Miss Wooler held up Charlotte’s pages by the corner as if she were afraid of contagion. “This is cause enough to dismiss you,” she said.
Charlotte gasped; this was worse than she had imagined.
“Or perhaps I should write to your father immediately,” Miss Wooler said slowly.
Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face. Father must never know. Ever since she had become the oldest child, she had kept her secrets hidden with handwriting too small for her father to decipher.
“I would if you were still my student,” Miss Wooler continued. “But you are my employee, a young woman of nineteen. I am torn between my affection for you and my duty to my students.”
Charlotte rushed around the wide desk to kneel at Miss Wooler’s feet. Clutching at Miss Wooler’s hands, she cried, “Please let me stay. I need this position. I was your best student. I can be your best teacher. . . . If only you’ll give me another chance!”
Miss Wooler’s sternness softened as she looked down at Charlotte’s imploring face. “So you do want to continue here?”
“Yes!” Charlotte let the heartfelt word speak for itself.
“I think you should take some time to consider your situation. Go home for a week or so. If at the end of that time you can assure me you will never contaminate Roe Head School with this filth again, I will take you back.”
Suddenly Charlotte was brought back to the present. She heard screaming. For a moment she was afraid her imagination had taken over once again. Then she realized the frightened voice was only too real.
“Help me! Stop, please!”
The carriage jerked to a halt, sending Charlotte to the floor in a heap of skirts and hand luggage. “Driver, what happened?” Charlotte shouted. There was no answer, but she could hear the driver expostulating with a woman.
“What were you thinking, miss? You could have been killed!”
“Help me, please.” The woman’s voice was ragged, as though she had been screaming for a long time.
Charlotte clambered out of the carriage to see a woman, perhaps in her late forties, dressed in the most makeshift of country dresses, pleading with the driver. Most likely she had come from the moorland track intersecting the road. Her hair was a reddish blond shot through with gray, hanging loose below her shoulders. Charlotte noted the vestiges of what must have been a remarkable prettiness in her youth. Her pale blue eyes were never still, darting from the driver’s irate face to the empty track behind and then to Charlotte. Seeing another woman, she cried out in relief and clasped Charlotte’s hands. The driver gratefully abandoned the hysterical woman and went to check his horse.
“Won’t you help me? I’m desperate.” Her hands were soft, Charlotte noticed, unusual in a woman who looked like a farmer’s wife. But there were marks about her wrists, making Charlotte wonder if she had been restrained. “I ran away, but it won’t be long before they come looking for me.”
The woman was quite tall, and Charlotte felt at a disadvantage peering up at her. She noticed that the mysterious woman’s pupils were dilated, huge black pools fixed on Charlotte’s face.
“What’s your name?” Charlotte asked, not committing herself to anything. As a clergyman’s daughter, she had often heard terrible stories of husbands beating their wives. Sympathetic as she was, her father had taught her to mind her own business. Neither the law nor the husbands welcomed interference.
“I shan’t tell you lest my brute of a . . .”
“Husband?” Charlotte prompted.
“Husband? I wish ’twere my husband. At least when he was alive, I was protected. But now, I am alone.” As she spoke, her voice grew louder and shriller.
“You have no one?” Charlotte asked.
“He’s taken everything from me: my son, my fortune, and now my freedom.” The woman began to sob.
“You mustn’t speak so wildly,” Charlotte soothed.
“If he catches me, he’ll kill me. That would solve all his problems!”
Despite her frenzied manner, Charlotte could tell the mysterious woman did not lack an education. “Madam, be reasonable. I cannot help you if I don’t know your name.”
“How do I know you won’t tell him where I am? Maybe you are in it with him!”
“In what? With whom?” Charlotte interrupted. “Don’t be foolish. You stopped my carriage! Now tell me your name, or I’ll get on with my journey and leave you behind.”
The sound of hooves on the track behind them made them all whirl around. The woman moaned and closed her eyes. A fine-looking gelding galloped up the track, carrying a man of forty years or so. The driver, who had removed himself to a convenient rock, looked up curiously from his tamping of tobacco into his pipe.
