The World Within

by Jane Eagland

  Stupid, stupid Emily. How often has Papa warned her about touching strange dogs? And that story he told about the farmer who was bitten by a rabid dog …

  She shivers.

  As she’s looking at her torn arm, her vision begins to blur. Immediately she claps her hand back over the injury. This is no time to faint. Think … think! What did Papa say the farmer should have done?

  Taking a steadying breath or two, she runs back into the house. There’s no one in the kitchen, but there on the stove are two irons Tabby has left to heat up.

  Snatching up a cloth, she seizes one of the irons and claps it on her injury. There’s a sizzling sound and a smell like charcoal as the hot metal bites into her flesh. The pain is terrible — she has to grit her teeth to stop herself from crying out. But it must be done; she must cauterize the wound to stop any infection from spreading.

  When she can’t bear it any longer, she carefully replaces the iron exactly where it was and rolls down her sleeve. Then she lets out her breath. All she can think of is reaching the bedroom without being seen, but as she moves toward the door, she staggers and has to sit down.

  As luck would have it, at that moment Tabby comes into the kitchen, grumbling to herself. “That Mr. Greenwood certainly likes his coffee. Here I am with all that ironing to do and I’ve to make another pot. It’s not as if —” She breaks off at the sight of Emily. “Ee, lass, whatever is the matter? Tha looks as if tha’s seen a boggart.”

  “It’s the heat, I think. I forgot to take my bonnet and it’s sweltering out there.” Surreptitiously Emily moves her arm to conceal her bloodstained cuff under the table.

  Tabby gives her a sharp look. “Tha’s not usually done in by it.” She sniffs the air suspiciously. “What’s tha been up to?”

  “Nothing. I’ll be all right in a minute. Could you get me a drink?”

  Shaking her head, Tabby fetches a glass of lemonade and Emily gulps it down, glad of its cold sweetness on her tongue.

  Her arm feels as if it’s on fire and she’s terrified of what that means, of what she might have brought upon herself so unthinkingly. She longs to tell Tabby what’s happened, to have Tabby comfort her and look after her as she’s always done in the past whenever Emily was upset or hurt.

  But this time it’s different. She has done this to herself and until she knows what the consequences are to be, she can’t tell Tabby. She can’t tell anyone.

  Gripping the edge of the table, she makes herself stand up, but she can’t help swaying and Tabby regards her with concern. “Tha’s not at all reet, my lamb. Mebbe tha should have a lie-down?”

  Emily forces herself to say lightly, “No, I’m all right. I’ll just have a wash — that’ll cool me down.”

  The minute Emily reaches the bedroom she rummages in the chest of drawers for something to bind her arm.

  She finds a worn muslin pillowcase and manages to tear a strip from it with her teeth. She should probably put something on the wound, some ointment maybe, but she doesn’t know what, so she just wraps the bandage round it and ties it as best she can — a fiddly thing to do one-handed. She’s not made a good job of it, but all she can do is hope for the best.

  She hides the ruined cuff at the back of her drawer — she can put it on the fire later — and then scrubs at her sleeve where some of the blood has seeped into it. Luckily it doesn’t show much on the dull brown material. Then she finds the deepest cuffs she possesses and puts them on.

  She’s just about presentable when Charlotte appears in the doorway, looking worried.

  “Tabby said you might have a touch of sunstroke.”

  She can hear the sympathy in her sister’s voice and it almost undoes her.

  She could admit the truth to Charlotte, couldn’t she? It would be such a relief to have someone to share this with …

  But she only hesitates for a moment. No, she can’t tell Charlotte. After what happened with Ellen she no longer trusts her sister. What if she tells Charlotte and she blabs it to the rest of the family? No, this is all her own fault and she must deal with it by herself.

  She steels herself and replies coolly, “I’m all right. I’m coming down now.” Then she makes herself walk steadily past Charlotte and down the stairs, doing her best to appear normal.

