The World Within

by Jane Eagland

  At that moment Papa looks in at the door. Branwell appeals to him at once. “Papa, I want to paint the girls and they’re being obstreperous. Tell them they’ve got to sit for me.”

  “I said I would,” Anne protests.

  Papa looks at Branwell mildly through his spectacles. “Well, son, I don’t think we can force your sisters to do anything against their will.”

  Branwell frowns.

  “But, do you know,” Papa looks round at them all, “it would gladden my heart to have a portrait of you all — you too, Branwell, if you can manage to fit yourself in. What do you say, girls?”

  Of course, the appeal is irresistible — they can’t disappoint Papa, and so Branwell ceremoniously leads them to his “studio” and, with much huffing and puffing, he sets to.

  It takes several days and he won’t let them see it till it’s finished. Finally he announces that it’s done and they all cluster round to look at it.

  Privately Emily thinks he’s not done too badly as far as she and Anne are concerned, but poor Charlotte has ended up looking like a prissy schoolmarm.

  She sneaks a look at Charlotte to see how she’s taking it.

  Charlotte’s lips are pursed, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to — Aunt and Papa’s comments are fulsome enough even to satisfy Branwell.

  Seeing him reveling in their praise, Emily can’t resist. “Have you got the perspective right? You’ve made yourself taller than me. Or are we supposed to imagine you’re standing on a box?”

  Branwell turns a furious red at once. “Don’t be stupid. You’re sitting down. And it was the only way I could fit my head in.”

  Papa lays a restraining hand on his shoulder. “It’s very fine, Branwell. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hang it in my study.”

  Branwell smirks, and when Papa has carried the picture from the room, he says to Emily, “See, Miss Ignoramus, Papa can appreciate fine art, even if you can’t.”

  Emily doesn’t deign to reply. As for Charlotte — she looks as if she would like to punch Branwell.

  To Emily’s amusement, Charlotte finds her own way of getting back at their brother.

  While she’s been waiting to hear about the fate of her drawings, Charlotte has taken up writing again and, helped by Branwell when he can spare the time from painting, she’s added a kingdom called Angria to the Glass Town confederation. Among its inhabitants is one Patrick Benjamin Wiggins.

  Charlotte reads out her description of him with malicious delight, emphasizing certain details as she does so: “A low, slightly built man … a bush of carroty hair …”

  Emily glances at Branwell, who’s looking distinctly uneasy.

  Wiggins, according to Charlotte, is extremely boastful, and in imagining his own epitaph he depicts himself in the most glowing terms: “As a musician he was greater than Bach, as a poet he surpassed Byron, as a painter, Claude Lorraine yielded to him …”

  Anne laughs out loud and Emily smirks.

  Nettled, Branwell looks round at them all. “I don’t know why you’re finding that so funny. With all my talents, you’ve no idea what I might achieve in the future. And I do know one thing.”

  “What’s that?” asks Emily.

  “I’ll achieve more than any of you silly girls.” And with that he affects a lofty manner and stalks out of the room.

  A few days later, Emily at last finds the time to reread some of Paradise Lost. She’s been thinking of it ever since they saw the statue of Satan at the art exhibition, and she looks first for the passage Papa mentioned.

  Reading it now, she finds it especially poignant in a way she didn’t when she was younger.

  The sun reminds Satan of what he once was: Lucifer, star of the morning, brightest of all God’s angels. He regrets all that he has thrown away by trying to overthrow God. But he realizes that the only way he can achieve God’s pardon is by submission and this awakens his spirit of rebellion again. Bidding farewell to hope and fear, he deliberately chooses evil.

  Emily shivers as she comes to the line: Evil, be thou my good. She puts the book down.

  She feels a stirring of sympathy, even admiration, for this being who refuses to subject himself to another’s authority. Why should God have all the power?

  As this outrageous thought forms of its own accord, she sits up, feeling a prickle of excitement tinged with fear. She holds her breath, half-wondering if God is going to strike her dead.

  But minutes pass and nothing happens.

