by Jane Eagland
But morning comes and their father doesn’t appear, not at prayers, which Aunt leads, haltingly, or for breakfast.
“Your father is tired today,” Aunt announces. “He’ll be staying in his room for the time being. You can all carry on as usual, but you must be quiet. I don’t want your father disturbed.” She closes her lips tightly as if to forestall any further questions. But no one says a word.
Emily droops over her bowl. She was awake a long time worrying about Papa. Now she’s tired and a lump like a heavy stone has lodged itself in her chest.
This morning the parlor seems cold, despite the fire Tabby has lit for Aunt. The peat flickers sullenly in the grate as if unwilling to burst into life. And in the shadowy light, the grey walls seem to press in upon her.
Emily looks across the table at the empty space where Papa normally sits.
She can’t remember him ever missing breakfast before. He’s often out for dinner and always has his tea by himself in his study, but he makes a point of joining them for the first meal of the day.
It’s so strange without him there, his face animated, his eyes bright, as he entertains them with some tale or other of his boyhood in Ireland in the tiny village of Drumballyroney, or something he’s heard in his parish rounds. Emily likes the thrillingly gruesome ones best — stories of violence, even murder — or the funny ones.
Only yesterday he was telling them about an old woman he’d heard of who asked for two holes to be put in her coffin lid. “When they asked her why, she said it was so that if the devil came in at one, she could slip out at the other!”
Aunt protested, as she often does. “Really, Mr. Brontë, do you think that’s suitable for children’s ears?”
But Papa just laughed and winked at them.
Dear Papa. He’s like a whirlwind, bursting in on them from time to time and turning everything upside down. You never know what he’s going to say or do next. He’s so exuberant, full of energy and enthusiasm. So alive.
Emily picks up her spoon, looks at the porridge rapidly cooling and congealing in front of her, and puts the spoon down again. She glances covertly at Aunt. She’s sipping her tea with a preoccupied air and restlessly crumbling a piece of bread on her plate. She’s not even noticed that Emily hasn’t eaten anything.
That means it must be serious. Aunt’s normally as watchful as a hawk.
As soon as they’re allowed to leave the table, Emily goes into the kitchen and empties her bowl into Tiger’s dish. “There you are, puss,” she says as the cat comes over to sniff at his breakfast. “You’ve got an extra-large helping today.”
Then she seeks out Tabby in the back kitchen.
“Papa is ill, isn’t he?”
Tabby pauses in her pan scouring and looks at Emily directly. “Aye, lass, he is.”
Emily’s heart starts to beat faster. “There was a pigeon tapping at the bedroom window this morning.” The words come out in a rush.
Tabby gives her a look. “Now don’t tha go believing that old nonsense.”
“But you said it meant that someone was going to die. Remember?”
Tabby wipes her hands on her apron. “Listen, my lamb. I said that’s what some folk believe, ignorant folk who don’t know any better. What ails thi papa is nobbut a chill. He got caught in that heavy shower the other day, didn’t he?” She clicks her tongue. “There’s other parsons would look to their own comfort, but tha knows thi father — he thinks only of other folk. But he’ll soon shake it off, so there’s no need to grieve. Take this food to yon birds. Thi papa wouldn’t want thee to forget them on his account.”
She lays a work-roughened hand on Emily’s cheek and it’s this gentleness that alarms Emily the most.
Having fed the birds in their makeshift cage in the yard — the doves, Rainbow, Diamond, and Snowflake, flutter down for the crumbs immediately, but Jasper the pheasant is being standoffish this morning — Emily goes upstairs to find Charlotte.
She tells her the news as they turn and shake their mattress.
“A chill?” Charlotte looks doubtful.
From Papa’s room next door, they hear him coughing, a painful-sounding protracted spasm.
Charlotte’s eyes meet Emily’s across the striped ticking. “Let’s not tell the others. Not unless we have to.”
