By Whitsunday Weightman had regained enough strength to take charge of the Sunday school activities. He convinced Patrick a special celebration for the children was in order, as was done in other parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. There would be church, then on the holiday Monday a parade through the town, with singing and banners, and sweet buns and beer.
At the Sunday service the church was packed with a cacophony of children, whispering, talking out loud, some tired from work in the mills, others boisterous at the change of venue. Some older children who could read were in charge of the lessons. Then Weightman preached, and his sermon was brief.
“Today is Whitsunday,” he said, “the day of Pentecost when the apostles gathered and tongues of fire danced upon their heads, and the Holy Ghost stirred them all. What a party that must have been! You will have heard, children, that you should fear God. Some of our churches will preach that, yes, and that you should fear hellfire. But why should you fear?”
He paused and Emily guessed what he thought. Why should these small ones fear Hell when they lived in it already?
“A friend once forced me to talk about some of the sad things I have seen in this world.” He glanced at Emily and her stomach felt as though someone had grabbed hold of it and squeezed. “It hurt to think about those things. Man can do great wrong to man, it is true,” Weightman continued. “But beloved, do not fear that God will do so as well. A God who would give away all his power and become a weak and vulnerable man is not a God to be afraid of. He is a God to be loved.”
Because she was the daughter of Patrick Brontë and was expected to, Emily walked in the Whit-Monday procession the next day. Charlotte went along as well because she taught in the Sunday school. Her face bore a cynical expression as she watched the children crowd around Weightman, vying to walk as close to him as they could, the littlest ones taking turns holding his hands. Charlotte leaned close and whispered in Emily’s ear, “What a scene this would make in a book. Celia Amelia in her element.”
But Emily had some investment in the day and was pained by Charlotte’s sneering. She had baked the buns the children consumed because Weightman had begged her help, along with Tabby and the wives of the postmaster and John Brown the sexton. The exotic ingredients, sacks of nuts and currants and sugar and flour, had mysteriously appeared at the back door of the parsonage. Paid for by Weightman, Emily suspected, though he never said so. She and Tabby spent two days in the kitchen loading the stove in shifts while the family was condemned to eat cold meat sandwiches. In the end Emily stood against the wall of the washhouse watching children who had never in their lives seen a nut or a currant cram their faces with buns and then cavort in the uneven pasture behind the parsonage.
Weightman had insisted upon a maypole. A pagan thing, a few of the dissenters of Haworth grumbled, and made sure their unfortunate children kept well away. Weightman had the pole decorated with ribbons of every color, more ribbons than children. The Haworth Brass Band was importuned to play, and produced a great deal of loud and boisterous music. The children chose streamers of their favorite colors and danced round and round. In the end they were allowed to cut off the ribbons and take them home, bits of bright color to gaze upon before they faced their twelve hours at the power looms, before they might lose their fingers or limbs or lives.
Emily wondered at the irony of bringing pleasure to factory children by giving them ribbons made by some other child in a factory. But what could one do? She studied the throng. One child, Susan Bland, stood aside clutching her grandmother’s hand, looking like a small skeleton. Because of Anne’s situation, Emily had become a student of consumption. She guessed the child was in the last stages and in a short time would be dead. And yet Susan Bland stared at the dancers and the ribbons with yearning.
Then William Weightman noticed the child and her longing, and picked up Susan Bland, placed her upon his shoulder, and joined the dance. He asked the child’s favorite color. Emily could not hear the child’s answer, but Weightman reached out and handed her a pink ribbon. The child clutched the ribbon with both hands, a look of sheer joy on her face while William Weightman danced around the maypole to the tunes of the Haworth Brass Band, twisting and turning with Susan Bland upon his back.
Emily Brontë watched, and knew she loved him. Unlike Charlotte, she loved him without hope, but with a passion beyond speech. She would tell no one. Not her father, though she told him much. Not even Anne, whom she told everything.
She would confide in Keeper. And she would write.
