Emily's Ghost

by Denise Giardina

  Now Anne explained as she lay back exhausted from her bout with illness, her blond hair fanned across the pillow, “They would do nothing I asked them to do. Their mother and father stood aside and would not compel them. The children would not sit, they would not listen, they refused to do their lessons and threw paper and pen back in my face. They even ruined a frock by flinging the inkpot at me. My legs were black and blue from their kicks. If I threatened to call their mother, they laughed. When I did speak to their mother, she laughed in turn and said the children were lively.” Anne rose up in agitation but then lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes, while Emily and Charlotte sat at her side with their needlework and heaved sighs of commiseration.

  “One day they stole my portable writing desk,” Anne said. Her eyes filled with tears, for as her sisters knew, the desk had been a parting gift from their father, and dearly purchased. “I had in its drawer a poem I composed for my own enjoyment. Cunliffe saw me with it and disdained it, so he and Mary grabbed the desk and threw it out the open window.”

  “Good heavens!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Whatever possessed them?”

  Anne shook her head. “Meanness and high spirits. Cunliffe wished to show me how far he could toss my desk, his mother said, since I would not pay proper attention to him. The desk shattered upon the pavement. It was raining. The poem and a letter I was writing to you were ruined as well.” She paused to wipe a tear from her cheek. “It was my lowest point, I think. But rather than my tears causing the children to repent, they ran outside in high spirits, got soaked themselves, and their father chastised me for letting them get wet. They would have their deaths of cold because of me, he said.”

  Charlotte was indignant. “It is appalling. You should have given notice, then and there. The Inghams have failed, not you.”

  “I lasted two months beyond,” Anne said, “by sheer perseverance. Now Mrs. Ingham has the satisfaction of being the one to take action. She says I taught the children nothing, and I cannot manage them. Soon the next child in age was to have been given over to my care. Then I would have three to look out for. It needs someone more capable, Mrs. Ingham said.”

  “More capable!” Charlotte jabbed her needle into her embroidery ring. “It sounds to me the Inghams need a jailer.”

  Emily said, “It is a good thing that I have not offered myself for such a post. In your place, I would have tied the little savages to a chair. But it is not fair that the youngest and gentlest of us should be so put upon. You and I, Charlotte, have not offered ourselves out.”

  “The life of a governess is appalling,” Charlotte protested.

  “It is indeed,” Anne said. “In some ways. And yet it has its satisfactions.”

  “Enlighten us,” Charlotte said.

  “In the proper situation,” Anne began, “one could have great influence. So many young people have no proper models.”

  “Especially spoiled rich young people,” Emily noted. “And they are the ones whose parents can afford governesses.”

  “The family needs the money from my employment,” Anne said.

  Emily set down her sewing and pressed Anne’s hand. “We can do without your money,” she said. “We can, and we will.”

  “But,” Anne said, “I would not quit so easily. I want to teach, I do. I want a useful occupation, and I want to do some good. Perhaps with older children, who listen to reason, I might do better. Surely a young lady of fourteen would not throw my writing desk out the window.”

  “And yet,” said Emily, “a young lady of fourteen will wish to spend her time catching the eye of a young gentleman, rather than studying Shakespeare and Milton. She may consider knowledge itself as an impediment to her quest. That is what I see in the young ladies of this district. You must consider, Anne, that any family which can afford a governess is likely to produce such silliness.”

  “Perhaps I should teach at a school,” Anne said.

  “We should start our own school,” Charlotte said with a clap of her hands. “We would be in charge, and set our own hours, and we would only teach girls like ourselves, who loved to learn and who wanted to do something useful with their lives.”

  They were lost in thought for a time, considering how that might be, and thinking very well of the idea. Though Emily did not wish to leave the moors. She loved knowing every square inch of a place. She loved the way the wind roiled the grasses upon the heights, the company of birds and other wild creatures, the glimpses of fairies out of the corner of her eye. Emily could imagine herself nowhere else, no more than amputating a limb.

  Anne said, “Wherever would we find the money to start a school in the first place?”

  So that was that. They turned to other topics, in fact, to the topic that most often arose when Charlotte was present—the Reverend William Weightman. Or Willie, as he was now known to Patrick, Branwell, and Charlotte.

  Aunt Branwell was from a more formal generation. She could not call a clergyman by his Christian name, much less a nickname, even when he had requested it. Though she admired the young curate very much.

  Anne had not yet been introduced to Weightman and so would not give herself permission to think of him as Willie. As for Emily, she held herself aloof. Though she was forced to admit that she rather liked the young curate, she was not yet ready to acknowledge that sentiment to Weightman himself. Liking, it seemed to Emily, must be earned. Once earned, it must be maintained. And while Emily might acknowledge that she approved of William Weightman, and might begin to judge that even an acquaintance with his shortcomings was unlikely to lower him in her esteem to any great degree, she was far from convinced that he might admire her in return. Without such mutual esteem there would be an imbalance.

  Emily thought well enough of herself. But she was prescient enough to notice, and honest enough to admit, that many others did not. The educated classes in the neighborhood were antipathetic toward her— the feeling was mutual for she hated their superficiality, their frivolity, and made her dislike plain on the rare occasions she was forced into their company. Emily assumed the Reverend William Weightman found her odd as well. That being the case, she thought she would never call him Willie.

  Charlotte, on the other hand, used Willie’s nickname at every opportunity, to prove that she was on familiar terms with a young and eligible gentleman of great charm. She returned from her time at the seaside determined to maintain her distance from her father’s curate. But not long after, she learned two things from Emily. One was that William Weightman rarely mentioned the name of Agnes Walton. The second was that William Weightman had become a great friend of her brother Branwell’s, and under the curate’s guidance Branwell spent far more time sober than drunk.

  “It is a marvel, even a miracle,” Charlotte gushed, pleased the conversation had turned onto so congenial a subject. Anne listened and Emily sewed. “He is a wonder-worker, is Willie. Our wayward brother is enamored of him.”

  And so are you, Emily thought.

  “But how did he accomplish it?” Anne asked.

  Charlotte recounted the story she had told several times before to those friends she wished to impress with the qualities of the new curate.

  “It is as though he understood our brother even before he began,” she said. “Branwell is easily led, and enthusiastic, and Willie played to those qualities.”

  “Branwell is also kind,” Emily pointed out. “And Mr. Weightman was drawn to that as well.”

  “However did Mr. Weightman make such judgments,” Anne wondered, “when he did not know our brother?”

  “His method was brilliant,” Charlotte continued. “Branwell does love a cause, and a campaign, and now he sees ushering Mr. Weightman into Haworth society as his cause. He introduces Willie to everyone, accompanies him as faithfully as his hunting dog.”

  “I think,” Emily said, “Mr. Weightman actually enjoys Branwell’s company.”

  Anne said, “Indeed, when he is sober, Branwell is as good a companion as anyone.”
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  Charlotte only half heard. “They are mismatched. No one would say that our brother is a leader of men. Not of any sort. But William Weightman—ah, there is another matter.”

  “And yet,” Emily said, “he is a flirt.”

  Charlotte waxed indignant. “Why do you accuse him in that way?” she said. “He is high-spirited.”

  “He is a flirt,” Emily repeated.

  “On what evidence do you charge him?”

  “I first noticed while you were gone,” Emily said, “and you should have noted yourself upon your return, except that you are so enamored of him.”

  “I? Enamored?”

  “Yes, enamored. Otherwise you might see how every eligible young lady in the parish puts herself in his way after church.”

  “That is not his fault.”

  “It is not,” Emily agreed, “except that he encourages it. He lingers with them, leans over their hands which he clutches at length, stares them in the eye with that smile of his, asks after them.”

  “He is friendly,” Charlotte protested.

  “He is. And serially friendly. Just when Caroline Dury is all aflutter in Keighley and sure he is set upon her, he will spend his time, and take his tea, with the Sugdens. And by the time the Sugden girls have calmed down, he can be found in a parlor full of young women in Oxenhope sipping tea.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I listen to Branwell,” Emily replied. “He laughs about it.”

  “Branwell!” Charlotte laughed in turn. “A reliable source.”

  “He is now, for he is a great friend of William Weightman, as you note yourself, and he is sober.”

  Anne had been listening, her head turning to follow first one, and then the other.

  Emily clasped Anne’s hands and added, “I only wish to warn our youngest sister. You must enlarge no notions, Anne, about the Reverend William Weightman. I speak no ill of him for he is in many ways admirable, a great help to both our father and our brother, and so to us. But I believe he would be dangerous to fall in love with.” She glanced at Charlotte as she spoke.

  “There is no need to warn Anne,” Charlotte said grumpily. “He would have no interest in her, for she is a child.”

  Emily resisted the temptation to roll her eyes by ducking her head to attend to her embroidery. It was her decided opinion that if, indeed, William Weightman showed an interest in any of the Brontës, Anne would be his victim (for so Emily termed it). Anne was quiet and gentle, she was kind, and she seemed the very essence of the vulnerability that called men to protect. As well she had blue eyes, fine blond hair, and pale skin. Emily could well imagine William Weightman holding out a protective arm to encircle her sister. And it would not be a bad thing if he were sincere. But if he was not, Emily Brontë would most certainly rake out his eyeballs.

  The sisters talked until Anne nodded and Emily called Charlotte away. They retired to the parlor, where they sat before the peat fire. Although the window was closed against the cold, sharp sounds from the graveyard could be heard. A shovel chipped at the hard earth; a chisel bit at a blank of headstone. Charlotte went to the window in a state of nervous irritation and stared out. Then she turned and said, “It is our front lawn. The graveyard. We step outside and we are in it. We close our windows against the sound of its maintenance, yet it invades the house.”

  Emily said nothing.

  Charlotte returned to the hearth and sank once more onto her chair. “The house itself is a tombstone. Do you not see it, Emily?”

  “I do not,” Emily said. She was used to the graveyard in front, as well as the other, more ancient, upon which the house sat. When she walked upon the moors at the back of the house, she felt people with her, striding ahead, lagging behind, catching the crook of her arm with invisible hands, and whispering. The folk who had left their mortal bodies in Haworth churchyard were no more dead than she was. But Emily would not say this to anyone.

  Charlotte stood abruptly and began to pace. “I fear Anne has consumption. Do you not think so?”

  “I don’t,” Emily lied. If her younger sister was so afflicted, there was nothing anyone could do. Emily could have pointed out that her father or his curate performed a number of funerals a week, and that the digging of graves carried on incessantly. No one should expect the Brontës to be exempt. Maria and Elizabeth had not been.

  Emily only added, “Very few in Haworth live to age thirty. It is not Haworth’s fault.”

  Charlotte pounded her right fist into the palm of her left hand. “Why does Father keep us here?”

  Emily continued to stitch. “Being away did not help our older sisters,” she said. “Besides, no one cares for Haworth. If they did, something might be done.”

  “Oh bosh! What could anyone do about this filthy place?”

  “Much,” Emily said. “If anyone cared.”

  Charlotte added a block of peat to the fire. Then she said, “It is past time we had Mr. Weightman to the parsonage again. I pray he might keep the chill away.”

  That Christmas season the Reverend William Weightman was a regular and diverting addition to the Brontë Sunday afternoons. He dined with them after the early afternoon service and then accompanied them for walks upon the moors. Charlotte counted it a great achievement, and a hopeful sign, that Weightman so gladly joined them despite both the material and feminine attractions found among the families of the local gentry. She had hoped the Brontës possessed one advantage in attracting the curate’s company—the proximity of the parsonage to the church. After a long morning and two services, Weightman would be glad for rest and refreshment, and the parsonage was next door. It would take a far greater effort to visit, say, the Sugdens or Merralls.

  The Brontës had another, greater advantage, though Charlotte did not stop to consider it. William Weightman was inordinately pleased to be invited to the parsonage because he found the conversation stimulating. Branwell’s company had been interesting enough, though Weightman found the young man immature; the sisters were infinitely more fascinating. The other families in the district offered an hour or two of tedious pleasantries, embellished with complaints about ungrateful mill workers or descents into local gossip. The Brontës talked of politics, of literature, of theology, and save for frail Anne, they traipsed the moors in all weather.

  Weightman noted that while in most families the women retired to another room, not to be seen again, that was not the state of affairs at the parsonage. Patrick, far from the overbearing paterfamilias, was often the most quiet of all. Clearly the old man admired his children and their intellect, and wished to allow them their scope.

  Charlotte needed no encouragement to speak out. It was what Weightman admired most about her. He remained aware that she was attracted to him, and she fooled him not a whit by pretending to be coy. But feminine guile required her silence, accompanied by smiling nods of assent when Weightman spoke. Charlotte, despite her infatuation, would be heard. Nor would she tailor her opinions to suit his. She was at heart a conservative who, even when she recognized injustice, saw no need to address it beyond basic charity. She had little sympathy for the travails of the weavers of Haworth unless, as she put it, they sought to “raise themselves to a level of nobility that only suffering can obtain.” Weightman dropped hints that he disagreed; Charlotte did not care.

  Weightman was drawn to Anne. She was shy and quiet, and yet he sensed strength beneath her frail exterior that Charlotte and Branwell did not possess. In a different time and place she would have been the humble Christian maid who stepped calmly into a Roman arena filled with wild animals. She awakened in Weightman a great protectiveness. His feelings for her were entirely fraternal.

  And then Emily. Strange to think that he, a self-confident, intelligent, and bold young man, might be afraid of a woman. And yet Weightman thought he was. Emily possessed an undercurrent of passion he found unsettling. He doubted her reserve grew from shyness. Emily was feline in her watchfulness, and perhaps as dangerous. Like Anne, s
he was at first quiet in his presence. That changed, and she entered into seemingly reluctant conversation. He took it for a compliment. Emily weighed him in some personal balance, and then decided he was somewhat worthy of her notice. Though she rarely addressed him directly. When she had something to say, she directed her words to the entire group, not to Weightman in particular.

  He decided it was because Emily Brontë did not expect his, or anyone else’s, agreement, for her observations were often extreme. Whether the subject at hand was the interpretation of Holy Writ, the foibles of local society, or the plight of the workers of Haworth, Emily invariable staked a claim to the most radical position.

  Weightman recalled a particular ramble on the moor above Sladen Beck when he accompanied three of the younger Brontës and the dog Keeper. Frail Anne remained at home, as she often did when the fierce January cold was at its worst. The party had not even passed beyond Penistone Hill before an argument commenced.

  A number of topics arose and had been dispensed with, including the current issue of Blackwood’s magazine, and Mr. Dickens’s latest novel, Oliver Twist, with its depictions of London’s unfortunate class. The latter book had formed all the Brontës’ recent reading, as it had just become available from the circulating library at Keighley. The general subject thus established, Charlotte asked, “And have you followed, Mr. Weightman, the latest Chartist riots in Monmouthshire?” She glanced, as she spoke, not at Weightman but at Emily, as though anticipating a rise. The entire family did seem to enjoy the sparks that flew when political topics were discussed.

  “What a mess!” Branwell added before Weightman could respond. “Were I in the government, I would recommend sending in the troops and giving the rioters a dose of lead.”

  “Why?” Emily demanded. “For standing up as free men?”