Emily's Ghost Read online

  Then in July she received a letter from Branwell. Her brother mentioned he’d taken Weightman to a party at the Greenwood mansion in honor of a visiting cousin, Isabella. “Willie enjoyed himself immensely,” Branwell wrote. “You would have been amused to see him play the role of courtier to the hilt.”

  Emily had not been amused. A stab of jealousy made her so ill she could not eat the rest of the day. In time, her thoughts turned bitter. He has not seen you in months, so you are forgotten. Charlotte has been right, and William Weightman is as false as the day is long. Someday he will weary of his idealism as well and return to his family and social circle. He will meet someone charming and beautiful and well connected. And conventional. He will marry her. That someone may very well be Isabella Greenwood.

  Weeks passed without a letter from either her father or Weightman, and Emily vacillated between misery and anger with herself that she was miserable. Then Charlotte further blasted her hopes. Monsieur Heger had asked the two of them to stay another term and teach. The scope of Emily’s anger expanded to include Monsieur, the unwitting author of her new woes. She rebelled.

  “I won’t,” she informed Charlotte. “Stay if you will, and I will go home by myself.”

  “Of course you can do no such thing. I wouldn’t let you. And so, if you insist upon us leaving, you shall have ruined my life. For I must, I must stay longer, I tell you, and sit at his feet. He is the most amazing teacher I have ever known.”

  “You are in love with him. But he is a married man.”

  Charlotte turned red. “Of course he is married, even though that woman does not deserve him. But you know I would never act inappropriately.”

  “You may do nothing, but you will dream it. And you keep me here in agony to feed your dreams.”

  “I told you. I will go back if you insist. Only I shall be more miserable than I can say, for I shall have turned my back on all my fondest hopes.”

  “And I will be the one responsible,” Emily said.

  “You will.”

  Emily wrote in despair to her father (“I will not be the blame for Charlotte’s unhappiness, I will not. Please, Papa, call us home”). She swallowed her pride and wrote her plea to Weightman as well.

  She was devastated, then, to receive a response, a short one and looking rather hastily scribbled, from Branwell rather than Weightman. “Willie insists you stay in Brussels,” Branwell wrote. “He says it will do you good. He would tell you himself but he is in Appleby. I believe he is much occupied just now.”

  She went cold all over. In her mind she heard Charlotte’s voice taunting “fickle and faithless Miss Celia Amelia.” It was enough to send her to the Parc Royale near the Pensionnat, where she found a quiet corner beneath a spreading elm tree and wept. When she returned she folded Weightman’s letters and placed them beneath the volume of Shelley, put all back in the bottom of her trunk, and vowed not to look at them again.

  She hoped Patrick would rescue her, but she was mistaken there as well. Her father’s letter was also brief, for he claimed to be especially busy just then. But he thought it a capital idea if his daughters remained a few months longer in Belgium.

  By then Emily’s heart had turned to stone. Had anyone from Haworth summoned her, she would have gone no matter what the cost. But they did not want her. She resigned herself to missing her royal season of purple heather on the moors. For solace she longed for those she knew to be loving and faithful, and fell asleep dreaming her arms were around Keeper before the fireplace, or the cat Tiger kneaded her stomach in bed, or that she ran across the moors following the graceful loops of Nero above the waves of billowing heather and bracken. As the weeks passed, she was not surprised when William Weightman did not write further. He was no doubt exchanging letters instead with Isabella Greenwood. He must have gone to Appleby to introduce her to his family. Emily trained her daydreams toward her animals and tried as ruthlessly as she could to expel William Weightman.

  August bled into September. Three days later, William Weightman left the hovel of a weaver in an alley behind Ginnel. Before he reached the far side he tripped and fell. He could not get up.

  Patrick received the news and sent for Mr. Wheelhouse, who declared, “If anyone goes in to him, stay as far away as possible.”

  “That is all you have to offer?” Patrick asked.

  Wheelhouse raised his hands in supplication. “What else? We are none of us God Almighty.”

