by Lena Coakley
Branwell was busy scraping freshly mixed paints onto his palette, and he answered without looking up. “If you don’t want me to know you use curl papers, then don’t burn them at the dining room grate where anyone can see them.”
The room felt terribly cramped. Anne couldn’t imagine how Branwell slept with all the clutter and with such a strong smell of linseed oil. She and Charlotte were in front of the door where the light was best, while their brother and his easel were next to the window.
Branwell shook back the too-long sleeves of his painter’s smock and took stock of the room. “Now, where the devil is Emily?”
“Here I am,” she said, squeezing through the door.
Oh dear, Anne thought. There was anger in the tightness of her sister’s face, in the hardness of her eyes.
Like Charlotte and Anne, Emily had changed into her best dress—plain green with a wide, white collar and large gigot sleeves. Anne’s was almost identical but dark blue, while Charlotte’s was lower cut and worn with a fichu around her shoulders. All the dresses were silk. Poor as they were, the girls owned only silk dresses, as their father believed that cotton could too easily catch fire.
“Now, there’s a fine complexion,” Branwell said, oblivious to the anger in Emily’s face. “Comes from all those long walks on the moor. You look like a corpse by comparison, Charlotte.”
Anne glanced at Charlotte, but her sister only pursed her lips and ignored the slight. She was very sensitive to comments about her appearance.
There are too many emotions in this small room, Anne thought. Too many barbed little words.
When they were all in place, Branwell picked up his brush. “I feel I must mention that nonsense at breakfast, Charlotte.” He tried to make his tone light and conversational, but Anne didn’t miss the strain in his voice. He made a few small marks on his canvas. “Is it safe to assume that your claim to be quitting Verdopolis was a falsehood for Father’s benefit?”
Charlotte took a moment to answer. “I assure you, it was no falsehood.”
Branwell feigned an indulgent smile. “You won’t do it.”
“My decision is made.”
A look of panic crossed his face, but it was gone in a second. “No,” he said. “This is another one of those resolutions that you’ll go back on a week later. I recall a pledge to speak French for two hours every day, and another to give up sugar in your tea.”
Charlotte shrugged as if to say, Think what you like.
“But you can’t stop!” Branwell said, his voice rising in pitch in spite of himself. “Verdopolis is ours—yours and mine. It would fall apart without either of us.”
“It’s yours now,” Charlotte said.
“I don’t think you understand. Our worlds aren’t so easily abandoned. You forget, I tried once. I tried . . . They don’t . . .” Branwell lowered his voice as if someone might be listening. “They don’t let you go.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Charlotte asked. “Who doesn’t let one go?”
Branwell stabbed at his palette with a brush. “We’ll discuss this between ourselves,” he said, looking pointedly at Anne and Emily. “Later.”
“My answer will be the same.”
“Are you planning to paint at all today, Branwell?” Emily interrupted. Anne looked to her in alarm. Was she the only one who could see Emily was practically quaking with rage?
“Quite right,” said Charlotte. “Do begin, brother. The girls and I are being held hostage by this wretched painting. I’d planned to teach them some new irregular verbs today.”
I must say something, Anne thought, suggest we do this another day. She didn’t understand all the emotions smoldering in the room, but she felt sure they would burst into flame at any moment.
Branwell held up his brush. “Well, I’m sorry, but I must paint today.” A cruel smirk crossed his face. “As you know, Mr. Robinson comes at the end of the summer.” He elongated the syllables of the name. “And Mr. Robinson is very eager to see my new work.”
Charlotte’s face turned stony, and Anne felt the tension in the room rise even higher. Usually Branwell had the sense not to mention the man’s name.
Earlier that summer, two of Charlotte’s pencil drawings had been chosen for inclusion in the exhibition of the Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. It was a great honor, and the whole family had traveled to Leeds by carriage to marvel at the works on display. They had met Mr. Robinson there and seen his portraits. Branwell had shown him some of his work, and it was Mr. Robinson who convinced Papa that Branwell could be a professional painter—with a few private lessons, of course. There was simply not enough money for Charlotte to have lessons as well.
