Emily's Ghost

by Denise Giardina

  On this particular Wednesday, not long after Charlotte had gone to the seaside, Branwell was away as well, in Bradford with his artist friends. Emily kneaded dough in blessed silence. Her mind was so far away on the island of Gondal that she did not at first notice the knock on the back door. It sounded again as she reluctantly withdrew her fists from the mound of dough and grasped the handle with a towel.

  William Weightman stood framed by the pale light of an overcast September morning. But the disposition he brought into the room was sunny enough.

  “Good morning to you, Miss Emily,” he said brightly.

  Emily, wrenched from her fictional world, fought back a surge of irritation. She nodded, said “Good day,” and went back to kneading her dough. She thought Weightman likeable enough as curates went, and she had no wish to be rude. But if he left soon she might return to the trials of Alexandrina Zenobia as she sought a way out of the prison cell where she had been deserted and held captive. Emily was caught between possible solutions. Should Alexandrina languish awhile and suffer? Was there a way to attempt a spectacular escape? Or should she beguile her guard with favors (in a way no clergyman would approve) and then steal away?

  Weightman was oblivious to the sufferings of Alexandrina Zenobia. He leaned against the doorframe studying Emily, who stood poised on the doorstep of her Gondal prison and now stepped back into the parsonage kitchen. She continued to knead the dough.

  “So,” Weightman said, “this is the day the wonderful parsonage loaves are baked.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. She could think of nothing to add, and preferred to ignore compliments, which she considered insincere. She continued to knead. But she wondered what Weightman would make of her silence. She decided she didn’t care, and waited for him to speak again, or leave.

  “Is your brother here?” Weightman asked.

  Emily stopped kneading dough and looked up. She picked up a cloth and wiped her hands. Then she said, “Branwell is not here. He’s in Bradford visiting”—she hesitated—“friends.”

  “You seem reluctant to name them friends.”

  Emily was used to being ignored, not questioned by one she considered a stranger. She took a moment to answer, and Weightman waited. Had he not, she would have dismissed him. She told him at last, “I have used a term incorrectly, for I think my brother’s companions are no true friends.”

  Weightman’s face was all attentive concern. “May I speak with you,” he said, “without troubling your father?”

  “It would be better to speak with Charlotte,” Emily said. “But since she is away, and Aunt Branwell does not like to talk about her nephew just now, I must stand in.”

  “Good. It is you I would seek to speak to in any event.” He took Emily’s frozen astonishment as an opportunity to pick up the chair that stood in the corner and gesture for her to be seated.

  “I am not ready to sit,” she said, and went back to working her dough to cover her confusion.

  So Weightman placed the chair opposite her and took it himself.

  “I must tell you,” he said, “what I saw on my first night in Haworth when I slept in your brother’s room.”

  Emily’s motion slowed. Weightman proceeded to recount what he had seen and heard outside the window that night.

  When he was done, Emily said, “I had hoped that you were asleep and we might not be heard.”

  “I sleep ill in a strange bed,” Weightman said.

  “So our secret is out.” Emily would not look at him as she worked the dough. “It is some relief. But you were right not to mention it to Father. He is at his wit’s end with Branwell. He is also ashamed. So his daughters try to keep the worst from him.”

  “Your sister Anne is away,” Weightman observed, “and now Charlotte as well. Your good aunt, I would guess, is not much help.”

  Emily met his eyes and was touched by the concern she saw there. At the same time, she was not used to it, and so discomfited. She shrugged, covered the pan of dough with a cloth, and set it on the cupboard shelf to rise. When she turned back, Weightman was still watching her with the same expression.

  “How may I help?” he asked.

