by Jane Eagland
Emily tries another tack. “But don’t you remember how vile the food was? Burned porridge with bits of gristle and bone in it because the pan hadn’t been washed properly.”
Charlotte shudders. “And the grease floating in our milk.”
“Exactly. And you can’t have forgotten the bigger girls stealing our bread? What it felt like to always be hungry?”
Charlotte says nothing, but she looks thoughtful. Emily nudges her again. “Those frightful stories that Mr. Wilson wrote for The Children’s Friend and made us read?”
“Don’t,” says Charlotte with a grimace.
“ ‘Edward, aged five, died of a mad dog bite,’ ” Emily intones. “ ‘But what a blessing it was as he was saved from sin and damnation, the fate that awaits all naughty children …’ ”
“Stop it.” Charlotte puts her hands over her ears. “I don’t expect Miss Wooler is anything like Mr. Wilson. And Papa wouldn’t let me go if he thought anything bad might happen.” Charlotte’s voice cracks and she lets her hands drop. She turns to face Emily, her expression pleading. “I’d rather you stopped talking about it and just accepted the situation. Please.”
Emily can see the tension in Charlotte’s jaw. Another minute and she’ll be crying.
Relenting, Emily lays her hand on her sister’s arm. “I’m sure you’re right. Papa will have looked into it all very carefully. He won’t let anything happen to you.”
She’s only saying it to make Charlotte feel better — she doesn’t believe it for a minute. But she doesn’t dare go any further. She can’t break the taboo and mention The Terrible Events, though Charlotte, she is sure, must be thinking about them too. And Papa was powerless to stop them, so it’s not likely it would be any different this time.
Charlotte wriggles down under the bedclothes, the signal for sleep. As Emily snuggles herself against her sister, she shivers. And it’s not just because the bed hasn’t warmed up yet and the air in the bedroom has the chill of ice in it.
It’s here … what she’s done her best to shut away is here, and she can’t avoid it.
Cowan Bridge. Where her older sisters suffered so much while she, enjoying her position as one of the “babies” and a favorite at that, petted and indulged by the teachers and the older girls, hadn’t realized what was happening. First Maria, racked by a cough that would not go away, and getting thinner and thinner, until that day in the schoolroom when Emily saw her eldest sister bent over a page on which a bright red stain was spreading. Papa came in the carriage and took Maria away and they never saw her again.
She was told what had happened — Maria had died. But she found it so hard to believe …
And then Elizabeth, who the teachers said just had the fever, was sent home too, and the very next day Papa came for her and Charlotte.
She was so pleased to be going home, to be near Elizabeth. But they were all told to stay away from the old nursery where Elizabeth had been put to bed. She was not to be disturbed. Undeterred, Emily crept in when no one was watching. Surely her sister would want to see her? It was only when she saw Elizabeth lying in bed, her face white on the white pillow, her eyes dark and sunken, that Emily understood, with a shock, how ill her sister was.
But no one had told her Elizabeth was dying. No one had told her how little time was left for them to be together.
Blithely, stupidly, she’d gone about thinking that Elizabeth would get better and everything would be all right again. It would be sad, of course, because Maria wasn’t there, but Emily would still have her own special protector and best friend.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Emily shivers again. She can’t go on … not just now.
She presses herself against Charlotte, who is sleeping now, her chest rising and falling in a regular, steady rhythm. Emily would like to be sleeping peacefully herself. But her thoughts won’t stop — they come crowding in on her.
Everything had been all right until they had gone away from home, into the company of strangers. And she had liked them — the teachers who were kind to her — and she hadn’t realized that she was being deceived. Because they weren’t kind. How could they be when they had allowed her sisters to become mortally ill?
These were the lessons she had learned at Cowan Bridge. That strangers are not to be trusted. That if you go away from home, terrible things happen.
And here is Charlotte submitting herself meekly, voluntarily, to this risk.
Gently, so as not to wake her sister, Emily reaches behind her and pats Charlotte.
