The World Within (15 page)

Emily doesn’t want to leave this wonderful room. It’s like being inside a cocoon — she feels completely relaxed and safe. But glancing out of the window, she sees that dusk is falling. They had better go. But they certainly don’t need a lift.

Unfortunately Anne is already saying, “Thank you, Mr. Heaton. That’s kind of you.”

Emily gives her a look. Now they’ll have to talk to him all the way home.

Mr. Heaton says, “Before we go, is there a book you’d each like to take with you? And when you bring your sister back to return it, Miss Emily, you’re welcome to choose another.”

Emily and Anne exchange delighted glances and rapidly make their choices.

“What is it to be, then?” asks Mr. Heaton, looking at the books in Anne’s hand.

“I can’t decide between Bishop Horsley’s
Sermons
and Gilbert White’s
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
.”

Mr. Heaton looks at her with an expression of surprise mingled with amusement.

“What serious books for a girl of your age! But by all means, take them both. I expect your papa would like to read the Horsley. And possibly the White. You’re fond of nature, are you, Miss Anne?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you, Miss Emily?” He looks at the title and frowns. “Moore’s
Life of Lord Byron
? Hmm, now then, that’s not a very suitable choice for a young lady, is it? I’m not sure your father would approve. I think you should pick something else, don’t you?”

Emily clasps the book to her chest and gives him a dark look. Mr. Heaton is just like Aunt — she’s always harrying Papa for letting them read whatever they want instead of something tedious and improving, like Mrs. Edgeworth’s
Moral Tales for Young People.
“Papa will be quite happy for us to read this. He’s very fond of Byron’s poetry himself, and we have read a great deal of it. And Papa has said he’ll get Moore’s
Life
for us as soon as he can.”

Mr. Heaton looks discomfited. “Ah well, in that case … I tell you what, bring it with you and I’ll just check with your father that he’s happy about this.”

Emily scowls. Does he think she’s lying? She’s tempted to say something rude, but she bites it back. It would be a mistake to offend him and spoil her chance of visiting the library again.

Later, with Anne and Branwell, she laughs about the expression on Mr. Heaton’s face when Papa expressed his gratitude for the loan of the book. “We’ve all been wanting to read this since it came out,” he told Mr. Heaton cheerfully, and that good man looked “as if he’d choked on a prune stone,” as Branwell put it.

After they’ve described the library, Branwell is eager to see it for himself. “And he says we can borrow books whenever we like?”

“Yes. And he says we won’t be bothered. Though I’m not so sure.” Anne giggles. “The eldest boy is smitten with Emily.”

“He is
not
.” Emily glares at Anne.

Branwell makes retching noises. “If he is, he must be blind.”

Emily throws a cushion at him.

At bedtime, when she goes in to say good night to Anne, she tells her off. “Don’t say that kind of thing in front of Branwell — he won’t stop teasing me now. And anyway, it’s not true.”

“Sorry.” Anne is contrite. “But I do think that boy admires you. And it’s no wonder — you’re so pretty.”

Emily stares at her sister. Has she gone mad? “Pretty!” She screws up her face in disgust.

“You are,” Anne insists.

“Good night.” Emily wants to put a stop to this absurd conversation.

But, alone in her bedroom, brushing her hair, she studies her face in the looking glass: wide-spaced blue-grey eyes, a long straight nose like Papa’s, a determined set to her mouth. Does this amount to prettiness?

As she gazes at herself, a realization strikes her like an electric shock.

This is what she looks like.

It’s like meeting a stranger. For the very first time in her life, she’s seeing
herself
. This is how other people see her — as a being, separate from all other beings on earth, with her own unique recognizable identity.

This is who she is.

She nods to herself in the mirror: a greeting to the only Emily Jane Brontë in the world.

“Ponden Hall, tha says?” Tabby pauses in her rolling of pastry and looks at Emily inquiringly. “I can’t say as I’ve ever been inside myself. But folk say it’s a grand place.”

“The library is amazing,” says Emily. “You can see that the family’s wealthy. But, do you know? They live in one room downstairs like any cottager.”

“He’s all reet, is Mr. Heaton.” Tabby resumes her rolling. “Not one to get above himself. And good-hearted too, though it hasn’t always served him well.”

Sensing a story, Emily draws up her chair to the table.

“If tha’s going to set there a while, tha might as well make thiself useful. Chop those carrots, why don’t tha?”

Emily picks up a knife. “Go on, Tabby. What happened to Mr. Heaton?” She’s not the slightest bit interested in the man himself, but she can’t resist Tabby’s tales.