  Branwell and Anne look up as she enters the parlor, but she avoids their eyes and, picking up a book, sits down on the sofa and pretends to read. Grasper jumps up beside her and she strokes him unthinkingly. Her arm is horribly painful and she’d like to cradle it, but she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself. Almost worse than the pain are the frantic questions whirling round in her head.

  How soon will she know if the worst has happened? What are the telltale signs? And if it’s true, how long till …?

  She balks at the idea. She can’t face it, not yet.

  She doesn’t feel like eating, but there’s no avoiding dinner. She manages a mouthful or two of potato, a sliver of cold beef, and then she puts down her knife and fork, defeated. Aunt, who seems to know all about the events of the morning, gives her a sharp look. “No walk for you this afternoon, young lady. You’d better stay indoors.”

  With Papa out of the way — he went off with Mr. Greenwood before dinner — nothing could suit Emily better. As soon as the others have left the house and Aunt has retreated to her room, she slips into the study.

  Papa’s medical book isn’t on the shelf in its usual place, but then she sees it on his desk, open at “sunstroke.” That means someone has already spoken to Papa. Good. That will help her to conceal the truth.

  She flicks back the pages until she finds what she’s looking for:

  HYDROPHOBIA.

  (Rabies)Caught from a rabid animal, hydrophobia is an infection that destroys the brain. It is untreatable.

  Emily stops reading. She closes her eyes a moment, as if somehow this will make the sentence disappear. She breathes deeply once or twice and then opens her eyes.

  The sentence is still there.

  She forces herself to read on. She learns that from being infected it can take several weeks for the first symptom — headache — to appear. After that she can expect acute pain followed by terror and hallucinations. Her heart fluttering, Emily skips to the stark words at the end of the paragraph: delirium, coma … death.

  She sinks onto Papa’s chair. Minutes pass as she sits there, feeling numb, unable to move or think.

  Only when the grandfather clock chimes the hour does she rouse herself. The others will be back soon and they mustn’t find her here. Because she knows now for certain that however tempted she is to confide in someone, she mustn’t. If the rest of the family find out about this, they will be utterly alarmed. She couldn’t bear it. To be the object of so much attention would be suffocating, but worse than that would be to know that she, by one stupid action, has caused all that distress.

  Why, the shock of it might kill Papa! Emily’s heart lurches in her chest.

  She clenches her fists. No, the others simply mustn’t find out. She mustn’t betray by a word or a look what has happened.

  She has done what she can to save herself. Now all she can do is wait.

  Emily manages to get through the next few days only by summoning every ounce of her willpower. The pain in her arm, now swollen and bright red, is intense, but she forces herself to bear it. There’s no point in calling upon God — He won’t do anything. She must cope with this herself. It’s just a sensation and it will pass — she won’t let it overcome her.

  What she finds harder to cope with is her fear.

  She tells herself, “Nothing’s going to happen; you’re not going to die.”

  For a while it works, and she feels calmer, but then dread at the prospect of what she might have to suffer comes surging back and infects everything.

  If she tries to distract herself by reading or playing the piano, she can only manage it for a few minutes at a time. She begins to write, but then worry looms and she finds herself thinking about
her own situation rather than the goings-on in Gondal.

  Even walking with Anne doesn’t help — the first day after she was bitten and they’re out together she tries to talk in their usual way, but it’s so hard to pretend that nothing’s wrong. The trouble is, though, she’s desperate to go out — being out alone on her beloved moors will surely bring her some relief, even if it’s only temporary. She wrestles with the problem for a while and in the end she decides there’s nothing for it.

  The next morning she finds Anne in the study dusting the piano and without any preamble says, “You know, I’d rather you didn’t come with me on walks anymore. I want to go alone.”

  Anne looks so hurt that Emily feels sorry at once. But she can’t take back what she’s said — she’ll just have to stand by it. She braces herself for Anne’s reaction.

