Emily nodded. She went to the opening, got down on her hands and knees, and crawled through, the ground pricking and scratching her palms and knees. When she was out the other side and came back to Weightman, he was grinning. “A good thing you have more in common with the fairies,” he said. “I daresay I shall never see the backside of a lady disappearing beneath Ponden Kirk.”
Emily blushed and slapped his arm, as she was used to teasing with her sisters. Then she held Nero and watched as Weightman followed her lead. She wandered round to meet him as he emerged on the other side. He said nothing at first, only resumed walking, Emily at his side. But then he said, “One can feel how old it is in there, can’t one?”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. “One can imagine people wearing animal skins as they crawl through.”
They covered half the distance back to Haworth before either spoke again. It was something else they had in common, the ability to be together and yet alone at the same time. Then Weightman said, careful not to look at his companion, “Emily, would you ever consider marrying a clergyman?”
The question nearly took Emily’s breath, and she was a long time answering. She knew the import of her response, knew how she loved him, and knew what would be lost.
And yet I must be honest, she thought. Even if it breaks my heart and his.
“I could not do that to any clergyman,” she said, her voice so low he had to lean closer to hear her. “Especially if I loved him.”
After a moment, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“Can I be other than I am?” she asked. “And being what I am, what could I bring to that marriage except scandal for my husband, and misery for me.”
“But you live in a parsonage,” Weightman protested. “You already know the life.”
“I do,” she said. “In the kitchen. But in the parlor, you may note, I am often absent. Because I am helping Tabby, or because I am on the moors, or because I cannot bear the silliness of the conversation. It is allowed in a daughter, but a wife who absented herself in that way would be the object of gossip or worse. And her husband would suffer among his parishioners.” When he fell silent, she added, “What clergyman could bear a wife who wandered the moors without detriment to his career? And what of my writing? How could I pursue it?”
“The writing could not be put aside?” But even as he spoke he shook his head and said, “No, forgive me that I even suggested it. But”—he tried to keep his voice neutral—“would scandal ensue even here? In a poor place like Haworth?”
Emily did not answer at once. She was too near tears to make a reply. Finally she said, her voice again fallen to nearly a whisper, “You know as well as I, even here. You know as well as any the way I am seen in the village. And there is more. Suppose I were to produce a child. I imagine I would love it well, but how might I mother it unless I strapped it to my back and traipsed the moors with it like an American Indian and her papoose? And how would that be received? But how deal otherwise with the confinement, for I believe the ‘confinement’ of motherhood lasts far longer than simply bearing the child.” She paused to regain her composure, and then said, “I am so forthcoming only because if such a situation were to arise”—she emphasized the speculation—“I would refuse only out of love. Please understand that.”
“I do understand,” he said, looking straight ahead.
They fell silent again. At last they came to the foot of Penistone Hill where the path climbed the hill and left the low road to West Lane. They were both weary, their hair tangled and clothes stained and covered with bits of twig and leaf. It would take little more than seeing the two together, Weightman realized, to create the scandal Emily feared.
“Emily,” he said, “I enjoyed today more I can say. But I also”—he paused to search for words—“I must walk in the wilderness for a time. Only until I resolve something in my mind. So you may not see me at close hand for a while. It will have nothing to do with my respect and affection for you.”
“No,” she said, her head bowed, a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.
He turned to leave, and she stood and watched him go. Perhaps it was only desire he felt, she thought. The proximity of a woman, the beauty of the setting, the excitement of the bird’s flight. He will get over that soon enough and feel nothing for me. Except pity, perhaps.
At last, when he was out of sight, she made her own forlorn way home, in the company of her dog and the merlin.
11
Emily saw William Weightman only after Sunday services, when she shook his hand upon exiting the church. He continued to look her in the eye, and what she read in his face was a warning, though one couched with affection. She felt proud she was capable of meeting his clear look with one of her own.
Then he was gone, to Appleby again on a spring holiday. Emily learned in a letter from Branwell that Weightman’s hope of Agnes Walton was rekindled.
“Willie is reconsidering how ensconced he is at Haworth,” Branwell wrote his sister. “Agnes is a patient girl, he writes, and still holds him in great esteem. Perhaps he will yet pry himself away from us and go on to better things.”
Better things. Of course Weightman deserved more. Emily would wish him well, and then forget him. At least, she would try.
But then he was back again in May and greeting her at the church door with much of his old exuberance.
“Miss Emily,” he said as he took her hand, “I have a surprise for the Sunday school children, and for you as well, if you will accept it.”
“Whatever can you mean?” she wondered.
“Willie has a secret he has been hiding from everyone,” said Patrick, who stood beside his curate. “Something will be delivered here on the back of a cart. But he will not say what.”
“It is not more dead birds for me to pluck?”
“You will find out soon enough,” Weightman said. “And I hope that will entice you to invite me to dine with you tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Patrick agreed. “Aunt was just saying the other day how she missed having you to the house.”
Next day the cart arrived in Church Lane bearing a cottage piano similar to the one in Patrick’s study.