  The Widow Ogden, a stooped gray-haired woman who took the news at the same time as the other residents of the parsonage, stepped forward.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “He lies in a cellar in Ginnel. In his present condition, it is as good a place as any.”

  The widow stood as straight as she could and looked at her servant Ruth House, a plain stout Methodist woman. Ruth nodded.

  “Carry him back to my house at Cook Gate,” the Widow Ogden said. “We will care for him there.”

  “You do so, madam, at grave risk to yourself,” Mr. Wheelhouse replied.

  Ruth House interrupted. “That boy has been a blessing to the missus and myself these three years. Do you think we would abandon him?”

  Mr. Wheelhouse had the decency to blush. He bowed and said, “It is your decision.” He thought to add, “Be sure you burn the mattress and bedclothes when he is deceased.”

  So William Weightman was carried around the hill to the house in Lord Lane. People stood silent as he passed, and men removed their caps. Patrick Brontë was the first to visit, but he was not certain if Weightman knew of his presence, for the curate continued in the grip of a terrible pain in his midsection. Then diarrhea began and the stench filled the room. Patrick was familiar with diarrhea from his experience with other diseases. But this was more intense, rich with blood. As Patrick had learned from his reading about cholera, William Weightman’s insides were being violently flushed out of his body.

  Patrick heard a knock on the door. Branwell entered, his face frightened but resolute.

  “Let me sit with him now, Papa,” Branwell said. “You go home and rest.”

  Patrick studied his son a moment. “You know the danger,” he said.

  “I know,” Branwell said.

  The older man nodded and left. Branwell sat by the door where the chair had been placed, watching Weightman struggle upon his bed, his face contorted. Branwell pressed his handkerchief to his nose for a time, but at last he removed it. He ventured to pull the chair closer to the bed.

  “Willie,” he said.

  Weightman turned but did not respond.

  “Willie,” Branwell repeated.

  Weightman fixed the voice and met Branwell’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, and for a time he could not. Then he managed to say, each word an effort, “I thought you were no hero.”

  Branwell flushed. “Of course I am not.”

  “And yet here you are.”

  “You are my friend.”

  “‘Greater love hath no man—’”

  Weightman was interrupted by a spasm that bent him double in agony. His face was skeletal, the skin dark blue, his mouth open as though that effort would moisten it, but his lips and tongue were dry as parchment.

  “Have you something to write with?” he managed to say.

  Branwell looked around and saw pen, paper, and ink on Weightman’s desk. He sat beside the bed and took dictation. It was a short message although its transmission took a great deal of time.

  “Give it to Emily when she returns,” Weightman gasped at the end.

  Branwell nodded and tucked the paper in his coat pocket. Weightman fell silent except for an occasional moan. The Widow Ogden came in with a cup of tea and Ruth followed with a tub of warm water and towels.

  “You may leave if you wish,” the Widow Ogden said.

  “No,” Branwell said.

  They pulled back the sheet. Weightman had been stripped naked, and his lower body was drenched with watery diarrhea flecked with white. The white bit
s were pieces of his intestines. Branwell looked away. The two women proceeded to wash and dry Weightman. Ruth put her arm behind his head and tried to raise him while the Widow held the cup of tea. She put it to his parched lips to help him drink. But Weightman’s throat was too dry to swallow, and he began to choke.

  “Branwell, help us!” the Widow cried.

  Branwell helped raise Weightman into an upright position until the choking spell was over. He felt the heat from the dry skin on Weightman’s back as they lowered him onto the bed.

  “No-no more,” Weightman gasped. “I can-not drink.”

  The Widow took away the cup of tea, her head down to hide her distress. Ruth bundled the soiled towels and dropped them onto the hearth where a fire was lit despite the summer heat. Weightman was shivering. “I am glad,” he managed to say, “Emily cannot see me. I want her to remember me as I was. Tell her that.”

  “Yes,” Branwell said. He settled in his chair and wondered if he and the two women attendants would soon die in their own beds. I won’t consider it, he thought.

