Always Emily

by Michaela MacColl

  Emily shrugged. “Ask him yourself when he wakes.” She led Aunt B. by the elbow to the landing.

  Rev. Brontë was waiting for them, his lantern throwing elongated shadows on the wall. “Where is your brother?” he asked quietly, as though he feared the answer.

  Before Emily could frame an answer, her aunt interrupted. “Patrick, the boy is inebriated!”

  “Emily?” he asked. She nodded reluctantly.

  “God does not give us burdens we cannot bear,” he murmured. Placing the lamp on the hall table, he put his hands on Aunt B.’s shoulders. “Now you must go back to bed. The excitement is over.” He gently pushed her toward her room. Over his shoulder, he said, “Emily, you, too. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Emily obediently returned to her own room and climbed back into bed. She tried to put her thoughts in order. Who would try to break into the parsonage? And why? Try as she might, she could think of nothing worth stealing. She did have a clue she could use to identify the intruder: He had cut himself. She would be on the lookout for any bandaged hands or forearms.

  Suddenly her eyes flew open. Could the attempted break-in have something to do with her misadventure on the moor? Was that mysterious man wrapping up a bleeding cut at this very moment? Should she tell her father? But how could she, when her father had forbidden her to go out?

  As she drifted into sleep, she spared a thought for Branwell. If he wasn’t careful he was going to break their father’s heart.

  When morning finally came, the reverend did not fire his usual pistol shot. Emily only awoke when she heard Tabby’s voice in her aunt’s room next door. Tabby’s room was on the opposite side of the house and could only be reached from the garden. A sound sleeper, she must have slept through the hubbub. No doubt Aunt B. was telling Tabby everything.

  Emily stretched her long arms over her head, frowning at the scratches from the brambles on the moor. Suddenly she realized evidence of her nighttime wandering was everywhere. She had to conceal it from Tabby. She shoved the dirt-stained nightdress and vomit-stained shoes behind her tiny wardrobe just in time. A knock on the door and Tabby entered.

  “Good morning, Tabby,” Emily said breathlessly.

  “Good morning! Is that all you can say, Miss Emily? When according to your aunt we all might have been killed in our beds?” Tabby said, depositing a ewer filled with warm water on the small table.

  “The burglar didn’t even come into the house, Tabby. We were never in danger.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t wake,” Tabby sniffed. “Well, it’s after six o’clock. Your father is already moving about in his room, so I’ll have to wait until after prayers to hear more.”

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” Emily assured her. No sooner had Tabby closed the door than Emily was washing quickly with a rough facecloth dipped in the warm water, making sure to get the dirt from under her fingernails. In the same rapid manner, she dressed, shoved her feet into house slippers, and raced down the hall for morning prayers in her father’s bedroom.

  Her father was on his knees, his thick white hair slicked down on his skull like a cap of snow. Emily took her place between Tabby and Aunt B. Branwell was conspicuously absent, but Rev. Brontë didn’t remark on his dereliction.

  “Amen.”

  Emily’s eyes, dutifully closed during her father’s lengthy prayer, flew open on the final word. Rev. Brontë closed the Bible and stood up without effort despite his sixty-odd years. His habit of walking miles each day was serving his aging body well; he was fitter than many men half his age.

  As if with one mind, Emily and Tabby each took one of Aunt B.’s arms and helped her to her feet.

  “Well said, Patrick,” Aunt B. said in her raspy whisper. “I will miss your sermons while I’m away.”

  Emily looked at her aunt sharply, but her surprise was nothing to Rev. Brontë’s. “You’re going away? What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Aunt, you never go away,” Emily said.

  “After last night’s fright, I’ve decided to join Anne in Scarborough. The sea air will do me good.”

  Emily thought gleefully of the freedom she would have without Aunt B.’s watchful eye upon her. Tabby looked alert, like a cat that has spied a plump mouse.

  “For how long?” The reverend’s voice was incredulous and perhaps the least bit hopeful. Aunt B. had arrived ten years ago when her sister, the children’s mother, was ill. After her sister’s death, Aunt B. had stayed on to help raise the children, and never left.

