see Lydia’s nightgown, the others cluster round, uttering little coos of admiration and fingering the fine lace and ribbon trimmings. In response to an inquirer, she drawls, “It’s French, of course,” in a dismissive way, as if having expensive foreign clothes is nothing special.

When at last Emily is able to wash, she finds very little water left in the jug, but she does her best with it and then retreats to her corner. With her back to them all, she undresses quickly. As she dons her own nightgown, sewn by herself under Aunt’s direction and made from cotton with no trimmings whatsoever, she pulls a wry face, imagining what the other girls will say about it.

She has barely slipped under the covers when the teacher who showed her round appears at the door and stands there, arms akimbo, surveying the room. The stragglers hurry into bed and the teacher paces the length of the room, checking from side to side. When she reaches Emily’s corner, she frowns.

“Miss Brontë, your shoes.”

Emily blinks. She has no idea what the woman is talking about.

“I don’t know what you were accustomed to do at home, but while you are here, rather than just kicking your shoes off and leaving them anyhow, you will place them neatly under your chair.”

Emily can’t believe this. What on earth does it matter where her shoes are? With an inward sigh she gets out of bed and moves her shoes. She looks at the teacher to see if she’s satisfied, but she’s wrinkling up her nose in an expression of distaste.

“And that is no way to leave your clothes. Fold your undergarments and cover them with your dress.”

Emily is on the verge of uttering a tart retort, but she bites her tongue and rearranges her clothes on the chair, aware that the others are watching this charade with great amusement.

At last she’s allowed to get back into bed and, having extinguished their candles, the teacher leaves them.