  A spasm rocked Weightman so he could not speak. Then, when Branwell thought he had fallen asleep, he opened his eyes.

  “You have a strong voice,” he said.

  “A strong voice?” Branwell was puzzled.

  “I mean you sing well.”

  “Tolerably so.”

  “My hymnal is on the desk. Will you sing my—” Weightman struggled to swallow. “My favorite,” he finally managed. “Four-eleven.”

  The last thing Branwell felt like doing was singing. But if it gave Willie comfort—He found the hymnal and page number for “How Firm a Foundation.”

  The two women, their task done, stood in the doorway, dabbing their eyes as Branwell sang.

  “That soul, though all Hell shall endeavor to shake,

  I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”

  Weightman seemed to smile. Turning his head, he said in a hoarse voice, “And you don’t believe a word of that, do you?”

  Branwell didn’t know how to answer, but decided that even on his deathbed, Weightman would expect honesty.

  “No,” Branwell said. He wondered how anyone could believe in a loving and faithful God while suffering such a death.

  Branwell spent the night in the bedroom next door, while the Widow and Ruth took turns staying awake. When he woke at dawn, Branwell took one look at Weightman and said, “Send for my father.”

  Patrick was determined to track down Mr. Wheelhouse and force him to accompany him. When they arrived at the Widow Ogden’s, Mr. Wheelhouse stopped at the doorway to Weightman’s room, looked in, and said, “You see there is nothing I can do.”

  “I have ordered a coffin,” Patrick said, not looking at the doctor. “He is part of my family and will lie beneath the church with us.”

  “I understand you want more than a winding sheet and a common pit in this case,” the doctor said, “though I do not lend my recommendation to your plan. Have you notified his family, and advised them you cannot send the body home?”

  “Of course. I will send his mother a lock of his hair,” Patrick said. The Widow Ogden handed him a pair of scissors.

  Branwell had retreated to a window where he sat on the ledge, his arms folded and his eyes wet. “Cut a second,” he said to his father. “For Emily.”

  Patrick looked at his son. “You know, then?”

  Branwell nodded. “Willie told me.”

  Patrick entered the room, pulled his chair close, and studied Weightman’s face. Had he not known he was looking at his curate, he would not have recognized him. A spasm shook Weightman’s body.

  Patrick took Weightman’s hand and leaned close. “Willie,” he said, “can you hear me?”

  Weightman squeezed his hand for response.

  “Willie. Soon your suffering will be over and you will be in God’s hands.”

  Weightman’s grip tightened, then loosened and his hand dropped. He took three more rasping breaths, each more irregular than the last. With a deep sigh, he was still.

  Patrick smoothed the rumpled hair back from Weightman’s forehead.

  “Dear God,” he murmured. “Twenty-eight years old.”

  Branwell burst into tears.

  The Widow Ogden and Ruth House gave William Weightman a final wash and dressed him in his best black clerical garb. Four men arrived from William Wood’s coffin maker’s shop. When they lifted Weightman, his head fell back. Patrick placed his hand beneath Weightman’s head, held it up until the men could drop him into the coffin and folded Weightman’s arms across his chest. The Widow Ogden placed a small blue pillow beneath Weightman’s head. Then the men nailed the coffin shut and carried it downstairs and out of the house. The little group of two men and two women proceeded to the church, and as word spread whose coffin they followed, others added themselves to the procession.

  Patrick led the pallbearers to the back of the church building where a small outside door led down into the Brontë family burial crypt. John Brown the sexton, after noting the date of death—6 September 1842—in the parish register, waited to supervise.

  They left the coffin of William Weightman inside the entrance to the Brontë family vault, where it waited until the next member of the family would be interred before it saw the light of day.

