“So do I,” said her sister. “And Flossy too. Flossy was the best dog in the world,” she added to her aunt by way of explanation.
The girls hadn’t mentioned Miss Brontë in a long time, not since those weeks between Branwell’s dismissal and Lydia’s elopement, those weeks when I’d wished for death and thrust the children from me, relying instead only on Marshall. My poor Marshall.
“Mightn’t we write to her, Mama? Could we?” young Mary asked in a rush, glancing at Bessy.
Was it possible my daughters had planned this? Chosen to ask me in front of my sister when my power was at its lowest ebb?
“No,” I said, so firmly that Bessy’s tower of cards came tumbling down. “If Miss Brontë missed you, she would have written herself, as I’ve told you before. And if she’d cared about you at all, for that matter, she would not have resigned. Nobody made her do so.”
“But now she won’t know where to write to us,” Bessy ventured. “What if we miss her letter?”
“Enough.” I clicked my fingers before her face. “Enough from both of you, do you hear me?”
My sister had been twisting her head this way and that, as if following a game of tennis. “These Brontës live near Keighley in Yorkshire, I think?” she asked.
These Brontës? We hadn’t been speaking of them in the plural.
“Yes.”
“No, in Haworth.”
“The towns are close to each other, silly.”
The girls argued back and forth. There was such a roaring in my ears that I didn’t register who was saying what.
“We—William and I—have connections in the area,” my sister said. “Their name is Clapham. They are another family in the paper business. Perhaps, girls, the next time your uncle William travels there, he can bring you with him? That way you can visit your dear Miss Brontë. And see Flossy too.”
No. Not now.
“He could?”
“Oh, would he?”
Little Mary bobbed up and down in her seat. Bessy let the cards rain down on the table in celebration.
“Mary!” I said, jumping to my feet.
My younger daughter flinched, but I hadn’t been addressing her.
“My daughters will not be visiting the Brontës,” I said, staring down at my sister and conquering my desire to scream. “Do you hear me?”
This time it was the girls’ heads that turned. How would their aunt react to this challenge?
“Sit down, Lyddy,” my sister said, half suppressing a yawn.
I did not.
Hadn’t Edmund’s mother told me the same that Easter night? The first night that sent me running to the Monk’s House and to Branwell?
“I hardly think your daughters need suffer for your mistakes,” she added. My sister’s eyes had turned as icy as my blood ran now.
What did she know, and how? Nobody knew about Mr. Brontë except—not Marshall, no. And Bob Pottage was long gone. William Allison owed me for his recent good fortune. But surely Dr. Crosby, the only friend I had left, would never have betrayed me?
From ice to fire, ravaging my veins and daring me to rage against this latest injustice. But my sister was our hostess, and we had no home. And thanks to Edmund, we had little money.
“My head begins to ache a little. Excuse me if I retire,” I said, my voice wobbling.
My sister nodded.
I left the three of them to their evening of poetry reading and card games, crept from the room, and ran up the stairs.
By the light of the solitary candle in my room I wrote a desperate letter, unable to soothe myself without appealing to the affections of another. Sir Edward was my only hope, the only one who could now save me.
Oh, if only Marshall were holding me here in the dark. If only my love alone could bring the flesh back to her bones and the light back to her eyes, swell her lungs with sweet, refreshing air.
19th March 1847
Allestree Hall
My dear Sir Edward,
When glancing at the postmark of this letter, you must have assumed I was asking you for another favor, but fear not. I ask for nothing except your indulgence in reading the next few sorry lines. If they are foolish, you may throw the pages into the flames of the fire. Even if they are not, it is best you forget them.
I write because I find myself in sore need of a friend and your last letters brought me such comfort. A widow is like a rudderless ship, and, as a sort of cousin to me, I hoped you could give me some advice and direction.
My younger daughters and I are all very comfortable at Allestree Hall. My sister and her husband are, as you know, good Christian people. I want for nothing physically and yet— there is an expression when a man suffers defeat. He feels he is “unmanned.” Well, I, Sir Edward, if you can believe it, feel “unwomaned” by the loss of my home, my servants, and my husband.
If my life was idle before, now it is no life at all. I choose nothing for myself. Food is selected for me, certain rooms are forbidden to me, my bedtime is set. I stalk the corridors of Allestree Hall like a shadow and watch over my daughters like a ghost. For if I had died alongside their father, wouldn’t they be here just the same? And my sister would be, as she is now, mothering them in my place.
Is such a feeling inevitable? Should I school myself to be grateful only and to deny those parts of me which are self-interested and self-serving, as ridiculous in a widow as they are undesirable in a maid?
I remain, dear sir, yours very truly,
Lydia Robinson
20th March 1847
Allestree Hall
My dear Sir Edward,
Please disregard the letter I sent by yesterday’s post—unread if you have yet to break the seal. I dispatched it in error.
I remain yours very truly and ever grateful,
Lydia Robinson
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ALLESTREE PARK WAS A fine piece of land. There was no denying that.
Today the April air had been crisp and cool, but the sun warmed you when you stood unshaded for long enough. And now, in the gathering twilight, the swaying trees were as graceful as the chorus at the ballet. A falcon circled overhead, seeking its last meal of the day. Rabbits hopped over the great expanse of grass, careless of the danger above them, their scuts bobbing as they ran and leapt and played.
I had taken to walking alone a lot in the past few weeks—to escape the house, clear my head, and stretch my languid limbs. And it had worked. Out here, my wounds didn’t sting as sharply. In nature, I could breathe.
Sir Edward still hadn’t written, but, perhaps, as instructed, he’d simply thrown my first, melodramatic letter away. That was the best interpretation of his silence, anyway.
There’d been no more talk of Keighley or the Brontës, and on reflection, my sister, Mary, could have meant anything by what she had said. A letter had arrived from Dr. Crosby a handful of days after the “incident,” which had assured me of his friendship. I should have more faith and measure my responses, learn to curb my adolescent temper. Edmund would have said so had he been here.
Strange. As I drew nearer to the Hall from the side, a carriage parked before the main entrance came into view. It wasn’t the Evanses’; I could tell that even from this distance. And for an intense, wild, beautiful moment, I was convinced it was Sir Edward’s and that he had come like an errant knight to spirit me away.