.
Charlotte
Brontë was born two hundred years ago on April 21, 1816, in West Yorkshire. Charlotte
was the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and
whose novels have become classics of English literature. Ever since they have
been an inspiration to many writers including myself.
The
following story was written several years ago, after a visit to Norton Conyers,
the house which was allegedly visited by Charlotte as a young woman when she
was working as a governess. It is also alleged that it was here at Norton
Conyers that she first heard a story about a mad woman in the attic.
My story explores Charlotte’s experience in letters
to her sister Emily.
Here it is:
Letter to Emily
Mrs Hedgewick
decreed that as Lottie was so very small she could sit with the children on
their side of the carriage. This meant that Lottie was squashed into the corner
with baby Rupert on her knee. Rupert was her favourite: six months old and
plump and pliant, he smiled with delight every time he saw her even though it
had only been a week since she had joined the family.
From
her corner of the carriage Lottie watched as Mrs Hedgewick spread her skirts
and place her parasol before her, clasping its silver peacock head tightly to
counterbalance the rocking of the coach.
Young
Sarah reach out her hand and pinched her sister Julia, who howled and flailed
out against the hand, catapulting Sarah into Lottie’s shoulder and making
Rupert cry, In the seat by the window James folded his arms with their tight
razor elbows and stuck out his chin. ‘Mother,’ he shouted above the din, ‘This
is a madhouse. Do make them stop.’
Mrs
Hedgewick turned her gaze from the rolling Yorkshire countryside and fixed
Lottie with her mean porcine stare. ‘Miss Lottie, the children!’ she said
grimly. ‘According to your father you have been a little mother to your own
sisters, I have seen little evidence of such qualities in my house. ‘See to
your charges!’
The
screaming battle between the girls slowed. Rupert stirred and whimpered on
Lottie’s knee, The eyes of the three older children locked eagerly onto
Lottie’s face, displaying the clinical interest that had chilled her from the
first moment she’s met them at Hedgefield House,
‘That’s
enough, Julia! Sarah!’ Lottie said sharply, injecting her voice with all the
firmness she could muster, It was very hard to play the bully. Her own little
sisters could be cajoled with a jest, rewarded with a story or a picture. She’d
never had to raise her voice,
Sarah,
sharp kited eyes on Lottie, reached out and pinched Julia’s fat cheek. Julia
shrieked and pulled Sarah’s snaky curls. Exhaling a loud sigh Lottie stood up
in the swaying coach and thrust the baby onto his mother’s unwilling lap. Then
she turned to pull the brawling sisters apart, holding each one by the back of
her dainty muslin frock, ‘Now James,’ she said grimly to their brother,’ You
will move to the centre so that you are between your sisters, You will be the
constable, the peacemaker.’
‘The
boy shrugged.’ Perfectly comfortable here, thank you ma-am,’ he said, smoothing
the fine serge of his knickerbockers with blunt, ill-shaped fingers.
Lottie
met his gaze with a look which, she knew, made her own sisters tremble, Into
that look she forced all her power – all her contempt for this boy and his
ignorant, pig-faced family; all her anger at being forced into this work for a
miserable, grudgingly bestowed pittance; all her despair at being parted from
her sisters with their gentle hands, their bright knowing eyes, and their knife
sharp minds. ‘You will move, James!’ she said, ‘Or I will know the reason why,’
Mumbling
under his breath James shuffled along the3 seat. Lottie thrust a girl either
side of him, straightening their shoulders and pulling their skirt into some
semblance of order. She squeezed in beside Sarah, She could smell the sweat that
had gathered in her hair under her bonnet and was starting to trickle down her
neck.
‘Miss
Lottie! Do take Rupert.’ Mrs Hedgewick thrust the whimpering child towards
her,’ He is slavering so. And my dress with be creased to high heaven. What
Lady Gardam will think I can’t imagine. She will take us for paupers.’ She
pulled down the sleeves of her exquisite dress, a vision in palest blue fine
lawn, and patted the sausage curl drooping on her cheek.
As
Lottie settled Rupert in her own creased lap and stroked his face to stop the
whimpering she considered the vulgarity of Mrs Hedgwick’s remark. Here was baby
Rupert immaculate in a diaphanous dress of trimmed organdie and the other
children were also pristine in showy clothes just brought up from London on the
train. Lottie was quite aware that she herself, in her six year old mended
gown, would draw attention to the poverty of her condition.
She
glanced out of the window, already composing an amusing letter to her little
sister Em. This one would mention the Hedgehogs – as she referred to her
employers in this sanity-saving correspondence – making calls, as one does in
the country,
Lottie
put her face closer to the thick glass of the carriage window. Through the
trees she glimpsed a flash of blue – a whole shelf of delphiniums, above which,
stretching elegantly on a long bank sat a weathered brick house with high
chimneys, Its wide double doors were overshadowed by an extended portico
bracketed with great stone buckets of flaring geranium.
