The World Within (25 page)

Summer passes into autumn. The days shorten: They wake up to feathers of frost on the windows and their breath coming out in clouds; Aunt banks up her fire and swathes herself in two thick shawls; they have to light the candles earlier and earlier.

As the year turns Emily begins to relax — it’s been so long since the dog bite, surely she would know by now if she’d contracted rabies? Charlotte seems to have got over the disappointment about her artistic ambitions; though Papa is looking frailer and his hair is grey now, he hasn’t succumbed to any more illness; she and Anne are still happily immersed in Gondal. In short, everything is as it should be, and she is content.

But she has reckoned without Branwell.

Throughout the autumn he sometimes stayed at the Black Bull after sessions of the boxing club, but not long after Christmas he begins to go to the inn on other evenings as well, waiting till nine o’clock when Papa and Aunt go to bed before slipping out. He’s always back before eleven, but in such an excited and talkative state that it’s hard to persuade him to go to bed.

Emily can see that he’s not just enjoying the company at the inn, but is also developing a taste for alcohol. She’d be inclined to let him alone for now — the main thing is to keep this from Papa — but Charlotte becomes increasingly agitated about him, and one evening, when their brother’s out as usual and they are writing in the parlor, Charlotte suddenly puts down her pen and says abruptly, “What are we going to do about Branwell? We can’t let him carry on like this.”

“Shall we tell Papa?” Anne’s eyes are wide.

“No!” Charlotte and Emily both speak at once and then Emily says, “We can’t do anything. Except hope it’s just another of his enthusiasms that he’ll tire of eventually.”

Charlotte drums her fingers on the table, thinking. Then she looks at the others. “I think we should talk to him.”

Emily sighs. “It won’t do any good, Charles — he won’t take any notice of us.”

“Well, I think it’s worth a try.” Charlotte gives them a martyred look. “Even if I have to do it by myself.”

As Emily predicted, when Charlotte tackles Branwell in the hall one evening just as he’s putting his coat on prior to going out, he’s unreceptive. “Don’t preach, Charles. It’s only a bit of fun. And a fellow can’t be expected to spend all his time at home with only his sisters for company.”

And with that he leaves, shutting the front door quietly behind him.

Emily heard this exchange through the open parlor door and when Charlotte joins her and Anne again, her sister looks so hurt that Emily refrains from saying, “I told you so.”

What they can’t understand is where Branwell gets the money from — none of them are given any pocket money. They suspect that Aunt indulges him with the occasional shilling or half crown, but not often enough to support his new drinking habit.

“Perhaps Mr. Brown treats him,” suggests Emily. Branwell sometimes refers to a “jolly evening” in the sexton’s company.

“Maybe.” Charlotte frowns. “Or maybe,” she adds drily, “the visitors pay for their entertainment.”

In a recent development, a boy sometimes appears at the back door with a message for Branwell, typically something like, “Mr. Sugden sends ’pologies, but he says there’s a salesman from York staying over and wanting to meet Master Branwell, if it pleases him to come.”

Of course, it does please Branwell mightily to be getting such a reputation at the Black Bull for his witty conversation and he never misses a chance to hold forth to an admiring audience or demonstrate his amazing memory or his ability to write with both hands at once.

That’s what he tells them he’s been doing when he comes home, flushed and in high spirits, and never a word about drinking, though they can smell it on his breath.

Charlotte gives up trying to talk him out of it, but Branwell’s behavior makes her tight-lipped and disapproving. Emily doesn’t say anything to her sister, but she finds it paradoxical that Charlotte is happy enough to imagine a life of utter dissipation for her Angrian heroes, but can’t tolerate their brother’s departure from the straight and narrow.

She herself doesn’t find Branwell’s drinking offensive, but she’s anxious about Papa finding out — he’ll be shocked and disappointed in Branwell and the distress might bring on another attack of pleurisy.

In an effort to prevent this happening, she does everything she can to conceal Branwell’s antics: After he’s come in, she checks that he’s bolted the door, and later she peeps into his room to make sure he hasn’t left his candle burning. Branwell, of course, has no idea that she’s doing these things and he continues blithely to please himself.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to have Branwell to worry about, one morning Charlotte announces that her other school friend is coming to stay.

“I asked her sister Martha too, but she can’t come this time. So it will just be Mary.”

Emily frowns.

As if to forestall her objections, Charlotte declares, “Papa and Aunt are both delighted at the idea.” But then a doubtful look crosses her face and she adds, “Though Mary isn’t like Ellen.”

“What is she like?” Emily wants to know.

“You’ll see.”

