Romancing Miss Bronte (20 page)

Charlotte stretched out on her back on cool moss. “Let’s stay here,” she said.

“Don’t be such a lump,” Emily sighed with exasperation. “We’ve barely left home.”

“But I’m quite content.” She turned her head to her sister. “And you, I see, are restless.”

Anne said, “Whether we stay or move on, it matters not to me. It is a perfect day and we’re together.”

“There’s a marsh not far from here. There must be wildflowers in bloom,” Emily said.

“‘Not far,’” Charlotte laughed. “That means it’s a good two hours away.”

Anne rose to her feet, her bonnet hanging loose on her back as she scanned the distant horizon. “Or we might try to go as far as Dove Moor. I think that is my favorite place in all the world. It’s so strange, a man might think himself on the moon.”

Anne was in thrall to the lay of the land; its variations never ceased to amaze her, the knolls, cloughs, and crags, every rise and fall opening a new vista. Emily could easily lose herself in the smallest marvel of God’s creation—the plumage of a linnet, or the fine veins of a bilberry leaf.

“Then on we shall go,” Charlotte said, as she stood and shook out her skirts. “Lead on, Captain.”

They gathered up the cloths from their lunch and set off toward the west with Emily in the lead. At their flanks trotted the two dogs. Emily could have led them to the ends of the earth and they would have followed; had she been a man, she would have taken them there.

The month of August came in wet and wild, with frequent thunderstorms that swelled the rivers and creeks. September broke through with a long stretch of hot and cloudless days, drying out the fields and elevating the general tenor of life in the village.

Arthur had hoped to steal a few hours of trout fishing up on the moors that day, but his visit to a widow in Gauger’s Croft took longer than he had anticipated. The old lady suffered from arthritis and an inflammation of the eyes, so that she sat in her cramped, dark cottage all day long with her cat on her lap, smoking her pipe, waiting for her son to come home from the fields. Arthur thought her mind had begun to wander a little, from loneliness and old age. But today, her complaints were more spiritual than physical. She was afraid she was losing her faith, and the fact that she could no longer read her Bible distressed her. Arthur pulled a chair up beside her and opened the Bible to one of her
favorite scriptures, but the passage seemed to trouble rather than soothe her. Arthur suspected that one of the Methodists had been to visit her and had planted all sorts of doubts in the old woman’s mind. He did his best to reassure her that she had committed no unpardonable sins and was still living in the grace of God, but the more he tried to woo her out of her melancholy, the more despondent she became.

As the shadows darkened and Arthur’s hopes of trout fishing began to fade, he felt his patience wane. When a neighbor stopped in, Arthur took advantage of the intrusion to jump to his feet, and with a warning to the old widow to steer clear of the dissenters, he picked up his prayer book and hat and fled for the door.

As he hurried through the dark, damp tunnel to Main Street, he was feeling glum and dissatisfied with himself. These villagers were a baffling people, full of peculiar notions and superstitions, with crude habits and customs they were unwilling to change. There were small-landed proprietors grown rich from their tenants and mills, who would not part with a penny’s worth of education for their sons, even less for their daughters. They put their children to work in their own mills, and then they vilified Arthur when he condemned the practice from the pulpit.

For all the good Arthur had done through his work in the church school, by his efforts to entice even the poorest in his parish to his classrooms, there were some who bore grudges against him for one thing or another. They didn’t like it that he tried to put an end to the cockfighting and campaigned to close the whist gambling houses. He was too conscientious and principled for their tastes, and it seemed he was always crusading against the superficial evils of the village.

But those who knew him well—and it was primarily the poorest in the village—held him in high esteem. The twelve-year-old girl to whose house he now directed his steps was one of those. Hannah Grace, who had once been one of his most earnest pupils, was dying of consumption. She lived with her parents and seven brothers and sisters in a two-room stone cottage wedged like an afterthought at the end of Lodge Street. Lodge Street was not much better than the slums of Gauger’s Croft. The
air smelled of wool grease and offal from the slaughterhouse across the way, and there was always a stench wafting in from the middens on the corner where they dumped their night soil and animal refuse. Arthur had never quite gotten used to the squalor and the smell of poverty, and he figured he probably never would. But not once had it stopped him from his duties. It was a constant reminder to him of the hard choices of the poor.

