The World Within

by Jane Eagland

  Emily beckons frantically and shouts, “Martha! Alice! Come here.”

  The little girl waves but stays where she is.

  Desperate, Emily pants on until she reaches them. Pointing up the hill, she gasps, “The bog!”

  The girls look at her as if she’s mad. She scoops up Alice and, seizing Martha’s arm, she hurries them back the way she came, ignoring Martha’s protests and Alice’s screams. Reaching the Crag, she thrusts them into the small cave at its base and flings herself down so that her body covers the entrance.

  A second later the torrent arrives with a deafening roar. She struggles to keep her footing as the mud swirls round her, pummeling her with stones and threatening to suck her away. There’s nothing to cling on to, but, closing her eyes, she presses herself against the rock face and waits to die.

  The next moment the mudslide has swept past her and on down the valley, leaving behind an eerie silence.

  It’s stopped raining, Emily realizes. And she’s alive.

  She opens her eyes.

  Yes, she’s alive and miraculously unhurt, apart from some bruising to her back. She waits until her breath slows, then, rising unsteadily to her feet, she looks down at the two shocked little faces peering up at her.

  “You can come out now,” she says. “It’s safe.”

  The three of them walk home without speaking. Emily guesses that the little girls must feel as stunned as she does. Everything seems slightly unreal — after what’s happened, it feels odd to be walking along as though it’s just a normal day.

  When they’ve nearly reached the village they see a man hurrying toward them across the common, shouting and waving.

  As he comes closer Emily recognizes him. It’s Papa! And he’s come out without his hat and stick.

  Rushing up to them, he seizes her hands. “You’re safe. Thank God for that.”

  When she feels his warm grip, the reality of what might have happened suddenly washes over her and she starts to shake. She’d like to hold on to Papa’s hands, but he’s already turning away from her.

  “And these little ones are safe too, thank the Lord. We heard the explosion at the house and feared the worst.”

  “Miss Em’ly saved us. Otherwise we’d have been drownded,” announces Martha in a quavery voice, as if she hasn’t yet got over their narrow escape.

  “Did you? Well done, my dear.” But Papa says this in a distracted way, as if his thoughts are elsewhere. He’s wild-eyed and excited. Perhaps it’s because of the fright he must have had about her. He says, “Come, we must hurry home,” and he sets off back along the path, shepherding them in front of him.

  At the parsonage gate he suddenly says, “To think this day has come at last. This earthquake —”

  “Earthquake?” Emily’s surprised. “It didn’t seem like that to me. It —”

  “Oh yes, almost certainly, and we must prepare ourselves.”

  “For what, Papa?”

  “Why, for the end of the world, of course.”

  She stares at him in utter amazement. Has he gone mad?

  She notices the little girls gazing at him with eyes as round as saucers. She must get him into the house — Tabby will know what to do.

  “Run on home, now, girls,” she says. “Your mother will be worried.”

  “Oh!” Martha puts a hand to her mouth. “We left the pail behind. Ma will give us what for.”

  “I don’t think she’ll be cross,” says Emily. “I think she’ll just be glad you’ve come to no harm.”

  As the two little girls trot away down the lane, she turns to her father. “What do you mean, Papa? About the end of the world?”

  “Do you not recall the book of Revelation?” Standing there in the lane, with his arms outstretched and his white hair all awry, he proclaims in a loud voice, “ ‘And lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.’ ”

  Suddenly he doesn’t seem mad, but rather splendid, like an Old Testament prophet.

  “ ‘For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?’ ”

  At his words Emily experiences a thrill that runs right through her, from the top of her head to her toes.

  What if Papa’s right? What if this really is the end of everything? Of everyone? All of them swept up together in one final apocalyptic convulsion.

  Strangely, she doesn’t feel at all afraid. Rather, she’s elated. This feels like the right and proper climax to the tumultuous events of the day.

  “What should we do, Papa?”

  “We await His judgment, of course.”

  “We have just seen something of the mighty power of God: He has unsheathed His sword, and brandished it over our heads, but still the blow is suspended in mercy — it has not yet fallen on us.”

  Listening to Papa’s voice ringing from the pulpit, it’s all Emily can do not to leap up from her pew and challenge him.

  Papa was wrong about the end of the world, for here they all are still, three days later.

  And she’s pretty sure he’s wrong about this too — she can’t believe that the eruption of the bog was an earthquake sent by God as a warning to sinners to repent before it’s too late.