  A few more weeks and the cholera ended as abruptly as it began. Even as Aunt Branwell grieved for William Weightman, and the men of the family were caught up in their own cares while her nieces continued far away, the old woman grew weaker and her mind more disordered. She had a great pain in her midsection. One morning she tottered downstairs in a fog to find the house deserted. Patrick was out on the pastoral duties he was now forced to cover by himself, Branwell had escaped his despondency by going off to his friends in Halifax, Tabby had not returned from her sister’s, and Martha Brown was out running errands. Aunt Branwell stood in the center of the kitchen. No food cooked on the hearth, and the cabinets appeared cluttered. Her mind filled with both cobwebs and warning bells. She went outside and the fat geese Victoria and Adelaide greeted her with a loud cacophony of honking.

  Aunt Branwell snapped. She forgot Emily loved the geese; she forgot Emily existed. When Martha Brown returned from the butcher’s with a leg of mutton, she was waiting.

  “Those birds are taking over the yard!” she cried, her face contorted and mottled with red. The girl was startled. “And you, lazy girl, go and spend money we do not have on a stringy leg of mutton.”

  “Mum?”

  “Go on!” Aunt Branwell flapped her apron. “Get you back to the butcher’s and tell him to come for these geese. We can eat for a fortnight on what they’ll fetch.”

  When Martha Brown hesitated, Aunt Branwell’s voice raised to a screech. “Go!” she cried. “Or I’ll box your ears, you naughty girl! And don’t think I can’t.”

  So Martha Brown fled, and did as she was bid. The butcher was quick enough to send his boy for the geese, for fowl that plump would assuredly find their way onto the dinner table of a mill owner newly returned from seaside exile. That is how the Queen’s namesake ended a golden brown and elegantly carved by the Merrall butler, while her sister Adelaide did similar service for the Greenwoods.

  But even as the butcher’s boy struggled back to the shop with a squawking goose beneath each arm, Aunt Branwell had her eye on the washhouse. Something was shrieking like a banshee, and she went to look.

  Nero, whose care and feeding Branwell had neglected during the ordeal of Weightman’s death, ceased his screaming at Aunt Branwell’s appearance and fixed her with a beady eye.

  “You’ll not haunt this washhouse like some imp of the devil!” Aunt Branwell declared. “Will you?”

  With that she picked up the hawk’s cage and carried it, swinging it so wildly the bird shrieked in protest, to the top of the back garden where the moor began. She dropped the cage with a jolt and flung open the door.

  “Now,” she said, giving the cage a kick. “Off with you. Shoo
! Shoo!” She waved her arms and then turned and headed back to the house.

  The merlin was so startled it did not move at once. But when Branwell came home the next day and went to the washhouse to feed the bird, it was nowhere to be found. Alarmed, he went outside and looked around until he saw the cage, sitting open where Aunt Branwell had left it, empty save for a single brown feather.

  A few days later Aunt Branwell took to her bed and was declared by Mr. Wheelhouse, as implacably as he had pronounced doom upon William Weightman, to be dying.

  Patrick Brontë lay awake at night wondering how to tell his daughters of Weightman’s death. He decided at last to write Charlotte as less likely to be shattered, since his oldest daughter had long treated the curate with no more than cool politeness. Patrick hoped she would deliver the news gently to Emily.

  He had only just begun to anticipate that Emily would have news of Weightman’s death when he was forced to take pen in hand to tell his daughters that Aunt Branwell was dying, and to beg them to return once and for all from Belgium.

  15

  At the opening of the new term, the Pensionnat Heger took its students to a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Théâtre de la Monnaie. So, Emily thought, I shall hear the Ninth after all. She supposed it might be consolation for the further time in Brussels she must endure. She longed to tell Weightman, but resisted the impulse. She had vowed she would write no more unless she heard from him.

  On the night of September 8, the students, Emily among them, filed in procession into the Monnaie, that grand venue for music. Mirrors, red carpets, and the gilt-edged interior circled with tiers of boxes enclosed them inside a giant jewel box. A rococo dome, a second sky, re-created the blues and golds and oranges of the firmament, and a fake sun, a glittering chandelier, descended from the clouds. The students from the Pensionnat Heger were shepherded into a far corner of the main floor. The audience settled in amid the flutter of programs and extinguishing of wall sconces. Emily, in the back row, sat between Louise de Bassompierre and Charlotte. She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes.