“There is a play tonight!” yelled Ned, coming within shouting distance. “With sword fights and a hunchback!”
“You mustn’t listen to Ned go on so. It is by Mr. Shakespeare,” said Mary with authority, when they stood almost breathless in front of me. She appeared to have lost her parasol during her short absence. “And it’s at the Theatre Royal.”
“I see,” I said, trying not to laugh at them.
“And Mrs.… Mrs.… Agnes’s and Bella’s sister has tickets and we must all go!” Ned ended on a flourish. “Oh, can we?”
I calculated. Edmund was accompanying his “dear Mama” to one of the Spa Saloon concerts tonight and, with the children and their keepers gone, I would be able to enjoy the Lodgings in solitude.
“Mr. Shakespeare, did you say, darlings?” I said, taking both children by the hands and walking them away from the others. “In that case, I have no objections.”
* * *
“OH, MARSHALL, I SHOULD have gone with them!” My desire to be alone forgotten, I paced the library, which was small and ill furnished compared to ours at home. I pressed my nose against the cold glass and struggled to see anything of the world beyond the window. The fabled view of the beach far below had faded.
“To the concert, madam?” Marshall said, still concentrating on the hem she was letting down on one of Mary’s petticoats.
“No, no, to the theater.” Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me to spend time with Edmund’s mother tonight.
I strode back and sat on the chaise beside Marshall, studying her expressionless face. She saw me, the real me, more than anyone else, yet wouldn’t give up this playacting. She was the servant, and I was the mistress. We had our parts and, with them, our corresponding lines and silences.
“Is that right, ma’am?” she said, after a long pause. “Well, mightn’t you have gone with them?”
“Yes, yes,” I snapped. “But that isn’t the point.”
She didn’t ask me to elucidate what the point was, but only because she knew that I would tell her anyway.
“Marshall?” I said, drawing so close to her that I blocked the light.
She dropped her needlework into her lap and looked up at me.
“Not one of them was anxious that I join them. Not one of them. It was all the same, either way. And isn’t that a slight? There was a time when I had invitations and friends, when parties weren’t complete without me. But now it’s ‘Bring your daughters, Mrs. Robinson,’ if anyone thinks to ask me anywhere at all. And not an ounce of gratitude from any of them, no respect for where they came from.”
There was only sympathy in Marshall’s eyes, although even to my own ears, my speech sounded petty. I laid my head on her shoulder and let her stroke my temple, feeling all the sorrier for myself that Ann Marshall was the only one who cared for me.
There was a knock at the door, and I sprang away from her, as if we were a young couple who’d been caught kissing.
“Come in,” I called, expecting William Allison or maybe Bob Pottage, our gardener who’d also come with us to Scarborough in the guise of a groom.
But it was Mr. Brontë.
“Mrs. Robinson.” Brontë addressed me for the first time in months and walked into the center of the room without waiting to be summoned closer. There was a confidence in his manner I hadn’t seen recently, a directness in his stare that made me think there had been a crisis.
“The theater—? Is all well?” I asked, drawing my hand to my chest. My breathing was shallow.
“All is well. We were one too many for our tickets, and I volunteered to step aside.”
I nodded, though my heart was still racing. “But why are you here?”
“I knew that Mr. Robinson—that you were also without company tonight. Both of you.” He added the caveat, with a nod toward Marshall, pulling us back from the brink of impropriety.
She resumed her sewing, gaze downcast.
I had no reason to doubt her absolute loyalty. My struggle was with my emotions regarding Mr. Brontë. The disgust I had felt that night at the Monk’s House fought against my joy that he had appeared and at that juncture when I had most longed for succor.
“I thought you might be in need of amusement,” he said. “Are you?”
But that wasn’t the question. The question was, Can you forgive me? And, Can we be as we were?
I swallowed my pride. Hadn’t I wanted to be sought out above others? And to learn more of Mr. Brontë and his dangerous, different mind?
“I am,” I whispered.
