by Jill Jones
So what was she going to do? he wondered. He was not sorry she was going to find the debate as difficult as he. In fact, he found it amusing that she would be floundering as badly as he in this first segment.
“Resolved, that Emily Jane Brontë died of natural causes following a serious illness.” Her voice was crisp and British.
Like Alex, Maggie was forced to take the fall-back position she would have used had she not known about the letter. Her argument was predicated not upon Emily’s work, but rather on biographical accounts that were old news to those in the audience.
The audience stirred, whispering among themselves, their restlessness and growing disappointment punctuated ever more frequently by the rattle of thunder overhead.
The first segment completed, the moderator approached Maggie and Alex, a perplexed expression on his face.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked. “I mean, we all expected—”
“There damn sure is something wrong,” Maggie hissed at Alex. “What the hell do you think you are doing? When are you going to get to the point?”
“I have already.”
She stared at him. “The letter, Alex. What about the letter?”
“I’m not going to use the letter,” he stated flatly, and it was worth all his own disappointment to see the shock in her eyes.
“Not use it! Why? I don’t understand.”
“I can’t use it, Maggie, because I don’t have it.”
Her face turned to ash. “Someone’s stolen it.”
“Not exactly.”
“Surely you have copies?”
“I’m not about to introduce a photocopy without the real thing to back it up,” Alex replied with a sardonic smile. “That would set you up real nicely, wouldn’t it? No forensics. No authenticity. Only a document that you would eagerly try to prove that I forged.”
Alex could see by the rising color in Maggie’s face that he had accurately surmised her strategy.
“Where is the damned letter, Alex?” she demanded in a guttural voice.
He looked at her evenly. “Let’s just get this over with as fast as possible.” Turning to the bewildered moderator, he added, “I’m ready for my second presentation, if I may.”
Alex, having prepared for months against Maggie’s predictable biographical arguments, laid out his theory again, using other biographical material to support his case.
There was only a smattering of polite applause when he was seated.
Maggie fared little better, and in fact made several errors. Alex knew she was beside herself with fury, and he found it ironically funny that she should be the one to be thrown off by the unexpected turn of events the evening before. He wondered what she would do for a rebuttal, as he surmised that she had planned a scathing denouncement of the authenticity of the letter.
She had been furious to learn she would not be on the research team, which comprised scientists, scholars, and selected representatives of the Brontë Society. Alex, being the trustee of the letter on Selena’s behalf, had helped to select the committee, but he had not recommended Maggie, believing that her intense emotional negativity toward him might create unnecessary delays.
When Maggie finished, the moderator took the podium and called for a five minute recess. Alex, who sat leaning forward on his arms, looked up into the faded blue eyes of Eleanor Bates, eyes that silently but staunchly demanded an explanation for this sorry debacle. He nodded and scribbled a message on his notepad. Eleanor came to the edge of the stage and said nothing as he handed her the paper.
The program resumed under the noisy drumming of a downpour on the roof. It was Maggie’s turn to go first, and she took the podium loaded with all the resentment, anger, and hostility she had stored up against Alex in the past year.
“Tonight, Dr. Alexander Hightower has proven himself to be the dilettante I have long suspected him to be,” she began. “He has provided no new evidence for his foolish and unworthy claim. I believe more than one of us here tonight expected something rather more dramatic than what he has presented, and I for one feel deceived and misled.”
Alex heard a rustle of agreement in the audience, and he didn’t blame them. He had not deceived nor misled anyone, but neither could he produce what he’d hoped would prove once and for all that scholars should never rest as long as there is a shred of doubt surrounding an issue.
He watched his former lover—how could he have let that happen?—sink from academic counterpoint into a diatribe that turned clearly into a personal vendetta against him. Her words were harsh, emotional, and unprofessional, and he found himself feeling perversely sorry for her. The audience, as unhappy as they were with him at the moment, appeared uncomfortable and embarrassed as she took her seat.
Alex looked out at Eleanor Bates, whose demanding eyes had lost some of their wrath after reading his note, although they remained inquisitive. He saw Selena and her grandmother at the end of the aisle, and suddenly Eleanor Bates, Maggie Flynn, even the letter no longer mattered. Things had worked out as they should. He could see that now.
He had but one thing left to do.