When they’ve completed their allotted tasks, out of habit the girls drift toward the study, where they find Branwell sitting at Papa’s desk, sighing over his Latin translation of the New Testament.
A pang of annoyance shoots through Emily. He shouldn’t be sitting in Papa’s chair. But then she bites her tongue. With Papa lying ill upstairs, she mustn’t start a row.
Branwell has brightened at the sight of them. “Aunt says we are to go on with whatever lessons Papa set us yesterday. But, I say, she won’t know whether we have got further on or not. Shall we carry on with Glass Town?”
Charlotte shakes her head. “I think we should do some work first.” She selects a book from the shelves under the window and takes a seat. Seeing that the others haven’t moved, she says, “Papa would want us to, don’t you think?” She’s appealing to Emily and Anne.
Anne says, “Yes,” at once and, finding her spelling book, she takes it over to the rocking chair by the fireplace. There’s no fire, of course — the grate is empty and swept clean — but Anne still takes up her favorite position, with her feet on the fender.
Emily hesitates, torn. Branwell has a point. And she’d much rather spend the time writing about their imaginary world than studying the characters of the English monarchs. But she doesn’t want to argue with Charlotte. Not today.
Sighing, she takes the history book from the shelf and perches on the windowsill. There’s a cold draft whistling through the gap between the frame and the pane and rattling the shutters, but, knowing that Aunt is occupied with Papa, she’s smuggled Tiger in with her — his warm weight in her lap is so comforting — and she’d rather sit here so she can look out.
The sky’s overcast this morning, a uniform dull grey, and the wind’s stirring the long damp grass and the nettles in the graveyard. From the barn just up the lane comes the constant chink, chink of iron on stone — Mr. Brown, the sexton, must be cutting the lettering on a new headstone.
The existing headstones in the graveyard are hung with washing, looking as if a flock of geese has landed. Normally Aunt would complain about it to Papa and he would say what he always says — that it’s doing no harm and where else can the villagers dry their wet linen? But today, Emily supposes, Aunt probably won’t even notice. Everything is out of the ordinary.
She finds the right page, but she can’t concentrate. She’s listening for sounds from Papa’s room overhead. At one point she hears Aunt’s iron-soled pattens clicking across the floor. Papa coughs occasionally, but it doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe Tabby’s telling the truth. Maybe he just needs a day’s rest in bed and tomorrow he’ll be up and about as usual.
Branwell starts humming a tune under his breath. He sounds too happy for Latin, so Emily cranes her head to see what he’s doing. He’s drawing something on the inside of the front cover of the New Testament. He becomes aware of her watching and holds it up so she can see: two muscular soldiers fighting with swords and shields. She smiles her admiration, then turns to see if Charlotte’s noticed. But Charlotte, holding her geography book close to her face, is busy decorating its margins with her own sketches.
“Charlotte!”
Charlotte looks up and blushes.
“This is silly,” says Emily. “We might just as well go on with our play.”
Charlotte puts down her pencil. “All right. But we mustn’t make too much noise.”
Delighted, Emily jumps up and deposits Tiger on the floor. “I’ll fetch the books.” As stealthy as a cat herself, she runs upstairs to the room she shares with Charlotte, retrieves the old case from under the bed, and is back in a minute.
She kneels down on the worn rectangle of carpet in the middle of the floor
and the others gather round. As soon as Emily raises the lid of the case, the miniature books with their blue or brown sugar paper covers spill out.
“We’ll need somewhere else to keep them soon. This is getting full.” Emily touches the battered leather case lightly, almost reverentially. It’s the one Papa carried when he left Ireland for England, to take up his place at Cambridge University. She never sees it without thinking of how he came to this country with nothing, but was determined to make something of himself. It’s just the right container for the little books.
Here is all their writing, scads and scads of it, the result of hours of playing and acting out their ideas and arguing about what should happen next, neatly printed in separate dated volumes, as if they were real authors. Just looking at them gives Emily a full, satisfied feeling. And she loves the fact that no one else apart from themselves, certainly no adult, can read the minute print they all use for their writings, so they’re wonderfully secret.
