Emily's Secret

by Jill Jones

  Selena didn’t resist, but instead put her arms around him and leaned into him, as if she sought shelter in his embrace. Her lips parted beneath his demanding kiss as naturally as if they’d been lovers always. Holding her tightly against his chest, he could feel the curve of her breasts and the beat of her heart, which seemed to match his own heart’s wild cadence.

  And then suddenly she pulled away from him and stepped back, looking at him with a mixture of astonishment and dismay. Neither spoke for a long moment, and it seemed to Alex as if the universe held its breath.

  At last Selena broke the silence. “Please forgive me,” she said, her voice husky and breathless. “I…I must have lost my senses. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Alex couldn’t bear the emptiness in his arms. Without thinking, he reached for her hand, but she drew it away and turned to go.

  “Selena!” he called out, fearing the princess was about to flee. “Don’t. Wait a moment.”

  She stopped, but did not turn around. Her back was stiff. “I don’t usually act like such a fool.”

  Alex stepped closer, not daring to touch her, although the silken skin of her exposed back tempted him only inches from his fingertips.

  “There’s nothing foolish about needing a friend,” he said.

  “Who said I needed a friend?”

  Alex felt her unspoken pain. “Do you?”

  She turned to face him, smoothing her voluminous hair away from her face with both hands. Her eyes searched his, then she looked away. “I’d better go back inside. Tom will be livid.”

  “Do you care?”

  She hesitated, then replied with a hint of a smile edging her lips upward, “No. I guess I don’t.”

  “Then stay.”

  He saw her body relax, and she leaned against the balustrade once again. “You want to know the truth?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m so exhausted I can barely stand up. I need to find Tom and get out of here.”

  “Can I drive you home?”

  Selena looked at the sky. A slender crescent moon peeked over the roofline, shedding its pale light upon them. “No,” she replied simply. “I have to go with him. Otherwise, he might not find his way home.”

  Home. Was Tom Perkins going home with her? The very thought enraged Alex. Forgetting his own emotional prohibitions against getting involved with a woman like Selena, he took her hand once again. “Can I call you?”

  This time she did not take her hand away. “No, you can’t call me, Alex. I don’t have a telephone.”

  Alex was determined not to let her slip away, even though he knew it would likely be the safest thing for the protection of his heart. “Then you call me. Use a public phone.”

  She considered his suggestion for a moment. “Give me your number,” she said at last with a sigh, leaving Alex convinced it was just to get rid of him.

  Whatever her reason, he wasn’t going to give her the chance to change her mind. He took a soggy napkin from beneath an empty champagne flute on a nearby table.

  “Got a pen?” he asked, frisking himself in vain for a writing instrument.

  She produced a lipstick from her handbag and held it up, raising her shoulders in query.

  “That ought to work.” Taking care not to press down too hard or break the colored matter that might well be the only link between them, Alex traced his own telephone number on the napkin. “I’m across from the apothecary shop in Haworth,” he said, returning the slender tube to her along with the napkin. “In case you lose this.”

  He was rewarded for his efforts with a smile that filled her ample lips, a smile that sent an arrow of fear through his heart. She was going to leave him.

  “I must go now,” she said.

  Alex knew he’d lost, but he nodded and followed Selena down the long terrace. They were almost at the entrance to the gallery when the door opened and Tom Perkins, followed closely by Eleanor Bates, burst through.

  “There you are,” Tom cried, exasperation overcoming any hint of worry in his voice. “You’ve been gone so long, I was terribly worried. I even called on our hostess here to help me find you.”

  Selena stared at him aghast. “What terrible fate did you think might have befallen me, Tom?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m not exactly in some back alleyway in London.”

  Alex wanted to be anywhere other than the spot he was in at that moment. He glanced at Eleanor, who seemed to be enjoying the whole scene immensely.

  Then Tom spied Alex and realized he wasn’t just a bystander, but rather seemed to be with Selena. “Who’s he?”

  Selena turned and looked up at Alex. “Someone I’ve been wanting to introduce you to, Tom. This is Alexander Hightower. He’s the personal representative of a private collector in the United States. Someone who, I think, is showing some interest in my work. Am I right, Alex?”

  Alex hoped he would die that very second. If Selena dropped the name of Henry Bonnell, it was all over, at least as far as his credibility with Eleanor Bates was concerned. He looked across Tom’s short, round figure and into the eyes of the old woman, whose expression at the moment was entirely unreadable. And then she smiled.