“Father is paying Mr. Robinson two guineas a lesson to teach me to paint in oils. He must have a large body of work to critique. Do you know what Mr. Robinson said the other day?” Branwell asked. “He told Father I had a prodigious talent. That was his very word: prodigious.”
“I expect he only said it to get some drinking money,” Charlotte replied, mimicking Branwell’s false smile. “Rumor has it that Mr. Robinson has a prodigious appetite for alcohol.”
Anne could see that this taunt hit the mark. They had all noticed that Mr. Robinson smelled of whisky.
Don’t let’s fight, Anne tried to say. Please. The words tangled in her mouth.
Branwell slammed his palette down onto his desk and turned to point at Charlotte with a paintbrush. “You can’t stand the fact that if future generations remember you for anything at all, it will be for being Branwell Brontë’s sister.”
Charlotte sputtered. “What did you say?” She left her place, navigating around the easel. On her toes, she looked over Branwell’s shoulder at his canvas, though he tried to prevent her by moving his body back and forth in front of her.
“It’s not finished!” he complained.
“How exactly do you intend to bestow immortality on the Brontë family, Branwell?” Charlotte asked. “With this? You haven’t even given us hands. Has Mr. Robinson not yet covered the extremities?”
Stop now. Do stop.
“Jealousy makes you very unattractive, Charlotte,” Branwell spat. “Or should I say, more unattractive than usual.”
The room fell silent. Branwell looked guilty as soon as the words were out. Charlotte went bright pink. Anne could see that she was fighting to keep her face fixed, trying desperately to show that Branwell’s comment had had no effect.
Charlotte was not a physically attractive person; there was no getting around it. Her complexion was poor, her lips were thin, and her hair was stringy—and on top of this she was so very small, almost doll-like, that she was always being mistaken for the youngest. Her one beauty was her large, gray eyes, but these were hidden by her thick spectacles and by her unfortunate habit of squinting at everything.
“They were my sketches,” Charlotte said icily. “We only went to Leeds because my sketches were chosen, but somehow you’re the one who ended up with the great painting teacher.” Anne was certain she was about to sweep out and slam the door.
“Stop it!” Emily cried. “Why are the two of you talking about such inanities?”
Charlotte and Branwell shared a confused glance. Even Anne was surprised by her vehemence.
“The very future of Verdopolis is hanging in the balance, and the two of you are arguing about nothing!” Emily’s words came tumbling out. “You mustn’t stop writing, Charlotte. You mustn’t! Branwell’s right. Verdopolis is both of you. I . . . I couldn’t bear to see it diminished in any way.”
Charlotte shook her head, trying to make sense of Emily’s abrupt reversion to the topic of her writing. “I fail to see how this is any of your concern.”
Emily’s face grew red with rage. “You’re so selfish!” Her voice was a high-pitched shriek. “I hate you both with the hottest passions of hell!” And then it was she, not Charlotte, who swept out of the room.
“What the devil?” Branwell said when she was
gone. “You women are all mad. Was she in earnest or was she acting out a scene from Udolpho?”
“Please do not judge all women by that,” Charlotte said with a forced laugh. “What is Verdopolis to her, I ask you?”
Isn’t it enough that it is something? Anne wanted to ask.
“I suppose I must go after her,” Charlotte said, leaving Anne and Branwell alone in the room.
Branwell threw his brush in frustration. “Damn and blast!” Anne winced at his anger and at the mark of paint the brush left on the floor.
I could have prevented this, she thought. I saw it coming and said nothing. Why didn’t I talk about the weather or pretend to be ill?
“I suppose I’ll have to work on the Martin copy now.” He gestured to another canvas leaning up against a wall, but he made no move toward it. Instead he stood with his hands on his hips. “I’ll tell you, Anne. Somewhere on the other side of the world, there is a man whose three sisters dote on him. They bring him his tea and soothe his brow and listen to his cares. They realize that it’s their duty to support him. Their duty!”