‘This
must be Colyer House, Mrs Hedgewick?’ she ventured.
Lottie’s
employer nodded her satisfaction, her second chin wobbling slightly. ‘Not one of
the great houses my dear, but substantial. The family have been here since the
Norman Conquest and Sir Richard is a leading man in the North, He and Mr
Sedgwick are most intimate friends. And Lady Gertrude…’she paused. ‘So
gracious.’
Lottie
had written to her sister that the she-Hedgehog had aspirations above the
status of the he-Hedgehog. He was modest
enough despite the fact that he was already a very successful farmer and man of
business. The she Hedgehog only seems
happy dear Em in the company of people who, with various degrees of subtlety,
patronise her and put her down. Poor she-Hedgehog generally fails even to
notice the slights, contenting herself with the opportunity to bask in the
glimmering, distant light of those whom she sees as ‘leading people;
Now
Lottie watched as the house came into view then vanished behind tall trees and
then back again. Its windows winked and its warm brick glowed in the July sun.
The caught her breath. Mrs Hedgewick was correct in saying this was not one of
the great houses. A curved, decorative roof had been rather clumsily added to
the pediment at the front, contrasting in a comical fashion with the
battlemented walls behind.
However
as it grew closer and closer the sight of the house moved Lottie so much that
she felt the itch of tears in the bones under her eyes, She felt she had seen
this house somewhere before, had known it. She searched the far corners of her
memory, turning over images like a woman sorting her laundry. At the back of
her mind an urgent sense of familiarity fought to claim recognition,
Then
she smiled. There was that day when the three of them had been sitting round
the table in their little parlour. She herself had been working on her small
watercolour, Em had been scribbling away in her tiny script. Annie was
embroidering a flourishing P on a handkerchief for their father, who was locked
in his study wrestling with his God and his own inability to write about pure
faith, Annie had stuck her needle in her cloth and peered short-sightedly at
Lottie’s painting. ‘That’s a fine house, Lottie, Such a grand entrance. Who
should we make to live there, do you think?’
Em
had looked up from her page, blinking. ‘A tall man, dark I think,’ she said,
joining in their old game. ’Somewhat severe.’
‘He
has suffered in life,’ Annie put in her portion. ‘And that makes him snappy,
like an injured dog.’
‘But
his heard is true,’ concluded Lottie, applying her sable brush to some
flowering sage which she made to flower in profusion below the tall window.
‘Miss
Lottie! Miss Lottie!’ She was dragged back to the present by Mrs Hedgewick’s
voice which was laced with the familiarly dangerous wheedling tone. ‘You are
again in one of your dazes, Wake up! Can you not see we have arrived?’
The
carriage had stopped rocking and was still. A footman stood to attention beside
the carved door, Lottie blinked as she saw the purple sage flowering in
profusion beneath one of the tall windows.
She
struggled down from the carriage, the sleeping Rupert now a dead weight on her
aching arm. The other children alighted and they all watched as Mrs He3dgewick
signalled the footman to assist her in stepping down from the carriage,
Lady Gardam
did not rise to welcome them when they were announced into her drawing room.
She merely patted the sofa beside her. ‘How delightful to see you, Mrs
Sedgewick,’ she said in a dry papery voice. ‘And you are en famille I see,’
Mrs
Hedgewick presented James, who bowed, and Sarah and Julia, who curtseyed, ‘And
the baby is Rupert,’ she said, proudly, not noticing her ladyship’s raised
brows,
‘Clearly
a fine child,’ said Lady Gardam, without looking at him. She raised her lizard
eyes to Lottie, who exchanged look for look, ‘And this is?’
‘This
is Miss Branwell, Lady Gardam, The children’s governess.’
‘Ah,’
said her ladyship. ‘Perhaps Miss Branwell will take her charges to the old
nursery. There are pastimes there, although alas our own children are long
gone.’ He wavering gaze left Lottie and fixed on the hovering footman, ‘Conduct
the children and Miss Branwell to the nursery Robert. Then tell cook to send
milk and cakes up to the nursery. Mrs Hedgewick and I will take tea here,’
‘…Then, Em I was hustled out of the
door. Such contempt in her old voice. You should have heard it. The children
and I were definitely not invited. The she Hedgehog had definitely stepped over
a line that she never even knew was there. I wonder what this dithery old wreck
of an aristocrat wants with the she-Hedgehog. Something to do the he-Hedgehog’s
great wealth perhaps. That seems usually the case when such people curry favour
with the Hedgehogs of this world,’
The nursery
was scruffy and cluttered with objects. Sarah and Julia immediately started
fighting over a very bog rocking horse. James pulled a box off a high shelf,
knelt on the floor and a whole heap of lead soldiers fell with a clatter onto
the bare wooden floor.