The sun was behind the rider, and at first Charlotte could only make out his silhouette. He wore a long coat draped across the horse’s hindquarters and his face was in shadow. For a moment, Charlotte saw the duke of Angria, her fictional hero suddenly given weight and heft. She felt her throat close up and shyness overtake her.
As he got closer, the dream quality faded and Charlotte saw he was just a man, although his profile was rather handsome. His dark beard was pointed and gave him a distinguished air. His mouth was closed in a tight angry line and his eyes narrowed when he saw the carriage. When he was close to the crying woman, he reined in his horse. He dismounted and stood very close to her. Suddenly his manner changed and he became the picture of a concerned rescuer. “There you are, Rachel. We’ve been frantic with worry for you.”
“I’m sorry, Robert.” Rachel gulped back her tears.
Charlotte immediately noticed his light-blue eyes were just like the mystery woman’s. They must be related, she thought. But Rachel had said she had no one.
“The nurse is waiting for you,” he said to Rachel. He glanced over at the carriage driver. “If she’s done any damage, I’ll pay for it.”
Charlotte drew herself up. How dare he act as if she were of no importance? “Address me, please,” Charlotte said. “I hired the carriage.”
He swung round and seemed to see Charlotte for the first time. After a hesitation, he touched his hat. He wore fine leather gloves. “I beg your pardon, miss. But this is no concern of yours.”
“She’s not well,” Charlotte said. “Did you say she has a nurse?”
“I apologize if she delayed your journey,” he said brusquely. “She won’t be troubling you again.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed; his words sounded innocent enough, but his demeanor worried her.
“May I ask your name, sir?” she asked.
After an awkward pause, he said, “Robert Heaton.”
Now she had a name to go with the face, Charlotte realized she had seen him before. “Of Ponden Hall?”
He stiffened as though Charlotte had said something of greater import than his address. He reached out to lock his hand around Rachel’s wrist. Rachel, so voluble before, said nothing.
“Yes,” he said. “And you are?”
“Miss Charlotte Brontë,” Charlotte replied.
“The reverend’s daughter?” His eyes shifted uneasily, as though he would have preferred her to be a stranger.
“What is happening here, Mr. Heaton?” Charlotte asked. “Who is this unfortunate lady?” She gestured to Rachel.
“She’s a dependent of the family. As you can doubtless see for yourself, she’s not right in the head.” He gave her a wry smile. “Did she tell you she had enemies and she had to escape them? Perhaps she asked you to hide her?”
Rachel started to speak. “Robert, I didn’t mean anything by it.” She suddenly closed her mouth. Charlotte saw Rachel’s wrist was turning blue under his grip.
“Does she run away often?” Charlotte asked slowly.
He shook his head. “No, she has a devoted servant to look after her, but mad people can be diabolically clever.”
“She didn’t sound mad to me,” Charlotte said, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.
“That’s
her cunning,” he assured her. “An inexperienced young lady like yourself is easily fooled.”
Charlotte choked back an angry retort. Before she could recover her voice, he spoke again. “My family’s affairs have intruded on your journey long enough.”
Rachel spoke before Mr. Heaton could stop her. “Robert, this lady only wanted to help me.”
“Hush,” he said, making the gentle word sound more like a threat than a reassurance.
Charlotte glanced back to the driver. He was puffing his pipe, uninterested and uninvolved. He would be of no help whatsoever. She didn’t trust this Mr. Heaton, but what could she do?
“It is still several miles to Haworth, and Ponden Hall is two miles beyond town,” Charlotte said. “Perhaps I can assist you with transportation?”
“That’s not necessary,” Heaton said. “I’ll make sure she’s safely home.”
“All the way to Ponden Hall?” Charlotte pressed.
He paused. Finally he said, “She’s not staying at Ponden Hall. Thank you, Miss Brontë. I apologize for any inconvenience.” He bowed slightly and not very gently propelled Rachel toward his horse. With no apparent effort, he lifted her into the saddle and led the gelding down the path without any further word of farewell.