Anne wanted to remind Branwell that she had brought him tea only the day before and that she was more than happy to listen to his cares, but she was too demoralized to try to form the words.
“That paint won’t keep now that it’s mixed,” Branwell said. “None of you understands how much these pigments cost.” He took off his smock and hung it over a chair. “I’m going out for a smoke.”
And then Anne was alone. The wind gusted through the window, knocking a canvas that was leaning against the wall to the floor. She propped it up again and shut the window. Then she bent to pick up the fallen brush.
“The oatmeal porridge was especially good today,” she said to no one at all.
BRANWELL
BANNY DEAR! ARE YOU THERE?”
Branwell wheeled around, paintbrush in one hand, palette in the other. There was no one in the room. He went to the window and looked out—his friends from town were sometimes too shy of his father to knock on the door. No one. The fog was finally lifting, and above the church, a stiff breeze was pushing clouds across the sky. Branwell was used to the Yorkshire wind and its tricks: Sometimes it seemed to speak, sometimes it sobbed and moaned. He told himself that this was all he’d heard and went back to his canvas.
The room was neater than it had been in a long time—Tabby never entered except to change his bedding, but someone had swept and dusted, cleaned his painting knives, and grouped all his brushes into jars in order of size. What a dear little mouse that Anne was. Heaven forfend Charlotte would ever show him such support. Charlotte insisted on calling this “the children’s study” and invaded it whenever she pleased, but it was his studio, and his bedroom, too—at least it was during the warmer months. The room had no fireplace, and by December it was so cold that his wash water would freeze solid in the basin overnight. Still, he would stuff rags into the window cracks and shiver in his blankets, delaying the night when he would finally have to relent and go back to sharing a bed with his father.
God almighty, he thought, I cannot wait to leave this place.
He put a pea-sized dab of bone black on his palette and mixed it with a dot of white. Since his models had abandoned him, he had switched to another painting, a vast biblical scene with marble staircases and stone columns and dozens of gaudily dressed sinners swooning. It was a copy of Belshazzar’s Feast by John Martin, an engraving of which leaned on a chair beyond his easel. Branwell was working on the central figure, Belshazzar, the Babylonian king who points in alarm as he sees God’s writing on the wall. Tentatively Branwell dabbed at the king’s flowing robes, but his fingers were stiff and the paint smeared.
He sighed and wiped the paint away with a rag, wondering where inspiration had gone. Why was this so difficult? He had copied Belshazzar’s Feast before. Of course, that was in pencil, not in oils. And it was when he was younger, when art was just a pleasant pastime, before it was decided that painting would be his profession. How strange, he thought, that the moment his father agreed to support his painting career, laying out vast sums of money for Branwell’s pigments and his canvases and his lessons, all the joy drained out of the activity, like blood from a slaughtered lamb.
He closed his eyes. “I call forth Inspiration,” he said aloud. “Guide my hand, sweet Muse, and . . .”
“Banny!”
Branwell jerked around, and again found nothing. The wind rattled at the window. He tried to shake the feeling that he was not alone.
“I haven’t done anything,” he said aloud. “It was Charlotte. I learned my lesson before.” No one answered, of course.
He chose a new brush. There were already flesh tones on his palette; he’d mixed a lot of those for the group portrait. Perhaps he could try to capture Belshazzar’s face. After a while he began to paint in earnest, loathing every stroke, but pressing on. He hated that difference, that horrible difference, between what he wanted to make and what he was able to make, but he told himself that this was simply how it was: The more he worked, the further his creation would get from his ideal. In Verdopolis if he wanted to make something, all he had to do was imagine it, but it was no use wishing that painting could be like that.
Then, suddenly, there it was. A face. King Belshazzar’s face was looking at him from out of the canvas. The king was only a small part of a much larger work, and his robes were still a little stiff, but the face . . . the face was good. Branwell had made something that had life.
Behind him, someone coughed.