Mary bounces into the house, laughing, talking, and behaving as if she has known all of them all her life.

She’s not in the least shy, not even with Papa and Aunt, and she has, Emily discovers, as her hand is seized and pumped up and down, a direct way of speaking and of looking at you, so that Emily finds herself compelled to meet Mary’s gaze.

To her surprise, for once she doesn’t feel threatened — the expression in Mary’s eyes is quizzical and warm. It helps that their visitor seems to like Grasper — she makes a big fuss of him and when she says, “Aren’t you a handsome fellow?” it sounds as if she means it.

Emily’s disarmed, and her curiosity about this other friend of Charlotte’s prompts her to go with the rest of them as they take Mary on a tour of the house, which ends up in the backyard.

They say hello to Tiger, who is basking in a patch of sunshine, stop by the cage to see Jasper, Snowflake, and Plato, the one-legged magpie, and then Anne opens the peat house door to introduce Mary to the latest additions to their menagerie: a pair of plump geese.

“They’re called Adelaide and Victoria,” says Anne. “After the queen and the princess.”

Mary claps her hands. “Capital! What a joke. That puts the monarchy in their proper place — scratching for crumbs in the dirt.”

“But we didn’t mean any disrespect.” Charlotte looks confused. “The princess is one of Emily’s heroines.”

“Is she now?” Mary shoots Emily a direct, disconcerting look.

Emily bows her head and takes refuge in rumpling Grasper’s ears. But she suddenly feels uncomfortable about admiring Princess Victoria so much.

“You don’t approve of royalty?” Branwell asks.

“No, indeed. Why should people have such power and privilege, just by virtue of being born into a certain family? We should be able to choose our rulers. All of us, men and women alike,” she adds fiercely.

Branwell and Charlotte immediately start to argue with her, but though she’s outnumbered, Mary doesn’t give way.

Emily doesn’t join in. She doesn’t care for politics as the others do — they take after Papa in their passion for it, whereas she doesn’t see that it would make much difference to her life who ruled. But perhaps her view of Princess Victoria has been childish. Perhaps she’s only seen her as a fairy-tale princess, rather than a real person who might influence the government’s actions.

Fancy — Mary has made her question herself, and she hasn’t been in the house more than an hour! And what she says about privilege is worth thinking about.

She looks at their visitor.

Before she came, Emily was set on disliking her. For one thing, she doesn’t care for poetry. But now, listening to Mary and watching her, her grey eyes alight, her face animated as she argues, Emily’s fascinated.

To her surprise, rather than finding the prospect of this visitor tiresome, she finds herself wanting to spend time with Mary.

A day or two later they are all in the parlor sitting by the fire, except for Branwell, who has gone off with a friend from the village. Mary, who is sharing the sofa with Grasper, suddenly says, “I am interested in your aunt’s situation. Does your father support her?”

Anne gives a little gasp and Charlotte looks embarrassed. She glances up at the ceiling, where Aunt is in her room above them.

Emily’s amused. One of the things she’s discovered about Mary is that she speaks her mind. Most people hypocritically hide what they’re really thinking and call it politeness, so this is refreshing. Perhaps Mary is interested in people’s financial situations because of her own family’s predicament. Emily wonders how they manage with their father bankrupt.

Responding in kind, she answers Mary directly. “No, he doesn’t. She has her own money — inherited from her father.”

“Ah, I see.” Mary nods. “She’s lucky, then. And do you think she’s single by choice?”

Emily’s surprised. The question has never occurred to her.

“We don’t know.” Charlotte looks as if it’s a new idea to her too. “She’s always talking about the balls and beaux of her youth, but whether she ever received a proposal …” She shrugs and then looks at her sisters. “Lucky for us that she didn’t marry.”

Emily grimaces. She knows she should feel grateful for all that Aunt has done for them, but sometimes she thinks they could have easily managed just with Tabby and got along far more comfortably.

Mary meanwhile is giving Charlotte a droll look. “Lucky for you, yes. And possibly lucky for herself too,” she says crisply.

“How can you say that?” Charlotte protests. “By not marrying she has missed so much.”

“Such as?” Mary looks amused.

“Well …” Charlotte stops, then she says in a rush, “A chance for a warm, close intimacy …” She stops again and blushes.

Emily stares at her sister, shocked. “You want to be married?”

Charlotte’s cheeks turn scarlet. “Oh, I’m not speaking of myself. Besides, who would have me, plain and penniless as I am?”

“You’re not plain,” says Anne loyally.

“Oh, but I am. Mary said so, didn’t you, almost the first time we met.”