  What does that mean?

  Aunt is always telling them, “God sees you. He knows your every innermost thought.” Either it isn’t true, or else, as Emily has suspected for some time, God has far more important things to concern Himself with than everyone’s thoughts.

  Or maybe — a new idea occurs to her — maybe God, if He exists, is far too mysterious and unknowable for petty humans to understand. Maybe not all the things that are said about Him in the Bible, the things that Papa believes in so unquestioningly, are true.

  Thinking this gives Emily the strangest sensation … as if her head is expanding and her thoughts, untethered, are floating away. She feels excited and afraid, but mostly excited, enjoying this wonderful new sense of lightness, of freedom.

  Lacing her fingers, she stretches her arms over her head. It strikes her that some of Satan’s characteristics would suit her heroine Rosina. The princess is already powerful, but she can make her even fiercer, a woman who nurses a deep sense of grievance. Yes, that will be perfect.

  Charlotte comes into the room and Emily nods at her, but she’s still caught up in her thoughts.

  She’s so glad now that she went to the exhibition after all — seeing the statue and reading Milton’s poem has really inspired her. She can’t wait to tell Anne her latest idea. She’ll have Rosina treat her enemies with a cold and scornful pride and …

  She notices that Charlotte’s holding a letter. It’s hard to be dragged from the exciting world of Gondal, but Emily can see from her sister’s face that it’s not good news.

  Dutifully Emily asks, “What’s happened?”

  “The organizers of the art exhibition want me to collect my drawings. They haven’t sold.”

  “Oh, Charles.” Emily can’t help feeling sorry for her sister. There’s no comfort she can offer, though; if she tries, it will only make Charlotte cry — she can see that she’s struggling to hold back her tears — and that will make her feel worse.

  “So you see, it’s just as well I didn’t tell Papa.” There’s an edge to Charlotte’s voice, but for once Emily doesn’t retaliate.

  “No, you were quite right,” she says meekly.

  Summer passes into autumn. The days shorten: They wake up to feathers of frost on the windows and their breath coming out in clouds; Aunt banks up her fire and swathes herself in two thick shawls; they have to light the candles earlier and earlier.

  As the year turns Emily begins to relax — it’s been so long since the dog bite, surely she would know by now if she’d contracted rabies? Charlotte seems to have got over the disappointment about her artistic ambitions; though Papa is looking frailer and his hair is grey now, he hasn’t succumbed to any more illness; she and Anne are still happily immersed in Gondal. In short, everything is as it should be, and she is content.

  But she has reckoned without Branwell.

  Throughout the autumn he sometimes stayed at the Black Bull after sessions of the boxing club, but not long after Christmas he begins to go to the inn on other evenings as well, waiting till nine o’clock when Papa and Aunt go to bed before slipping out. He’s always back before eleven, but in such an excited and talkative state that it’s hard to persuade him to go to bed.

  Emily can see that he’s not just enjoying the company at the inn, but is also developing a taste for alcohol. She’d be inclined to let him alone for now — the main thing is to keep this from Papa — but Charlotte becomes increasingly agitated about him, and one evening, when their brother’s ou
t as usual and they are writing in the parlor, Charlotte suddenly puts down her pen and says abruptly, “What are we going to do about Branwell? We can’t let him carry on like this.”

  “Shall we tell Papa?” Anne’s eyes are wide.

  “No!” Charlotte and Emily both speak at once and then Emily says, “We can’t do anything. Except hope it’s just another of his enthusiasms that he’ll tire of eventually.”

  Charlotte drums her fingers on the table, thinking. Then she looks at the others. “I think we should talk to him.”

  Emily sighs. “It won’t do any good, Charles — he won’t take any notice of us.”

  “Well, I think it’s worth a try.” Charlotte gives them a martyred look. “Even if I have to do it by myself.”

  As Emily predicted, when Charlotte tackles Branwell in the hall one evening just as he’s putting his coat on prior to going out, he’s unreceptive. “Don’t preach, Charles. It’s only a bit of fun. And a fellow can’t be expected to spend all his time at home with only his sisters for company.”

