Romancing Miss Bronte: A Novel - By Juliet Gael Page 0,2
infirm to do much work, sat in her corner slowly peeling potatoes with her arthritic hands. Tabby was growing deaf, and whenever they had some private bit of news to tell her, they had to take her out on the moors, where they could shout without being overheard.
“Where’s Emily?”
“Has better things to do,” Martha muttered. She pushed up her sleeve, grabbed another hunk of meat, and brought down the cleaver with a thud. Martha Brown was the sexton’s seventeen-year-old daughter. She had grown up with the parson’s family and had been in service to them for two years; the Brontës were as close as kin.
“What?” Tabby asked.
“I asked where Emily was,” Charlotte shouted.
“Roamin’ about on the tops, I reckon,” Tabby said. “Heather’s in bloom. The girl’s gone mornin’ t’ night when she can get away with it.”
Martha replied curtly, “Well, this is not when she can get away with it. I was needin’ a bit o’ help in the kitchen. This is washin’ day an’ I have sheets sittin’ in a tub of water. An’ Miss Anne’s gone into the village.”
Charlotte merely tucked the letter in her pocket and reached for an apron hanging beside the door.
“Here, let me finish that, Martha. You keep up like that and we’ll have a finger in the stew for sure.”
Martha gave one of her put-upon sighs, put down the cleaver, and wiped her bloodied hands on her apron.
“If you’re going out to do laundry, you change that apron,” Charlotte said to her.
“Yes, miss,” she replied. Quietly, she added, “We’re glad ye’re stayin’ home, Miss Brontë. Oh, fer sure, Miss Emily’s a fine cook, but when ye was in Brussels, why, we like to never had a meal on time, an’ ye know how the reverend likes everything done on time.”
“Oh, indeed I do know, Martha.”
Tabby, who had followed the general flow of the conversation, chimed in loudly, “Breakfast at nine sharp. Dinner at two. Tea an’ light supper at six. Master hasn’t changed his habits in all these years an’ likely never will.”
The house had run like clockwork when their Aunt Branwell had been in charge, but she had died the year Charlotte and Emily were away at school in Brussels. Both sisters had come home; Emily had stayed to keep house for their father but Charlotte had returned to Brussels for a second year. It was a decision that would define her life in ways she was yet to discover.
“Now, should we set a place for Mr. Branwell?” Martha asked.
“Is he still in bed?”
“Hasn’t been down for breakfast.”
Charlotte shook her head and began chopping the meat into small pieces. “Well, if he sleeps through meals he’ll just have to go hungry,” she said sourly.
Martha fed another log of wood to the stove, and when she had disappeared into the washroom behind the kitchen, Tabby spoke up.
“What was ailin’ the boy last night? ’e was makin’ out like the devil’d got into ’im.”
“Just never you mind, Tabby,” Charlotte answered, but of course Tabby knew very well what was ailing him.
“Well, best to let the boy sleep.” Tabby rose, holding her apron full of potato peelings, and emptied it into the compost bucket. “He needs to get over it. Men take t’ drink when their hearts are broken.”
“That sort of indulgence is exactly what’s wrong with him,” Charlotte answered sharply. “He’s been given far too much freedom.”
“Aye, she’s a Jezebel, that Mrs. Robinson. It’s a wicked woman that seduces a young man under her husband’s nose … wicked indeed … an’ her husband sick an’ dyin’, too.”
“Branwell’s twenty-five. He’s not some innocent child. He should have removed himself from temptation. He should have offered his resignation and left the house. That would have been the moral thing to do.”
“Aye, it would’ve been the right thing t’ do, but we’re all of us made of the same stuff, miss, sinners before God, an’ none o’ us do the right thing all the time.”
Charlotte scooped a handful of flour out of the bin and sprinkled it over the meat.
“He’s lost his position now, and he makes no effort to find another one. I’m quite fed up with his moaning around the house.”
Tabby, who often missed vital parts of a conversation, gave a nod and frowned as she gathered up her potatoes. “Aye, miss, it’s sad for us all.”
“It’s so upsetting for Papa,” Charlotte muttered. She fell silent and scooped up the meat and dropped it into a pot on the stove.