“Don’t do it,” she breathes. “Don’t go away.”
Then she closes her eyes, willing sleep to rescue her.
“Emileee.”
Someone is calling her.
She climbs out of bed and patters along the landing to the old nursery. She pushes open the door and stops dead. The room is bright and there, sitting on the floor, are Maria and Elizabeth!
A warm feeling floods Emily’s heart.
Maria has a book open on her lap. She holds it up so Emily can read the title: Aesop’s Fables. Elizabeth pats the floor beside her and as Emily sits down, nestling close to her big sister, Maria begins to read. It’s the story of the fox and the crow, one of Emily’s favorites. She loves the way the wily fox flatters the crow and she laughs out loud when the crow drops the cheese and the fox gobbles it up.
“Do you want to hear another?” Elizabeth asks, smiling down at her.
She does, but she’s wondering where Charlotte and Branwell and Anne are. She’s bothered that they’re missing the fun. Jumping up, she says, “I’m just going to fetch the others.”
She runs downstairs, but there’s no one in the parlor or Papa’s study. She goes into the kitchen to ask Tabby, but she isn’t there.
Emily begins to feel uneasy. “Hello?” she calls. No one answers.
For the first time she notices how dark it is.
She slowly begins to climb the stairs.
How high they are. It’s such a long way between the step she’s on and the next one. Her legs are getting tired.
When she reaches the landing halfway up, the pale face of the grandfather clock Papa winds every night looms out of the shadows.
She’s passed it hundreds of times, but she’s never noticed how tall it is, how loudly it ticks.
Emily shivers. She wants to curl up again with Charlotte under the warm blankets, but when she looks in their room, Charlotte isn’t there.
She tries Papa’s and Aunt’s rooms. No one in there either.
That only leaves the nursery.
She opens the door, her heart beating fast. The room is empty.
Where are they? Maria and Elizabeth? And everyone else?
Where are they?
Something raps on the window. A small white hand.
A child’s voice cries, “Let me in. Emily! Let me in.”
Gladly, Emily runs to the window and throws it wide. “Elizabeth?”
But there’s no one there. Just the wailing wind, driving icy rain into her face.
Emily leans out into the blast. No one down in the churchyard moving among the gravestones. No light in the church, with its tall black tower.
For a moment she can’t breathe. And then a feeling of horrible desolation sweeps over her and she howls into the night, into the darkness, the emptiness …
“Emily! Wake up!”
She comes to, sobbing, with Charlotte’s arms round her.
“Shh. It’s all right.” Charlotte strokes her back. “You were dreaming, that’s all.”
Emily gulps. “It was that one, Charlotte. You know, about Maria and Elizabeth …”
Charlotte nods. “Don’t think about it. It’s over now.”
When she’s calmer, they settle down again. Charlotte is still holding her tight. “Go to sleep, now. I’m here. You’re all right.”
She is, but as the nightmare fades, the question pushes itself into her mind. What will she do if Charlotte isn’t here?
> She tells herself not to worry. She will not let Charlotte go away to school.
There’s still time to talk her sister out of this.
The morning Charlotte leaves they all go out into the lane to wave her off. The sky is pressing down on them today, its dark clouds threatening snow.
Emily, shivering in the keen east wind, blows on her fingers and stamps her feet to try and warm them up. She can’t believe this is happening.
Yesterday when her sister carried a traveling box down from the storeroom and asked her to help with the packing, of course she refused. And she wouldn’t speak to Charlotte for the rest of the day, not even when they went to bed.
But it hasn’t made any difference. Despite all her efforts to dissuade Charlotte — marshaling reasoned arguments, nagging, pleading with her to change her mind — her sister is leaving today. It will be five long months until they see her again. In that time anything could happen.
The rest of the family, including Aunt, give Charlotte a parting hug, but Emily refuses even to look at her. Instead she murmurs to Old Joey, the carter’s horse, who snuffles her hand, hoping for something to eat, his breath leaving white clouds in the air. But out of the corner of her eye she can’t help seeing Mr. Dowson helping Charlotte climb up onto the front seat of the cart. The box is already safely stowed in the back, where pigs and sacks of oats usually ride to market.