8
Charlotte dealt with her hurt feelings in her typical manner, by going off to visit her school friends. Emily had no doubt the name of William Weightman would be bandied about among the friends with great contempt. She did not care as long as she did not have to hear it.
Emily only saw Weightman from a distance, in church or going to and from the Sunday school building beside the parsonage. She spent most of her time alone, since her father was caught up in as many pastoral duties as his health would permit, and both her sisters were away. Emily and Tabby and the two old people decided they would eat more simply. So there was less to do in the kitchen. When her household chores were done Emily escaped with a book or a notebook and pen for poetry or drawing to the dining room when the weather was inclement, or to the moors when it was good. With supper over and devotions done, and everyone else in bed, Emily read in her father’s study with Keeper for company.
One day, as she and Tabby cleaned up after the midday meal, a knock came at the back door and William Weightman entered.
“Miss Emily,” he said. “Tabby.”
Tabby rubbed her hands on her apron and said, “There is a sad look on your face, Mr. Weightman.”
“I am sad,” he said. “I think a time has come.” He looked at Emily. “Robbie’s time. You know he has moved more slowly of late?”
“I have noticed it,” Emily agreed. She paid close attention to the animals of her acquaintance.
“He is in the kitchen at the Widow Ogden’s. He would not come with me to the Sunday school. He only lays and looks at me. He is in pain. Every breath is a kind of whine. Now and then he thumps his tail on the floor, but that is it. He rarely raises his head. His eyes follow me, those border collie whites with the stare that fixes you.”
“He is telling you, Mr. Weightman,” Emily said. “Poor Robbie.”
“Yes,” Weightman said.
“It was good of you to give him this last bit of time after Old Dean.”
Weightman nodded. He did not move, as though reluctant to set in the motion what must come next. Keeper lay in a corner of the kitchen waiting for Emily and their afternoon walk. When Weightman had appeared, he stood and wagged and greeted the curate with a bump of his nose against Weightman’s thigh. Then he sat back down and watched from the woman to the man and back again.
Weightman glanced at Tabby and understood that Emily and Tabby were as one, and that whatever he suggested would cause no scandal in that quarter.
“I’m going to take him up on Penistone Hill,” he said. “Will you and Keeper come as well?”
“We will,” Emily said. “How could we not?”
“Shall I fetch Robbie and meet you on the hill at back of the parsonage? At the last stile?”
“Yes,” she said.
Emily arrived first and saw him from a distance. He carried Robbie in his arms, and had a shotgun with a strap slung over his shoulder. When Branwell had been in Haworth he had gone grouse hunting with Weightman. Emily supposed it was the same weapon.
As they approached, Robbie raised his head and then dropped it again as though even that effort at greeting wore him out. Emily went to the dog, put a hand on either side of his head resting upon Weightman’s arm, and looked into his deep brown eyes.
“Oh, Robbie,” she said, “you’re going to see Old Dean. Won’t you be happy?”
The tail thumped once at the mention of Old Dean, and then fell limp. The party, two people and two dogs,
trudged up the lane toward the crest of Penistone Hill. The manicured pastures with their cropped grass, neat stone fences, and flocks of chickens and sheep were soon left behind. The lane narrowed to a path that wandered through stands of heather, bracken, and moor grasses, alternating bands of deep green, brown, and white. Like waves upon the ocean, Weightman thought. Emily had no such frame of reference and so only saw her unending moors.
They came to the place where the way bent downward toward the path along Sladen Beck the Brontë sisters favored on their walks, which followed the beck to its source in a fall of water down a narrow cleft in the hill. But Weightman turned and said, “There are farmsteads that way. Let’s go up.”
Emily followed him back toward Haworth but on a path that climbed upward, until they were at the crest of Penistone Hill and could see most all the world Emily knew.
“Here,” Weightman said. “Not as many people come here, do you think?”