  It was terribly destructive. She’s been back to Crow Hill to see for herself, and the vast crater in the moor is amazing. And it caused a lot of damage — all those bridges and walls demolished, mud pouring into people’s homes.

  But was it a message from God? She doesn’t think so. She’s inclined to agree with those who think the eruption was caused by all that rain earlier in the summer. In other words, extraordinary as it was, it was a natural phenomenon.

  She can’t help feeling just a tiny bit disappointed that the mudslide didn’t herald the end of the world. It would have been so exciting to witness it, so satisfying to know once and for all exactly what was to happen. And there was something comforting in the idea of dying at the same time as everyone else — better than having to leave knowing that the world would be going on without you.

  But even that — dying on your own — doesn’t seem as frightening now. She hasn’t been able to shake off the notion that the earth almost claimed her. But if it had, would it have been such a bad thing? To be swept up in the cataclysmic eruption and buried out there on the moor with the wind and the rain and the sun, her body dissolving into the soil, her spirit staying and haunting forever the place she loves best …

  It would truly be a homecoming, her heart finally at rest in the earth.

  But she wasn’t swept away — the earth spared her. Like the thorns at that isolated farmhouse, Top Withens, she has been bent by the fierce force of the wind, but not broken.

  She remembers how bereft she felt in here, alone on the day of the storm, and how she called out to Elizabeth. It was not her beloved sister who answered, or Mama, as in the old ballad, but out of the heart of the storm the earth itself arose, coming, not to comfort her, but to energize her with its song. For witnessing that great power of nature and coming within a hairsbreadth of death has shaken her awake and made her aware that the same vital force that flowed through the moor and changed it utterly also flows through her.

  The earth has granted her more time and she resolves not to waste another moment. How silly she’s been, squandering so much time moping about, being unhappy because she couldn’t have what she wanted, when she could have been experiencing so much. From now on when she walks on the moors, she will be alert, attentive to every detail; she will lay herself open to all the changing moods of the natural world.

  Dear, dear nature — even at its most threatening it’s not something to be feared, as Papa believes, but something to celebrate.

  Normally she sings quietly into her hymnbook, but today the chorus seems to express exactly how she feels — not grateful to have been spared the wrath of God, but glad to be alive. “Rejoice! Rejoice!” the congregation sings and Emily, for once, joins in with gusto.

  That nig
ht, unable to sleep because she’s in such a state of simmering excitement, Emily throws open the window and the freshness of the breeze blowing down from the moors fills her lungs and floods her veins. She stares up at the stars and the full, round moon.

  What would it have been like if, instead of experiencing the storm on Crow Hill when she did, in the daytime, it had been now, in the middle of the night?

  She can just imagine it — being out there in the middle of that vast dark space in the moonlight, and then the storm coming: the sky alive with lightning, the heather bending as the wind rushes over it, everything vital and in motion, including the very earth itself …

  All at once she’s impelled to relight her candle and, seizing a piece of paper and a pencil from her writing desk, she begins to scribble, trying to recapture exactly how it felt to be caught up in the midst of the storm and the tumult of the landslide that day.

  When she’s done, she looks at what she’s written. It’s not like anything she’s ever written before. She can see that it’s not perfect yet and needs some polishing. But nevertheless, here it is — a poem, vital and true.

  She feels enormously satisfied. She feels as if she could do anything, as if she’s as potent and fearless as her heroine Augusta Geraldine Almeda. And those gifts she has been granted — the power of her own imagination and her ability to experience that amazing, fearful connection with the natural world — will endure and can be relied on in a way that people can’t. She can go forward, secure in the knowledge that, as long as she has herself, she will survive.

  There will be more poems, she’s sure. And maybe more stories too, stories that she creates by herself, for herself, in which she explores her own deepest passions.

  She reads through her poem once more. Then she picks up the pencil and signs her name at the bottom: Emily Jane Brontë.

  To Imagination

  When weary with the long day’s care,

  And earthly change from pain to pain,

  And lost, and ready to despair,

  Thy kind voice calls me back again

  O my true friend, I am not lone

  While thou canst speak with such a tone!

  So hopeless is the world without,

  The world within I doubly prize;

  Thy world where guile and hate and doubt

  And cold suspicion never rise;

  Where thou and I and Liberty

  Have undisputed sovereignty.

  What matters it that all around

  Danger and grief and darkness lie,

  If but within our bosom’s bound

  We hold a bright unsullied sky,

  Warm with ten thousand mingled rays

  Of suns that know no winter days?