  “A few weeks. Hopefully by then, all this fuss will have died down,” Aunt B. said.

  “When do you plan to go?” Emily asked.

  “Tomorrow.” Aunt B. raised a palm. “Now, before you say it is too soon, let me tell you I couldn’t sleep last night and I’m already packed.” She added, “I’ve only to write to my friend Mrs. Leicester in Scarborough, and put a few things in my valise.” She returned to her bedroom, her wooden shoes making a familiar clopping sound on the flagstone floor.

  Downstairs at the table, Emily and the reverend waited for Tabby to serve their breakfast. Glancing about to ensure no one could overhear, he quietly asked Emily, “How late was Branwell out last night?”

  “He came home before I went to bed, Father.” Her nose wrinkled at the memory. Before he could ask for particulars, she elaborated. “He was very merry, but tired.” Emily congratulated herself for walking a delicate line between her loyalty to her brother and telling her father the truth, all without revealing she had been outside herself.

  “No doubt he had been drinking with some of his new friends. I’ve always believed giving my children complete freedom was the right thing to do—but Branwell’s behavior is worrisome.” Rev. Brontë’s worried eyes sought reassurance from his daughter.

  “I’m certain he will be sorry to have missed the excitement last night. And morning prayers,” Emily said noncommittally. Under her breath, she added, “Again.”

  Rev. Brontë sighed. Tabby bustled in with a tray.

  “Tabby, please prepare a glass of sugar water with twelve drops of ammonia in it. Leave it by Branwell’s bed.”

  Emily made a face. “That sounds vile, Father.”

  “My copy of Modern Domestic Medicine says it will help a headache from overindulging.”

  Tabby scowled. “That book is full of nonsense.”

  “Nevertheless I would like you to do as I ask,” Rev. Brontë ordered.

  Tabby sniffed, but said nothing. A moment later she had placed steaming mugs of tea and bowls of rich porridge in front of them. She gave Emily a jar of her special marmalade. Emily opened the jar and scooped several spoonfuls into her porridge.

  “Greedy child,” Tabby scowled.

  Emily didn’t take offence. Tabby pretended to scold Emily but was delighted when Emily gobbled down the jam. It was her personal ambition to fatten Emily up. Indeed, since her return from school, Emily had plumped up like a bullfrog’s throat. “I can’t help it. It’s delicious.” Emily said as she energetically stirred the sticky marmalade into the porridge.

  “Just so long as you don’t feed it to that dog of yours.” The oft-repeated scold slipped out of Tabby’s mouth before she could stop herself. Tabby dropped the ladle to the table and clapped her hands across her mouth. “Emily, I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

  Emily’s eyes filled with tears, but she hastened to reassure Tabby. “I forget, too.” Grasper, her beloved dog, had died from a surfeit of cake a few days before Emily’s return. Rev. Brontë had not known dogs couldn’t eat chocolate.

  Her father hurried to change the subject. “Tabby, send for the glazier to fix the window today, please.”

  “Of course, reverend.”

  After Tabby left, Emily asked, “Will you send for the constable?”

  He nodded. “But I doubt he’ll be able to learn anything about last night. He’s been no help whatsoever with the other odd happenings. Did Tabby tell you a rock was thrown through our front window?”

 
; “Anne wrote to me about it,” Emily said. “Do you think your burglar has something do with that?”

  Rev. Brontë shrugged. “I’ve received some threats in the mail because of my support for the millworkers. Perhaps he was going to vandalize my office? Maybe he thought there might be something valuable in the study,” he said doubtfully. “Little did he know there’s naught but parish records and my correspondence.”

  “Who would bother stealing those musty papers?” Emily asked.

  “They are important, but not worth anything,” her father answered. “But Rev. Smythe in Bradford had a burglar too and his register of marriages was stolen. Strange things are afoot on the moor these days.”

  There was a silence while they ate their breakfast. When the reverend pushed away his empty plate, he asked, “What are you going to do this morning?”

  Emily shrugged. “After my chores, I’ll take a long ramble, I suppose.”

