The Mist on Bronte Moor (18 page)

Once clean, I tiptoed upstairs. Charlotte, Anne, and Emily lay asleep in their beds. Emily’s arm had been freshly bandaged, and she appeared a lot more peaceful than her sisters, who both jerked in their sleep. That was thanks to the half-empty bottle of laudanum sitting on the dresser.

I changed into a clean dress as quietly as possible before bundling my dirty clothes under my arm and tiptoeing back downstairs. Tabby had tea and porridge waiting. Then she introduced me to the washroom—a large tub of warm soapy water, another tub for rinsing, and a pile of dirty clothes.

I eyed the heap of laundry. Was I supposed to wash everything by hand? That would take hours. There was no way. I spun around and was about to pull open the door and march back into the kitchen, when the thought of Tabby’s smile transforming into a scowl stopped me in my tracks. I sighed, scooted back to the clothing, and picked up my stained dress sitting on top of the pile.

I pushed it into the soapy water and began to scrub. I spent the next four hours hunched over, scrubbing, pulling, rinsing, and wringing until my fingers became raw and tender. I cursed the blood stains, which were impossible to get out. Next time, I’d be a bit more careful when I went out on the moors.

By the time dinner came, my body ached as if it had been pummeled from every angle, and I was ready to charge into the mist and give up on the nineteenth century all together. But when I emerged from the back room, I saw Branwell sitting at the kitchen table in his black tailcoat suit, and my heart faltered.

Charlotte and Anne sat next to him with a plate of meat, potatoes, and cooked carrots in front of them. Both wore black silk dresses with stiff black bonnets.

Branwell frowned at me. “Have you been doing the washing?”

I nodded. “I thought I’d help Tabby.”

He suppressed a smile.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ll have to change if you intend to make the funeral,” Charlotte said. “Your dress is soaked through.”

I looked down. The wet silk clung to my thighs. And I’d forgotten to wear a petticoat.

Charlotte and Anne tried to stifle their giggling but gave up when I burst out laughing. It was the first time any of us had laughed since Emily’s accident, and it felt brilliant.

T
he church bells clanged three times like a morbid alarm clock, alerting us to the start of the funeral procession. I tied my bonnet and rushed downstairs, where Branwell, Charlotte, and Anne were already stepping out the front door.

Branwell held the door open for me and winked as I slipped past him. I wondered at his good mood. Then I remembered that death, especially the death of children, was commonplace in Haworth. The graveyard was overrun with graves, and I supposed it would be impossible to take every death to heart.

We hurried across the garden and filed through the small iron gate into the cemetery. The procession, headed by Mr. Brontë, was already in progress. We watched as he led a cluster of somber figures along the cobblestone path that curved from the church into the graveyard.

Three men, each with a small, wooden coffin perched on his shoulder, followed closely behind Mr. Brontë. As they approached us, I spotted Aunt Branwell in her usual dark silk dress and pattens amongst the group of mourners that trailed the men. One woman, whose ragged black dress hung on her frail body, clung to the arm of a gaunt man, who seemed to drag her reluctant body up the path with his own. A lump formed in my throat. I guessed those were the parents.

The four of us joined the end of the procession as it passed by the parsonage. I walked with my head hung low, my eyes avoiding the coffins, and fixed instead on the heavy pairs of boots before me that sunk into and lifted out of the muddy ground.

The procession snaked through the graveyard until it came to a stop next to three freshly dug holes. Mrs. Pratchett’s legs gave way as each coffin was lowered to the ground. Her husband literally held her up by her waist.

I thought of my own parents, wondering if I was dead or alive. I gazed out at the moors, pushing my parents from my mind—something I did often. I couldn’t bear to think about them. It was too painful.

The sudden movement of bodies jolted me out of my thoughts. Mourners shuffled forward. I frowned. Where were they going?

I craned my neck to see and caught a glimpse of the coffins. The lid to each casket had been lifted. Mrs. Pratchett stood motionless, gazing into the first coffin. A train of people waited patiently to the side. Her husband shuffled up beside her and tugged lightly on her arm, but she wouldn’t budge. Eventually, another man stepped forward and gently took hold of her. Together, they escorted her away as she hung between them like a limp rag doll.