Dr. Alexander Hightower stood to his full six feet and went to the podium. He carried no notes, for he needed none for what he had to say.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret that tonight’s event did not meet up to your expectations. Some rather…er, unusual circumstances precluded my presentation from being all that I expected as well. Life is like that sometimes. It takes a turn around a corner we least expect, and it is how we cope with that turn that forges our future.
“I submit that Emily Brontë met with just such an unexpected event, and that she coped with it in the only way she knew how. I cannot in this assembled group provide proof of what that event might have been, and so I must ask you to imagine, if you will, what sort of unexpected tribulation could have befallen this young woman that would have caused her to take her own life.
“We are all devoted to the Brontë sisters, and I have a special place in my heart for Emily Brontë, for I believe she is the least understood. We scholars tend to raise her to the level of a saint, this supposedly celibate preacher’s daughter, and we forget how young she was, how lonely at times, how vulnerable she might have been. She was a woman just entering her prime. She had feelings. She laughed and she cried. She hurt, just like we all do, when things go wrong.
“Because she was so fiercely private, we call her rude and unbending. Because so little of her work is available to us, we judge her by what we see and do not consider that there may have been much that would cast an entirely different slant upon this talented creature.
“It is my contention, ladies and gentlemen, that it is our job as scholars not to close our minds and dig our heels into the sand when it comes to a theory such as my own, but rather to explore it fully, with an open mind. We must never rest as long as there is doubt in a single mind that Emily’s death might have been self-induced. Because if it were, ladies and gentlemen, if she did make a conscious choice to die, and execute that choice with her will of iron, as I firmly believe she did, then history as we know it is not only incomplete, it is incorrect.
“Why am I compelled to force this issue into discussion and examination by my reluctant colleagues, such as Dr. Flynn, whose rigid views leave no room for the ‘what if? Why do I not just leave the poor woman alone? I am compelled, ladies and gentlemen, by the desire to know the truth about an inexplicable life and an equally unexplainable death.
“Perhaps in time you will learn the contents of the document I had hoped to produce here tonight. But since I cannot bring it forth and prove its authenticity, I will not challenge your integrity by asking you to accept something that lacks tangible viability. Rather, I ask only that each and every one of you rethink your image of Emily Jane Brontë. Allow her to be human, for God’s sake. Set aside for just a moment the outworn images of Emily the old stoic, and think of her as the wild, free creature of the moors that she was. Allow the possibility t
hat there was more to her life than housework and writing and Branwell’s insane ravings.
“Allow the possibility that she knew love. That she loved and was loved in return. Grant her the humanity to make mistakes, and pity her in her sorrows.
“Emily Brontë was a remarkable woman, in every respect. Her strong will, her devotion to family, her belief in the eternality of all things would have supported a decision to allow herself to die in dignity rather than live with whatever troubles beset her in those closing months of her life. I ask you to open yourselves to the possibility that there might have been a different, more human side of Emily than we have known before. That there remain many unanswered questions which demand our examination. Do not close your eyes, nor your ears, nor your minds. We as scholars simply cannot afford such complacent ignorance. Thank you.”
Alex returned to his chair, agonizingly conscious of the fact that there was no sound, even politely, of applause. The darkened room was hushed, and a hundred faces stared at him. A hundred faces who would call him a fool and denounce him in tomorrow’s press.
And then Eleanor Bates stood up and began to applaud. Her friends on the front row did likewise, and in a brief instant the entire audience was on its feet. The sound of their acclaim grew louder and louder, and it remained unabated for several minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Maggie stand up, and he guessed she assumed they were clapping for her, which they may well have been. But she left the stage abruptly, and the moderator seized the moment to restore order.
“Thank you, Dr. Hightower. And thank you for coming this evening, ladies and gentlemen. I believe we all have new food for thought, and speaking of food, refreshments are now being served in the lobby,” he said. “You are welcome to stay and share your own views on this matter directly with Dr. Hightower and Dr…” He looked over his shoulder at Maggie’s empty seat. “…Flynn.”
The gin burned all the way down, and Alex thought a martini had never tasted so good. A fire crackled in the marble hearth, and Selena sat next to him on the brocade sofa in Eleanor Bates’s elegant parlor. Their hostess had excused herself momentarily to see that their rooms were readied to her satisfaction. Outside, the storm had turned into a much needed steady rain, cooling and cleansing a summer-dried land.
Alex reached his arm across the back of the sofa and drew Selena close to him. “Is your grandmother exhausted from her big night out?” he asked, kissing her lightly on the forehead.