  She wiped the table. How might a man help? She didn’t know. She said, “I am going out back to feed the birds.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she picked up a sack with the stale remains of the previous week’s bread and went outside. Weightman followed. The geese Emily called by the names Victoria and Adelaide toddled up, as did a bevy of chickens that appeared from behind the washhouse. Emily scattered pieces of dry bread amidst the squawking birds. After a time, she said, “My brother is a poet of modest talent, and a portrait painter, also of moderate ability. He does well enough to make his way precariously in the world with his pictures. But it galls him, you see, that Charlotte and Anne and I possess more talent than he does. It should gall us that because we are women we are deemed unfit to make our way as portrait painters or authors. For us it is teaching or nothing. But Branwell has the advantage of his sex. It is not enough. It is all our faults, perhaps; we have made over him too much as the only boy. He must paint like Sir Joshua Reynolds or compose poems to match Coleridge. And if he cannot compose to match Coleridge, then by God, he shall match him for sipping spirits in taverns and imbibing opium when he can get it.”

  “I see,” Weightman said, impressed both by Branwell’s situation and by Emily’s propensity to talk. “And your father has been unable to impress his situation upon your brother?”

  “My father is overwhelmed.”

  “Would you object if I spoke with Branwell?”

  Emily looked away. “It would be most kind,” she said at last, “if you could take him in hand.”

  “I have spoken with the Widow Ogden,” Weightman said. “She is prepared to take on another boarder. I can keep Branwell under close watch for a time.”

  “But we shall have to find some way to pay the Widow Ogden,” Emily said, doing mental calculations in her head. It was money the family did not have.

  “It is arranged,” Weightman said. He did not tell her that he had at his disposal a sum of funds sent each month by his father to use at his discretion.

  Emily watched the fowl bobbing their heads up and down. Weightman followed her gaze.

  “According to Descartes, they are mere machines, with no feeling,” he said.

  She stiffened, and an angry look crossed her face.

  “Of course I do not agree,” he hastened to add.

  “Nor should you,” Emily said. She went back inside the kitchen.

  Weightman followed her, finding her change of mood so abrupt he would not have been surprised if she had closed the door behind her and shut him out. She did not, as though she assumed he would come in after her, but neither did she engage him in conversation. Instead she took a second batch of dough, already risen, from the cupboard and set about dividing it into portions for loaves. Without looking at him she said, “Would you stoke the coals in the oven please.”

  He did as he was asked, while she took out pans, greased them with shortening, and filled them. All was done in silence. Weightman did not know—could not guess—that two times were most precious for Emily to escape into her fictional world of Gondal. One was bread-baking time, which he had interrupted. The second he was now about to trespass upon with all the heedlessness of a child blundering into a spider’s web.

  “One more thing I was curious about,” Weightman said, unaware he was about to squander much of the good will he had created with his solicitude regarding Branwell. “I also saw you leave that night, alone with your dog, and return much later. I wonder, and though I say nothing to judge you”—he held up his hands palm out to emphasize his point—“if it is wise for a young woman, the Reverend Brontë’s daughter, to be out upon the moors at night alone. And I wonder, if your father because of his age did not retire so early, would he know and—”

  Weightman was going to say “approve.” But the word died in his throat. For
Emily Brontë turned and regarded him with eyes which, if he tried to describe them for a novel, he would choose a word such as “smoldered” or “blazed” to accompany.

  “I am grateful,” Emily said in a still voice, “for your concern for my brother. But not even gratitude will allow you to encroach.”

  William Weightman saw that the interview was at an end. He left, giving the appearance, in his own mind at least, of a whipped puppy.

  Late that afternoon, Weightman stepped out the door of a hovel in the Haworth slum of Gauger’s Croft to see the back of a tall woman accompanied by a large dog disappear around a corner. He knew her at once though he could not see her face.

  “Was that not Mr. Brontë’s daughter?” he asked old Widow Bland, who was passing by.

  “Aye,” said Widow Bland. “Tis bread day.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Miss Emily bakes the parsonage bread. They cannot spare much, but she bakes more loaves than they need. Then she goes to Old Dean and gives the loaves to him. And Old Dean knows who stands most in need.”

  “I did not know Miss Emily visited in the neighborhood,” Weightman said.

  “Oh, she wanders though she does not much talk,” Widow Bland said. “Except to Old Dean. She and Old Dean get on famous.” The Widow Bland thought a moment. “Old Dean’s dog Robbie is a great friend of hers and that brute that follows her.”

