“It’s all right,” he said in his quiet, friendly way. “I like dogs.”
And the excitement of the moment calmed most wonderfully. Even Keeper grew quieter as Weightman held the dog’s head in both hands and tousled his ears. Then the animal dropped down and retreated to the corner where Emily followed him, his collar now held firmly in her hands.
“You shall find Emily to be a great animal lover,” Patrick was saying more by way of explanation than apology. “Dogs, cats, birds. They are all in abundance here. Emily is their chief caretaker.”
Weightman stood with a more formal greeting for Emily, and studied both animal and woman as he did so. The dog was a brown, shorthaired creature of unknown provenance though perhaps with a touch of mastiff. Despite the size it had already achieved, Weightman guessed by its quick, clumsy movements that it was still young. But Emily had wrested the dog away with surprising strength. Now her face was turned to one side as she knelt and addressed the animal—not the people in the room—and though her voice was low, she spoke as intensely and at such a length that she seemed to assume Keeper’s comprehension. Weightman could not take his eyes off her, in part because she seemed so immediately to have forgotten his own presence. She was unfashionably tall and thin, gawky as a young colt, and dressed in a plain dress of faded green muslin. Her face could not be called beautiful, nor was it plain. Interesting, he would have described it, with a straight nose, large expressive eyes, and a firm chin. Her hair was disheveled and fell across her face—she brushed it back with an impatient hand and tucked it behind her ear.
“This is my daughter Emily,” Patrick was saying. “Emily,” he said again to call her attention to the introduction.
She stood then and, with a quick stride toward Weightman, looked him in the eye, thrust out her hand, and shook his own with as firm a grasp as ever he had known in a man. Then just as abruptly she turned and knelt once more beside the dog.
Weightman barely had time to register all this when another young woman, this one short, trim, and rather more buxom, entered the room at a more sedate pace than the first.
“And my daughter Charlotte,” Patrick added.
Charlotte’s introductory approach was more traditional, a brief curtsy, a small hand extended palm down for him to take and to lean over. Her smile was pleasing but her face was plain, the skin rough, her eyes set at an odd angle so as to be somewhat piercing, and her brow a bit overwhelming. She wore a set of spectacles, which she removed at once as though self-conscious of them. But her warm manner was winning.
“You are Mr. Weightman,” she said at once. “I hoped you would have arrived when we returned from our walk. Emily and I have been speculating about you as we took our turn upon the moors. We do so hope you will stay and help Papa.”
Weightman bowed and said, “I intend to stay, Miss Brontë. What I know of the situation here inclined me to it even before I arrived.”
“Indeed?” Charlotte gave him an inquisitive look. “It is strange that Haworth, of all places, should give such positive advance notice of itself.”
It seemed to Weightman that Emily cast a reproving glance toward her sister from her corner. But it was Patrick who replied.
“Mr. Weightman and I are just becoming acquainted,” he said, giving Charlotte a significant look.
Charlotte, picking up on his cue, said at once, “Then Emily and I will retire to the parlor.”
Weightman, who prided himself on sensitivity, was certain that Emily stiffened in disapproval, though she still focused her attention on the dog.
“For that matter,” Weightman said, “I would like to get to know all of you, as I have hopes that we shall be great friends. We shall have tea soon. Could we take it in the parlor?”
Just as he ushered himself into the house, Patrick thought, the new curate had taken charge of the situation. Patrick did not disapprove. And his response told Weightman much about the temper of the man he would assist, and the relationship between father and daughters. “There is more room in the parlor,” Patrick said, “where all may sit together and get to know one another. It is indeed kind of you, Mr. Weightman, to suggest it.”
So they crossed the hall, the four of them (and the dog, Weightman noted with amusement). Tabby brought a tray of bread and butter and a dish of preserves. And Emily asked, in a strong Yorkshire accent, “Will you have some bread and butter yourself, Tabby?”
The servant glanced at Weightman, then at Patrick, who nodded.