  “Is it because of what I said about Julius?”

  “Julius?” She can’t think what Anne’s talking about. Then she remembers.

  The last time they’d discussed Gondal, Anne argued with her because she’d decided Julius was to have an affair and father an illegitimate child. Anne said it was sinful to write such things. Emily disagreed hotly and said she was sick of Anne being such a goody-goody, that she was going to stick to her idea and Anne could go to the devil.

  The dog bite has driven all this out of Emily’s head. Thinking of it now, she feels ashamed of herself. She wants to say sorry, but she mustn’t soften, not now.

  “No, it’s nothing to do with Julius. It’s just how I feel at the moment. I’m sure Charlotte will go with you.” And she rushes out before Anne can say anything else.

  That afternoon Emily sets out with Grasper and discovers that she was right — striding rapidly across the moors with her sleeves rolled up and her hair uncovered, giving herself up to the rhythm of her footsteps and her breath, letting go of her thoughts and feelings and allowing the wind to carry her along and the rain of the summer storm to wash over her, she can, for a while at least, forget what has happened to her and what might be to come.

  She stays out longer and later than usual, returning with wet hair and damp clothes.

  “Bless the lass,” Tabby cries when she sees her. “Tha’s soaked to the bone.”

  “I like to feel the rain on my skin,” Emily explains. “It makes me feel alive.”

  “Tha’ll catch thi death of cold, more like,” says Tabby drily.

  Emily grimaces to herself. If only Tabby knew.

  She must keep out of Tabby’s way — of all of them, she’s the one most likely to notice her distress. But she can’t hide herself away from everyone.

  During the evening Anne keeps giving her worried glances, but at least she doesn’t pester her. It’s harder to evade Charlotte, who at bedtime doesn’t hold back.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It can’t be nothing — you’re hardly eating anything. If you go on like this, you’ll fade away. And last night I woke up and you were just lying there and you obviously hadn’t been to sleep. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, I tell you.”

  Emily curses herself for not managing to hide it better and she redoubles her efforts to appear normal, making herself join in merrily and chatter as usual. But Charlotte won’t let it go. The next day she tries again when they’re making Charlotte’s bed.

  “I asked Tabby about you, and she said, maybe it was your age, you know, that you’re outgrowing your strength, but I don’t think it’s that.”

  “Why are you discussing me with Tabby?”

  “Because you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” Emily concentrates on tucking in the sheet so she doesn’t have to look at Charlotte.

  “I think there is. You’re just not yourself. Are you ill?”

  “No!”

  “Well, is something on your mind? Because that’s what it looks like to me.”

  “The only thing on my mind is that I wish you’d leave me alone!”

  Emily’s annoyance with Charlotte is nothing compared to her annoyance with herself. It’s cowardly and weak to be so fearful — she should be strong. She resolves that from now on she’s going to be as proud and fearless as her heroine Rosina, Princess of Alcona. She will outface anything that fate threatens her with and she will not allow herself to think of dying.

  But on the Sunday morning five days after the dog bit her, Emily wakes up with a headache.

  This is it. It’s beginning.

  Terror seizes her with a stomach-churning jolt. Without warning she is thrown back into that familiar state that she has been running away from all these years — the state she was in after Elizabeth died.

  The terror of abandonment.

  But then she was suffering from being abandoned. Now it is she who is faced with letting go, with abandoning everything that she loves — her family and Tabby and the moors where she feels most at home — and being exiled and outcast, separated from them for all eternity.

  Her throat closes up — she can’t eat a spoonful of breakfast, she can barely speak.

  Morning service passes in a blur as she stands, kneels, mumbles responses at the appropriate moments like an automaton. She tries to listen to Papa’s sermon, but she can’t take it in and as she sits there in a tumult of anxiety, her eye falls on the plaque on the wall.