Aunt sniffs. “A pity the gig is hired out elsewhere today. She’ll not create a very good impression arriving at Roe Head in a farm cart.”
“Charlotte needs no outward show to sustain her,” says Papa brusquely. “They’ll see her true qualities soon enough.”
Emily exchanges a glance with Branwell. It’s not like Papa to be short with Aunt. Aunt is probably right about the impression Charlotte will make, but it’s partly her fault. She’s sending poor Charlotte off in that hideous cut-down dress and she even made her sleep in curl papers, so that now her hair is screwed up in a frizz of tight curls.
Emily hopes her sister hasn’t heard what Aunt said. Charlotte’s face is pinched, as if the cold has already entered her bones, but as Mr. Dowson cracks his whip and the wheels start to turn, she turns to her family and manages to force a smile.
Suddenly Emily’s sorry. She shouldn’t have been mean to Charlotte on her last day. And now Charlotte’s going and she won’t have a chance to make amends. As the cart moves off, she raises her hand to wave.
But it’s too late — Charlotte has turned to face ahead and doesn’t look back.
Watching her sister disappearing round the corner by the church, Emily feels an ache in her chest as though a thread connecting her to Charlotte is being tugged harder and harder as her sister is carried away.
What if it should snap?
“Come on in now, Emily,” Papa calls from the gate.
Back in the house, they stand about in the hall, uncertain what to do next.
“Best get on,” says Tabby, blowing her nose and moving quickly toward the kitchen.
Aunt takes herself off upstairs and Emily looks at Papa, expecting him to take them into the study for their lessons as usual, but, blinking behind his spectacles, he says, “I think, given the circumstances, we’ll have a change this morning. I have some work I need to do. You children can amuse yourselves, can’t you?” He doesn’t wait for them to nod in reply, but shoots into the study and shuts the door.
They look at one another. Branwell shrugs and goes into the parlor. After a second, Emily and Anne follow him in and huddle near the fire. Emily wants its comforting warmth, but because the peat’s damp it’s giving off more smoke than heat.
She doesn’t know what to do with herself. On any other day, they’d all be ecstatic at this unexpected holiday, but not today. Anne is scratching her chilblains and looking miserable. Branwell has thrown himself into a chair and is kicking its leg and scowling.
It must be hard for him too. When they’re working on the Glass Town saga, he’s so used to having Charlotte to spark ideas off. Even though he always claims the best ideas are his.
A sudden thought makes Emily sit up straight. Without Charlotte, Branwell will need her and Anne. They can go back to playing together, just like they did in the old days. Then when Charlotte comes back, she’ll have missed them so much she’ll want to join in again. It will be just as it used to be.
Emily puts her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Banny,” she says, using their old pet name for him, “why don’t we go on with Glass Town? It might cheer us up.”
He shrugs her off irritably. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a child anymore.” He glares at her. “And what makes you think I’d want to play with you? It’s the last thing I’d want to do.”
For a moment Emily can’t breathe. First Charlotte. Now Branwell. But she can’t let him see how wounded she is. She narrows her eyes. “I see, Mr. Clever. You think you can manage on your own, do you?”
He snorts. “Of course. I don’t need you.”
A hot rush of anger floods her chest. “Go on, then. But you’ll be sorry. Anne and I will keep our ideas to ourselves.”
“Ideas? You two? Hah! The rubbish you two think of is enough to make the cat laugh.”
Anne gets to her feet. “Branwell … Emily …”
Emily curls her hand into a fist, but before she can hit him, he says, “You’re such silly babies, you don’t understand anything about the things Charlotte and me want to write about. I’ll do Glass Town by myself. I don’t want you!” He flings himself out of the room and slams the door.
Emily smacks her fist down on the table, making Anne jump.
“Damn you! Damn you to hell!”