Mr. Brontë walked to the bookcase on the far wall and strained his arm to reach the upper shelf. I could see the muscles of his shoulder rippling, even through his shirt.
“I doubt they have much of a collection here,” I said. I had to say something, or they’d both hear how my caged heart rattled against my ribs.
“I think we should have some Shakespeare of our own. Don’t you, Mrs. Robinson?” he asked. He was already leafing through the pages, seeking out the play he had chosen.
What a refined and romantic form of entertainment! Was this how the Brontës spent their evenings, reading and debating great literature with each other? And Mr. Brontë thought me capable of this too.
“Marshall and I would be very grateful,” I said.
My maid bent even lower, as if trying to blend in with the furniture.
“Go on,” I whispered.
Mr. Brontë dragged an armchair from across the room to read by our solitary lamp. He sat, pushed back his curls, which had grown long enough to fall into his eyes, and positioned his feet so they were nearly touching mine.
“If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die.” He barely looked at the page, focusing instead on me.
I closed my eyes to avoid his gaze, picturing the characters, and letting his liquid words wash over me—rhythmic, warm, and inescapably earnest. My Illyria bore a striking resemblance to Scarborough, but the beaches there were clean and empty and the sea a dazzling turquoise, as still as a looking glass in the peace that followed the great storm.
At the end of the second scene, between Viola and the Captain, Mr. Brontë paused for breath.
Marshall poured the tea, which one of the local servants had brought in for us.
“I forget how visceral he is, how immediate,” said Mr. Brontë, turning back one of the almost translucent pages to study an earlier line. “My desires, like fell and cruel hounds, / E’er since pursue me. It is incredible to be pulled into the humanity of it, leaping off the page although centuries have passed.”
“You forget, I think, Mr. Brontë,” I said, my lip curling slightly, “that the Duke knows nothing of love. He is suffering under an infatuation, a boyish delusion.”
“What!” Mr. Brontë cried, with mock derision. “Who could question Orsino’s choice before he met his match in Viola? Would you deny that Rosaline was fair just because Juliet was fairer? You are a harsh critic of men, Mrs. Robinson, to demand their first affections, as well as their deepest.”
I opened my mouth to say something through my smile but my joy mingled with longing. The toe of his boot was now pressing against my slipper but I wanted him closer, and my hand in his yet again. Perhaps I could send Marshall away on some pretense, to bring sugar? But the door flew open, sending a vibration through the room that spilled tea from the cup I was holding into my saucer.
“Here she is, Edmund!” my mother-in-law cried. “Taking tea with the tutor.”
“And Marshall,” I protested, but my maid was already scuttling toward the side door.
“You didn’t go to the theater?” Edmund asked, undoing his cravat to dab at the perspiration that had gathered on his forehead from the walk up to our buildings.
His mother, damn her, looked unaffected from the exertion.
“I took one of my headaches,” I said, not trusting myself to glance in the direction of Mr. Brontë, who was standing to atten
tion beside me, still holding the Works. “And Mr. Brontë was so good as to read to us. He was just leaving.”
“Leaving, nonsense!” Elizabeth Robinson boomed, taking the spot that Marshall had just vacated and spreading out her skirts so wide that I was wedged against the scroll at the foot of the bench. “Read on, Mr. Brent. I am sure this will be most educational.”
An expression of distaste passed over Mr. Brontë’s face as she butchered his name, but he nodded and reopened the volume on a random page.
“Go thy ways, Kate: / That man i’ the world who shall report he has / A better wife, let him in nought be trusted, / For speaking false in that,” he began to drone.
Old Mrs. Robinson stared at the tutor.
Edmund watched my reflection in the mirror above the mantel.
I nodded every now and then as if following the lines, although in truth, I no longer knew which play Mr. Brontë was reading from.
Whichever one it was, the drama was tedious and Mr. Brontë’s tone monotonous. It was as if he too had lost the import of what he was reading, as if the four of us would be stuck here forever, waiting to discover who would be the first to break.
