‘I can’t imagine that Emily Brontë, the creative genius who wrote Wuthering Heights, was timid.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘The implication’s there, Xenia.’
‘Perhaps. You know, at one point Charlotte and Emily went to Mme Heger’s school in Brussels. Professor Heger, who taught at the school, and whom Charlotte fell in love with, once wrote to the Rev. Brontë to say that Emily seemed to have lost some of her timidity while at the school. But it was well known by the family and friends that she really did want to remain in Haworth, did not wish to step out into the greater world, although she did actually go away a few times.’
‘Perhaps, like most writers, she was selfish, and just wanted to stay in a familiar environment in order to write,’ Katie suggested.
‘That’s true. I think she was hell-bent on perfecting her art, her craft.’
‘And what became of Charlotte’s romance with Professor Heger?’
‘Oh, it never blossomed into a real romance, as such. He was a married man, remember. There was Madame Heger, who owned the school, and she was awfully suspicious of Charlotte and her husband at one point. I think it was during Charlotte’s second visit to Brussels that Madame Heger cottoned on.’
‘Do you think that the professor reciprocated Charlotte’s romantic interest in him?’ Katie asked.
‘No. Now why am I saying that? How do we know anything?’ Xenia muttered, shaking her head wonderingly. ‘We weren’t there. We weren’t witnesses. And anyone who was is now dead and buried. Let’s face it, Katie, there’s no saying what men and women will do when driven by that all-consuming, overwhelming feeling of sexual passion and romantic love.’
‘Almost anything, I guess,’ Katie responded. ‘You know what men are.’
Xenia burst out laughing. ‘It takes two to tango, Katie. Don’t forget, a man can’t do it all by himself; he needs a woman. A partner. And there’s something else to consider. Without Professor Heger in Charlotte’s life, if only as a teacher, we would not have had those two marvellous books, The Professor and Villette.’
‘Those I haven’t read. But I did read Shirley and enjoyed it. Charlotte was much more prolific than Emily, wasn’t she?’
‘Oh yes, and very much the professional. And also the promoter. What I mean is, she was the one who got them published, who was actually out there in public, doing her stuff like a modern-day press agent. And she sort of stage-managed them all, in a sense. If she hadn’t had the energy and drive, and the ambition, to make their lives better, the world might never have heard of the Brontë sisters.’
A short while later, Xenia and Katie left the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and went out into the cobbled streets. Since Xenia knew Haworth well, she led the way past the church with its square tower and clock, up to the top of this Yorkshire hill village, poised high above the industrial valley of the West Riding far below.
Within minutes, the two of them stood looking out across the wild, untenanted moors. These stretched away in an endless, unbroken line towards the distant horizon, a sea of dun browns and purples for as far as the eye could see.
‘They’re stunning,’ Katie said, feeling slightly awed by the harsh implacability of this bleak and desolate scenery. ‘But kind of forbidding.’
‘Yes, I tend to agree with you.’ Xenia shaded her eyes with her hand, went on: ‘I’ve always thought that this landscape was daunting, although quite breathtaking in its windswept loneliness, its emptiness.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I suppose it’s an acquired taste. A lot of people think it too harsh altogether. And I must admit, I’m really sorry you’re not seeing the moors in August and September, when the heather is in full bloom. Then they’re magnificent. Right now, you’re getting the end of the season, the last of ling.’
‘What’s ling?’
‘The local heather. It’s not quite as bonnie as the Scottish heather,’ Xenia said. ‘It’s about three miles to Top Withens, which is supposedly the setting for Wuthering Heights, as I told you before. However, a lot of scholars believe that the old farmhouse itself was never the actual model for the Earnshaw home, that Emily used the much grander High Sunderland Hall for her descriptions of Wuthering Heights, but that she put High Sunderland Hall in the location where Top Withens stands; that’s a ruin now. But if you wish, we can take a walk over the moors. I’m game.’
Xenia paused, lifted her head, glanced up at the pale-blue sky. ‘Well it’s still clear, a fair day. But you never know what might happen up here on the moors. The weather is unpredictable. It can change within seconds, easily start pouring. That’s why I brought an umbrella.’ She patted her shoulder bag as she spoke.