“For the Sunday school,” Weightman explained. “I found it in Bradford on my way back from Appleby. It is old. One or two keys stick, I’m afraid. But the children will not care. They will love to have some music, don’t you think?”
Emily ran her fingers lightly over the instrument as he spoke. The sound was tinny and the ivories were stained and chipped, but except for a low G, the keys could be struck easily enough. “And who shall play it?” she asked, as if she had not guessed who Weightman had in mind.
“Ah,” Weightman said, “I did hope that you would, in fact, play for us.”
“Did you?”
Weightman would not be put off. “You do not teach in the Sunday school as your sisters have done,” he pointed out. “But you help in other ways, and seem happy to do it. I thought this, as well, might be something to your liking.”
“I see.” Emily folded her arms. “I would only have to play? I would not have to teach? I cannot discipline children, Mr. Weightman, I learned as much when I once tried to teach at a school. If I like the mischief that is being made, I will join it. And if I do not like it, I would rather go off and spend time with some upstanding dog or other.”
Weightman pulled a solemn face. “I shall see to the discipline. We cannot have the pianist standing in the corner for mischief-making, or running out in search of dogs. So, you will play?”
Emily stuck out her hand. “Agreed.”
Weightman shook her hand and said, “Accepted.” He turned to Patrick. “You have no objection if we add music?”
“How could I,” Patrick said, “when it is presented to me as such a fait accompli? Though my predecessor, Mr. Grimshaw, may be rolling in his grave.”
“I will provide him with a musical accompaniment,” Emily said.
So she came to sit among a group of boiste
rous children, banging out the hymn “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” They loved the song and particularly the line “And crown him LORD—OF—ALL” (this last shouted more than sang, as vehement as any Wesleyan, poor children partaking in royalty). The jangling of the old piano strings boomeranged from one stone wall to the other, adding to the ruckus.
Weightman shared Bible stories, and Emily noticed the curate had a fondness for those like Joshua at Jericho, or David and Goliath, where the hero faced great odds. The lessons he drew from his text were nothing like those she remembered from her own scant school days, when the Reverend William Carus Wilson enjoyed telling stories about children who burned in Hell for all eternity.
Weightman invited Emily to comment on the Bible lessons, a backhanded way, she suspected, to get her to teach, so she declined. But when the subject turned to Adam and Eve, she agreed to speak and told the children, “The first people were titans, as tall as trees. Eve is our mother of the earth. All the stars sprang from her, and the rivers and trees and moors as well. When you look upon the moors, still today, you see the shape of her body. When you hear the birds sing, you hear Eve’s voice. The clouds are the decorations about her head.” Emily glanced at Weightman and saw he had turned pale. “That first woman brought forth life,” Emily concluded quickly, to bring the story round to something more conventional, “and from her descendants our Lord was born.”
The children took it all in with as much equanimity as they accepted any stories of talking snakes or enchanted trees. Weightman did not chastise Emily, though she noted with relief that he did not ask her to comment on a biblical passage again.
When the children had hurried out into the warm spring morning, Emily said to Weightman, “I have never heard the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple told with quite such zest. You will have them ready to turn over some tables of their own.”
Weightman winked. “That is the idea,” he said.
Emily raised her eyebrows, then gathered her hymnal and sheet music and laid them in a neat stack.
“And how is Nero?” Weightman asked. He was himself busy sorting notes and putting away books.
“I let him off the creance regularly,” Emily said, “up on Penistone Hill where we found him. I am prepared for him to fly off and leave me, but he always comes to the bell.” She hesitated. It took a great deal of effort to inquire in a neutral voice, “And how is Agnes Walton? Branwell writes that you may be engaged to her.”
Weightman stopped and looked at the ceiling, then turned to Emily and gave her a crooked smile. “I did propose to her.”
“You love her then?” Emily said, still trying to sound casual. Our friendship surely allows me to be a bit inquisitive, she thought.
“I bear her a great deal of affection,” Weightman said. “And I need a wife. A clergyman’s life is difficult without one.”
Emily said, her voice sounding more disapproving than she wished, “Is that sufficient reason to wed?”
Weightman’s naturally rosy cheeks turned a deeper red. “For most people, it is enough,” he said, and resumed his tidying up. “Agnes said yes, provided I leave Haworth. I agreed. I thought it likely that I would someday.”
Emily’s heart sank. She hugged her hymnal close and said nothing.
“Her father declared my departure must be imminent if I wished to wed his daughter.” Weightman shrugged. “I said it could not be, and asked for a year or two here with Agnes as my wife, to see if she might like it well enough for a longer stay. Both father and daughter declined. They think me a hopeless case, you see.”
Emily let out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry,” she said, not at all sincerely. She wondered if Weightman could tell. Still she could not help but add, “I think you are disappointed, but not dying for love.”
He regarded her keenly a moment, then pursed his lips and said, No.”
She held his gaze and added, “And what did you do to heal your hurt feelings, Mr. Weightman?”
He smiled. “I went out and bought a piano,” he said.
In June Charlotte and Anne came home to Haworth on holiday. Patrick wished to offer a roast goose in celebration. But Emily would not hear of wringing the neck of either Victoria or Adelaide. So her father agreed to the expense of purchasing a fowl from the butcher’s shop. “Once Emily names an animal,” Patrick told Aunt Branwell, “you should not expect to find it upon your plate.”