Anne’s staring at her with big eyes, but she doesn’t care.
After a long silence Emily hears the melancholy sound of Branwell’s flute floating down the stairs and all at once it’s too much …
A knot forms in her throat, threatening to choke her. The room suddenly seems airless and she makes for the window. Pressing her hands and forehead against the cold pane, she looks out at the graveyard, where the black slabs of the upright headstones stand forlorn, buffeted by wind-borne sleet.
She feels an arm slipping through hers and Anne says, “Never mind. Branwell might come round.” She gives Emily’s arm a squeeze. “And you don’t need to worry about Charlotte; I’m sure she’ll be all right. I’ll pray for her especially hard.”
Emily shakes her head, unable to speak.
Just at this moment she doesn’t want consolation, she wants … oh, she wants everything to be as it was, tight and right … and safe.
She pulls away from Anne’s clasp and heads for the door. But out in the hallway, she stops.
Where can she go? Where can she find a refuge?
The kitchen is what she chooses. Warm and full of comforting smells and with Tabby bustling about just as she always does.
When she comes in, Tabby, who’s standing at the kitchen table weighing flour, looks up at her with a quizzical expression on her face.
Without a word, Emily flings herself onto a stool and picks up the book she left on the table before breakfast. After a second Tabby goes on with her work, clinking the metal weights onto the scales. Emily sighs and slams the book shut. She looks for Tiger, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Listlessly she watches Tabby adding frothing yeast to the bowl of flour.
When she sighs for a second time Tabby looks over at her. “I daresay tha’s finding it a mite strange without Miss Charlotte. We’ll all miss her.”
Emily doesn’t answer.
“Pass salt box, lass.”
Emily pushes it over. And suddenly she knows what she wants. Just as she used to do when she was little, she begs, “Tell me a story, Tabby.”
“Well, now, let me think.” Tabby ponders with the salt spoon in her hand. “Did tha ever hear tell of Captain Batt?”
Emily shakes her head.
“Well, then, here’s a tale. One winter evening he comes home as usual, nowt appearing amiss,
and up he goes to his room. But when it comes to be suppertime, he doesn’t appear. His manservant, a bit puzzled like, takes it upon himself to knock at the maister’s door. There’s no answer. The man tries the door. It won’t budge — it’s locked fast. It takes two of them to break it down to get inside. And guess what?”
“What?”
“The room were empty. Not a trace of the maister to be seen. But there on the floor were summat that made them shudder …” Tabby pauses for dramatic effect and makes her eyes go big. “It were a bloody footprint.”
Despite herself, Emily is entertained. “Did they ever find out what happened? To the captain, I mean?”
“The next day news came that the maister had been killed in a duel the afternoon before.”
“So it was his ghost who came home?”
Tabby shrugs. “That’s what folk say.”
“Do you think it really happened?”
“I don’t know, lass. There could be summat in it.” Tabby pours some water into her mixing bowl. “There’s many a tale of folk appearing to their kin at the very time they’re dying somewhere else.” She thumps the dough onto the table and starts kneading it.
Emily suddenly sits up straight. “Can I try that?”
“If tha likes. But wash thi hands first. And roll up thi sleeves.”
Preparations accomplished to Tabby’s satisfaction, Emily approaches the lump of dough cautiously.
“Nay, don’t dibble-dabble at it, in that namby-pamby way. Push wi’ the heel of thi palms and put thi weight behind it. The dough needs stretching else loaves’ll be as hard as whinstone.”
Emily, with sticky hands and flour up to her elbows, grapples with the elastic mass. As she wrestles it into submission, gradually the painful tangle inside her is soothed. By the time she’s done, she feels much calmer. Her anger toward Branwell, her grief about Charlotte, all those feelings that have been tearing at her have subsided for the time being.
Once the dough is proofing next to the range, Tabby says, “Now then, I want thee to run down to Mrs. Grimshaw’s for some sugar, for those blessed curates haven’t left me a speck of it and thi Papa will be wanting some in his coffee.”