As he passed the Black Bull he heard a trumpet blast out a few notes. Upstairs, where the curtains were blowing in the breeze, the brass band was setting up for a rehearsal. There was the sound of laughter and Arthur smiled, thinking what a fine day it was, worthy of laughter, and that he might still be able to make it to the stream.

At the end of Lodge Street, he noticed a figure sitting on the steps of Hannah Grace’s cottage; he thought it might be one of Hannah’s brothers, but then he recognized the carroty hair and the spectacles. Branwell was slumped on the bottom step, staring into the depths of his hat. He gave a startled look as Arthur approached and then broke into a coughing fit that racked his thin frame; when the coughing ceased, he started to stand, but he was too exhausted and sat back down on the step and lifted his face in a weak smile.

“Nicholls,” he said lightly. “My good man. They said you might be around.”

Arthur was surprised at the sincerity of his tone; in the past Branwell had always greeted Arthur with the swaggering sarcasm that he reserved for anyone with a clerical collar, and he avoided their company like the pestilence he believed them to be.

“Good day to you, Mr. Brontë.”

“Hannah’s dying, isn’t she?” he asked, his small, dark eyes shiny with tears.

Arthur was stunned. He had never known Branwell to visit the sick or the poor.

“Yes, I’m afraid she is.”

“I’m quite fond of Hannah Grace. She was one of my little Sunday scholars back … in the days of my innocence and youth …” He struggled
for breath, then continued: “… when I ventured to perform a few duties incumbent on a clergyman’s son.” He added in a tone of self-mockery, “Although I confess I did them poorly.” He clapped his hat down on his head, grabbed the iron railing, and drew himself up on unsteady legs. “Don’t know if I did any good for the poor child. Although”—another gasp for air—“she seemed quite pleased to see me.”

“I’m sure she was,” Arthur replied kindly. “It was very thoughtful of you to visit.”

Branwell seemed surprised at Arthur’s sympathetic tone; it struck a chord in his fragile soul, and the thought occurred to him that he had misjudged the curate all these years.

“Do you think so?” he asked eagerly. “I read her a psalm. Seemed to cheer her a little. Would have liked to pray with her.” Then he added, his voice hoarse and trembling, “But I’m not good enough. How could I pray for her? I can’t even pray for myself. I think I’ve quite forgotten how.”

He was racked again by a cough so violent that his knees gave out, and he collapsed back onto the steps. The effort seemed too much for him, and he grabbed his chest while he struggled for breath.

“Perhaps you should go home,” Arthur said, bending over him anxiously. Branwell rested his head against the railing.

“They never have a kind word for me, my man.”

“Oh, but I’m sure they do.”

“No,” Branwell said with a tired shake of the head. “I told Charlotte … said I was coming to visit Hannah, and she … she only gave me this look, like I wasn’t in my right mind. Why can’t they give me credit when … I’m trying to do some good? I’m not … so selfish as they think.”

This long confession seemed to drain the last bit of energy from his body.

“You are indeed quite ill, sir. I trust you’ve seen a doctor.”

Branwell managed a sickly grin. “Wheelhouse? Been hovering over me all summer. Man’s an incompetent booby.”

Arthur tended to agree with him and did not press the subject.

“Come,” Arthur said, lifting him to his feet. “I’ll help you home.” Arthur remembered having helped him home a year ago, and he was slight then, but now Arthur could feel his ribs underneath the broadcloth coat.

Branwell was so short of breath that he had to pause every few feet on the way home. They met John Brown coming out of the Bull, and John took him up Church Lane to the parsonage. Arthur turned back toward Lodge Street and Hannah Grace’s cottage. By then the light was fading from the sky.

“I’m afraid the end is near. Quite near, Mr. Brontë,” Dr. Wheelhouse said gravely. Patrick sat behind his desk, with Charlotte standing by his side. Emily and Anne waited in the dining room.

“But I fancied I’d seen a change, for the better.” Patrick said in disbelief.

Charlotte spoke up. “Papa refers to his attitude. He’s been, well, kinder. More affectionate these past few days.”