  The words carved on it are as familiar to her as her own heartbeat, but still she reads them through:

  Here lie the remains of Maria Brontë, Wife of the Rev. P. Brontë …

  Also the remains of Maria Brontë … who died in the twelfth year of her age

  And of Elizabeth Brontë, her sister …

  Oh, Elizabeth! Her best beloved sister has walked this path before her. Doesn’t this mean that she’s not really alone?

  If Elizabeth were here now, she could tell her all about it, and impossible as it would be, Elizabeth would find a way to comfort her.

  But …

  By now, she supposes, all that is left of Elizabeth and of Maria and Mama are their bones. She is quite, quite alone.

  She shivers as the truth that she has been desperately trying to avoid crashes in on her — the truth of what will happen to her. Soon, all too soon, she will be joining Mama and her sisters in that dark vault under the cold slabs of the church floor.

  Her own bones ache at the thought of it.

  Ever since the dog bit her, she has not once been visited by her familiar nightmare, with all the pain of finding her sisters and losing them all over again.

  What does it mean? That all along, deep down, she’s known that she’s about to die? That she has no need to dream of her sisters, because she will soon be with them?

  That’s what Papa professes to believe and preaches to his flock in the words that Emily knows so well — God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  It’s a wonderful, comforting idea … that one day, perhaps not so very far off, she will again meet Mama and Maria and dear, dear Elizabeth and rejoice to see them.

  If only she could believe it.

  When Mama died, she remembers asking, over and over again, “Where is she?”

  And they said, “In heaven.”

  But when she wanted to know where heaven was, no one could give her a satisfactory answer. And she could never understand why, if Mama was safe in her “eternal home,” as Papa said, he was grey and silent for so long after she’d gone.

  “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost …” Papa intones, signaling that the service is about to end.

  Emily struggles to raise herself from the pew. She is utterly wrung out.

  Fixing her eyes on Elizabeth’s name on the plaque, she prays, “Please, let me not die. Let me not die, not yet.”

  By the time they reach home, the pain in Emily’s arm is so severe she can’t think about anything else. In the hall she catches Au
nt’s arm. “May I be excused from dinner? I’m feeling a little unwell.” It’s an effort to get the words out, almost impossible to sound as if she’s just feeling under the weather.

  She waits, unsteady on her feet, willing Aunt to just say “Yes” and let her go upstairs. But, of course, with Aunt, it can’t be so simple.

  Aunt has to scrutinize her thoroughly before pronouncing, “You are very pale.” She lays a cool hand on Emily’s forehead. “And you’re rather hot. Do you feel feverish at all?”

  Emily is saved from answering by Papa’s arrival. Aunt says, “Patrick, I’m rather worried about Emily. She’s been looking peaked for a few days now and I think she might have a fever. Do you think we should send for Dr. Andrew?”

  Emily rouses herself and in desperation cries out, “No!”

  Her father looks alarmed. “Emily, my dear, what ails you?”

  “It’s nothing, Papa, really. There’s no need to send for the doctor.” If only they’d all stop looking at her. This is the very kind of fuss she was hoping to avoid. And now Papa is worried. Why don’t they just let her go?

  “Very well. Go and have a rest on your bed and then we’ll see how you are.”

  Emily flees upstairs.

  In the bedroom she pulls back her sleeve. Gritting her teeth, she rips off the bloodstained muslin sticking to the wound. It doesn’t look good — blisters have formed on the surface and it’s oozing yellow pus.

  Suddenly, as she’s staring at the injury, Emily’s stomach heaves and she just manages to make it to the basin before she vomits. Shaken, sweating, she sinks onto the bed. She reaches for the towel to wipe her face and at that very moment Charlotte bursts in.

  “Emily! You look terrible.”

  “What do you want?” Emily snaps. She must get rid of her as quickly as possible.

  “Papa sent me up to see if you needed anything.”

  “I don’t.” Surreptitiously Emily tries to cover her arm with the towel, but Charlotte is peering at her.