Branwell froze, brush in hand. It was such a dreadfully familiar sound, the cough of someone who is dying. This time, he didn’t dare turn around.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said to the room.
Two more long coughs, wet and painful, closer now. Branwell shivered as if a breath had touched the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Banny,” said a voice, a child’s voice. “Could I have a glass of water?”
He shut his eyes tight. “Don’t. Please.”
“Branwell!”
He turned to find Charlotte standing in the doorway. There was no one else in the room. They were alone.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “I heard . . . something.”
“Blast, Charlotte!” he shouted, letting his fear escape as anger. “Can’t a man have a scrap of privacy in this house?”
The concerned look on his sister’s face turned sour. “Man? What man? I just see a carroty-haired lump of boy!” She slammed the door again.
Branwell turned back to his painting and cursed. Belshazzar’s face was gone, ruined. He must have brushed it with the sleeve of his smock when he turned around.
He lifted his brush and began again.
EMILY
EMILY BENT OVER THE DRAWING IN HER LAP, a pencil clutched tightly in her hand. She was sitting on a favorite stone, feet not quite touching the ground. The cold and damp seeped through her petticoats, but she was used to that. Behind her, Sladen Beck gurgled pleasantly. A low mist clung to the ground. It hadn’t rained, but droplets of water weighted the tall grass, and the lichen-spotted boulders that jutted up out of the heath were all glazed with dew.
With precise strokes she formed the cheeks of her subject, smudging with a finger to shade the cheekbones. She sat back for a moment to examine her work, but the portrait wasn’t right yet. With her pencil, she darkened the whiskers, adding a crueler turn to the lips, a wider flare to the nostrils. There. There he was.
“Rogue,” she whispered.
Charlotte had once let it slip that creating a story—either by writing or by telling—put her in the right frame of mind for crossing over. Did it work for drawing, too? Was Emily in the right frame of mind now? She held out her hand, palm up, as she had seen her brother and sister do. There was no question of where she would go. Emily had been dreaming of the world she would make for practically her whole life. Gondal. A mysterious island in the middle of a dark sea.
�
��A door,” Emily said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I call for a door to Gondal.”
Sound carried far across the moorlands, but all she could hear were the bleatings of a few sheep and the distant call of a curlew.
“Please. I’ve been waiting so long.”
Emily thought that she could feel how close Gondal was, how close it always was. She could nearly see it. She was nearly there. Gondal yearned for her just as she yearned for it. The only thing that separated them was a gauzy film, so thin she could almost pierce it with a fingernail.
“Hello!” a voice called over the hills. Emily winced. Grasper had been sitting quietly by her feet, but now he ran a circle in the wet grass, barking a greeting.
“Hush,” Emily cautioned. Grasper cocked his head at her, then shook the water from his coat. Emily squealed and drew her notebook up out of the way of the blast.
“Emily!” The voice was closer now. “I know you’re there.”
Emily blotted the portrait with her sleeve and sighed. She loved her family dearly, but she’d often thought that if she could see Charlotte and Branwell once a day for an hour, Papa and Tabby once a week, and Aunt Branwell at Christmas, she might be much happier. Usually Anne was the exception.
“Hello,” Emily called reluctantly.
“There you are!”
She watched as Anne picked her way down the path that ran along the water. She had changed back into her everyday dress, and her skirts were wet to the knee. All around her, purple foxglove swayed on long stalks. As she drew closer Emily could see that her cheeks were rosy, and the strands of hair escaping from her bonnet were curled from the damp.
“You look like a heroine out of a book.”
Anne smiled shyly at this and looked to the ground, making her even prettier in Emily’s opinion. She gave the dog a pat on the head. “Charlotte is quite vexed with your mistress, Grasper.”
“Irregular verbs?” Emily asked.
“Of course. We couldn’t find you.”
“I couldn’t face lessons today. I’m sure I would have said something very rude. Did you hear her? She and Branwell think they can simply stop writing—but they mustn’t! All their characters would wither and die. It’s murder!”