  And with that he leaves, shutting the front door quietly behind him.

  Emily heard this exchange through the open parlor door and when Charlotte joins her and Anne again, her sister looks so hurt that Emily refrains from saying, “I told you so.”

  What they can’t understand is where Branwell gets the money from — none of them are given any pocket money. They suspect that Aunt indulges him with the occasional shilling or half crown, but not often enough to support his new drinking habit.

  “Perhaps Mr. Brown treats him,” suggests Emily. Branwell sometimes refers to a “jolly evening” in the sexton’s company.

  “Maybe.” Charlotte frowns. “Or maybe,” she adds drily, “the visitors pay for their entertainment.”

  In a recent development, a boy sometimes appears at the back door with a message for Branwell, typically something like, “Mr. Sugden sends ’pologies, but he says there’s a salesman from York staying over and wanting to meet Master Branwell, if it pleases him to come.”

  Of course, it does please Branwell mightily to be getting such a reputation at the Black Bull for his witty conversation and he never misses a chance to hold forth to an admiring audience or demonstrate his amazing memory or his ability to write with both hands at once.

  That’s what he tells them he’s been doing when he comes home, flushed and in high spirits, and never a word about drinking, though they can smell it on his breath.

  Charlotte gives up trying to talk him out of it, but Branwell’s behavior makes her tight-lipped and disapproving. Emily doesn’t say anything to her sister, but she finds it paradoxical that Charlotte is happy enough to imagine a life of utter dissipation for her Angrian heroes, but can’t tolerate their brother’s departure from the straight and narrow.

  She herself doesn’t find Branwell’s drinking offensive, but she’s anxious about Papa finding out — he’ll be shocked and disappointed in Branwell and the distress might bring on another attack of pleurisy.

  In an effort to prevent this happening, she does everything she can to conceal Branwell’s antics: After he’s come in, she checks that he’s bolted the door, and later she peeps into his room to make sure he hasn’t left his candle burning. Branwell, of course, has no idea that she’s doing these things and he continues blithely to please himself.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough to have Branwell to worry about, one morning Charlotte announces that her other school friend is coming to stay.

  “I asked her sister Martha too, but she can’t come this time. So it will just be Mary.”

  Emily frowns.

  As if to forestall her objections, Charlotte declares, “Papa and Aunt are both delighted at the idea.” But then a doubtful look crosses her face and she adds, “Though Mary isn’t like Ellen.”

  “What is she like?” Emily wants to know.

  “You’ll see.”

  Mary bounces into the house, laughing, talking, and behaving as if she has known all of them all her life.

  She’s not in the least shy, not even with Papa and Aunt, and she has, Emily discovers, as her hand is seized and pumped up and down, a direct way of speaking and of looking at you, so that Emily finds herself compelled to meet Mary’s gaze.

  To her surprise, for once she doesn’t feel threatened — the expression in Mary’s eyes is quizzical and warm. It helps that their visitor seems to like Grasper — she makes a big fuss of him and when she says, “Aren’t you a handsome fellow?” it sounds as if she means it.

  Emily’s disarmed, and her curiosity about this other friend of Charlotte’s prompts her to go with the rest of them as they take Mary on a tour of the house, which ends up in the backyard.

  They say hello to Tiger, who is basking in a patch of sunshine, stop by the cage to see Jasper, Snowflake, and Plato, the one-legged magpie, and then Anne opens the peat house door to introduce Mary to the latest additions to their menagerie: a pair of plump geese.

  “They’re called Adelaide and Victoria,” says Anne. “After the queen and the princess.”

  Mary claps her hands. “Capital! What a joke. That puts the monarchy in their proper place — scratching for crumbs in the dirt.”

  “But we didn’t mean any disrespect.” Charlotte looks confused. “The princess is one of Emily’s heroines.”

  “Is she now?” Mary shoots Emily a direct, disconcerting look.