One by one, the rest of the crowd filed past the coffins. I froze. Was I expected to view the coffins too? The answer came when Charlotte and Anne stumbled forward and Branwell nudged me gently from behind, prompting me to move with the crowd.

When it came to my turn, I walked quickly, determined not to look into the coffins. But my eyes betrayed me and flicked to the first little box. I stopped and stared into the wooden casket. A petite girl, aged about ten, with golden ringlets framing her face, lay positioned like a porcelain doll in its display case.

My stomach wrenched into a knot. I hurried past the two smaller coffins, forcing my eyes to the ground until I was safely back amongst the mourners.

Branwell, who had been behind me and last in line, still stared into the first coffin, unmoving, like Mrs. Pratchett before him. His lips were drawn together in a tight line and his forehead creased as if he were in physical pain. My throat ached with a longing to call his name, and my hand itched to reach out to him. Even though he was only a few feet from me, he seemed a million miles away.

Whatever spell had been cast over Branwell broke when Mr. Brontë came over and tapped his arm. Branwell jerked his head to the side as if he’d been touched by a ghost. Then he strode away without stopping to look into the two smaller coffins.

I expected him to come and stand next to me, but he didn’t. My eyes followed him until he came to a stop next to Aunt Branwell, where he stood with his head bent and his fists clenched tightly together.

Something was wrong. Had he known the Pratchett girl? It was possible he’d known her from church, but she’d only been about ten or eleven years old. Charlotte and Anne had viewed the dead quickly and courteously without showing too much emotion. So why should Branwell’s reaction have been so different from theirs?

The three men who’d carried the coffins reappeared to replace their lids. My gaze flicked once again toward the sanctuary of the distant moors. I didn’t want to watch them being lowered into those gaping black holes. Nor did I want to think about those three little girls trapped in their wooden boxes for eternity.

Instead, I envisioned myself running up the path toward the moors, hand in hand with Branwell, while Mr. Brontë’s voice, interrupted only by Mrs. Pratchett’s shattered sobs, played like a bad soundtrack in the back of my mind.

At the end of the funeral, the mourners came forward again, each taking a turn to shovel some dirt into the graves. I craned my neck in search of Branwell, wondering if he would take his turn with the shovel, but he had disappeared. I checked behind me and spotted him walking back to the parsonage. My first instinct was to chase after him, but something told me he needed to be left alone.

I lingered while Charlotte and Anne paid their respects, and then I returned to the parsonage with them, our moods dark after the day’s events. But our spirits lifted when Tabby told us that Emily had woken up while we were out and had even sipped a bit of tea. The three of us raced up the stairs.

“Quiet!” Tabby warned, “she’s goan back t’ sleep n’ needs her rest.”

We stampeded into the room to find Emily in another laudanum-induced coma.

Mr. Brontë and Aunt Branwell had gone back to the Pratchett home to offer comfort, and Charlotte decided they could wait to hear the good news.

“But someone should tell Branni.” Charlotte looked straight at me, her eyes shining.

I gaped at her blankly for a second, and then I understood. She had guessed about me and Branwell, only she’d been too polite to let me know. Obviously, she was so happy about Emily’s recovery that she was ready to forgive anything.

Anne pursed her lips and dropped her gaze, silently telling me that she knew too, but did not approve.

I needed to find Branwell—needed to know if he was all right. And now I had the perfect reason. Maybe the news about Emily would help to pull him out of whatever funk he was in.

After changing out of my mourning clothes into one of Emily’s oldest and most simple dresses, I hurried downstairs to the dining room. If Branwell was in the house, he’d be there, bent over his writing desk. Eagerly, I dashed across the stone hallway and entered the small room. Then I then stopped dead.

A large oil painting sat on the table. Next to it, a glass jar of black paint lay knocked over on its side. Paint spilled out of the jar, pooling onto the table and dripping slowly onto the spotless red rug.

I inched toward the painting. It was a portrait of Emily, Charlotte, Anne, and Branwell. Only Branwell’s image had been partially blotted out with black paint. I could still make out part of his face and red hair. The painting itself was signed Patrick Branwell Brontë.

Had Branwell done this? Why would he ruin his own painting?

T
abby sat at the kitchen table holding a sharp-pointed knife. Five or six pale yellow apples lay sprawled in front of her. She plucked one from the table and began to skin it expertly. “Took his drawin’ paper n’ wen’ out. Said nowt when I tow’d ’im abowt Emily.”