The sound of the children’s raised and irritable voices was a relief. It was the sign I had been waiting for. I sprang to my feet and called them in from the hallway.
Miss Brontë looked tired, Lydia jubilant, Ned and Bessy ill-tempered, and Mary on the verge of tears.
“How was the play, my darlings?” I said, swooping in to kiss Ned’s rosy cheek.
“Mary took ill and insisted that we leave before the end, which is such a bore!” complained Bessy. “I wanted to see Richmond run his sword through the king.”
Ned mimed the action, invisible sword pointed at Miss Brontë’s abdomen.
“You are unwell, Mary?” I asked.
I was more surprised at Lydia’s even temper at being dragged away from an “occasion.” Her color was so high that her face matched her fuchsia dress and a smile was playing on her lips.
“I—” Mary began.
“Of course she is unwell, Lydia,” Edmund’s mother said. She, the only one who remained sitting, had lounged back even more so I could hardly see her behind her stiff, voluminous skirts. “Late nights! Theatricals! Miss Brent shouldn’t let the girls go on so, even if you are oblivious about how young ladies should be reared.”
“I am sorry, madam,” whispered Miss Brontë.
Her brother shot her a look of incredulity. “Brontë, Mrs. Robinson,” he said to Edmund’s mother, with a bow.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” she said, sitting up so that her head emerged once more.
“Our name is Brontë,” he said. “Not Brent.”
Everyone stared, waiting to see how Grandmama would react to such a challenge.
“Edmund!” she called, sticking out her hand. “Escort me to my rooms. I have had entertainment enough for this evening.”
Edmund helped her up from the chaise and offered her his arm.
Mary tried to whisper something to me, but her words were inaudible. I brushed her aside.
“And you!” my mother-in-law shot at Miss Brontë. “Get those children to bed!”
Miss Brontë inclined her head.
“Good night, Mr. Brontë,” I said, very deliberately, before Edmund and his mother were out of earshot, anxious that they hear him leave with the others, and still more scared of what I would do if he did not.
Mr. Brontë bowed and held the door for Lydia, as Ned and Bessy lined up to give me the expected kiss good night.
“Mama,” hissed Mary. “I must speak with you.”
“Mary,” I protested, the desire to be alone again overwhelming me in a sudden flood. I would take the Shakespeare to bed. Maybe Mr. Brontë and I could discuss the play in the morning.
“Please, Mama.”
The door clicked closed behind the tutor.
“Well, what is it?” I dragged Mr. Brontë’s chair back to its original position and, when I turned back, was surprised to find Mary crying. “My love?” I pinched her chin and teased her face toward mine.
“Mama, I’m frightened,” I made out between her sobs.
“Whatever is the matter?” I asked, my heart beating a little faster, thinking of Georgiana and how she’d said she was afraid to journey to heaven alone.
“I’m—I’m—” Her voice dropped even lower. “Between my legs. I’m bleeding.”
I dropped her chin, laughed, and gave her shoulder a quick (I hoped comforting) squeeze.
Mary’s expression fluctuated with confusion.
“Is that all?” I asked. “Mary, you are a goose. There is no need to be frightened. I thought the other girls would have told you? Or Miss Brontë? But no matter. I’ll have Marshall bring you rags.”
I walked over to pull the bell cord.
“I’m not dying?” Mary stuttered, clenching and unclenching her fist at her side.
“No, no,” I said, beckoning over Marshall, who was hovering at the door. “But I’m far too tired to teach you anything tonight. Marshall here will see to the soaking of your things.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE THEATRE ROYAL SMELLED of oil, tobacco, and sweat. The crowds trod on my dress as we fought our way through the foyer, and I was nearly winded climbing the stairs to the finer seats. But then we emerged into a galaxy of candles and gas lamps glinting off the gilt decorations and reflecting in each crystal of the great chandelier.