“No,” Emily said. She did not tell Weightman that Old Dean would have approved. He had explained that clans of fairies met at the highest point of their territory. The crown of Penistone Hill, he had said. ’Tis where the fairies of Sladen Beck and Haworth hold their court.
Weightman tramped down a bed of grass with his boots, then stooped and gently laid the dog in the depression. Robbie thumped his tail three times and lay still, looking away as though he had begun to forget the two people already and to scout out where he would go next. Keeper approached and sniffed Robbie’s rump, then his muzzle. He walked away and sat beside Emily.
“You may want to walk back, Miss Emily,” Weightman said. “You can wait for me just out of sight there.”
“No,” Emily said. “I want to stay here.” She desperately did not want Weightman to think her a coward. Still she added, “I think, though, that I will not look. If you don’t mind.”
She turned and knelt beside Keeper, covering his ears with her hands. She shut her eyes. She heard Weightman unsling the gun, heard a click as he primed it.
“That’ll do, Robbie,” he said.
The blast cracked the air and caromed from one side of the moors to the other like a live thing dying itself. Keeper shrieked and skittered away before stopping to wait, his tail between his legs. Emily put the back of her hand to her mouth.
Weightman stood beside Emily, shouldering his shotgun. “It’s done,” he said.
Then she began to cry. Weightman stepped close and put his arm around her. She leaned against him, burying her face against his shoulder. They stood for an eternal second, and then both seemed to wake from a kind of sleep and stepped back at the same time.
They walked away. Keeper paused to see why Robbie did not follow. Weightman was lost in thought. He did not measure his gait to allow Emily to keep up—she was nearly as tall as he was and kept up easily.
But she stopped. “Wait,” she said. She pointed.
Weightman heard the sharp cries of a bird, and saw a flapping movement. Emily dropped to her knees and Weightman knelt beside her. A small bird with a dark brown back, not quite old enough to fly, lurched awkwardly as it tried to escape them.
“A hawk,” Weightman said. “A merlin. Is its nest about?”
“No,” Emily said. “It’s been abandoned and has floundered its way here. Looking for something to eat, no doubt.”
“Its parents may have been shot,” Weightman agreed. “Or perhaps a larger bird of prey took them.”
Emily picked up the hawk and ran a finger gently along the back of its head. It stopped struggling but its breast heaved.
“I suppose,” Weightman said, “we should leave it to its fate.”
“What is its fate?” Emily said. “We are its fate.”
“Emily, do you have any idea how to keep a hawk?” Weightman did not notice, nor did she, that he had not called her “Miss Emily.”
“I can try,” she said. When he looked doubtful, she repeated, “I can. Besides, we were meant to find it. It is somehow connected to Robbie.”
“To Robbie?” Weightman stared at her, puzzled. “How can there be a connection?”
“Everything is connected,” Emily said. She took off her shawl. “I’ll carry it in this.”
Weightman studied her and then said, “All right.” He took the merlin and held it while Emily folded the shawl and clasped the bird to her breast. The hawk breathed and fluttered beneath the shawl like a second heart beating. They walked toward Haworth.
“Where will you keep it?” Weightman asked.
“I’ll put it in a cage,” Emily said. “In the washroom. I don’t suppose Aunt will let me have it in the house.”
Weightman smiled to think of the scene that would occur when Emily introduced Aunt Branwell to the merlin.
“You should make a nest of some sort in the cage, out of old rags,” Weightman pointed out. “To keep it warm.”
“When it grows larger I shall let it out and see if it can fly around the washroom. And after that, I’ll let it go.”
“People do keep hawks and use them for falconry,” Weightman pointed out. “They have done for hundreds of years. It could be as much a pet as anything.”
Emily stopped. “I wonder what merlins eat?”
“You need to learn how to catch sparrows,” he teased. “Or mice perhaps, or voles.”
“Oh,” Emily said. She began to walk with a worried expression.
Weightman said, “It might just as well eat some other sorts of raw meat. If you asked the butcher, he might keep by some offal.”