“Well, his sister, Eliza, got herself into trouble with a fellow from Leeds, John Bakes he were called. Near broke her father’s heart, it did. Old Mr. Heaton got them married here at Haworth and paid to have the bairn made legitimate, like. But Bakes were no good. While Eliza worked herself to death in his grocer’s shop, he drank all the profits. Eliza got consumption in the end and her father fetched her and the little lad, Arthur, back to the hall, but it were too late.” Tabby shakes her head sadly. “Pass us pie funnel, lass.”

Emily passes over the small ceramic dome that Tabby uses to hold up the piecrust. “What happened to Arthur?”

“Well, now, that’s a sad thing too. Bakes insisted on taking his son back and the boy led a terrible life, by all accounts — working all hours and beaten and abused. But then Bakes died. By this time old Mr. Heaton had passed on too and our Mr. Heaton were living in the hall with his wife and young family. He felt sorry for Arthur and took him in, but it didn’t go well.”

While she’s been talking, Tabby has cut out some pastry leaves to go on the top of the pie, and she pauses to concentrate as she marks the veins with her knife. Emily’s impatient to hear the rest of the story, but she knows it’s no good trying to rush Tabby. Only when the pie’s safely in the oven and Tabby has wiped her floury hands on her apron does she settle in her chair and resume her tale.

“Arthur were a sullen lad, by all accounts. Least that’s what Hannah the housekeeper told me. She said she couldn’t abide his look sometimes — if he were crossed, his black eyes glittered as if the devil hisself lurked in them.”

Emily is enthralled. The image of those eyes conjures for her the whole boy — a dark, gypsy-looking lad with tousled black hair. She doesn’t ever remember seeing him.

“Did he never come to church with the Heatons?”

Tabby shakes her head. “He wouldn’t. According to Hannah, the lad said his father claimed to be God-fearing even as he were thrashing him and that had turned the lad against religion. As far as Hannah were concerned, Arthur were a godless heathen and she could find no good in him. She didn’t trust him with little maister William — you’ll have met him, I warrant? The Heatons’ eldest lad?”

“Yes.” Emily answers abruptly — she doesn’t want to think about that boy and the way he looked at her.

“Well, at the time I’m speaking of he were nobbut five year old and Hannah would find bruises on him that couldn’t be explained. Mrs. Heaton weren’t happy about the situation, but Mr. Heaton would keep making allowances for Arthur. Things went on uneasily for a time, but matters came to a head when they discovered the lad up to tricks even Mr. Heaton found unforgivable.”

Tabby stops, and to urge her to keep going, Emily leans forward in her chair. But Tabby has paused to check the progress of her pie in the oven; satisfied, she resettles herself and carries on.

“Mr. Heaton were holding a meeting of church trustees in his library when little William bursts in. He were red in the face and laughing and he began to curse and blaspheme his head off. His father were shocked and embarrassed and no doubt the worthy gentlemen were horrified by these antics.

“Mr. Heaton caught up his son and carried him from the room and ’twere then he discovered that the bairn were drunk, would you believe? Very soon the little lad were as sick as a dog but after a spell in bed, anon he recovered and no harm done.

“It turns out Arthur had put him up to it. Mr. Heaton were all for giving the lad a good talking-to, but Mrs. Heaton wouldn’t rest until her husband agreed to send him away. The maister were in the middle of sorting out an apprenticeship for the lad with a cabinetmaker back in Leeds, when it seems Arthur took matters into his own hands. One night he disappeared and he’s not been seen round these parts since.”

“Does no one know what became of him?”

Tabby shakes her head. “Hannah says there’s not been a word these last six year. There’s rumors that he went to be a soldier or ran away to sea, but they’re just tales, I reckon,” Tabby says, getting to her feet. “More like he’s come to a bad end somewhere. Now, Miss Emily, if tha’s finished those carrots, will you skift out of here and let me alone, for I’ve a pile of ironing to get done.”

That afternoon, when Emily and Anne are discussing the Gondal saga, Emily says, “I’ve been wondering about a new character. What do you think of the idea that, when Julius is fighting to take the kingdom of Almedore, he comes across a boy, a dark orphan, half-wild and neglected, and he decides to adopt him as his own son.”

“Hmm, interesting.” Anne nods her head. “Have you thought of a name for him?”

“I’m not sure. What do you think about Alfonso? And now that Julius is Emperor of Angora, he’ll be Alfonso Angora. And when he grows up, he’s going to turn against Julius and make him regret his kindness.”

“Why would he do that? It seems very ungrateful.”

Emily pauses to watch a kestrel hovering, holding itself remarkably still, despite the breeze. The next moment it plummets, falling out of the sky like a stone and disappearing into the heather.

She turns to Anne. “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to think about it, won’t we?”