“Shall I slice it?” Tabby asked.
“I shall slice,” Emily replied, taking up the knife with an air of some pride.
Patrick said, “Emily bakes all our bread. And yesterday was baking day, was it not, Emily? So this loaf shall be very fresh.”
Emily smiled for answer but did not take her eyes from the loaf as she carefully sawed at it. First she removed the heel and set it aside, then cut again and handed a thick slab to Tabby. Extraordinary, Weightman thought, for young ladies of his acquaintance would have given him a carefully chosen first slice on a plate, and along with it a meaningful glance that would have said, See, here is an attainment of mine. He sensed that Emily Brontë wanted no comment from him, that Emily Brontë was more interested in whether Tabby approved of the bread. Charlotte, he also noted, was uneasy, glancing from Emily to Weightman. Then she said, “Emily, should you not see to our guest first?”
Emily seemed surprised. “Oh,” she said, and glanced at Weightman. “He seems strong enough to wait.”
William Weightman laughed aloud. “And so I am,” he said, and when a chagrined Charlotte intervened and handed him a plate of bread and butter, he passed it on to Patrick. “Mr. Brontë, after you.”
“Ah,” Patrick said, seeing nothing unusual in what had transpired. He set about spreading his butter with great relish.
So the unconventional tea party commenced. The two young women settled upon the sofa—Keeper the dog leaning close against the legs of his mistress—and the gentlemen pulled up chairs. Tabby, after eating her slice of bread with a generous helping of plum preserve, excused herself to tend to the shepherd’s pie, made from the scraps of Sunday’s roast mutton, that would replace that night’s usually meager supper. And Patrick said to his daughters, “I was just asking Mr. Weightman about Durham.”
“Oh indeed.” Charlotte sat forward on the edge of the sofa. “We are all ears.”
Weightman smiled, in part because Emily was busy slipping buttered pieces of the bread’s heel to Keeper. All ears indeed. But as he spoke he decided that Emily, despite her seeming inattention, was listening closely.
“You have noted,” Weightman began, “that my home in Appleby is a market town in a quiet farming area. But it is not necessarily bucolic. There has been much suffering in the countryside as the common farm laborer finds more often there is no work.”
Patrick nodded. “I have read reports in the Leeds papers. There are new machines, and a consolidation of farmlands as well.”
“My choice of university may not be all that puzzles you,” Weightman continued. “I am twenty-five years old and I have studied in Durham since I was twenty-three.”
Charlotte followed where he led them. “We must wonder, then,” she said, “where you were in the intervening years.”
“Yes, that is my point. My parish priest, who has sent a letter of recommendation here to accompany the Bishop of Ripon’s, will have told you, Mr. Brontë, that even as a schoolboy I had an interest in the Sunday school in Appleby, and through it I befriended a number of poor families in the district. I watched them disappear, one after another. As I grew older I learned to anticipate the signs of their leaving, and I learned their destinations before saying goodbye.”
Weightman set down his empty teacup, which Charlotte refilled at once.
“I learned that many of our people were emigrating. Their destinations varied—North America, Australia, South Africa. But even more were not going so very far. They were traveling to the north and east, to
the coal mining area around Durham and Newcastle. In many cases the fathers went first and then sent for their families. They tended to migrate to the same coal pits, where they would know one another and so have some support. I spoke with mothers, helped them to pack their meager belongings. I composed the letters they dictated—for most could not read or write—telling their men they were on their way. I also read to them the letters they received from Tyneside.”
Weightman looked at the floor as he spoke, as though it now pained him to meet anyone’s eye. Emily stared at him, her fingers stroking Keeper’s ears.
“I gathered from my share in the correspondence that the work was difficult and dangerous, the living conditions horrific. Yet the women listened stoically as I read. I only saw a few quiet tears, even when a fellow miner wrote to say there was no use to come on, for someone’s husband was already dead.
