“Very good.”
I sat, pretended to read, and listened for the rustle of her skirts and the familiar click of the door, but instead there was only her breath, always audible, irregular, and rattling, like a window only just holding out against the wind.
“You wish to see him now, Mrs. Robinson?” she asked, her emphasis on the “now.”
“At Mr. Brontë’s earliest convenience.” I met her eye with as convincing a smile as I could muster. “Thank you, Miss Brontë.”
She nodded and left.
Strange that Miss Brontë was so partial to Mary.
Your first child is a miracle. A man and you have met and married and made a person, with nostrils and eyelashes and toes. Every breath she takes seems to swell your heart. You didn’t know what love was until today.
Your second, if another girl, is a disappointment. You feel the low, aching guilt of that as you gaze down on her. Crescent nails and downy hair. She is perfect in every way, except for the most important.
Still, no need to worry. You are young. You have years to mate and make a boy.
With the third, though, the tide turns—or it did with my poor Mary. Your husband’s face falls when he hears the news from the midwife. You can hardly look when you place the baby in the third-hand cradle. Your body is in ruins, another year of your life has faded away, and there is still no son to set the world to rejoicing, no boy to grant the tenant farmers an unearned holiday.
Worse yet, when the heir comes at last, he is not yours at all, but everyone else’s. You have made what you could never be. You have fulfilled your function and are useless, spent.
“Only think, Lydia, you need never have another baby,” Mother had said, dandling Ned on her knee.
I had burned then with desire for another child. I had begged, and at last Edmund had given her to me. She would be the child who fixed us, who brought back the love that we had lost. My dearest, sweetest Georgiana. The child I had wanted in spite of reason, almost to defy logic, the daughter born only to love and be loved. And she was the only child taken from us, as if in confirmation of the world’s perverse cruelty.
A tap at the door. Mr. Brontë. My insides contorted.
“Come in,” I called, but I had spoken too quietly and was forced to repeat myself twice before he entered.
“Mrs. Robinson,” Mr. Brontë said, bowing. He didn’t even look at me. His eyes swept my dressing room, taking in the feminine trappings—chintz floral curtains, a few engravings, a deep pink rug one of my brothers had sworn was from India when he gave it to me—but also Edmund’s gun case, which was positioned above the chimney glass and looked strangely out of place.
My life was laid out before him, in stacks of library books, letters tied with ribbons, half-finished pieces of embroidery. These were the baubles with which women must entertain themselves. Ours were pursuits, not passions, taken up in a quiet moment, and just as easily set aside. Everything was just so—neat and in its proper place. Was Mr. Brontë thinking how different the room was from Edmund’s haphazard study?
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Brontë,” I said. “Pray, take a seat.”
I had risen at his entrance half unconsciously, and now, as he came toward me, I could see that he was shorter than I’d thought when I saw him from the window, not much taller than me.
His face, though, was full of character. Sharp jaw, imperial nose, and abundant chestnut hair, much darker and redder in color than his sister’s and so curly it gave him the appearance of a child despite the beard that covered his chin.
Mr. Brontë cleared his throat as he waited for me to stop staring, hovering by the painted chair opposite me.
“I trust your first few weeks at Thorp Green have been comfortable, Mr. Brontë,” I said, retaking my seat and fidgeting my hands below the table, hidden from him.
“Very comfortable, Mrs. Robinson. I owe you thanks for trusting Anne’s recommendation,” he said, flicking up the tails of his coat to sit.
Oh, yes. Miss Brontë was another “Anne.” Like Marshall and our hapless housemaid, Ellis. Perhaps, for him, the name “Miss Brontë” conjured the other one, “Charlotte.” And wasn’t there a third sister too?
“All my husband’s doing, I assure you,” I said quickly. “Ned is only ten and might have stayed longer with the girls, I think. He would have learned enough Latin from your sister to prepare him for Cambridge, but what do I know of such things?”
He did not reply. His silence struck me as insulting rather than deferential.
Miss Brontë, too, had been quiet at our first interview, but she had quaked in anticipation. Her eyes had skated across the floor as if watching a mouse, and she’d answered me in monosyllables or with a tactless innocence about the ways of the world.
“Why did you leave your last employers, the Inghams, Miss Brontë?” I’d asked, smiling to try to reassure her.
“They were unkind to me,” she’d answered.
Unkindness. I had been indifferent toward her, yes, once I’d discovered what she really thought of me, but at least she couldn’t accuse me of that.
I tried once more to engage the brother, to play the lady of the manor, although the household had run just as smoothly during my absence at Yoxall Lodge, and now even this young man was more necessary to its operation than I was.
“You have met all my children, I think?” I ventured.
“Yes. Ned is a good-natured boy, and your daughters are charming.” Mr. Brontë’s face broke into a smile.
I swallowed my annoyance. “Yes, Mr. Brontë,” I said, clasping my hands on the desk. “That is why I wished to speak with you.”
The smile faded. He looked troubled. His eyes wandered from mine to my cheek to my hands, making me flush at his impertinence. He was taking me apart and putting me back together, puzzling me out. “Indeed?”
“My daughters, Mr. Brontë, they are young and—how was it you put it?—charming. Miss Robinson, Lydia, my eldest, in particular is considered something of a beauty.” As I was once, I nearly added, but I couldn’t risk being met by a look of disbelief or patronizing indulgence.
“Mrs. Robinson, I hope you don’t think— I was commenting only on their sweet dispositions,” Mr. Brontë said, leaning across the table, his palms upturned for emphasis, his words spilling over each other in his desire for me to understand.
I laughed.
I could accept, even boast, that Lydia was beautiful, with her gold ringlets and periwinkle-blue eyes, and it was true that she could be charming. But a sweet disposition? If only young men could see the girls who dominate their imaginations when the door is closed or the dance is done. All too often, I had suffered the sting of Lydia’s slaps and stood in the tidal waves of her anger. And as for Bessy, my second daughter was ever gallivanting around the property, falling from horses, scraping her knees, and eating with the appetite of a boy. She would have been a stable lad if left to follow the cues of her own nature.
“This is not an admonishment, Mr. Brontë,” I said, after leaving him to sweat for a moment. “I only wish to rely on you as a gentleman and a friend.”
And then I did something extraordinary. Without making the decision to do so, I placed my hand on top of his.