Romancing Miss Bronte (3 page)

He announced this in the manner of a man accustomed to constant adulation, but the faces before him remained frozen.

“I must attempt something….,” he grumbled as he stuffed the pages into his pocket. “Sitting around here with nothing to do. Roasting night and day over a slow fire. I am tormented. Tormented.”

He caught sight of the letter on the sofa.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not for you,” Charlotte replied.

“The post has come?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s nothing for me?”

“No.”

His spirits drooped as quickly as they had risen, and he sank onto the sofa beside Anne.

“How can I live without her? My life will be hell. What can the so-called love of her wretched husband be to her compared with mine? If he loved her with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.”

They listened in uncomfortable silence to his ravings. Charlotte would have loved to throttle him but managed restraint.

He raised his sad eyes to them in a glance and muttered, “God help her. I know she’s as miserable as I am. She’ll die of a broken heart. We’ll both die of a broken heart.”

“One doesn’t die of a broken heart,” Charlotte snapped.

“Oh, hear the mighty oracle, Tally, speaking of love!”

Emily rolled over and stared up at him from the floor. “I don’t like your hair like that. It’s too long.”

“’Tis my laureate, sister dear.”

“It’s a wonder it doesn’t give you a headache,” she replied.

He glanced around the room at them, then, in deliberate provocation, pulled a flask of gin from his dressing gown pocket.

“Branwell!” Charlotte cried sharply.

“Only way I can survive all of you is to drink,” he smirked. Anne watched him in frozen horror as he unscrewed the cap. Emily rose to her knees and crawled toward him.

“No you don’t,” he cried, snatching it from her grasp.

Anne said softly, “God have mercy on your soul.”

“Mercy? Why, on the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending my soul to perdition, just to punish its maker. Here’s to hearty damnation!” He took a long swig and screwed the cap back on the flask.

“Now,
that
will kill you,” Charlotte said emphatically.

“You mustn’t talk like that, Branwell,” Anne pleaded. “Have you no shame?”

“None, sweet Annie. Kill me? I think not. Unfortunately, my constitution defies me. I wager I’ll outlive every man this side of Lancashire and go to the grave a stooped and white-haired old sinner.”

Branwell had been sitting on the letter, and now he tugged it out and opened it.

“Ah,” he muttered with sincere remorse after he had scanned it. “So sorry, Tally. Two years studying in Brussels gone to waste. All that fluent French and German. All that Chateaubriand and Hugo. And not a soul to share it with. As for Emily, I can’t see what good Brussels did her. She came back as savage as she went.”

“That’s not true,” Anne interrupted. “Emily worked like a horse in Brussels, didn’t she, Charlotte?”

“That’s nothing new. She’s always loved her studies—haven’t you, Em? Never so content as when she’s got her nose in a book.”

“I’d like to see you play that Beethoven sonata as well as I do,” Emily said smugly.

“But you have no audience, dear sister, apart from us.”

“I wish for none, apart from you.”

“There. Proved my point. But honestly, can you blame folks? Who on God’s green earth would pay to come here? Most of us would pay to get out.”

It was a sad truth, and the recognition of their shared plight momentarily erased the tensions. In an instant they became the close-knit family of their childhood—traumatized at a very young age by the loss of their mother and the deaths of their older sisters, taking refuge from sorrow in one another’s company. And thus they had grown up and turned inward. The four siblings, the dogs, cats, and pet geese, the servants banging around in the kitchen, the father aloof and secluded in the parlor two walls removed—and the outside world nothing more than a memory or a dream.

There was a moment of sweet unruffled silence, and then Charlotte rose. “We should set the table.”

At that moment, Keeper began to growl and they heard the crunch of gravel on the walk. Charlotte stepped to the window.

“Now, who is that?”

Anne rose and came to stand beside her.

“He’s wearing a clerical collar.”

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“It’s probably Papa’s new curate,” Branwell said with a yawn. “John said he arrived last night.”

“Good gracious, why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t expect him until next week!” Charlotte flew into action, straightening the chairs and clearing the sewing off the table.

Emily made a dash for the door.

“Emily Jane Brontë! Don’t you dare! Your books are scattered all over the floor!”