  “Personal representative of an art collector?” she said without missing a beat. “How very interesting.”

  Eleanor Bates’s face seemed to blur suddenly into that English teacher once again. But she seemed, miraculously, willing to play along. At least for the moment. He decided to push his luck.

  “I have a friend, you see, who is very interested in Selena’s work. Unfortunately,” he added, “he has been ill…a slight mental derangement…and I’m afraid all acquisitions have been put on hold.”

  Tom scowled doubtfully at Alex. “You do know that I have an exclusive on her?”

  Alex glowered at the agent in return. “On her work, you mean?” he replied pointedly. “Yes. She’s told me you’re the man.”

  With that, Perkins backed off somewhat. “Well, then, we must get together sometime. Whenever your, uh, friend gets well again.” He turned to Selena. “Come along, my dear. You look tired.”

  Alex watched them return to the gallery and felt a familiar emptiness engulf him. Then he turned to Eleanor Bates.

  “It’s not what you think—” he started, but she laughed and put her arm through his.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, Dr. Hightower,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “And I don’t really care, because it’s none of my business. But it looks for all the world like you’ve fallen for a certain…artistic type, shall we say?”

  Alex started to object, but Eleanor continued.

  “She’s a beauty, Alex. Where’d you find her?”

  Alex turned and looked directly into the old woman’s eyes. “Maggie Flynn introduced us,” he said, a mischievous grin letting her know her own efforts at matchmaking had failed utterly. “Would you care to dance?”

  Chapter 12

  January 2, 1846

  No coward soul is mine

  No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere

  I see Heaven’s glories shine

  And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

  O God within my breast

  Almighty ever-present Deity

  Life, that in me hast rest

  As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

  Vain are the thousand creeds

  That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,

  Worthless as withered weeds

  Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

  To waken doubt in one

  Holding so fast by thy infinity

  So surely anchored on

  The steadfast rock of Immortality

  With wide-embracing love

  Thy spirit animates eternal years

  Pervades and broods above,

  Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

  Though Earth and moon were gone

  And suns and universes ceased to be

  A
nd thou wert left alone

  Every Existence would exist in thee

  There is not room for Death

  Nor atom that his might could render void

  Since thou art Being and Breath

  And what thou art may never be destroyed.

  —Emily Brontë

  January 28, 1846

  Today Charlotte has sent by post the collection of our poems to a publishing firm, a foolish enterprise, I fear. It will cost us money, and our hope of seeing any financial return is slim. It is done, however, and the endeavor makes her happy. In the meantime, I have invested what remains of our slim legacy from Aunt Branwell into something more solid than Charlotte’s dreams of authorship will provide. The York and Midland line will survive this temporary panic and, despite Charlotte’s fears, I remain steadfast in my decision about the investment. We will see whose judgment will prove the better.

  I have at last begun work in earnest on my novel. If Charlotte’s ravings have produced nothing more than this fresh start in writing then they shall not have been for naught. It has taken nigh unto one month of struggling with my soul to pull my courage together once more and quit pining for what might have been. I am disgusted with my own weakness in this matter of Mikel, for it was only a passing fancy. Still, I must write the truth here for only my eyes to see. There are nights when I lay alone upon this cot and look out on the stars, I wonder if he is looking on the same stars. I wonder if he ever thinks of me, and if I will ever see him again. I sincerely doubt the latter two, but my restless mind will not let go of the idea. Nor will it let go of those sensations that creep back to me in dreams from time to time. Sometimes they are so strong they frighten me, and I have no one to ask about them. It is as if my body is on fire, wanting something I cannot even name, for I do not know what it is. But there is a pain in my lower regions that is real and is only lessened when I contract the area tightly. These dreams did not visit me until after Mikel touched me and kissed me upon the moors. How I rue that day! I am hoping that somehow, through this novel-writing project, I can command these dreams to quit me at night, for now I can feel that same energy flowing from my pen as I sit writing with Charlotte and Anne. I began the novel thusly:

  1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

  “Mr. Heathcliff?” I said.

  A nod was the answer.

  “Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange; I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts—”

  “Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,” he interrupted, wincing. “I should not allow anyone to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it—walk in!”