  Rev. Brontë frowned, and Emily hurried to remind him that the doctor’s prescription of two weeks’ rest was complete.

  “It’s not that, Emily; I’m concerned about you walking on the moors alone,” he said. “After last night . . .”

  “I’m perfectly safe, Father.” Remembering her headlong flight the night before, she could feel the heat on her cheeks. “I thought I would go as far as Ponden Hall and back. That’s only four miles.”

  “I’d rather you avoided the Heaton lands altogether. There’s been uncharitable talk about Mr. Heaton’s death.”

  Emily nodded. “Tabby told me. But why should that affect my walk?”

  “I’ve heard about a strange man lurking near Ponden Hall. I was talking with young Robert Heaton at his father’s funeral.” He stopped to shake his head sadly. “He was barely civil to me, I’m afraid, even though I was burying his father. He’s leading the mill owners against the workers. He practically threatened me if I didn’t stop writing my editorials.”

  “And the stranger—” Emily prompted. She had already heard about her father’s political problems in the parish.

  “Heaton complained about a man often lurking about the farm. When Heaton rides out to confront him—he’s gone.”

  The stranger must be the man who chased her the night before. Emily leaned in, her elbows on the table. “How fascinating. I wonder what he wants?”

  “If it is a man,” Tabby said darkly. She had been listening from the door. Rev. Brontë opened his mouth to remonstrate, then closed it again.

  “Tabby, do you think it’s a woman?” Emily asked. From her own memory, she didn’t think it could have been, but her imagination ran away with the idea. “She might have been a noble lady who was seduced by old Mr. Heaton. She startled him while he was riding and that’s how he died. She’s so guilt-stricken she has to haunt his estate.”

  “My clever Emily, how do you think of these things?” Rev. Brontë smiled indulgently. “But Mr. Heaton said his trespasser was a man.”

  Tabby, as though she was just waiting for the opportunity, slid back a chair and settled herself at the table. “Neither man nor woman, I’ll wager. Not even human! Grace, the housekeeper at Ponden, told me a huge dog roams the estate at night.”

  “So?” Emily asked, recalling the mastiff’s rough tongue on her palm.

  “Miss Emily, it’s a ghost dog, with red glowing eyes and fangs dripping blood!”

  The reverend struggled to keep a straight face. “Don’t be absurd, Tabby!”

  Tabby shook her head with eyes narrowed in warning of some disastrous presentiment. “Laugh if you like, but I’ll wager you my next apple pie the stranger and the dog are one and the same. It’s a gytrash! That’s why Mr. Heaton cannot find the man. He transforms into the dog whenever Mr. Heaton comes near.”

  At the mention of the mythological monster, the reverend nearly choked on his toast. “Tabby—I forbid you to talk any more of monsters. There is enough superstition and blasphemy out there without inviting them into the parsonage.”

  Emily was silent as she reviewed the events of the night before. The man and the dog were definitely two separate creatures.

  “Emily, whatever is out there is real. If you must walk alone, I think we should get another dog. One of my parishioners has some terrier puppies. I will ask if we can buy one.”

  “Father, one doesn’t just purchase a life’s companion like a sack of sugar.” Emily shook her head with decision. “I’ll find a new dog.”

  Rev. Brontë and Tabby exchanged worried glances. Emily’s stray animals tended to be unpredictable. Her last dog had been rescued from a wild dogfight in front of the church. Emily had given Tabby the fright of her life when she waded into the fray of sharp teeth and flying fur and emerged dragging Grasper by the scruff of his neck. From that day forward, he had been Emily’s devoted companion and bared his teeth at everyone else.

  “Until you do, perhaps you should carry this.” He reached into his wide coat pocket and laid a heavy pistol on the table with a thump. Emily and Tabby stared as it spun round and round. Tabby yelped when it stopped, pointing directly at her. “Tabby, the weapon is only a precaution against anyone with a grudge. It came in very handy last night.”

  “Father, I don’t know how to shoot,” Emily said, eyeing the pistol. “But I’m willing to learn.” If she were armed then she needn’t be afraid of anyone she met on the moors.