Emily snatched up the books and vanished in a flash, with Anne close
behind. Branwell immediately appropriated the entire sofa for himself and stretched out on his back, hands crossed over his stomach, toes twitching to the music in his head.

“Branwell, do please stay out of sight. You look appalling and smell even worse.”

“John said he’s a stiff sort. Invited him down to the Black Bull with us this evening but he declined.”

“Well, you can’t expect a clergyman to keep company with the likes of you.”

“I beg your pardon. Sutcliffe Sowden and I are on very friendly terms. He’s the only curate I can stomach.”

The doorbell rang.

“Branwell, go! Get out! Upstairs with you!”

She hurried out, nearly tripping over Keeper, who was making his way to the front door in good defensive form. She crossed the entry hall and knocked on her father’s study, then entered.

He was at his desk with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose and a magnifying glass in hand, struggling to read a letter that he could see only dimly. Charlotte had been back from Brussels since January, and still she could not come to terms with how he had aged. His snowy-white hair bristled around his face, and he kept his neck swaddled in yards of white linen to ward off colds. At sixty-eight, he was still a handsome man, with an upright air of dignity that age would never diminish, but the forcefulness of his will had drawn unflattering lines on his face, and the mouth let you know that this was a man who would not be contradicted.

He had been irritable at breakfast, and she could tell at a glance that his humor had not improved.

“You must give me some of your time this afternoon, Charlotte,” he said sternly. “I need you to read this for me. I have to respond today.”

“Papa, it’s your new curate,” she announced.

“Ah, at last. God willing, they’ve sent me a good one,” he said, straightening in his chair and laying down the glass.

“Can you see him now or should I show him into the dining room?”

“No, no, show him in.”

“Good, because I can’t dislodge Branwell from the sofa.”

“My son is up?” The eyes took on a baffled look. “That poor boy. That evil woman has quite devoured his soul.”

The doorbell rang again, sending Keeper into a barking frenzy. Charlotte raced back to the kitchen, calling for Martha. Martha appeared in the doorway to the back kitchen, her face wet and red, her sleeves rolled up, and her hair dangling in her eyes.

“Why haven’t you got the door?” Charlotte exclaimed.

“I’m up to my ears in laundry, miss.”

“Oh goodness, you do look a fright. I suppose I’ll have to go myself.”

Charlotte took off her apron and patted back her hair.

“Do ye think he’ll be stayin’ for dinner?” Tabby asked.

“I should hope not. We’ve not planned for him.”

“Those curates’re pushy,” she scowled. “They hang around like dogs an’ won’t let up till ye toss ’em a few scraps.”

Charlotte was already on her way to the door, smoothing down her skirts. It was her thoughts that needed smoothing, however. Home was no longer a place of retreat. Home was an overindulged brother wallowing in self-pity, an irascible father with failing eyes, and fading dreams.

As for the clergymen who traipsed through their doors, she thought them more trouble than they were worth—the underpaid, newly ordained who came to Haworth to assist her father on their way to greater futures. She thought them vain young men who thought too highly of themselves and too lowly of the lower orders, men of petty jealousies and narrow minds.

The tall, broad-shouldered man who stepped into the parsonage that morning struck her as unusually reserved; he had a proud, statuelike face that might have been handsome had it revealed the slightest hint of feeling. He offered no smile and yet showed every sign of courtesy. He removed his hat, bowed to her, and introduced himself as Mr. Arthur Bell Nicholls. Keeper, who had once driven a terrified curate up the stairs
and into a bedroom, smelled no fear on this stranger and treated him accordingly. Arthur let his hand linger before the dog’s inquisitive nose, allowing himself to be thoroughly inspected, and if Charlotte had not been so eager to deliver the curate to her father, if she had taken just a moment to inquire about his journey or the suitability of his lodgings, she would have seen a softer side to the man. She would have noticed how he slid his hand underneath the dog’s chin and gave it a good scratch; she would have seen the stiff reserve melt and a smile break from ear to ear and a twinkle light up his blue eyes. Instead, she ushered him into her father’s study, closed the door behind him, and shut him out of her thoughts.

