Always Emily (4 page)

Charlotte drifted about the room, finally picking up Emily's small satchel. Many of the girls carried something like it to hold their books. Charlotte opened it and took out a novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of Emily's favorite authors. Emily couldn't resist the mesmerizing Scottish heroines who often as not rescued dashing soldiers.

As she fanned through the pages, a piece of paper fell to the floor. Curious, Charlotte picked it up, recognizing the handwriting. Anne, their youngest sister, had written it. Only fourteen, Anne had been very put out when Charlotte had campaigned for Emily to come to school. Her temper high, Anne had sworn never to forgive Charlotte for keeping her away from the excitement of school. Charlotte smiled at the memory. But Anne usually forgot her tempers in a few
days. In fact, Charlotte was surprised Anne had not written to her yet.

Glancing at the bed to assure herself Emily still slept, she opened the letter and began to read.

Charlotte smiled, picturing the scene. She refolded the letter and placed it back in the book. It was good to hear news
from home, but why had no one written to her? She understood Anne was still out of sorts, but Father? Branwell? Aunt B.?

Suddenly Emily was sitting upright on the bed. “I can't breathe,” she gasped. Charlotte rushed back to her sister in time to see her tossing the thick blanket to the floor.

Charlotte grabbed Emily's shoulders to press her back down to the mattress. The sharpness of the bones made her cringe. Charlotte pulled at her sister's chemise to reveal her bare shoulders and saw Emily's emaciated body. Emily had always been thin, but never like this. A wave of guilt swept Charlotte nearly off her feet. She had neglected her sister shamefully.

“The window!” Emily said.

Emily lived for fresh air, Charlotte knew, so she threw up the sash of the wide window. The temperature had dropped. Shivering, she glanced out at the line of enormous oak trees, whose wide leaves danced and bowed to the crescent moon.

Emily stared unseeingly toward the wide windows. “Maria! Elizabeth! You've finally come!”

Charlotte's veins ran ice. “Hush, dear. There's no one there.”

“Have you come for me?” Emily cried to the air, extending her arms.

“Shhh, my dearest Emily,” Charlotte begged. “Stay here with me. I know what's best for you.”

“Don't you see them? They have been watching over me all this time.”

“Be calm, Emily,” Charlotte murmured as she took a wet cloth, wrung out the extra moisture, and laid it on Emily's
fevered brow. “You're imagining our sisters are there. They aren't real.”

“Sweet Maria and kind Elizabeth. They can't come in. You must open the window.”

Charlotte's fear tasted like bile in her mouth. Struggling to keep her voice calm, she tried to reason her sister out of her delusion. “The windows
are
open,” she said. “If they chose, they could enter. Perhaps they aren't yet ready to visit.”

Emily collapsed back to the bed, tears running down her cheeks. “Are they waiting for me to die?”

“Hush, do not speak of death. Rest.” She rubbed Emily's cold hand, noticing the raised goose bumps on her sister's flesh. “Do you feel the freshness of the wind?”

“It is not our north wind sweeping across the moors,” Emily moaned. “This wind is too tame.”

A stray gust extinguished the candles. Charlotte gasped, but Emily didn't notice.

Charlotte crawled into bed and pulled the blanket over both of them. “The moors are not so far,” she said. “Twenty miles away at most. I'll bring you there when term ends in December.”

“I'll be dead before then,” Emily said, rolling over to turn her face to the wall.

“No!” Charlotte cried, but deep in her bones, she feared if Emily didn't go home, she would die.

“I will save you,” Charlotte vowed. “You will walk on the moors again.”

{she} said she was ill; at which I hardly wondered.
I informed Mr. Heathcliff and he replied,—
“Well, let her till after the funeral; and go up now
and then to get her what is needful;
and, as soon as she seems better, tell me.”

E
mily paced about the square parlor of the parsonage like a wild animal exploring the limits of her cage. “I'm feeling much better, Aunt B.,” she said for the fourth time. “It can't hurt me to go outside. Just for a little time.”

Aunt B. finished draping her black silk shawl across her round shoulders. She adjusted her old-fashioned cap to display her false hairpiece of auburn curls across her forehead. She was dressed for a funeral next door at the Old Church, although privately Emily didn't think her outfit differed all that much from the dark clothes her aunt usually wore in the house.

“No, Emily, dear. The doctor said you are to rest for several more days.”

“I've been resting since I got home. It's been ten days!” Emily protested. She ran her fingers through her hair; thank goodness the detested curls were growing out.

“And the doctor said a fortnight.” Aunt B. pulled on her gloves. “There's the church bell. Your father is starting the service punctually.”