“Right,” says Charlotte, sitting back on her heels, “if you remember, the marquis, Arthur, has just met Lady Zenobia Ellrington.”
“ ‘A bluestocking of deepest dye,’ ” Emily quotes, earning the flash of a smile from Charlotte.
Branwell shifts restlessly. “He’s not going to fall in love, is he? Because, if he is, why don’t you go on with that by yourself, Charlotte, and I can start something else.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I think my chief man, Alexander Rogue, should lead an expedition across the desert to suppress an uprising in the far west. Then we can have a great battle with cannon and muskets and heaps of corpses.”
Charlotte groans and Emily looks at Anne and rolls her eyes.
“No, listen,” says Branwell, waving his hands, “Arthur can go as well, if he can tear himself away from the alluring Lady Zenobia, and he can be horribly wounded in the battle, near death —”
“No!” Charlotte is distraught.
Branwell gives her a radiant smile. “But you, as Chief Genius Tallii, can appear and restore him with an incantation!”
Emily frowns. This has been happening too much lately — Branwell and Charlotte getting so caught up in the story that they forget they’re not the only ones in this play. It’s hateful of them to leave her and Anne out.
When they first started the plays, ages ago when they were small, they always made them up together. And it wasn’t just that it was more exciting and fun that way, but it made her feel … what? Safe? Was that it? Yes. As if between them all they spun a web, a safety net that held her, and for a while at least she could be part of those worlds, could escape from the desperate feelings that had engulfed her after The Terrible Events — that’s how she thinks of them now, shutting everything away in a box with a neat label on it and burying it deep inside her.
If they’re not going to do this together anymore, she’s afraid that the safety net might break, that the box might come open, letting all those feelings, those monsters, out again, and this time she’ll have nowhere to hide. Her heart races at the thought.
There’s only one answer — if Branwell and Charlotte are ignoring her, she’ll have to push her way in.
“Listen, you two,” she says, interrupting Charlotte and Branwell’s conversation. “What about Parry? And Ross,” she adds, on Anne’s behalf. “You haven’t mentioned them at all. One of them could lead the expedition.”
“Parry!” Charlotte almost spits the word out. “The men will laugh at him.” She pinches her nose between her first finger and thumb. “Coob od, lads,” she says, sounding like Tabby with a cold. “Led de battle begid.”
Emily recoils as if she’s been stung. “That’s not fair! Parry’s just as heroic as the marquis! And far more noble than Rogue. But you’re always leaving our men out. Aren’t they, Anne? You write about each other’s characters, but not ours.”
Branwell turns on her. “That’s because our men are compelling and do great deeds or ravish their listeners with the poetic outpourings of their souls. They’re not weedy, like your men. And me and Charlotte have better ideas. Especially me.”
Emily’s opening her mouth to retort when the door opens and Aunt looks in. Her expression is so grim Emily feels her heart plummet.
But Aunt hasn’t come to berate them for their raised voices and she doesn’t even seem to notice Tiger. She beckons. “Branwell, run at once to Dr. Andrew with this.” She hands him a note. “Wait for an answer and come straight back.” Emily can hear the urgency in her voice.
Branwell leaps up and follows Aunt out of the room. The next minute they see his head go past the window. He’s taking the shortcut through the churchyard.
In the silence Emily looks at her sisters. If the doctor is being consulted, it can only mean one thing. Papa must be very ill indeed.
Charlotte breaks the silence that follows Branwell’s departure. “We’d better tidy up.”
Anne immediately starts putting their lesson books away while Charlotte bends to pick up the little books from the floor. Emily goes to help her, but Charlotte waves her away, saying, “I’ll do it.”
How long will it be before Branwell returns? Emily wanders over to Papa’s desk. There are all the familiar objects — Papa’s spectacles case, his comical tobacco jar with its gargoyle face, his inkpot. He’s left a pen out and she puts it back in the pen stand, arranging it tidily in line with the others. All the resentment and anguish that she felt a few minutes earlier has vanished. She can only think about Papa now.