He already knew about Emily, then.

“And he didn’t say anything about where he was going?” I tried to keep my voice steady.

“He said nowt,” Tabby answered gruffly.

“Charlotte asked me to find him,” I said by way of explanation.

“Tell Charlotte he’ll be back in time fer dinner. Always is. An’ she can come downstairs n’ help me with t’ pudding.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said, now eager to get away, “and I’ll come help, too. I only need a minute.” I scurried out of the room.

“There’s plenty o’ chores t’ be done now Emily’s ill,” Tabby called behind me.

I sprinted back down the hallway, pulled open the front door, flew down the front steps, across the garden, and out the iron gate. Then I stopped abruptly. Where was I going? Branwell could be anywhere. It would be risky for me to go out onto the moors alone. I might get lost. And the mist. The mist might carry me back.

I gazed into the cemetery, willing it to provide me with an answer. I could check the graveyard first and then the village. I hoped he hadn’t gone into the village because that could only mean two things—the druggist’s or the Black Bull. It was unlikely that he’d risk either of those things with his father in town; still it was hard to predict what Branwell would do.

I tramped through the graveyard in the direction of the church, unable to shake the feeling of doom that had taken root inside me, when I suddenly spotted Branwell’s carroty hair sticking up behind a gravestone. His hair blazed like the sun itself amongst the gray slabs of concrete. For a second, I forgot why I was looking for him and I raced forward.

Branwell sat with his back resting against a gravestone, his sketchpad on his lap, and his quill pen moving furiously across his paper. He whirled around at the sound of my running footsteps. The quill slipped from his grip. A long, blotchy ink line appeared across his page. Branwell tore the paper from his pad, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at my feet.

“Don’t you know better than to come up behind someone like that?” he snapped.

I blinked, stunned by his harsh tone.

He dropped his head and started to toss something back and forth in his hands.

“Sorry,” I said, and stooped to pick up the crumpled paper.

He didn’t answer or turn around.

I waited, unsure what to do. The thing he was tossing back and forth landed on the ground, and he reached out and snatched it up again. But it was too late. I’d already seen it. A bottle of laudanum.

Anger engulfed me. “Did you take that from Emily’s room?”

“What if I did?”

“Damn it, Branwell!”

He turned his head, but not enough to actually face me. “You curse like the men in the Black Bull. It’s unbecoming.”

I ignored his comment. “Emily needs that. And you know it. How can you take her medicine?”

“She’ll get more. There’s plenty in the druggist’s and the doctor’s bag.”

“That’s not the point,” I said. “She’s been bitten by a wolf. What’s your excuse?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Branwell jumped up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the church.

“Let go of me!” I said, trying to yank my arm back.

He spun around, still holding onto my arm. “You ask the question, but you really don’t want to know the answer, do you?

“What?” I glared at him.

He let go of my arm and strode toward the church.

I watched him go and stared at the wooden church door as it banged shut behind him. The wind picked up and blasted me with its cold chill. Tears pooled in my eyes. I didn’t understand Branwell. He was the most charming, sensitive, and brilliant person I’d ever met, but he had another side to him. He was like a magnificent sculpture that had been smashed and pieced back together, only with some parts missing so that he could never be quite whole again.

The piece of paper I’d picked up earlier still lay crumpled in my hand. I stared at it for a long time. Branwell had once sketched a picture of himself with a noose around his own neck, and now he had blotted himself out of a painting. What would this sketch contain? Did I want to know?

You ask the question, but you don’t really want to know the answer
. His voice echoed in my mind.

I opened the paper and smoothed it out as best as I could. It wasn’t a sketch. He’d been writing something. The paper quivered as the wind tried to rip it out of my hands. I held it close to my face with both hands and tried to make out the words. Most of them were smudged, but one part was still readable, and from that I could tell it was a poem. I squinted at the words scrawled across the page.

“Declining o’er my sister’s bed—
My father’s stern eye dropt a tear
Upon the coffin resting there.
My mother lifted me to see
What might within that coffin be;
And, to this moment, I can feel
The voiceless gasp—the sickening chill—
With which I hid my whitened face
In the dear folds of her embrace;
For hardly dared I turn my head
Lest its wet eyes should view that bed.”