Seeing Charlotte was ready to leave, the driver knocked the ash out of his pipe and held the door open so she could enter the small carriage. “Did she seem mad to you?” Charlotte asked.
“Stark raving mad,” he said.
“To me she seemed frightened rather than insane.”
“Miss, you’re fancying things.” He made sure she was settled. “A powerful imagination leads to nothing but trouble.” He shut the door and the carriage lurched forward.
“I did wrong to let him take her,” Charlotte muttered to herself, her eyes fixed on the backs of the strange pair moving along the track.
I have a place to repair to, which will be a
secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences,
from unwelcome intrusion—even from
falsehood and slander.
If Charlotte could have prolonged her homecoming, she would have. She had hidden in the shadows within the carriage the entire last quarter hour to avoid being seen. But eventually the gig pulled up in front of the gray stone parsonage, the last house in town before the moors.
Charlotte usually welcomed the sight of her home. Its symmetry was reassuring, with its center door flanked by two windows on each side and five windows above. Even the narrow front garden, facing the graveyard, was pleasantly familiar. Rising from the end of the churchyard, the church towered over all as though it was sheltering the family home within its shadow.
Charlotte spied Emily coming through the front gate. Her dress hung about her thin frame, and with a sigh Charlotte noticed that she wore only one petticoat at most. Her sister seemed even taller than usual, although that might be from the weight she had lost. Emily’s fair hair was loose about her face and there was a bright color in her cheeks. She looked—Charlotte struggled to find the word—happy.
“Emily!” Charlotte cried, jumping out of the carriage to embrace her. Her reservations forgotten, suddenly Charlotte was glad to see her sister, especially looking so well.
“Charlotte!” Emily stood with her arms at her side, dismay in her eyes. No sooner had Aunt B. left than Charlotte arrived unexpectedly to ruin Emily’s fun. “What are you doing home?”
“Miss Wooler thought I needed a little rest,” Charlotte equivocated.
“In the middle of the term? What about your classes?” Emily asked.
“Are you accusing me of neglecting my duties?” Charlotte shot back.
“Of course not. Charlotte, what’s wrong with you?” A thought came into Emily’s mind and made her go pale. “Are you ill? Have you been coughing?”
“No, nothing like that,” Charlotte said sharply. “And yourself? Are you recovered?”
Emily nodded. “Today is the first day I’ve been permitted out. I’m going to take full advantage,” she said. She opened the gate and stepped out. “I’ll see you at supper.” Leaving Charlotte slack-jawed with surprise, Emily ran up the path toward the moors.
“Charlotte!” Tabby stood in the front door, drying her hands on a dishtowel. As always, her pale straw-colored hair had escaped from her untidy bun and flew about her face. “We didn’t know you were coming home!”
Charlotte went inside, followed by the driver carrying her small valise. She gave him a coin for his trouble.
“I’m only home for a few days, Tabby,” Charlotte explained. “Where is Father? And Aunt B.? And Branwell?”
“Well, you’ve just missed your aunt. She’s gone.”
“Gone where? She never goes anywhere.”
Tabby grinned as though her face would break. “She’s off to Scarborough with Anne.”
“Amazing,” Charlotte said, but inwardly she seethed. Everyone seemed to have adventures but her. “And Father?”
“He was called out to that Mr. Grimes who’s always dying, but never dies,” Tabby said.
“What about Branwell? I thought he at least would be here.” Unspoken was the thought running at the tops of both their minds: Branwell doesn’t have anywhere else to be.
Tabby’s smile disappeared from her face as though she’d wiped it away with a polishing cloth. “Branwell is visiting some friends.”
“Who?”
With a shrug of her ample shoulders, Tabby said, “He’s always going to a meeting or someone’s house and he won’t ever say anything about it.” She looked around as if to spy an eavesdropper in the flagstoned hallway. “He’s drinking. Ever since he went to that fancy art school in London and returned a scant week later, he’s been acting strangely. Your father’s worried.”