She grips the back of his chair. Impossible to imagine him lying upstairs in his bed, pale and still.
Suddenly she notices that instead of putting the little books away in Papa’s case, Charlotte has taken them all out and is arranging them in piles.
Emily drops to her knees next to her sister. “What are you doing?”
Charlotte’s face is closed. “I’m getting my books out, separating them from everybody else’s. I’m going to make a catalog of them. Then I’ll store mine somewhere else and there’ll be more space in here for yours.”
Emily stares. Tiger comes up and butts his head against her, wanting her to stroke him, but she ignores him.
What does Charlotte mean — “my” books? They’ve always been “our” books. What’s going on?
But there’s no time to ask because the doctor’s here now — Emily can hear his voice in the hall and Aunt greeting him.
Branwell comes in, leaving the door slightly ajar. He goes to say something, but Charlotte says, “Hush,” and puts her finger to her lips. They all listen hard.
“… complaining of a severe pain in his chest and he’s somewhat feverish.” Aunt’s voice, slightly tighter than usual, but as crisp as ever. “I don’t like to bother you, but I’m worried about him.”
“You do right to send for me, ma’am. Shall we go up?”
The voices recede.
“Chest pain! And fever,” says Branwell, tugging at his hair as he always does when he’s agitated. “That could mean —”
“It could mean anything,” says Charlotte hastily. “But Dr. Andrew will make Papa well again. That’s why Aunt sent for him.”
Emily blurts out, “He didn’t cure Mama. Or Maria. Or Elizabeth. Papa sent for him then too.” She bites the inside of her lip, aware of Anne’s eyes flitting between them all, her hand flying to her mouth. Why did she say that?
Charlotte’s face crumples, just for a second, and then she gathers herself. “We’d better do something quiet now. Branwell, will you read to us from Blackwood’s Magazine? I don’t think we finished that article Papa recommended, the one about the abolition of slavery, did we?”
That night, before she gets into bed, Emily rummages in the bottom of a drawer until she finds what she’s looking for — the wooden lion Papa gave her for her sixth birthday. It’s battered and scratched and it’s lost its tail, but its splendid curly mane is intact and when she sets it on the chest of drawers its red painted mouth still roars in a fierce challenge.
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br /> Papa knew that this would please her far more than a doll or a pretty ornament. But then Emily’s always felt that there was a special connection between them. He doesn’t mind that she’s a tomboy, outspoken at times and preferring to think things through for herself. And when Aunt complains to him that Emily’s been climbing trees or fighting Branwell or challenging something he’s said, he seems rather proud of her, if anything.
Charlotte’s lying on her side, resting her head in her hand, her face solemn, watching without saying anything. In fact, she’s barely said a word since the afternoon. Giving the lion a final pat, Emily climbs into bed and pulls the bedclothes up to her chin, creeping close to her sister. She’s wanted to talk to her all day, but now that they’ve got the chance, Charlotte rolls over, presenting her back to Emily.
“Charlotte?”
No response.
“Charles? Won’t you talk to me?”
Charlotte turns back, her voice full of fury. “You mustn’t say those things. About Mama. And the others.” There are tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to say it. You know what I’m like,” Emily cries. “But it’s true.”
Charlotte blinks as if Emily has slapped her. After a moment she says, “It’s not right. Think of Anne.”
“She’s not a baby anymore.”
“Maybe not. But still, you know she’s easily upset, you shouldn’t risk alarming her by speaking of those things. It could bring on an asthma attack.”
“But if Papa dies —”
Charlotte sits up, glaring at her. “He won’t.”
“But if he does … how will we bear it?”
Charlotte is quiet a moment, thinking. Then she says carefully, “If anything happened to Papa, we’d still have Aunt.”
“Aunt?” What’s Charlotte’s talking about? Having Aunt won’t help if they lose Papa.