  “Ah,” said Weightman.

  “Robbie’s a border collie, you know,” Widow Bland said. But Weightman’s mind was elsewhere.

  Several days passed before Branwell returned from Bradford. Weightman gave him time to settle back into his old habits. Then one evening, he left the Sunday school building, where he had been working on his sermon, and walked around the church to the Black Bull.

  The inn sat a stone’s throw from the parsonage and St. Michael’s, at the point where the high street dropped in its sharp descent. Village legend had it that drunkards tottered out of the inn, lost their footing, and rolled downhill, breaking their necks. No one had witnessed this. But mothers used the story to frighten sons who had begun to imbibe too frequently.

  The room was hazy with smoke when Weightman entered, but it was not crowded. Weightman ordered hard cider and settled at the bar to study the merry group in the corner that included Branwell Brontë. Branwell, alone among the children of Patrick Brontë, had a large number of friends and loved to be with them. He belonged to the local Masonic lodge and the Conservative political society. Two of his current companions Weightman knew to belong to one of the town’s leading mill-owning families, the Merralls. A third was John Brown, the chairman of the Three Graces Masonic lodge and the sexton of St. Michael’s Church. Brown sat facing the bar and nodded in acknowledgment when Weightman met his eye. For though John Brown often drank with Branwell Brontë, he also knew, and approved, what William Weightman intended to do.

  As for Branwell, Weightman was struck by the contrast with his sisters. If he were to label the women with a single word, he would have named Emily difficult, and Charlotte hungry. He wondered for a moment how he would classify Anne, the youngest, when he met her. In any event, if she was anything like her sisters, there could not be a greater contrast than with Branwell.

  The object of Weightman’s attention was a smallish young man with a lively expression. His hair was bright red, the most obvious example of their Irish heritage to be found among the Brontës. (Though Weightman guessed that Patrick, now white-headed, might have once possessed the same coloring.) Branwell had a sharp nose, upon which perched a pair of spectacles, thin side-whiskers, and a pointed chin. His face was flushed—Weightman was not sure if from his natural complexion or from spirits. He was laughing loudly at one of his companion’s jibes.

  Weightman wiped his own mouth, picked up his mug of cider, and walked to the convivial table.

  John Brown sprang to his feet on cue.

  “Branwell,” Brown exclaimed, “have you met your father’s new curate?”

  They shook hands all round. One of Branwell’s friends, Hartley Merrall, said, “So, do the Established clergy drink with dissenters like my brother Stephen here?” Then he poked Branwell in the side. “Branwell does, of course. But then, he is practically a pagan.”

  “Not so! Not so!” Branwell protested. “I am almost as tolerable a heretic as a Baptist.”

  The two Merralls laughed uproariously. Weightman could see they were drunk, yet glancing at Branwell, he guessed young Brontë was much farther gone, though the evening was young. The Merralls, who were businessmen, would soon go back home and rise to work on the morrow, not much worse for the wear. Branwell, he guessed, would stay longer at the Black Bull.

  Weightman met Brown’s eyes and nodded.

  The sexton said, “I would think the three of you might calm yourselves enough to pay heed to the Reverend Weightman.”

  “We shall!” cried Hartley Merrall. “Unlike my brother here, I have stayed in the Reverend Brontë’s church, though my attendance is infrequent. The Established Church is, after all”—he searched for the proper word, then gave up—“Established. So, Reverend curate, what have you to say for yourself?”

  “In fact,” said Weightman, and took a sip of his cider, “I have something very important to say to Branwell, though not until I may speak with him in private.” He pushed his tankard away. “By the way, friends call me Willie. And so you should call me.”

  Branwell, who was easily and inordinately pleased when inebriated, put his arm about his new friend and proclaimed, his voice ever more slurred, “Willie Weightman. An alliterative name. Worthy of a poem. Worthy Willie Weightman. Shall I write a poem about you?”

  Weightman smiled. “You may.”