‘I would like to walk across the moors,’ Katie responded. ‘But we don’t have to go all the way to Top Withens. I don’t need to see the ruined farm. I just want to get a feeling of the landscape, a sense of this place, because Emily did spend so much time up here.’
‘Then let’s go!’
The two women began walking along the dirt track in silence, both lost in their thoughts.
Katie was contemplating Emily Brontë, a woman who had seemingly been so enigmatic she appeared, at times, to be unfathomable. To play the part of Emily, Katie knew she must truly understand her character and personality; if she were to succeed in the role she had to be fully aware of Emily’s motivations, intentions, passions, desires, and even her dreams.
The prospect was frightening, in a way, but she knew there were a number of books in the library at Burton Leyburn Hall which would be helpful. Verity had taken down several biographies and studies of the Brontës, as well as some of the novels the sisters had written. Verity had shown them to her, and told her she could borrow them, as long as they eventually came back to the library. ‘Because they’re all catalogued,’ Verity had explained.
Katie now made up her mind to read as much as she could about Emily while still in Yorkshire, and, if necessary, she would take some of the books to London with her.
For her part, Xenia’s mind was on the party her company was to prepare for clients on New Year’s Eve. Alan, her partner, had phoned from New York yesterday, and confirmed for the second time that she should definitely go ahead and use the Winter Palace in St Petersburg for the decorative theme.
And so now she was thinking about the drawings Lavinia would do for her this weekend, scenes taken from some of her own photographic books in the library at Burton Leyburn. Her father had given them to her years ago, at the time he had taken her on a trip to Russia.
It was going to be a challenge to re-create the ballroom of the Winter Palace, at the time of the Tsars, in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York. But it was one she looked forward to enormously. Challenges helped her to keep her mind off the loss of her child and her husband, helped to subdue her continuing grief. Challenges held pain and anguish at bay. For a short time, at least.
They had been walking for twenty minutes when the weather unexpectedly changed, just as Xenia had predicted it could. Without warning, thunderheads suddenly rolled in across the high-flung sky, the diffused pale blue darkening to leaden grey in an instant, and in the distance there was the loud rumble of thunder.
‘I think we ought to turn back,’ Xenia exclaimed, glancing up at the sky. ‘It’s going to pour. I can promise you that.’
‘Yes, we’d better go. At least I’ve seen a bit of the moors.’ Katie felt the splash of raindrops on her face, and added swiftly, ‘Come on, Xenia!’
The two of them started to run along the dirt road, heading for Haworth village. They had just reached the end of the moorland when the rain began to come down in a steady stream. Huddling together under Xenia’s umbrella, they flew down the main street, their feet clattering on the wet cobblestones as they ran.
‘That was definitely a close call.’ Xenia wiped her wet face with tissues and handed the box to Katie. ‘A few minutes longer on the moors and we’d have been soaked to the skin.’
‘Thanks.’ Katie pulled ou
t a bunch of tissues, also dried herself off, and then sat back in the car seat. ‘I’m sorry our visit was cut short, but you were right to insist I come, Xenia. It’s given me a much better picture of Emily.’
‘I thought it would.’
Xenia turned on the ignition and drove the vintage Bentley out of the car park, which was virtually empty on this cool October Saturday. Most visitors came to Haworth in the spring and summer, or when the heather bloomed in August and September.
Xenia pulled out onto the main road to Keighley, which would take them to the motorway leading to Skipton and Harrogate. She drove along at a steady speed, from time to time exchanging the occasional comment with Katie.
At one moment, she said, ‘If you need a little more insight into Emily Brontë you should talk to Rex Bellamy. He’s something of an expert on the family.’
‘Is he really. But then it doesn’t surprise me, he sounded quite knowledgeable about their novels and poetry last night.’
‘I didn’t hear him talking about the Brontës.’
‘No, you wouldn’t have. It was when you went upstairs to get your sweater.’
‘I see.’
‘What does he do? He looks like an academic. Is he a teacher?’
Xenia laughed. ‘No. And don’t be taken in by that donnish air of his…it’s very misleading, as no doubt he fully intends it to be.’