“And in nearly all cases, they left anyway. For there was no money, no food, no work, but there were sons to go where the fathers had gone before and perished. By the time I reached my majority, I was determined to go after them, to find where they had gone and reestablish the acquaintance with as many as I could, to see if I might offer some aid, some comfort.”
Weightman stopped to sip his tea and chew his bread. He raised his slice and said to Emily, “It is delicious.”
She nodded curtly and said, “Mine tastes like straw as you speak.”
“I did not mean to put you off your tea,” Weightman hurried to apologize.
“I do not chastise you,” Emily said.
“So you went to the coal pits of Tyneside?” Patrick asked.
“I did,” Weightman said. “Many Appleby families were going to Gravesend. So there I went after them.”
“But whatever did you think to do?” Patrick asked. “You were not yet accepted for the Church.”
“No,” Weightman said, “nor was I even attached to a bishop. But the dissenting sects were there, and I wished to observe them, in particular the Methodists. We were wrong to let the Methodists go. The Established Church has betrayed our people by neglect, sir, I do not hesitate to say it.”
“Nor will I contradict you,” Patrick agreed. “I daresay you found little of the Established presence in Tyneside.”
“None, sir, to our shame,” Weightman said bluntly. “But once I had located many families I knew in Gravesend, I settled in. I found a position in a chapel school run by the Methodists, as a teacher. It paid enough to nourish myself and a bit to share. Many of the boys left for the pits and the girls to help their mothers or, when a bit older, to marry.”
“As foolish as the weavers’ daughters of Haworth if they married young!” Charlotte exclaimed.
Weightman looked at her and said in a gentle voice, “Necessity is a strong motivator. Besides, most do not stay married long.”
Charlotte looked puzzled. But Patrick sensed the change in the young man’s mood, a growing darkness at variance with the cheerful lad they had only just met. “You were how many years at Gravesend?” he asked.
“Four,” Weightman said.
“And why did you leave?”
Patrick was curious what the answer would be, for he thought from his memories of reading the newspapers that he knew. But he sensed also it was more difficult for Weightman to speak.
When he did find his voice, the young man said, “I went to school myself then, in Durham. To be ordained.” He looked around at them. “And here I am,” he added, the cheer forced back into his voice.
“Well,” said Patrick, and clapped his hands, “we are pleased you are here.”
When tea was done, Charlotte suggested that she and Emily take the new curate on a walk around Haworth.
“But you have only just come from your own walk,” Weightman said. “Are you not tired?”
“No indeed,” Charlotte replied, “for our walk today was shorter than usual. Emily and I turned back early in anticipation of your arrival.”
Emily raised her eyebrows but said nothing, leaving Weightman to suspect that she had herself been in no great hurry to meet the new man, and the excitement had been all her sister’s. His suspicions were confirmed on the subsequent walk round the village. Charlotte often glanced at him and talked in animated fashion. She seemed pleased by the curious stares the trio received, the two Brontë sisters squired about town by a handsome young gentleman. So Weightman—who thought well enough of his own appeal—fancied. They made the steep descent of the high street down to the river where they studied the distant aspect of the textile mills with their chimneys arrayed like minarets.
On the strenuous return up the high street Charlotte walked slowly and clung to Weightman’s arm for support, now and then catching his eye and offering a smile. She leaned in close when he spoke because of her myopia—she continued to do without her spectacles to make a better impression. Weightman took note of this, and of her position as the Reverend Brontë’s oldest daughter, and reminded himself to exercise due caution, both for the sake of his own position and of Miss Brontë’s feelings. He suspected that her feelings would be easily hurt. William Weightman, though he admitted to himself that he enjoyed, more than he should, the attentions of the female sex, had no desire to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Emily walked apart. At river’s edge she seemed absorbed by the flow of water and the flight of waterfowl. On the steep ascent, as Charlotte labored, or pretended to, Emily went on ahead and then stopped to wait. She said nothing while Charlotte chattered on. Then she caught Weightman by surprise.