Emily smiled. “Mr. Pearson will do that for me. I deal with him regularly.” She glanced at the bundle she carried. “And I shall find something for it at home. I suppose it is starved to death.”
“You must keep your cat away from it,” Weightman added.
They talked of the bird until they reached the place where the path to the village dropped over the hill. There they stopped. Neither spoke, nor did they discuss what the reaction in the town might be if the curate and Mr. Brontë’s odd daughter were seen returning from a ramble on the moors. Emily dropped her head and said, “Goodbye, Mr. Weightman. And thank you for Robbie’s sake. Dear Robbie.”
She turned and took the pasture lane back to the parsonage, the bird clutched to her chest.
Branwell Brontë returned to Haworth in July, in disgrace. He had been let go from his position as tutor in the Lake District. Haworth gossip had it that Branwell had got a young girl pregnant and been asked to leave. Pastor Brontë, it was whispered in the village, cannot control his own family.
Weightman found Branwell where he expected, drinking in the Black Bull with his old friend Hartley Merrall. Branwell fell silent at Weightman’s approach and looked sheepish.
“Good old friend,” Branwell said. “How have you been?”
“Well enough,” Weightman said. He did not return Branwell’s smile. “I had thought to visit the Lake District during the time I have coming in August, to see you. No need now.”
Merrall, who was just finishing his pint, sensed the curate’s mood. He clapped Branwell on the shoulder and stood.
“I’m off,” he said. “The good curate plans to turn your drinking bench into a confessional.”
Branwell waved for another pint, a resigned look on his face.
“I had thought,” he said to Weightman, “you might want companionship.”
“I might someday,” Weightman said. “But your father is distraught, and your aunt and sisters”—for Charlotte had returned—“are angry. Or so I hear from Tabby.”
“I wondered who was the source of your gossip. That old crone.”
“Watch how you speak,” Weightman warned, staring at Branwell over the brim of his glass. “I love Tabby, and she and I get along like a house afire.”
“Do you indeed,” Branwell said grumpily. But he had caught a glint of mischief in Weightman’s eye, and a lack of clerical approbation, despite Merrall’s pronouncement. “I am the cause of the upset in the parsonage. Now you want to know
the reason. I think you are a gossip.”
“There is a fine line between being a gossip and a pastor,” Weightman acknowledged.
“You say that with a great deal of smugness,” Branwell complained.
Weightman ignored him. “Was it drink?”
“It was not!” Branwell said indignantly. “I raised a glass from time to time, of course. But not every day. I did my duty. I taught the bloody little sod as well as anyone could teach a boy with porridge for brains.”
Weightman waited. He knew that whatever had got Branwell in trouble, he was a bit proud of it. Still a boy.
Branwell needed only a few more sips of his pint. “I got a girl pregnant. What do you think of that?”
Weightman considered. “I think,” he said, “it has been done too often to be a great accomplishment.”
“Hah!” Branwell exclaimed.
“Who was she?”
“My landlord’s daughter. Margaret Fish. My God, Willie, she practically climbed in bed with me one night after her parents were asleep. Several nights, actually. They lodged me in the garret and all she had to do was sneak up the stairs.”
“Did you offer to marry her?”
“I did. But only after it was certain they would say no. Should I be mad enough to tie myself to as silly a creature as I ever met? After all, they aren’t certain the child is mine. I am only one of the finalists, and not even the one they most fancied. Nevertheless, my employer felt I was not a good example for his son. So I’ve got the sack.” He took a deep drink from his glass. “My sisters are furious. Charlotte called me a reprobate, and Emily said not a word but looks at me like I’m some specimen of worm. If Anne were here I’m sure it would be three.” He sighed. “You understand, don’t you? My God, you’re a man. You’ve been with a woman?”
“Yes,” Weightman said.
“Yes!” Branwell began to feel comradely. “Tell me about it.”
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