“We’re going, Lydia,” I’d snapped at my daughter when she’d interrupted my toilette that morning, as I was focusing on the gray strands streaking my black locks rather than on her fair head in the looking glass. “That’s all there is to say.”
Edmund, Lydia, Bessy, and I set off in the carriage a little after one, at least three of us wishing we could eat cold meats with Mary, Ned, and Miss Brontë. This party, due to the younger children’s ages, was excused from today’s feast. Would Mr. Brontë join them? I imagined mirth ringing out from him; Miss Brontë giving in to a rare smile; and Ned and Mary chuckling with glee.
The countryside was chill and damp, the milestones we passed along the short and jolting ride to Green Hammerton familiar—the fallen bridge, the barn where a farm laborer had hanged himself, the old oak.
My mother’s words seemed to float to me across the years. You’ll never be good enough for that wretched woman, Lydia. Tie yourself to a man that attached to his mama and you might as well be marrying her. But I wouldn’t take the bait. Not today. How difficult could it be to play the obedient daughter-in-law? And, besides, the Reverend John Eade, who’d been married to Edmund’s late sister, Jane, would be there too, and that was sure to be a distraction. Edmund had informed me he was visiting from County Durham.
We rounded the corner, and the house came into view. Large, it was in a darker brick than ours and covered in matted ivy, which obscured the windows and strangled the many chimney pots. There’d been little to recommend the place when Edmund’s mother had taken the lease around the time Mary had been born, except, of course, its proximity to Thorp Green. I might have proven victorious in the battle ejecting her from my house, but her move here rang as clear as a bugle, letting me know the war was far from won.
Our coachman, William Allison, handed me down from the carriage. Even he looked far from his cheerful self. Perhaps he was imagining his wife and children eating their Easter dinner without him.
“So you’ve arrived at last, Edmund,” our hostess squawked at us as soon as we joined her in the parlor, which smelled of decaying flowers and sherry.
She was an imposing woman, one who had always been more impressive than handsome.
“Lydia,” (this addressed to me), “you’re too pale and Bessy is getting fat.”
I kissed the old lady’s parched cheek and watched the girls do the same, viewing Bessy’s figure with something between distaste and defensiveness. I chastised her for eating too much, it was true, but Bessy was taller and more active than the rest of us. It was hardly fair to call her fat.
“You look wonderful, Grandmama,” said Lydia, who gave out compliments only in hope of receiving them. “I wish I could wear lilac. I do miss color.”
Her grandmother waved her aside. “Dear John is recovering from a dreadful cold, isn’t that right, Reverend?”
I noticed John Eade for the first time. He was standing sentinel in the corner, by a tasseled lamp, and watching the proceedings with an expression as morose as if he’d been beside an open grave.
“A terrible cold, Mrs. Robinson,” he confirmed, with a sniff. “Just terrible. I feared I’d be unable to visit at all. I didn’t wish to subject any of you, and you especially, madam, to such a horror. But your last letter convinced me.”
“Stuff and nonsense, John!” Mrs. Robinson threw the Reverend toward me and grasped Edmund’s arm. “I am of good Metcalfe stock. It’ll take more than a cold to kill me. Now, to luncheon.”
I didn’t wish to touch the clergyman’s arm and so merely pinched his sleeve, leaning away from him and trying not to listen to his congested breathing. Lydia and Bessy linked arms and fell into step behind us. This was it, then, the dreaded dinner. We trailed, two by two, behind our hostess, like slaves going to the galleys.
* * *
YET IT WASN’T UNTIL the end of our meal, when I was struggling through the final forkfuls of a dry, week-old seed cake, that the expected onslaught came.
“John brought letters from my Mary’s girls,” Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson began, settling back in her chair—the only one with arms—for a round of interrogation, her favorite digestive.
“Indeed,” I said, as this comment appeared to be directed toward me.
“Her Mary” was Edmund’s other sister, the one who, despite her obvious failing in not being Jane, was favored for the large brood of biddable girls and necessary son she’d borne to Charles Thorp, who had the living in Ryton, not far from Aycliffe.
“Your cousins write so well, and with such penmanship, Lydia, Bessy!” Edmund’s mother continued, turning to my daughters. “And show such care for their grandmama, despite the distance between us.” Here a pause, a sigh. “I thought—didn’t I say so, John dear?—that I would see you two, and your brother and sister, more often now that I am your only grandmother. You might even walk here from Thorp Green were you not so lazy.”
I winced.
The Reverend Eade nodded with slow solemnity, closing his eyes and resting his hands high on his domed belly. A dewdrop was hanging from his left nostril.
“Hmm?” The old woman rounded on Bessy, who jumped in her chair. “Have you stopped and thought, girl, what your life might be like if I were gone as well?”
“No, Grandmama,” said Bessy, tracing the floral pattern around the edge of her bowl with the tip of her spoon.
“Duty. Didn’t I say so, Reverend? A decided lack of duty is what defines the younger generations. That is what Mary and Charles Thorp have fought so hard against. Most young people care only for their parties and their gossip and their ringlets.” She shot a glare at Lydia, whose hand froze mid-twirl, a curl still wrapped tight around half her finger. “Not like my Jane.”
“We are all very happy your health is so strong, Mother,” said Edmund, ignoring her oft-repeated invocation of his dead sister’s name. He took her right hand from where it lay on the table between them and planted a kiss on the raised network of veins. His chin puckered, wedged against one of her rings, a garish ruby that brought out the blotches in her skin.
“And there is old Mrs. Thompson lying on her deathbed at Kirby Hall.” Edmund’s mother had veered onto an entirely different topic: our grand neighbors. She was gesturing so widely that she nearly smacked a servant in the face as the woman bent in to remove the remnants of a jelly. “Over ninety years she’s lived, and for what? To be forgotten in her own home and ill treated by that brood of spinster granddaughters?”
“Oh no, Grandmama,” said Lydia, her interest piqued at the mention of the Thompsons. I could practically see the wheels in her head turning as she plotted to bring the conversation around to Harry, the heir. “Miss Amelia, who, you know, is my most particular friend, says they treat old Mrs. Thompson royally. Mr. Harry Thompson even brought her—”
“Lydia, why do you let these girls interrupt their elders?” Mrs. Robinson blinked at me. “No expense has been spared on them. They’ve had gloves, hats, countless dresses, a governess.”
This was a point of debate between us. She, who had petitioned for Ned to have a tutor, had told Edmund not once but several times that she couldn’t see what I did all day if I let some other, less accomplished woman finish my headstrong daughters. And educating girls hardly merited such an expense.