“Why do we keep geese?” Aunt Branwell replied grumpily. “Shall they live out their days in this marvelous goose hotel? How splendid for them!”
Still, the dinner was fine enough. The poor anonymous goose, though small, was basted to a golden turn by Tabby, and Emily produced parsley potatoes, parsnips, and a summer pudding.
She prepared to endure insults about William Weightman from Charlotte, and to bite her tongue. But the curate was ignored. Emily sensed that her sister’s interest was elsewhere. Charlotte’s employer, Mr. White, was most congenial, she declared, though his wife was not. Charlotte spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the virtues of Mr. White.
Though Charlotte sometimes irritated her, Emily was glad to have her sisters again. She watched Anne closely to gauge her health. Her younger sister was still fragile, but her cough seemed to have been tamed. Perhaps the time spent by the seaside had indeed helped, and Anne was looking forward once again to a summer spent at Scarborough.
While Charlotte read a book, Emily took Anne outside to feed the parsonage birds. “Did you meet Mr. Easton when you were in Scarborough last summer?” she asked. “Mr. Weightman’s friend?”
“I did,” Anne said. “Mr. Easton is a fine man, devoted to his duties as curate. He drew me into helping with his pastoral visits, for he tends to many who have gone to the seaside for their health. But Mr. Easton is sad, I think.”
“How so?”
“Since Mr. Weightman knew him, he has married,” Anne said. “I fear it is a mismatch. His wife criticizes him, even in front of other people.”
“That is terrible! Why would his wife treat him so?”
“She is ambitious,” Anne explained, “and he is not. Mrs. Easton says her husband will not promote his own interests. She urges him on against Mr. Millar, his vicar, and she wants Mr. Easton to apply to the bishop for another position. Her ambition is the cathedral in York.”
Emily scattered feed with such force that the chickens fled, squawking their protest. “I wonder,” she said, “what women think when they marry? Do they have no judgment about the men with whom they exchange vows? Is that why they wish to remake them?”
“Surely some women exercise judgment,” Anne said. “And love their husbands enough as they are.”
“Too many young women are made to feel desperate at the need of marriage,” Emily said. “So they marry even when there is no passion and are immediately dissatisfied. I cannot understand it.”
Anne studied her sister and wondered at the color that burned Emily’s cheeks and heightened the tenor of her voice. But she knew better than to inquire.
That night Aunt Branwell retired to sleep alone in Emily’s narrow chamber so the three sisters could share their aunt’s larger bed. They stayed awake luxuriating in one another’s presence and sharing their separate adventures of the preceding months. Emily, listening, had a moment of self-doubt. “It is selfish of me,” she said, “to remain at home and refuse to share in your travails.”
“Nonsense,” Anne said at once. “It is not as though we suffer. Here, I am the little sister, but at Thorpe Green, I am the older sister. The Robinson girls are fond of me, and I provide them with moral instruction which their mother does not offer. I believe I have a great deal of influence upon them. Besides that, I do look forward to going to Scarborough again. But Emily, you are every bit as useful here. Who else would look after the old people and the house if you did not?”
“I’m glad as well that you are here,” Charlotte agreed, and gave Emily’s arm a squeeze. “Alth
ough I am not so happy as Anne, I want my freedom, and if you will not claim yours, I will take your share.”
“But I do have freedom,” Emily protested. “That is why I feel it unfair that you do not.”
“It is a different sort of freedom,” Charlotte said. “Mine is an ordered freedom that allows opportunity and advancement. Yours is pure liberty, which is to your liking, but not to mine, for it does not allow one to go about in society.” They lay quiet and then Charlotte added, “I enjoy the neighborhood where I have landed. My school friends are close, and they have taken me on jaunts about the countryside. There are interesting places around Rawdon and Birstall. One day, we went to visit an old country house. Our host showed us a tower room where a previous owner was rumored to keep his mad wife imprisoned. Would that not make a story?”
“You should incorporate it into Angria,” Emily said, referring to the imaginary kingdom where Charlotte and Branwell set their tales of fantasy.
“No, no,” Charlotte said, “I am done with Angria. That was childish, and I have put away childish things.”
Emily said, “Is it really Angria you tire of? Or is it Branwell?”
“I plead guilty,” Charlotte admitted. “Between that scandal in the Lake District and the way he takes too much drink, I have little patience. Certainly I have no desire to share anything so intimate as my writing.” She sighed. “I envy you two. You have each other, while I have lost the great friend of my childhood.”
“You have your school friends,” Anne pointed out.
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “Though one of them, Mary Taylor, is going abroad.”
“Indeed?” Anne said.
“To Brussels. At least it will be fun to hear from her, and to enjoy the place vicariously, if nothing else.”
Emily had no interest in Brussels. If given the chance to go abroad, she would choose the American frontier, perhaps the mountains of Virginia or the Carolinas.
Charlotte broke into her thoughts. “Emily, have you ever thought of writing a novel? Not set in Gondal, but here.”
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