‘So what does he do?’
Xenia was silent.
Katie waited for a moment, eyeing her surreptitiously, wondering why she was suddenly being mysterious about Rex. After a second or two, she pressed, ‘Isn’t he a professor then?’
‘No.’ There was a pause before Xenia said, ‘He’s a spy.’
‘A spy? What do you mean?’ Katie sounded startled.
‘Just that. He’s a spy, in my opinion anyway. I believe he’s with MI6.’
‘MI6…but what exactly is that?’ Katie asked.
‘MI6 is like your CIA, in that it operates outside Great Britain. MI5, on the other hand, operates within this country, much like your FBI.’
‘I see.’ Katie pondered for a moment. ‘I didn’t know a spy let people know he was…I thought spies kept their profession a secret.’
‘Oh goodness, Rex doesn’t go around telling people he’s a spy, not at all. Actually, he likes to give the impression he’s an academic, just as you thought he was, and a writer. Certainly he’s very scholarly, well informed about the arts and literature. But he’s a spy, of that I’m fairly certain.’
‘Does Verity think that too?’
‘Sometimes she does, at other times she’s in denial about it. He used to work for army intelligence when he was in the army, and now I believe he’s with MI6. He’s away a lot, he’s very mysterious about his travels, where he goes, and he knows too much about certain things. You know, he lets snippets drop by mistake, then makes an attempt to cover up.’
‘Is he Verity’s boyfriend?’ Katie ventured carefully.
‘Well, they’re not romantically involved, if that’s what you mean. But he’s her closest male friend. I guess you could say they’re chums, you know, best pals. They’ve been friends for donkey’s years, and now that he’s divorced he spends more time at the hall. He lives in Yorkshire part of the time. His mother has a beautiful Georgian house, near York actually, but I think I told you that.’
‘And the rest of the time he’s travelling for MI6?’
Xenia chuckled. ‘I think he is, but he does have a flat in London. In Chesterfield Street. But listen, if you ask Rex what he does he’ll be relatively honest with you, Katie. He’ll tell you he works for the British government, that he’s with the Foreign Office, and that his office is in Whitehall. All true. But as I just said, I believe he’s with British intelligence.’
‘Why is Verity uncertain? Why is she in denial sometimes?’
‘Because she doesn’t want anything to happen to him, I suppose. And look, don’t get me wrong, I like Rex enormously, and I don’t give a hoot if he is with British intelligence. He’s kind, civilized, good-looking, and charming. And Verity is very fond of him. So am I, for that matter.’
‘Why is he an expert on the Brontës?’
‘I’m not sure. But they’re the great Yorkshire writers, and he’s very much a dyed-in-the-wool Yorkshireman.’ She chuckled again. ‘He’s very proud of his Yorkshire heritage. And as it happens, he does have a strong literary bent. But you can ask him about his interest in the Brontës. He’s very forthcoming. Just don’t ask him if he’s a British agent,’ she cautioned.
‘As if I would, Xenia! I’m not that dumb.’
Xenia glanced at her and nodded. ‘You’re one of the brightest people I know, Katie.’
Chapter Twenty-five
The library at Burton Leyburn Hall was a long room, somewhat like a gallery, Tudor in style, with a beamed ceiling and stone fireplace. Bookshelves lined all of the walls from ceiling to floor, and in front of the fireplace a large leather sofa and several comfortable chairs were grouped together.
Katie walked across the floor to the refectory table in front of one of the mullioned windows, and once again looked at the books Verity had previously selected for her. Her gaze lingered on one about Emily Brontë, written by the novelist Muriel Spark, and a collaborator, Derek Stanford.
As she turned away from the window, making for the sofa with the book, she almost jumped out of her skin when Rex Bellamy rose from a wing chair near the fireplace.
Immediately, he smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Katie, I obviously startled you. Do forgive me, my dear.’
‘It’s all right, Rex,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘I didn’t know anyone was in here.’
‘Ah, I see you have the Muriel Spark book in your hands. It’s very well done, marvellous stuff. Now tell me, how was your trip to Haworth this morning?’