  He continued, “I will teach you. Someone else in the family should be able to handle a gun, just in case.” He touched the corner of his eye and Emily knew he was referring to his clouded vision.

  “What about Branwell?” she asked.

  “He’s an indifferent shot at best,” Rev. Brontë said. Emily watched him sympathetically, knowing how desperately he wanted Branwell to be a son he could depend upon. “We’ll start this afternoon. You needn’t mention this to Charlotte,” he said without meeting Emily’s eyes.

  Emily and Tabby exchanged knowing glances. Prudent Charlotte would never approve of Emily firing a gun.

  “It shall be between us,” she promised.

  He stood up and went to the hook where he kept his long white scarf. He wound it carefully around his neck until he resembled an Elizabethan lady with an enormous ruff. The reverend was particular about his throat and swore by his scarf to keep illness at bay. “After my morning visits I’ll set up the target.”

  Emily’s eyes glittered with anticipation. “I’ll have the ammunition ready.”

  Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking

  young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand

  thus questioning him against his will,

  and offering my services unasked.

  Perfect posture abandoned, Charlotte huddled in the corner of the coach. A month ago—could it only be a month?—she had traversed the same route with Emily. Then Charlotte had had all the confidence, enough to share with Emily. Now she was hurtling across the moors toward a humiliating confession of her failure.

  The coach hit a deep rut and Charlotte bounced against the side, bruising her right cheek. It wasn’t enough to be sent home in disgrace; she was going to look like a boxer when she arrived.

  She called out to the driver, “Go slower, please!” But the coach continued at exactly the same rate of speed, as if even the driver knew her wishes were of no account.

  Charlotte had spent every minute of the last two days trying to forget the awful scene in Miss Wooler’s office. But she had to face it sooner or later, preferably before she had to explain it to her family. She cringed to think of telling Emily, although Emily was the only one likely to sympathize. How had Charlotte permitted herself to sink so low that Emily was the one with whom she had the most in common?

  The summons to Miss Wooler’s office had been unexpected. A first-year student had interrupted Charlotte’s spelling lesson. When Charlotte tried to demur, the messenger was adamant: Miss Brontë was required immediately.

  As Charlotte made her way from classroom to office, she worried perhaps there was bad news fr
om home: Could Emily have had a relapse? Perhaps Father was ill? The autumn was so bad for his sore throats and that silk scarf wasn’t warm enough, no matter how many times he wound it about his neck. By the time Charlotte reached the office, she had convinced herself Father was near death and the family on the brink of financial ruin.

  So Charlotte had been relieved when Miss Wooler assured her there was no news from home. “I’ve asked you to come for quite a different reason,” she said in a tone so severe Charlotte was instinctively on guard.

  Miss Wooler opened her desk drawer and pulled out a tiny handmade book, perhaps three inches square, covered with tiny copperplate handwriting. Charlotte’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “Did you write this . . . this . . .” Miss Wooler asked with a grimace, unable to give the book a proper name. She picked up a large magnifying glass and held it over the book. “The Romantic Adventures of the Queen of Angria.”

  Charlotte clasped her hands tightly, a denial on her lips.

  “Before you answer,” Miss Wooler said, “I should tell you this was found in your room.”

  In a futile attempt to keep her self-respect, Charlotte drew herself up. “I assumed my privacy was respected at Roe Head.”

  “Not when you are writing—obscenities.” Miss Wooler had a hard time saying the word, and when she managed it, she infused the syllables with disdain.

  Charlotte gasped and recoiled. “That’s not true! My Angria stories are fantasies, nothing more.”

  “So there are more?” Miss Wooler pursed her lips. “No wonder you haven’t been able to concentrate, if your attention is consumed by vulgarity!”

  Consumed. What an apt word, Charlotte thought. Lately she had thought of nothing else but her stories. Even getting up in the morning was difficult because the world of Roe Head was not Angria. Her obsession with her fantasy world frightened her.

  Charlotte slumped in her chair. “What are you going to do?”