  Emily bows her head and takes refuge in rumpling Grasper’s ears. But she suddenly feels uncomfortable about admiring Princess Victoria so much.

  “You don’t approve of royalty?” Branwell asks.

  “No, indeed. Why should people have such power and privilege, just by virtue of being born into a certain family? We should be able to choose our rulers. All of us, men and women alike,” she adds fiercely.

  Branwell and Charlotte immediately start to argue with her, but though she’s outnumbered, Mary doesn’t give way.

  Emily doesn’t join in. She doesn’t care for politics as the others do — they take after Papa in their passion for it, whereas she doesn’t see that it would make much difference to her life who ruled. But perhaps her view of Princess Victoria has been childish. Perhaps she’s only seen her as a fairy-tale princess, rather than a real person who might influence the government’s actions.

  Fancy — Mary has made her question herself, and she hasn’t been in the house more than an hour! And what she says about privilege is worth thinking about.

  She looks at their visitor.

  Before she came, Emily was set on disliking her. For one thing, she doesn’t care for poetry. But now, listening to Mary and watching her, her grey eyes alight, her face animated as she argues, Emily’s fascinated.

  To her surprise, rather than finding the prospect of this visitor tiresome, she finds herself wanting to spend time with Mary.

  A day or two later they are all in the parlor sitting by the fire, except for Branwell, who has gone off with a friend from the village. Mary, who is sharing the sofa with Grasper, suddenly says, “I am interested in your aunt’s situation. Does your father support her?”

  Anne gives a little gasp and Charlotte looks embarrassed. She glances up at the ceiling, where Aunt is in her room above them.

  Emily’s amused. One of the things she’s discovered about Mary is that she speaks her mind. Most people hypocritically hide what they’re really thinking and call it politeness, so this is refreshing. Perhaps Mary is interested in people’s financial situations because of her own family’s predicament. Emily wonders how they manage with their father bankrupt.

  Responding in kind, she answers Mary directly. “No, he doesn’t. She has her own money — inherited from her father.”

  “Ah, I see.” Mary nods. “She’s lucky, then. And do you think she’s single by choice?”

  Emily’s surprised. The question has never occurred to her.

  “We don’t know.” Charlotte looks as if it’s a new idea to her too. “She’s always talking about the ba
lls and beaux of her youth, but whether she ever received a proposal …” She shrugs and then looks at her sisters. “Lucky for us that she didn’t marry.”

  Emily grimaces. She knows she should feel grateful for all that Aunt has done for them, but sometimes she thinks they could have easily managed just with Tabby and got along far more comfortably.

  Mary meanwhile is giving Charlotte a droll look. “Lucky for you, yes. And possibly lucky for herself too,” she says crisply.

  “How can you say that?” Charlotte protests. “By not marrying she has missed so much.”

  “Such as?” Mary looks amused.

  “Well …” Charlotte stops, then she says in a rush, “A chance for a warm, close intimacy …” She stops again and blushes.

  Emily stares at her sister, shocked. “You want to be married?”

  Charlotte’s cheeks turn scarlet. “Oh, I’m not speaking of myself. Besides, who would have me, plain and penniless as I am?”

  “You’re not plain,” says Anne loyally.

  “Oh, but I am. Mary said so, didn’t you, almost the first time we met.”

  It’s Mary’s turn to redden. “Oh, my wretched mouth! How it will run away from me. I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”

  “No, you spoke the truth and it did me a lot of good. It certainly has kept me from vain fancies.” Charlotte looks down and an uncomfortable pause follows.

  Emily is still musing on Charlotte’s revelation. Though her sister’s denied it, it’s obvious she was talking about herself. She wants intimacy with a man? Some stranger she’s not even met yet? What an absurd idea …

  But then it strikes her — maybe it’s not so absurd to Charlotte. Maybe it’s all of a piece with her hankering after a world beyond the family, that world she imagines as exciting and full of possibility?

  Mary, clearly keen to lighten the atmosphere, says teasingly, “Why think only of who might have you? What about a man you would like to have?”