‘Interesting, and I’m glad Xenia talked me into going. I know a lot more about Emily Brontë than I did yesterday. So it was really worthwhile.’ She hesitated fractionally. ‘Xenia told me you know a great deal about the Brontë family,’ she finally went on. ‘She said you could give me a few insights into them, especially Emily. Would you mind, Rex?’
‘I’d be happy to talk to you. Do you have the time now, Katie? If so, perhaps we can spend a little time chatting before tea is served.’
Katie nodded, and sat down on the sofa; she placed the book on a nearby side table.
Rex lowered himself into a wing chair, and looked across at her expectantly, as if waiting for a question.
Katie asked, ‘If it’s not rude of me to ask, what led you to have such an interest in the Brontës?’
‘It’s not rude, it’s a perfectly normal question. I got interested in them because of my sister, Eleanor. Years ago, when she was still at school, she was making a study of them for a school paper, for an exam. I became…well, I suppose I became intrigued.’ Rex leaned forward slightly, his hands on his knees, his dark eyes full of quickening interest. ‘You see, Katie, I love a mystery, and it struck me all those years ago that the Brontës, as a family, were surrounded in mystery. And so I began to read some of Eleanor’s books, and became even more fascinated. Studying them has been a quiet little hobby of mine off and on over the years.’
‘Are you in the literary field? I mean, are you a professor of literature? Something like that?’ Katie asked, wondering how he would answer. Her eyes were on him intently; Rex was a good-looking man with a narrow but well-defined face. He had high cheekbones, a broad brow, and a full head of dark hair turning grey at the sides, and brushed straight back; his wide-set black eyes sparkled with intelligence and humour. Tall, lean, with long legs, he was an elegantly-turned out man, his clothes casual, but obviously expensive.
After a moment, Rex said, ‘No, I’m not an academic. I work for the British government. I’m with the Foreign Office.’
‘Oh really, what do you do there?’
‘I’m in the information business…intelligence, you might call
it.’
‘Oh,’ Katie exclaimed, wondering if she sounded as startled as she felt.
Rex began to laugh, his expression amused, those dark eyes more humorous than ever. ‘I’m quite certain that Xenia told you I’m a spy…a British agent. But that’s not true. I have an office job, I’m tied to a desk shuffling papers, not playing the trade of spy out in the field. Although Xenia loves the idea that I am. Anyway, in some ways, it’s a very boring job really.’
Katie laughed with him, and not wishing to betray her friend, she lied. ‘Oh no, Xenia didn’t discuss your work. She just told me you have a lot of knowledge about the Brontës. I think she hoped you might enlighten me a bit. I told you last night that I’m considering taking the role of Emily in the hit play Charlotte and Her Sisters, and you did say you’d seen it.’
Rex nodded, ‘Oh yes, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And whilst I don’t want to influence you, I think I can say I enjoyed the play but wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way Emily was interpreted.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rex hesitated. After a moment’s careful reflection, he replied, ’Later I’ll give you a critique about the part of Emily as she is being re-created on the stage at the moment. But right now I think I ought to tell you a little about the Brontës, as I see them.’
She nodded. ‘I’m very grateful that you’re talking to me about them.’
He leaned back in the wing chair, and said, ‘From our talk last night, I realize you know a few things about them already.’
‘Yes, and Xenia filled me in a bit today.’
‘Then let me give you a quick summary of them as a family. The four children were close, yet also divided into two pairs. Charlotte and Branwell, and Emily and Anne. Although later, in their adult lives, Charlotte became truly awed by Emily’s immense gifts. All four were extraordinarily talented writers and had the most vivid imaginations. Branwell was also a painter. In fact, he studied painting. He was a drunk, as no doubt you know, and eventually a drug addict. He took laudanum. He wasted his life and he died far too young. His three sisters had mixed feelings about him. They loved him, of course, but they were also awed, enraged, frightened, fascinated, and thrilled by him as his escapades kept coming to light, and latterly when debt-collectors gathered on their doorstep in Haworth they were fearful.’ Rex paused, cleared his throat, and finished. ‘To sum up, he was the proverbial black sheep of the family.’
The Triumph of Katie Byrne Page 18