For Clare
Are there wicked things,
not human, which envy
human bliss?
CHARLOTTE BRONT?
CHARLOTTE BRONT? DIPPED HER PEN INTO the inkwell and dabbed it on a blotter. For a long moment she held it over the blank page, waiting. She was writing the final scene of a story, and she wanted it to be … transcendent.
On the other side of the desk, her brother, Branwell, was scratching away. His spectacles sat folded in front of him, and he was bent double over his paper, his eyes only an inch or two away from the words. When Branwell couldn't get a scene right, he simply went on to the next one—and the next, and the next. Half his page was covered already, she noticed with disgust, and he was writing with his left hand, too. Her brother wrote equally well with either hand, but he chose the left only when he was writing about Alexander Rogue, his magnificently wicked villain.
"Remember," Charlotte said. "You're not to kill off any of our characters without my consent." Rogue had a nasty habit of dueling with Charlotte's favorite people. "I had plans for Count Roderick."
Branwell shrugged, drawing a red blanket closer around his shoulders. "Pompous nincompoop. He deserved to die like a dog."
"He was mine! I was going to have him woo Lady Constance."
Her brother smirked. His pen hadn't slowed its speed throughout this exchange, and Charlotte felt suddenly daunted by the sheer volume of words it produced. Scribblemania, Branwell called it.
She got up and closed the window against the damp. Below her in the churchyard, the gravestones were vague and indistinct, coming in and out of view as gusts of wind swept the mist across them. Her father's church, which was just beyond, had disappeared, enveloped by the fog.
On her return to the desk, she tripped over the heavy muller Branwell used to grind his paints. She pushed it into a corner with her foot and sat down again. "Your attempts to annex this room for your own use have not gone unnoticed," she said.
They were in the children's study, as they had always called it, a small upstairs room with no fireplace. Half a dozen of her brother's unfinished paintings sat on easels or leaned against the walls, his bed was pushed up into a corner, and his wooden paint-box lay open by the desk, spilling out brushes and packets of expensive pigments ordered from Leeds.
Branwell gave a loud, barking laugh, slapping his hand on the desk, seemingly delighted by one of his own turns of phrase. Charlotte clenched her teeth, sure he was purposely ignoring her. She had missed her brother when she was away at school, had waited eagerly for his letters, but now that she was home for good, everything about him vexed her.
"Do you hear? The children's study has always been for all of us."
Branwell was beyond hearing. With a twinge of envy, Charlotte saw that his mind was in that place where the real world falls away.
All those words, she thought. If someone straightened Branwell's writings into a single line of black ink, would it circle the globe? She had written like that once, for the sheer joy of being in invented lands, not caring whether the words were good, whether they were art.
Her brother threw her a glance—such a strange, ecstatic look in his blue eyes. Charlotte sat up straighter in her chair. There was something feverish in that look, as if something were burning her brother up from the inside. It gave her pause. Like the gravestones coming into view when the wind tore the mist away, Charlotte saw her brother. Truly saw him.
The blanket he wore was an old ratty thing, but on him it looked dashing, like a bullfighter's cape. There were red wisps on his chin that a generous person might call a beard, and he was wearing his carrot-colored hair long and loose, in an artistic fashion that suited him. Branwell had turned seventeen that summer, and even Charlotte had to admit he was becoming rather handsome.
And yet … how thin he was, and pale, with something frenetic about those ever-moving fingers. Both he and Charlotte were ill more often than their sisters; they felt the cold more keenly; they tired more quickly. Charlotte knew why, but usually she was able to imprison the reason at the back of her mind.
The light changed. There was something in the room with them that hadn't been there a moment before, something bright. Charlotte would have seen it if she turned her head, but she kept her gaze on Branwell.
"What have we done?" she whispered.
Still writing furiously with his left hand, Branwell lifted his right, palm up.
"Banny, don't!"
Her brother's eyes were shut now, his face beaming with corrupted joy. His quill fell from his hand. Charlotte held her breath—and as she watched, her brother disappeared.
"Oh," she said. The sight still surprised her after all this time. She glanced to the study door, but they had been careful to shut it, as always. The light was gone. She was alone. "Reckless boy."
She leaned over to look at Branwell's side of the desk. Incredibly—miraculously—his words were still unspooling across the page. Charlotte took up her own pen with determination. In very small, very cramped handwriting, she began to write.