  “And what would you be in his poem?” Stephen Merrall interrupted. “A romantic hero? Or a highwayman, perhaps?”

  “I would be sad, I think,” said Weightman. “Tragical even.”

  Branwell sat back and looked askance. “You? Tragical? No, no, no! Your eye is too bright, your cheek too rosy for tragical.”

  He waggled only a finger, but the effort nearly caused him to tip over. Weightman realized if Branwell was so far gone, he must act.

  “Indeed I am too farcical for tragedy,” he said. “That is why I must speak to you, Branwell. Now, if possible. And alone.”

  “What, now!” Branwell protested. “And alone! But I have room for more gin, as do these fellows, I’m sure.”

  “These good fellows are leaving.” Weightman rose as he spoke. “They have employment on the morrow. And I am in a bit of a rush.”

  John Brown had risen as well and grasped Branwell by the left arm, while Weightman gently placed his hand under Branwell’s right elbow and lifted. When Branwell staggered to his feet, still astonished, Weightman leaned close to his ear and said, “I am in a great deal of trouble. I need your help.”

  The three men made their wobbly way to the door. There John Brown left them while Weightman guided Branwell out into the crisp night air.

  They went for a time in silence, Branwell walking willingly enough but with the air of one who is in a trance. After a time he stopped and protested, “But I shall have lost it, you know. The edge. The knife’s point upon which I balance. I shall fall off and be sad.”

  “I shall let you down gently.”

  “Where are we going?” Branwell looked around, puzzled, for they were heading along West Lane.

  “We’re going to my lodgings. But first we shall take the night air and I shall tell you my troubles.”

  “The night air shall clear my head,” Branwell said grumpily, “and therein lies the problem.” But still he allowed himself to be led.

  Just beyond the village they came to a stile, where Weightman sat and pulled the other man down beside him. Branwell leaned his head back against the stone and turned his head to stare at Weightman. “I can’t see your face,” he mumbled. “It is in shadow. Can we not find a hearth? And a companionable glass?”

 
“I told you,” Weightman said. “I am in deep trouble and I need your help. It took all my strength tonight to enter the Black Bull and go to you.”

  “Well then?”

  “It is drink. I must resist. That bit of cider tonight called to me, and very nearly did me in.”

  Branwell began to giggle. “Cider! Good God, man! You are a baby.”

  “I am,” Weightman said. “Weaker than a baby. I need your help.” He shook Branwell by the shoulders. “You love your father, do you not?”

  Branwell grew quiet. “Of course I love my father.”

  “Then help me. I am his assistant, and he needs me. But he needs me sober as a judge. Come live with me at the Widow Ogden’s. You shall watch out for me, and keep me on the straight and narrow.”

  “Yes, but—but—” Branwell sputtered, and then lapsed into silence. Weightman waited for him and let him think. At last Branwell said, “What about—what about me?”

  “Will you come with me tonight?” Weightman put his hand on Branwell’s elbow. “Tomorrow we’ll talk and you can decide.”

  They rose, Branwell swaying but more steady, longing for a drink and yet sentient of the cry for help from his father’s curate. They made their way back to Haworth, to the Widow Ogden’s off Lord Lane.

  3

  In December, Anne Brontë came home in disgrace, at least in her own eyes. Her employers at Blake Hall, the Inghams, had asked her not to return after her Christmas holiday.

  “I was not strong enough,” was all she said. Anne would elaborate no further, but took to her bed. Her fever was high, her cough insistent. The result of overwork and an unusually blustery December, Charlotte assured Anne. But Emily dreaded worse; she feared that Anne suffered from consumption. She took turns with Charlotte and Aunt Branwell at Anne’s bedside, until at last her sister began to improve.

  The letters Emily had received from Anne over the past months had already given her an idea of her sister’s tribulations. Her charges were young children of six and five, a boy and girl, but their tender age belied their capacity for mayhem. “At such an age,” Anne had written, “one could expect an eagerness to please. And yet these two will not even sit still long enough to consider how to please. Worse, they strike out with feet and fists when crossed in the least.”