There was in Arthur Nicholls much to recommend him to Charlotte Brontë, not least of which was the disparity between surface and soul, and it might be argued that Mr. Nicholls was the hidden gem of the two. Behind a veneer of a quiet, ladylike demeanor, Charlotte concealed an acerbic mind and ruthlessly harsh opinions on the weaknesses of the human species. Arthur, on the other hand, was the blustery, bigoted sort who could barely open his mouth without offending someone. Yet when the gloves came off, he had a great and tender heart, and was capable of love that would bear all wrongs, endure all tempests—in short, the very stuff that Charlotte took great pains to fabricate in her stories and that she was convinced she would never find.

F
or several days Arthur slipped in and out of the parsonage with no more than his usual deep-voiced greeting and a dip of the head, but already things were beginning to run more smoothly. Apart from the one Sunday service that Mr. Brontë preached, all the other services and responsibilities, the never-ending rituals of burying the dead and blessing the living, were immediately assumed by the new curate, leaving the reverend to focus his energies on the reform issues so dear to his heart. There were opinions to formulate, editorial letters to write, opponents to answer, influential men to persuade; there were issues to address: the appalling sanitary conditions, the scarcity of safe water, church tax reform, and the perpetual nasty spats between the dissenters and the established church.

The warm weather held through the week, and on Monday after dinner Charlotte walked to Keighley to exchange her library books, returning late in the afternoon. She came in through the back kitchen, exhausted and muddied after her eight-mile jaunt across the hills, and found all the women in a tizzy. It seemed that Mr. Nicholls had dropped by. He had been followed in short time by Mr. Sowden, who had walked from Hebden Bridge to introduce himself to the newcomer and, upon learning that Arthur was at the parsonage, had followed him there. No sooner had the women settled back to their baking than the doorbell rang yet again; it was young Mr. Grant, the incumbent of nearby Oxenhope, with the odious Mr. Smith in tow, come on the same welcome mission. Tea had been requested and now tea was being prepared, but they
had not made provisions for such an assault on their reserves, and Emily, who habitually worked to a relaxed tempo, was rushing to get scones into the oven and was in a foul temper because of it. Anne had interrupted her dressmaking to run to the village and bring back meat pies, which she was now arranging on a tray, and Tabby was slicing ham into slivers so fine that you could see light through them.

“Not quite so thin,” Charlotte said to Tabby, stepping up to speak loudly in the servant’s ear as she untied her bonnet.

Tabby wiped a broad callused hand across her dirty apron. “It’s bakin’ day. If they had any care at all for folk, they’d know better than to come on bakin’ day.”

“They are men,” Charlotte replied. “They only care if the bread is baked or not. Anne, I picked up the silk you left to be dyed.”

She set her parcels on a stool and quickly took charge. With Charlotte there, Tabby’s anxiety eased, and the tired old servant lowered herself onto a stool.

“Papa will want the good tea service, Martha.”

“Yes, ma’am, I was just on my way to fetch it. An’ the urn?”

“How many are there?”

“Four of ’em.”

“Good grief.”

At that moment the sound of loud laughter drifted in from the parlor.

“Is that awful Mr. Smith here too?”

“I’m afraid so,” Emily grumbled as she removed the tray of scones from the oven. “Pompous little toad of a man.”

“Poor father. That man really tries his nerves. Has the post arrived?”

“Aye!” Tabby replied.

Charlotte’s eyes snapped to life. “Where is it?”

“If they’d only be civil, I wouldn’t mind so much. But these young parsons is so high an’ scornful,” Tabby waffled on.

“There was nothing for you, Charlotte,” Emily said gently, flashing a look of sympathy. “Only something for Papa.”

Emily and Anne exchanged a knowing look. Charlotte had been waiting for months for a letter from her professor in Brussels. Early on there had been a flurry of correspondence between them, but he wrote rarely now, and Charlotte never spoke of him anymore.

Charlotte’s return reinstated a bit of composure to the preparations, and soon the trays were ready and Charlotte and Martha set sail for the dining room. As the women entered, there was an immediate halt in the conversation, not so much out of respect as anticipation of filling their stomachs.