The doctor sighed, “Ah, indeed—that sort of change often signals the end.”

“He’s dying? My boy’s dying?”

Charlotte could not bear the sound of anguish in her father’s voice; she laid a hand on his shoulder.

“It appears to be a general wasting away,” the doctor pursued. “Between his bronchitis and the drink …” He shook his head sadly—a practiced gesture indicating they should resign themselves. The matter was out of his hands.

The three sisters sat side by side on the sofa, hands and arms linked, finding solace in the nearness of one other.

Charlotte said, “Poor Papa. He’s in there poring over his medical books. He thinks we’ve been quite blind.”

“In what way?” Anne asked.

“He says Branwell’s been showing all the symptoms of consumption
when the doctor thought it was just bronchitis. He’s seen it before, with Maria and Elizabeth, and he’s being quite harsh on himself for not recognizing it earlier.”

“Papa thinks it’s consumption?” Emily asked.

“Yes.”

Emily said, “So he’s dying.”

None of them was prepared for this; wasted and ill though he was, none of them believed he would die.

Emily’s eyes grew watery and she suddenly bolted up, snatched a book from the table, and lapsed into the rocking chair.

A gloomy silence hung in the room.

Emily sniffed loudly, and Charlotte rose to offer her a handkerchief. Emily declined with a shake of the head, preferring to wipe her nose with the back of her sleeve. Without taking her eyes from the page, she said gruffly, “If I should ever fall ill, by God, I swear that man Wheelhouse will not touch me—you must promise me—he’s repulsive—and his breath reeks.”

And he had a disturbing manner of glancing at them, with a lascivious smile, when their father’s back was turned.

Patrick Brontë had a horror of sickrooms; he had always left his sick children to be tended by the servants, or one another. But that Saturday he pulled a chair to the side of his son’s bed and kept an unbroken vigil through the day and night. For years Branwell had opposed every attempt his father had made to restore his faith in God, but that night Patrick won the battle for his son’s soul.

During the evening Branwell grew utterly calm. Serene. And his eyes looked with tenderness on his father, who knelt beside the bed.

“I did love you all dearly, but I loved you most of all, Papa,” he whispered. “I know you did your best, and I pray God will forgive me for all the suffering I caused you. I have wasted my life, the life you gave me, and I am deeply ashamed.”

There was no mention of Lydia, not even to John Brown when the
sexton came to his bedside. In those final hours it seemed that Branwell had found his center again, his home, his family, and his God.

On Sunday morning when Charlotte entered the room, she heard her brother praying for the first time in years. He seemed untroubled, and as he prayed he looked with love on his father, white head bowed in his knotty old hands, muttering his long, eloquent prayers. It was a strange duet, father and son in whispered prayer after they had been locked in battle for so many years.

When the end finally came, it was too much for the old man and he cried out, “My son! My son!” All the father’s stiffness and austerity were stripped away, and he gathered his dead child in his arms and rocked him, murmuring tender words of love they had never heard him express to any living human being. Witnessing her proud father so broken and helpless was more than Charlotte could bear. She stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Papa,” she whispered gently. “Papa, he’s gone now. He’s at peace.”

He would not be consoled. “Leave me alone,” he cried. “This is my son, my
son
!”

That afternoon the servants prepared his body. Martha, who had shaved Mr. Brontë during his blindness, now performed the task on the dead, lathering up the boy’s face and wielding the razor with smooth strokes and a steady hand, taking care to leave the red side whiskers long, the way he wore them in life. Old Tabby stripped off his clothes and tenderly sponged down his arms and chest, his hands and feet, muttering to Martha about how he was the closest thing to a skeleton she’d ever seen. When he was bathed, they buttoned him into a clean shirt and his best jacket, although his clothing hung loose on his wasted body.

Once the life had gone out of him and all the unhappiness had been released, he looked handsome again, like his old self. As Charlotte stood in shock over his pale corpse, the memories of his transgressions faded swiftly. The natural affections between brother and sister, once so strong,
rushed into the void in her heart and drowned her in sympathy. That she had let him depart from this world without a parting sign of her love for him was a regret she could not bear to face. She took her guilt and fled to her bedroom, and for a week she shook with a fever that had no origin in any pathology.