“When isn't he punctual?” Emily asked. She glanced out the window. “There are still people coming. Whose funeral warrants such a good turnout?”

“Hush, Emily, don't be common. It's one of your father's deacons. I can't recall which. But since you are ill and Charlotte and Anne are away, your father especially asked me to attend to represent the family.”

“What about Branwell?” Emily asked, a hint of spite in the question. Branwell had not been notable lately for honoring his familial obligations.

“He promised to be there as well.” Aunt B. went to the front door. “Now, my dear, make sure you rest. Because the deceased was a deacon, your father will invite the other deacons here for tea. Would you like to dress properly and act as your father's hostess?”

Emily, in her dressing gown, took a step backward. “Heavens, no! Aunt B., how could you think it of me?”

With satisfaction, Aunt B. said, “Then go to bed.” Suddenly she bellowed, “Tabby! Tabby!”

The family housekeeper came into the room. A stout Yorkshirewoman with pale skin and a broad face, Tabby had worked for the Brontë family for more than a decade. “Yes, ma'am?” she asked with a scowl.

“Make sure Emily doesn't leave the house. Is the tea ready? Don't be too generous with the cream. The deacons are the ones who vote on the reverend's salary, and we don't want them to think we are profligate. Add some ale, too. After this funeral, some will ask for spirits.”

“I'll need the keys,” Tabby said sourly.

Emily hid a smile behind her hand. This particular battle had raged since the day Tabby arrived. Aunt B. didn't trust a mere servant with the cellar keys, and Tabby deeply resented Aunt B.'s lack of confidence. Aunt B. hesitated, then took a key ring from her skirt pocket.

“See that you give the keys to Emily when you are finished,” she warned.

“Of course, ma'am,” Tabby said. Then in a whisper just out of Aunt B.'s limited range of hearing, she added, “If I'm not too drunk to remember.”

With a little wave, Aunt B. opened the door and was gone.

“That woman!” Tabby exclaimed. “How dare she act like I'm a closet drunkard? It's just as well she hardly comes out of her room anymore. Otherwise, it would be her or me!”

“We'd choose you and your apple tarts anytime, dear Tabby,” Emily said. She went to the window to watch Aunt B. join the late arrivals and enter the church.

Since Aunt B. lived almost entirely in her room, Emily spent much more time with Tabby in her warm kitchen smelling of delicious food and parish gossip. Emily had become a fair cook herself, often propping up a novel to read while she stirred a stew or kneaded the bread.

“Tabby, who is Father burying?” Emily asked, certain the housekeeper would know the answer.

“Old Mr. Heaton, the master of Ponden Hall,” Tabby answered promptly.

Ponden Hall was a manor not two miles from the parsonage, due west across the moors. “I remember Ponden Hall,” Emily exclaimed. “Mr. Heaton used to let us visit the library once a week. It was beautiful, with leather-bound books from floor to ceiling and a wonderful armchair just in front of the fire.” She paused. “Why did we stop going? I can't remember.”

“Your father and Mr. Heaton had a bit of a falling-out,” Tabby said, wiping the dining table with her rag. “After that, the reverend discouraged you from going.”

“There was a boy there . . . about Charlotte's age.” The memory of a pale face with piercing blue eyes came into her mind. “He wasn't strong. I always found him in the library. Sometimes even if he wasn't there, he suddenly appeared like a character in a pantomime! It was uncanny.”

Tabby snorted, her habitual response to Emily's flights of fancy. “No doubt you had your nose buried so deep in a book you didn't hear him coming.”

“No doubt.” Emily tilted her head as though to peer into the past. “I wonder what happened to him. He vanished not long before we stopped going to Ponden Hall.” Out the window, she saw the last of the parishioners entering the church.

“I wager the service will be short,” Tabby muttered. “No one will say a kind word about old Mr. Heaton, except your father.”

Emily looked alert. “Truly? Then perhaps the tea might be more interesting than I thought. Perhaps I should get dressed?”

Tabby shook her head. “The gossip you're likely to hear isn't suitable.”

“Tell me!” Emily plopped herself down on the scratchy horsehair sofa. “First, how did he die?”

Tabby went to the hall and glanced up and down, even though the house was empty. Then she scurried back and sat down knee to knee with Emily. “That's the question. They say he fell off his horse.”

“If that's what they say aloud,” Emily said, “then what are they whispering?”

“Old Mr. Heaton was a fiend on horseback. He rode everywhere and had nary an accident his whole life. He only has the one son, Master Robert, and they've never gotten along. Like chalk and cheese, those two. Mr. Heaton liked things the way they were while his son wanted to make the mills and the farms more modern. Words were exchanged, I
hear. Then the two men went out riding and only one came back!”