Lottie’s
shoulders ached with Rupert’s dead weight. The room smelled damp. She shivered,
‘I’ll
light thoo a fire if thoo wants.’ The footman’s voice raked her ear, ‘Fire’s
allus laid in here,’
She
turned to look at him for the first time. He was stocky, no more than sixteen with
thick wild hair and beetling brows.
She
nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
He
took a flint box from the mantle shelf and knelt down beside the fire, ‘Nah need
for thanks,’ he grunted, ‘It’s onny a job like.’
She
looked at his averted face; at his busy hands with their sprouting black hair,
‘Would there be anywhere I could lire the baby?’ she said, ‘He needs to sleep.’
‘Room
next door, Night nussery,’ he grunted. ‘Yah’ll find a cot in there. Nah bairn
in there for years, but.’
In
the night nursery she hunted in a cupboard and found a blanket smelling of
mothballs to put on the bare cot mattress. She laid Rupert on the bumpy surface
and his head fell back, his baby mouth opening slightly like the inside of a
fresh strawberry, She waited until he was properly asleep and when she got back
into the day nursery the fire was blazing and the footman had gone. The little
sisters had abandoned the rocking horse and had opened a cupboard from which
were tumbling enticing doll figures and mechanicals. James was fighting the
battle of Agincourt on the nursery table.
Lottie
subsided into the fire- side chair and stared at the dancing flames. Her
eyelids drooped. The letter in her head continued. The footman, dearest Em is
the queerest fellow; he has hair on the back of his hands and a gleam in his
eye that spoke great revolt. There is this energy about him. And yet he is
submissive enough. But in that very submission there is a kind of menace. The
children are playing and the baby is asleep. Oh it’s so good to sit just a few moments
and do nothing. The she-Hedgehog has had me trotting to her porcine will every
hour since I arrived at the Hedgehoggery. And still, Em, I cannot please! I
feel she is at the point of dismissing me from minute to minute.
‘Miss Lottie!
Miss Lottie!’ Her skirt was being pulled. Young Julia was poking her little
snout close to Lottie’s face. ‘Rupert’s gone, Miss Lottie, You were asleep and
we heard a noise and when we went in there, into that room, he was not there.
Rupert’s gone, Miss Lottie,’ Lottie looked from child to child. James was rubbing
a leaden infantryman on his immaculate sleeve eyeing her dispassionately. Sara
was pulling a dress onto a naked cloth doll,
Lottie
leapt to her feet and raced into the night nursery, Rupert and his blanket were
gone. In the filtered light from the curtained window the surface of the lumpy
mattress was as bare as the moon. She turned round and raced back through the
door. ‘Where have you put him, you naughty girls?’ She shook Julia and Sarah by
their plump shoulders.
Julia’s
twisted away, her lip jutting out, ‘I told you, Miss Lottie,’ she wined. ‘We
heard a noise and when we came in here he was gone.’
Sarah
started to cry.
Lottie
looked across at James,
He
put the leaden soldier in his pocket and shrugged, ‘I didn’t hear any noise.
Then he cocked his head. ‘There! That’s him crying. Didn’t you hear him? It
came from somewhere upstairs,’
She
frowned at him,’ I hear no noise.’
He
looked at her steadily, ‘I’m telling you, I heard a noise upstairs,’
She
raced out onto the deserted landing then walked along until she found a door to
a staircase. She clambered up the narrow staircase her nose wrinkling at the
smell of dust and dead mice, She ducked to save her head from a sloping roof
joist and found herself in a narrow
corridor, She opened one door after another peering into one ill lit room after
another making out the shabby detritus of the lives of female servants, She ducked
her head again entered a doorway at the end of the corridor, Now she was in a
long room with a straw paillasse in each
corner covered in blankets, Fusty coats hung drunkenly from hooks curiously
mimicking their owner’s male bodies. Polished
Sunday boots were to attention standing by the battered pillows, waiting for
their owners to enjoy their rime off, to be themselves,
Lottie
marched on to a door at the far end of the room and round herself in a narrow
room with a high window bare except for a bed on legs and a rusty narrow hip
bath. The high window was small and round. She stood on tip toes to peer
through it, She could see the edge of one of the old battlemented walls and
beyond that the park and the rising Yorkshire
hills, In any other mood she would have gasped at the beauty and reached for
her paintbrushes,
But
now she was angry, ‘Wold goose chase,’ she muttered, striding back to the door,
‘Wild goose chase!’ she shouted now in her frustration. She pushed at the door
but it would not open. She pushed harder and harder but it refused to open. She
banged on it with her fists. It clicked against a bolt or some other barrier on
the other side. She kicked it hard and recoiled as she jolted her toe,
She
leaned her cheek against the door’s rough plank surface and rested for a
moment. And so, dear Em, I am locked in
this dingy stinking attic. Children’s mischief of course. One of the porcine
monsters has locked the door behind me, I must shout, get them to hear me. But
I will sound gentle so they come.’