  The “walk in” was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, “Go to the Deuce”…

  February 2, 1846

  I have just come up to bed after reading a few opening pages of “Wuthering Heights” to Charlotte and Anne. How delicious it was to see their faces, for it was clear they were quite shocked by the direction of my writing. They were too polite to say anything directly of course. Charlotte expressed that she found it “daring” to introduce such a malignant person as Heathcliff on page one, but I know what she wanted was to understand from whence such a devil was derived in her own sister’s mind! I told her what I could impart without revealing the true source of that dark personage.

  I told them his name was an obvious offspring of the nature of the moors on which he is to live in this world of ink on paper. To tell the full truth, I chose his name for the place where I found Mikel, where the heath grows to the base of the cliff in the back ravine. It is a simple medley of two ordinary features of the moors, but hopefully it will also capture the fierceness of the wild landscape. Top Withens I chose to become Wuthering Heights, for no more wild and austere a farmstead could be found throughout all of Yorkshire, I suppose. Unfriendly and unwelcoming, it perches like a black vulture at the crest of the moor, peering malevolently into the valley below, as if waiting to pick apart the remains of the more civilized establishment there.

  And so will be the theme of my story. A vulture this Heathcliff becomes, turned so by betrayal and shame. It is an exaggerated pain of which I write, for I am infusing this wretched character not only with his pain, but my own as well. I must direct my smoldering desire and foolish emotions strongly into my story, and in so doing, attain release from my almost nightly torment.

  I continue my narrative:

  Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labor out of doors instead, compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm.

  He bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They both promised to grow up as rude as savages, the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him…

  February 15, 1846

  Heathcliff is consumed by his need for the love and affection of that petulant girl, Catherine, for she is the only source of it in his miserable life. Cathy’s passion rides high, and she delights in tormenting him, although she does indeed love him. She gives her love, then takes it away again with her scolding until the boy is nearly crazed! He is nothing, a lowly gipsie brat, an orphan befriended. She is the spoiled and petted daughter of his benefactor, who has just died a few pages past. And tonight, I “made alive again” her brother, Hindley, who hates Heathcliff and who, as the new master, will treat him, and Catherine as well, severely unkindly in a short time.

  I find I am increasingly intrigued by this exercise of writing in the form of a novel. I can, as I did in Glasstown and Gondal, create and destroy my characters as I will, but in this form, I find I must paint a deeper picture of their lives than I have before. I must show what drives them to the actions they take, give them reasons for what they do. It is an intellectual challenge, but at the same time easy, since I know well my own reason for cursing Heathcliff with unfulfilled love and lifelong pain, as I fear I am also cursed.

  “I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home, and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire. “

  Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no farther.

  March 12, 1846

  I have
done it! I have torn his heart out and flung it to the mad dogs that growl and lurk in the shadows. Heathcliff, lurking as well in the shadows, hears his love, Cathy, declare that it would degrade her to marry him! He is a low cur himself, stooping to eavesdropping behind the settle but staying only long enough to learn a part of the truth. He is a fool and ignorant of the fact of Cathy’s deep love which would redeem him, and he, like Mikel, slips away without adieu.

  But I find even as I take my revenge on this dark gipsie and seek through his character to settle affairs with my own tormentor, I have sympathies with him as well I have come to know him in our days together since the outset of this novel, and though it was my heart’s desire to inflict on him the deepest pain of a lover’s betrayal, now that the arrow has been flung, I feel remorse at what I have done. His pain is my pain, and my heart aches tonight for us both.

  But what talk is this? I write this as if Heathcliff were really a person and not just a figure out of my imagination. But in ways I cannot explain, he is real to me. Like Cathy, I am Heathcliff! I have created his miserable world as a parallel to my own. I have given him an untrustworthy being to love and made him love her to the point of distraction, and then caused her to destroy what little self-regard he had remaining. She will destroy him in the end. Is this to be my fate as well?

  I read aloud this scene to my sisters tonight, and although they encourage me to continue, I can feel a sense of unspoken disapproval at the ruthlessness of my tale. I care not, for I do not need approval. It is not for approval, nor publication, that “Wuthering Heights” came into being.

  Something stirred in the porch, and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair…

  “What!” I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. “What! You come back? Is it really you? Is it?”

  “Yes, Heathcliff,” he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. Are they at home? Where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! You needn’t be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her—your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her.”