The musicians tuned their instruments, the atonal symphony making me cringe. The throng buzzed with a thousand questions and observations. Men and women of every station lived out their dramas in groups and pairs. But at the sound of a gong or flicker of the curtain, all that would no longer matter. We would enter another world, beckoned in by Mr. Samuel Roxby’s summer company, a world where the line between villain and hero was clear, where misunderstandings were always reversed by the end, and where love and beauty never aged.
In the fortnight since Mr. Brontë had read to me, there had been something in the air, a shared mania that drew us all (except for Edmund and his mother) time and again to the theater. The children were too delighted to question my change of heart, and even Miss Brontë softened in light of this new, harmonious pastime. Together we’d quaked at the murderer, Eugene Aram; laughed at Bottom, transformed into an ass; reveled in the romance of The Love Chase and in its farce.
Mr. Brontë was always at my side, making comments only he would, about the poetry of the piece, as well as its substance. Miss Brontë would find morals in the scenes, largely drawn from the curate Greenhow’s sermons, but only Mary and Ned would listen to her explanations. And Lydia, who grew more beautiful each day, would elbow her way to the front of our box and crane her neck over the side. She was oblivious to the admiring looks she drew from other patrons, her eyes were so fixed upon the stage, except when she turned to whisper a confidence to her co-conspirator, Bessy.
Tonight was the hottest night we’d had yet, and we were sweating through the fifth and final act of a history play by Mr. Bulwer-Lytton. I fanned myself so hard that my wrist ached. Ned slept, drooling into Miss Brontë’s lap.
“Should we leave early to avoid the mob?” Mr. Brontë asked softly, his breath blowing a stray hair against my cheek.
Miss Brontë coughed.
“I will soldier through to the end,” I said, seeing that Lydia showed no signs of fatigue and wishing I had her energy.
The last scenes were torturous, but I held my ground. If only I could lean against Mr. Brontë, see the rest of the show sideways from the vantage point of his shoulder, and trust him to steer me home.
At the final line, a sigh of collective relief rippled through the auditorium, followed by rapturous applause. The actors, oblivious to the true reason for this outpouring, took the cheers as their cue for an extended curtain call.
In the center was the people’s favorite: Harry Beverley. At this distance, his features were indecipherable, but I imagined his face
beaming with joy at the validation, with a blush deep enough to match his red cardinal’s robe.
Now. I nodded at Mr. Brontë and gripped Lydia’s milky-white upper arm, pulling her back.
“Ow!” She shoved my hand away and continued to applaud as a trio of actors dressed as manservants took their bows.
“We’re leaving, Lydia,” I said. “Bessy, Mary. Ned, wake up!”
Miss Brontë, ever fragile, was struggling to rouse the boy between her coughs, but her brother stepped in, guiding Ned out of the box. She stood, steadying herself by holding on to a chair.
“This way!” I told her, using my folded fan to gesture toward the exit. “We don’t wish to be caught on the stairs.”
We were.
Somebody must have whispered to Mr. Beverley that his improvised finale was becoming tiresome and dragged him into the wings. For as we reached the stairwell, the doors to the auditorium flew open and a flood of people streamed out, their voices raised even higher than before the enforced silence, dissecting the play or, more likely, debating their entertainment for the rest of the evening.
Heat.
Panic rising inside me when we were in the midst of the fray, surrounded by faces, yet losing the ones we knew, glancing back and shouting indistinguishable instructions at each other about which way to go and where we should meet.
Halfway.
Just breathe.
The chaos around us took on a different character. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, which was strange, as a moment before there’d been no space at all.
A man with a commanding voice was shouting, “Move aside, please. Move aside! A lady has fainted. Bring smelling salts and water.”
I went up on my tiptoes but could see only the backs of men’s heads and ladies’ crumpled bonnets.
“Mama!” I looked down, and there was Ned, now very much awake. “It is Miss Brontë—she has fallen!”
Hand in hand, we fought our way to the clearing. There indeed was Miss Brontë, lying on the litter-strewn floor, with Lydia and Bessy crouched on either side of her.
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