Gentle
she was but soon she started to shout until her voice was hoarse. She went
across and opened the tiny window and shouted more, Then she took off her boots
and threw them out of the little window, only to hear them clatter one by one,
on the leaden roof nit as she had hoped on the ground far below where it might,
she hoped, have drawn attention from a passing gardener,
She
went back to the door, slid down with her back to the door and bit her lips to
stop the hot tears of frustration spilling down her cheeks. The crackling
silence taunted her in the dusty space. She started to shout again, banging the
door every few minutes. In time the outside dark crept into the room and closed
its fist around her. That was when she started to shout continuously, screaming
and moaning her deep distress, kicking away at the hard resisting door,
Dawn
came and through the window she could see the rain falling on the battlement.
The light was starting to fade again when he finally heard noises outside the
door. ‘Let me out! Let me out! You little monsters. Don’t think I don’t know
your nasty little name. Pig-monsters, I’ll murder you when you get out.’
The
noise outside the door ceased.
‘Let
me out,’ she whispered. ‘Please let me out. Please.
Suddenly
the heavy door was yanked open and she stood blinking as the light of a lantern
flooded into the darkened attic. Holding the lantern was the young footman,
Robert. He held a heavy cudgel in his hand. ‘What is it? What’s oop in here?’
He raised the lantern and peered at her. Then the fear drained from his voice,
‘Miss. Miss, can it be thoo?’
Lottie
put her dirty hands up tie her loosened hair and cast her eyes down to her
dirty stockinged feet,’ ‘The children,’ she said dully, ‘They locked me in.
Wait till I get my hands on him.’
‘Thoo’ll
need a long reach miss. They left straight for home yesterday. The lad said
you’d gone off, away, left them. Said you’d gone off away, left them to it. We
searched down to the far wall and through the woods. Ten men out there. You
weren’t there so they – that is her Ladyship – decided the Lad was right,’
‘But
Rupert, the baby? He was lost. Did they find him?’
‘The
babby? Not lost at all, Housemaid brought milk up for t’bairns and said you was
asleep, Babby was grizzling so she took him down to the kitchen to find him a
titty bottle,’
She
rubbed a dirty hand across her brow, ‘But listen! I’ve been shouting and banging
for hours. You must have heard me. She scrabbled at her hair trying to pit its
snaky straggles into some kind of order.
‘Aye
miss, we heard ‘em, them noises … all the time, into the night too. We hear
them regular, day and night, a woman banging and screaming. Thoo say – it’s an
old tale in these parts. There was this lass locked in here for years by her
husband. That’s what they say, like. They say the lass had a babby and
smothered it and was locked in here to keep her out of the madhouse, Flung
herself off the room in t’end, so they say,’
So now, I am beginning to get back my breath Em.
And the boy in relishing his doleful tale.
‘The
staff here’ve been scared out of their wits at your shouting and wailing, Her
Ladyship, as usual, tells us we were dreaming it, Deaf as a post she can be. I
was the only one dared come.’ He lifted the lantern nearer to his face and in
the darting light his black eyes sparked into hers. ‘Happened to that lass no
worse than to my own ma, who died afore Ah was born, They say they pulled us
from her like she was a dead pig, They do say also that Ah roared uncommon
lusty from the second Ah came out if her,’
‘… and then dear Em, I fainted, When I came to I
found the young footman carrying me down the steep stairs like a baby. I blush
to say it but the boy was nuzzling my neck like a day old pup. And despite his
fine livery he smelt of the byre,
They sent for the she-Hedgehog of
course but she did not blame the children. Instead she gave me notice and a
guinea for my trouble. But no reference, mark you!
This is, as you will see, a great
relief. I have decided now that I will come home. I will be with you and dearest
Annie tomorrow. Something is brewing in my head about us earning our living in
quite another way. Being a little mother to brats is surely the short end of
the stick. The perverse nature of this life has convinced me there is a way we
can all stay at home and flourish,
So I will be home tomorrow, Em. Be
sure to light the lamp on our favourite table, won’t you?
Love to Annie
Your loving sister Charlotte.
Ends
@ Wendy Robertson 2016
