I focused on the ceiling and the tremble of the crystals in the chandelier. They were perfect, vibrating raindrops, threatening to fall.
“Mama, I brought a letter for you.” She picked up Sir Edward’s ivory-handled paper knife and handed it to me along with small note. A message from her future in-laws? Or my sister?
Glancing down, I nearly stabbed myself at the return address:
The Parsonage, Haworth
Why now? It had been a long time since Branwell had written. Dr. Crosby had proved a loyal friend to me, keeping him at bay, and there had been a total silence of some months when even the doctor had heard nothing, and without a single payment required. But this didn’t look like Branwell’s hand, though I couldn’t be sure. Funny how quickly you forgot details you once treasured.
I needed to breathe. Branwell was far away, at Haworth, and even if he was not, news of his reappearance if it traveled to Sir Edward would be confirmation of the story I had fed him, the story I’d almost started to believe myself.
I sliced the letter open and set the knife beside me.
Mary paced the room.
20th September 1848
The Parsonage, Haworth
Mrs. Robinson,
I did not think we would ever write to each other again and the Lord knows it pains me to do so now. But Branwell is gravely ill—indeed, dying—and I could not live with myself were I not to tell you and give you a chance to offer him some peace. He speaks of you often in his delirium, recites snatches of poetry meant for you, and sketches your face between pictures of the ghouls that torment him. Charlotte and I bid him pray, but it is your name he calls out in the night.
If you can come to him, do. I do not ask for your money. Or your pity for myself. But have compassion for Branwell and my father and my sisters. They suffer so to see the son who was our dearest hope reduced to this.
Sincerely, I remain,
Anne Brontë
I let out a low cry.
“Is something the matter, Mama?” asked Mary. “Are you well?”
“Mr. Brontë is dying,” I told her, my voice cracking.
The pacing stopped.
“Poor Miss Brontë,” she said.
Mary pitied her? The pain inside me moved from my heart to my gut. I doubled over but would not let myself cry.
“She hadn’t mentioned he was ill, though Bessy and I have been writing to her,” my daughter said from somewhere far away.
I couldn’t look up.
“We will visit her, of course, once I’m married and live so close to Haworth. Should you like me to carry her a message from you?”
“A message?” I repeated, managing to raise my head. “No, I have no message for Miss Brontë.”
She nodded. “Then good-bye, Mama. Uncle will leave the paperwork with the butler. Bessy and I will not be at the wedding, but I wish you and Sir Edward every happiness.”
With that, Mary glided to the door, the plainest of my daughters all at once the finest, ready to cast off on the adventure that I had ill prepared her for.
* * *
“WILLIAM!” I CRIED. “WILLIAM!” I tumbled into the Great Barr stables, a carpetbag in my hands, my hair coming loose from its pins.
Two grooms I did not recognize doffed their hats and glanced at each other. Seconds later, William Allison appeared between them, a horse brush in his hand. Thank God it was the other coachman who’d taken Sir Edward to London.
“Mrs. Robinson,” he said, gesturing to the others that they should return to stacking the hay. “Can I be of service?”
He wasn’t in his livery. His forearms were exposed and dirty, with a stark line below his elbows where tan met white. He steered me out into the sunshine as I composed myself to answer, more concerned for my reputation than I was.
“I need to go to Haworth,” I told him, dispensing with all explanation and clasping one of his hands in mine. “Now.”
“The master has the carriage,” he said, matching my bluntness. “And it’s a fair distance from here t’there.”
“We’ll take a smaller vehicle, the dogcart, and travel through the night. Please, William. I need you.”
He nodded grimly. “It’s thanks to you I have this job, ma’am. We go where you command.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, dashing myself against his chest. “Thank you.”
“Give me half an hour to ready the horses, ma’am,” he said, patting my back. “Then we’ll be on our way.”
* * *
WHY WAS I FLYING to Branwell? What could I say to him? There were long, lurching hours through the night to ponder these questions between stops at inns, where the horses had water, William his pipe, I mugs of small beer.
William and I didn’t speak as we sat side by side in the dogcart, knocking against each other. I slept fitfully now and then, falling onto his shoulder, but I never saw him yawn, though he must have been helping in the fields all through the day.
I’d never been so impetuous and yet, for once, it felt as if I were doing something right. I hadn’t helped Lydia or Mary. Edmund and I had never learned to open our hearts to each other. But perhaps Branwell I could save and bring back to himself. And in doing so, I would prove to Anne, and to Charlotte, that I wasn’t such a monster, not so wretched a woman at all.
It was Sunday morning. Several church bells were clanging as we rounded the hill that brought Haworth into sight. High smokeless chimneys, idle for the Sabbath, low, slated cottages clinging to the steep streets, a miasma of rain and something thicker clouding the atmosphere, frizzing my hair and invading my throat.
We didn’t need to stop to ask the way. William had been here before.
He drew the horses to a stop beside an inn where the ground was level and pointed up the main street. “Walk to the top, then past the church on your left. You’ll see the parsonage, all right, ma’am—there’s nought but moor beyond.”
Good William. He understood. This was something I must do alone.
It was hard to hold my handkerchief to my mouth and lift my skirts to avoid the horse dung. The incline was sharp, knocking the breath out of me, though I could roam the flat country around Thorp Green or Allestree or Great Barr for hours.
What if Branwell were better and the Brontës were all at church? Or there had been a change for the worse and the family wouldn’t let me enter his sickroom?
I turned left at the church as instructed. There was the parsonage just as Branwell had described it, with a sea of gravestones to the front and a vast expanse of nothingness to the rear. I knew that was the moor, the siblings’ playground, where Emily would lose herself for hours. But the clouds were so low I could see nothing but gray. This might have been the edge of the earth.
Just then, what I’d taken to be one of the gravestones—short, gray, and drab—moved.
It was a woman.
I found a gate and picked my way between the memorials—six, seven, sometimes twelve names to a stone.
The woman moved toward me, without needing to look down to find her way.
We each knew who the other was as if by magic.
“Charlotte?” I said, when we were mere feet apart.
She nodded. “Mrs. Robinson?”
I nodded too.