“She had a great time. It was thoughtful of you to suggest she come, but after last night, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.”
“She did what she had to do.”
Selena raised her lips to his cheeks. “I love you, Dr. Alex Hightower. I know how much Matka’s mistake cost you, and yet you seem to be taking it…better than I would have.”
“Maybe it was the right thing to happen after all,” Alex murmured, dropping his head and tasting her lips for the first time that evening. If that’s what it took to convince this sexy Gypsy lady she was safe in marrying him, so be it, he thought.
Their kiss was interrupted by the sound of the parlor door opening behind them. Eleanor cleared her throat noisily before entering.
“It appears that things are in order upstairs. Now where’s my drink?” She bustled into the room dressed in a floor-length satin robe and slippers. “Do forgive me, dears, but as soon as I get to hear about Emily’s retribution, I’m headed for bed. But not without my nightcap,” she added, going to the sideboard and pouring herself a brandy.
She returned and took a seat next to the fireplace. “Now, Alex, will you please tell this befuddled old woman just exactly what is going on? Where is that blasted letter anyway?”
“Matka burned it.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened. “Burned it? Oh, my God. But I thought you said it would be safe with her.”
“When you called to tell me Matka had kept the letter after your…visit…on behalf of the Brontë Society to convince her the curse could be broken, I had no idea she would do something like this.”
“How…when…?” It was the first time Alex had seen Eleanor Bates rendered speechless.
“Last night. Selena and I went to tell her that we had decided to be married, regardless of any so-called curse. She told us we didn’t have to worry about the curse anymore because you had called on her and brought the gift of forgiveness needed for the family Wood to be released from it.” He hesitated and smiled, remembering. “If you could have seen the look on her face, Eleanor, what happened next wouldn’t seem so terrible.”
“What happened next?”
Alex glanced down at Selena and then looked back at Eleanor. “We don’t know how she did it so quickly,” he began. “She was sitting in her usual spot by the fireplace when we got there. I didn’t even know she had the letter with her. We chatted for a while, then told her what we had come there for, that we wanted to be married. She got this strange look on her face, and then she just sort of leaned over with her hand out. I thought something was wrong with her, that she was having a reaction to our news. Then she opened her fingers and dropped something squarely onto the fire. It was the letter. It was gone before we realized what it was.”
He cleared his throat and continued. “Then she looked up at us, and she was crying. She said, ‘There ’tis, my dears. There be an end t’ the curse. Y’ be safe now t’ wed.’”
Selena wiped a tear from her cheek. “She thought she was doing us a favor by burning the letter. She said that with your forgiveness, the letter could be safely destroyed, and should be, to completely rid the family Wd of the curse.”
Eleanor stared into the fire that burned quietly in her own grate. “That’s what you meant in your note, then, that Emily seems to have reached out from beyond the grave to protect her secret…”
Alex only nodded. They sat in silence for a long while, listening to the rain dripping from the eaves. At last Eleanor stood up. “Your room is at the top of the stairs, on the left,” she said. She kissed Selena on the cheek, then looked slyly at Alex. “I figured I didn’t need to prepare two rooms.” She made her way to the door, then turned and smiled wearily at them.
“By the way,” she said, “my rose garden would be a lovely place for a September wedding reception.”
I was going to the Grange one evening—a dark evening threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly, and I supposed the lambs were skittish and would not be guided.
“What is the matter, my little man?” I asked.
“They’s Heathcliff, and a woman, yonder, under t’Nab,” he blubbered, “un’ Aw darnut pass ’em.”
I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on; so I bid him take the road lower down. He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat—yet still, I don’t like being out in the dark, now; and I don’t like being left by myself in this grim house—I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange!
“They are going to the Grange then?” I said.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Dean, “as soon as they are married; and that will be on New Year’s day.”
“And who will live here then?”
“Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.”
“For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it,” I observed.
“No, Mr. Lockwood,” said Nelly, shaking her head. “I believe the dead are at peace, but it is not right to speak of them with levity.” At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.
“They are afraid of nothing,” I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. “Together, they would brave satan and all his legions.”
As they stepped onto the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at the
moon—or, more correctly, at each other, by her light—I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door: and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant’s gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognized me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months; many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass, and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.
I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor—the middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton’s only harmonized by the turf, and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff’s still bare.
I lingered around them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
The closing lines of Wuthering Heights
Penned by Emily Jane Brontë
More from Jill Jones
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