They had reached St. Michael’s once more, and paused to study the tombs of the cemetery that clustered close about the church and extended up the hill past the parsonage.
“All asleep,” Charlotte said. “To wake someday—what do you think, Mr. Weightman? To Paradise? Or some to Perdition?”
Weightman considered. He could not guess the Miss Brontës’ views on the subject of the soul’s destination. He thought it best to be honest, for he disliked hiding his deepest convictions and he sensed the question was genuinely asked.
“I believe in divine punishment,” Weightman said. “But I don’t think that means eternal damnation. Hell is the absence of God and is experienced in this life. God is a loving God. If our faith is of any value at all, it is to tell us that. It is beyond my scope to imagine a loving God condemning his creatures to an eternity of torment. But in the end, I leave it to God, as we are bid to do.”
Charlotte clapped her hands. “Well spoken, sir. However you are received in Haworth church, you shall be much appreciated by the Brontës.”
He thought the expression on Emily’s face could be interpreted as approval.
“And where, sir,” Charlotte continued, “does the thirst for a punishing God come from? For it is widely expressed.”
“Certainly there are passages in the Bible which speak of divine punishment,” Weightman said carefully. “Taken literally and out of context, they arouse terror.”
“Some people love the terror,” Emily said.
Weightman could not be sure if it was what Emily said, or that she finally spoke at all, that he found so arresting. He turned to her and, rather than responding, waited for her to say more.
“People need the terror,” Emily said. “It makes them feel alive and important even as they are so frightened. What could inspire more terror than the torments of Hell? And what greater sense of importance? So much personal attention! It is terror that gives lives meaning and makes it bearable for people to live in this world, drab as it is.”
“Emily is fanciful,” Charlotte said.
Emily looked a clear rebuke at her sister and didn’t reply. For Weightman’s part, he was so startled the sphinx had spoken that he felt a quick irritation at Charlotte.
“And you?” he asked Emily. “Do you feel that terror?”
Heedless, Charlotte spoke for her sister. “Emily,” she said, “is not afraid of anything. Not on earth or in Heaven or Hell. So she claims. Now Anne, our youngest
sister, believes as firmly as we do in universal salvation and yet frets for her own soul. As though God would save everyone but her. When you meet Anne, who is the dearest, sweetest creature imaginable, you shall understand the absurdity of her fears. But Emily—Emily fears nothing. Though sometimes she might.”
Emily had walked on out of earshot, perhaps a good thing, Weightman thought, given Charlotte’s last remark. But she stopped at the corner of the cemetery and waited for the others to catch up.
“Do you know, Mr. Weightman,” she said, “the back garden was once full of graves and even the parsonage itself is built over bones. Have you decided not to lodge in the vicinity?”
“I believe,” Weightman said, “I am to reside with the Widow Ogden at Cook Gate, where the previous assistant lodged.”
Emily looked at him keenly, and then said, “Better for you, then. Your sleep will be much more sound.”
She disappeared around the side of the house to free Keeper, who had been tied up at Charlotte’s insistence to keep him from following them. They must give their undivided attention to Mr. Weightman on their walk, Charlotte had insisted, without the distraction of a dog.
Odd, Weightman thought. Charlotte had been distracting, and distracted. Emily, on the other hand, had never let him go.
At supper Mr. Brontë mentioned his son Branwell only once, to speculate that he would not be home. After evening prayers in the study, Weightman saw Patrick draw his daughters aside. Weightman stepped into the hallway and pretended to study the assortment of framed drawings on the wall. He saw the names then—the Brontë children were responsible for each scene of moorland, estates, ruined cottages, and animals.
He heard Emily say, “I’ll wait up. I don’t mind. I want to write anyway.”
Patrick’s voice was too low for Weightman to understand, but he sensed the relief in it. Then the old man emerged from the study and said with forced cheer, “Well then. It seems Branwell is away, so you shall have his room to yourself. It is at the back of the house, and so it is quiet. Tomorrow we shall turn you over to the Widow Ogden.”
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