  Reason indeed may oft complain

  For Nature’s sad reality,

  And tell the suffering heart how vain

  Its cherished dreams must always be;

  And Truth may rudely trample down

  The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

  But thou art ever there to bring

  The hovering visions back and breathe

  New glories o’er the blighted spring

  And call a lovelier life from death,

  And whisper with a voice divine

  Of real worlds as bright as thine.

  I trust not to thy phantom bliss,

  Yet still in evening’s quiet hour

  With never-failing thankfulness

  I welcome thee, benignant power,

  Sure solacer of human cares

  And brighter hope when hope despairs.

  — Emily Brontë

  I am aware that in presuming to write about the Brontës, and Emily in particular, I am treading on dangerous ground, so highly are they revered by generations of avid readers.

  But I must point out that The World Within is a work of fiction, not a historical account of this period in the Brontës’ lives. Many of the events depicted in these pages did happen, but not always in the order or at the time I’ve chosen to put them. Other events are invented.

  I have taken these liberties partly because there is frustratingly little in the historical record to inform us about the inner world of that enigmatic person, Emily Brontë. We know more about Charlotte because some of her letters and early writings have survived, but no trace of the Gondal stories has been found — the only existing material written by Emily consists of a few documents, her poems, and, of course, Wuthering Heights.

  For a novelist such a state of affairs is not necessarily to be regretted. I did not set out to write an accurate history, but to explore my version, my vision of Emily Brontë. As such, this is, appropriately I feel, a work of the imagination, and I apologize to any reader who is disappointed because my Emily is not theirs.

  Having said that, for factual information about the family, I have made extensive use of Juliet Barker’s rigorously detailed biography: The Brontës.

  Of the two attempts I know of to piece together the Gondal saga from Emily’s poems, I have relied on the Appendix of The Brontës: Charlotte and Emily by Laura L. Hinkley.

  And I have been utterly inspired by Stevie Davies’s brilliant interpretations of Emily and her writing in Emily Brontë: The Artist as a Free Woman; Emily Brontë: Heretic; and “Emily Brontë & The Vikings.”

  I am indebted to Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager of the Brontë Parsonage Musuem, for suggesting relevant material and for her patience in answering numerous queries.

  Of the many friends who have helped me in the writing of this book, I would particularly like to thank Anne Farmer, for giving me a refuge from workmen; Melissa Laird, for deepening my understanding of what it means to love a dog; and Sarah Hymas and Elizabeth Burns, for their insights into the writing process.

  I am more than grateful to my editors, Cheryl Klein and Emily Clement, for their commitment to this project.

  And finally, my greatest thanks to Sheila Wynn and to my agent, Lindsey Fraser. Without their unfailing support and encouragement, I would never have succeeded in completing this book!

  Jane Eagland lives in Lancashire, England, only thirty miles from Haworth, where the Brontës lived. Like theirs, the views from her windows are of moors and hills.

  As a child, Jane wasn’t sure whether to become a long-distance lorry driver or a percussionist, but she loved reading and when she grew up she decided to teach high school English instead. And then, rather late in life, she gave that up to become a writer. Her first novel, Wildthorn, received the Lambda Literary Award.

  For more information about Jane and her books, visit: www.janeeagland.com.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Jane Eagland

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, the LANTERN LOGO, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Eagland, Jane, author.

  The world within : a novel of Emily Brontë / Jane Eagland. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: Fourteen-year-old Emily would rather spend her days dreaming of adventures and wandering the moors, but when her father falls sick, and her sister Charlotte is sent away to school reality comes crashing in.

  ISBN 978-0-545-49295-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Brontë, Emily, 1818–1848 — Juvenile fiction. 2. Brontë family — Juvenile fiction. 3. Women authors, English — 19th century — Juvenile fiction. 4. Families — England — Haworth — Juvenile fiction. 5. Haworth (England) — Social life and customs — 19th century — Juvenile fiction. 6. Great Britain — History — 1800–1837 — Juvenile fiction. [1. Brontë, Emily, 1818–1848 — Fiction. 2. Brontë family — Fiction. 3. Authors — Fiction. 4. Family life — England — Haworth — Fiction. 5. Haworth (England) — Social life and customs — 19th century — Fiction. 6. Great Britain — History — 1800–1837 — Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.E1155Wo 2015

 
; 823.92 — dc23

  2014004667

  First edition, April 2015

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-49317-8

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.