Charlotte followed Tabby into the kitchen. Tabby opened the bin where she kept the vegetables and began to chop celery and onions. Glancing at Charlotte, she said kindly, “I’m sure everyone will be home soon for supper.”
“I saw Emily going out,” Charlotte said. “She looked healthy.” Try as she might, she could hear the bitterness in her own voice. “She’s recovered miraculously quickly.”
Tabby gave Charlotte a sharp look. “Thank the Lord for that. And thank goodness you were there at school to look after her. She was ever so ill; your father was mortally afeared she was going to die. I’ve never seen him so fretful.”
“Of course he was,” Charlotte said.
“None of that green-eyed monster, Miss Charlotte. It doesn’t suit you,” Tabby scolded. “We would have been just as distressed for you.”
“I doubt it,” Charlotte muttered, but too low for Tabby to hear over her chopping.
“Sit down, child, and stop fretting no one is here to greet you when you didn’t tell them you were coming! How was your journey?”
“It was fine,” Charlotte said, settling herself on a stool. “My trip was uneventful until a few miles away from Bradford. Then the oddest thing happened.”
She described the woman who had stopped the carriage and how Mr. Robert Heaton had taken her away without so much as a word. “Tabby, you know everyone around here.”
Tabby paused in her chopping. “That I do.”
“Who was she? Mr. Heaton said she was a dependent of the family.”
Tabby paused, as if she had to gather all the details buried deep in her capacious memory. “I’ve never heard about any dependents. It’s not a large family. But Robert Heaton had a sister once.” Tabby sighed. “Hers was a tragic story.”
Charlotte leaned forward. “Tell me.”
“She was a pretty young thing, and bright. Her father sent her to Leeds for school.” Tabby shook her head sadly. “It turned out badly.”
“What happened to her?”
“A man.” Tabby wielded the knife with an angry force that made Charlotte’s eyes widen. “Isn’t it always? He was the son of a shopkeeper. Not nearly good enough for the only daughter of a landowner like Mr. Heaton. He got the girl i
nto trouble, if you know what I mean.”
“Tabby, I’m almost twenty. Of course I know what you mean.” But Charlotte felt the blush rise on her cheeks. “What did her family do?”
“What could they do with a babe on the way?” Tabby shrugged. “Mr. Heaton made them marry, of course. But with such a beginning, how could it end well?”
“They were unhappy?” Charlotte asked.
“Her husband drank and spent all the money her father settled on her. I heard she had as many bruises as you have books. When he died a few months later, everyone was happy for her. She came back to Ponden Hall to have her little boy.”
“She should have been safe at her father’s house,” Charlotte said.
“Ah, but the family never let her forget her mistake. Right cruel they were to her. And the boy suffered as well.” A tear rolled down Tabby’s cheek; whether from the sad story or the onion, Charlotte didn’t know.
“That’s not fair!” Charlotte said.
“I thought you were a grown lady—you know life is neither fair nor kind.” Tabby pushed the chopped vegetables into an iron pan and lit the stove. “It didn’t help that the boy was sickly. Mr. Heaton might have forgiven her if his grandson had been a boy to be proud of.”
“What was his name?”
“Lawrence, Larry, or maybe Harry? That’s right. He was called Harry.”
Charlotte knitted her brow. “And he lived at Ponden Hall?” At Tabby’s nod, Charlotte said, “We used to visit the library. A most beautiful room. There was a boy there, a little older than us, and pale like a wraith. He always stared at Emily. I never talked to him, but she did.”
“That could have been him.” Tabby looked up from the simmering vegetables. The smell filled the room and Charlotte felt her stomach rumble from hunger. Tabby went on, “Harry’s uncle, Mr. Robert, the one you met today, made his life unbearable until he ran away. And that was the last anyone heard of him. So old Mr. Heaton drove off his only grandson and his son still hasn’t taken a wife. And now the old man is dead in his grave.”
Charlotte leaned forward. “Robert Heaton is a bachelor?” she asked.
Always Emily Page 6