Solsbury Hill A Novel (14 page)

Mead drew a bottle and two chunky glasses from the cupboard.

“You know, I must have been twelve, or maybe thirteen, the last time I saw Alice, before coming here.”

“I know. I remember.”

“You remember?”

“I was there.”

“You were there?”

“Shite, I’ve yet to get the echo out of this barn . . .” Mead checked to make sure he hadn’t offended her. “Yep, I was there, but I don’t expect you’d remember. I remember watching you. You had a lot going on, down here, up there.” He pointed to his heart and then his head.

“I shouldn’t really drink this—I’m driving.” She took a sip. “I don’t remember your being there. I only remember bits and pieces anyway.” Another sip. “But I can’t help imagining what it would have been like to have known Alice sooner, when I was younger, to have had a chance to know a little more about myself.”

“To know about yourself?”

“I feel like that. Yes. Somehow. I don’t know if it’s been getting a chance to know Alice, just this tiny amount of time, or just being here, but I feel more . . .”

She stopped herself. She had no idea how to put into words what it was she was feeling. “Like I’ve taken hold of a string and it’s pulling me toward something.” She looked up to where there was one large window, high on the far wall where the hayloft might have been. The window was framed and filled with stained glass, but without sunshine coming
through, Eleanor couldn’t make out the design. “There were things Alice started to tell me and didn’t have the time.”

“Listen, I’ve got some bread and cheese,” Mead said. “Should we have some?”

“I’d love some. I’m always hungry out here.” A natural and pretty laugh rumbled in her chest. “But I should get on the road . . .”

“You sure I can’t drive you?”

She wanted to stay. The chair was the most comfortable deep chair she’d ever been in. The whisky was warm and she felt safe. Different from the way she’d always felt safe with Miles. Miles’ safe had to do with moving on, moving forward and not stopping. Knowing someone, growing with someone, like growing in an environment without thinking about where the sun comes from, what the ground is made of.

She didn’t want to leave, but she said, “Thanks, no. You sure it’s all right to take that fine car?”

He nodded.

She got up to go. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it on the road.”

I
t was an easy two-hour drive across the Pennines, from Trent Hall in the North York Moors to Haworth in the Yorkshire Dales. When Eleanor arrived, the woman at the Old White Lion Inn urged her to rush to the Brontë Parsonage before it closed, and it was less than a few
minutes’ walk down a cobblestoned lane through a charming village.

At the parsonage there was an exhibit called the Infernal World of Branwell Brontë and from what Eleanor read in the show’s brochure, the dark imaginings in Emily’s novel were no surprise: Emily alone had borne the care of her brother in the last years of both their lives, when he’d been murderously mad and wild from unrequited love and an addiction to alcohol and laudanum.

Eleanor hadn’t known the children had lost their mother, early in their lives. She hadn’t realized they lived this close, one room right next to another in a small home in a very small town. She pictured the family, their complicated relationships. Each small room with a desk, a hard wood chair, paper and pen set out for writing. Everything plain and spare.

Almost closing time, the parsonage had emptied of visitors and Eleanor ventured to the far end of the house to see Emily’s bedroom, with an undraped window that reached to the ceiling over a twin bed squeezed between two walls. Eleanor imagined Emily sitting up in bed, looking out the window with a pen in her hand and a small book to write in, but the house felt closed and tight and suddenly Eleanor wanted to get outside.

It was twilight and if she hadn’t seen the tiniest pale blue bird on a branch in the parsonage graveyard, Eleanor might have been sorry she’d come, but the bird was as round and small as a Ping-Pong ball. She watched it hop up the branch,
the way little plastic windup toys hop and flip, and at the end of the branch it spread its tiny wings and fluttered away. Like a cotton ball floating upward into the sky, it flew till she couldn’t see it anymore.

She sat at the base of a gravestone. In the end, Yorkshire was a place where it was all right to feel grief. If nothing else, she’d begun to feel things differently. While she walked on the moors, with the wind as a friend, the mist above the ground and the boggy peat below, she was more alone than she’d ever been, but felt less alone. The Yorkshire moors were alive with something, and it matched the way it felt to be Eleanor.

A steep cobbled street sloped out of town, away from the graveyard, but she took the road up to the Old White Lion where she would be staying the night. She stepped inside the Rose & Co. Apothecary, which was quiet and dimly lit and seemed like it hadn’t changed since the nineteenth century. Eleanor bought a pair of blue frilly knickers meant for naughty Victorian girls and a box of bath patisseries from a vintage apothecary recipe. She ordered haddock, chips, and mushy peas for dinner, then took a bath and went to bed early.

J. M. Wilcock, Esq., and his wife lived on Tim Lane just minutes from the Old White Lion. Eleanor took a tiny wrong turn and wound up on Mytholmes Lane, where the
town went untidy, with wires everywhere and straight lines of attached row houses. When she reached Victoria Avenue, she turned the car around, headed back to town, and tried another way out Lord Lane and over a bridge.

The Wilcocks lived on a hill with a long drive and horses in a gated field. A pink bicycle and a blue bicycle rested against the stone wall by the orangey-red front door. Mr. Wilcock opened the door as she was walking up the path. His square face and round belly smiled. “It’s a damn good thing to see you, good to have you here. Come in, come in.” He led her into the hallway and then the front room. “I’m so glad you made the drive. On the wrong side of the road, too.”

“Oh, it was fine, except for the roundabouts, but here I am.”

“Let’s have a drink, shall we?” he said. “Drinks first.”

“Always,” Eleanor said.

“What will you have?” The doorbell rang. “That will be Jane . . . ,” Mr. Wilcock said.

Mrs. Wilcock came in with a tray of bottles and glasses. “Our daughter insisted on joining. I hope you don’t mind . . .” Her limpid blue eyes looked directly into Eleanor’s. “Still a bit bewildered?”

“I’m much better. I’ve been doing a lot of walking and it’s helped to clear my mind.”

Mrs. Wilcock dropped ice cubes in four glasses and poured a generous amount of gin, vermouth, and a splash of Campari in each one. She handed Eleanor a drink.

Jane Wilcock came into the room, tall and elegantly dressed in this year’s Burberry soft black leather pants and a mahogany-red fitted sweater, with sensible walking shoes. As Jane shook Eleanor’s hand she said, “You’re a brave girl coming all this way to this quiet place. It must seem terribly dull after a life in Manhattan,” and then took her drink from the cocktail table and sat down.

“It’s not the end of the earth,” Mr. Wilcock rumbled.

Mrs. Wilcock smiled at her husband. “It’s true,” she said to Eleanor, “it was brave of you to come.”

“I wish you’d had more time with Alice,” Mr. Wilcock said. “She outlived what the doctor said she’d do, but still, she was so happy to have you come.”

Through lunch, the couple bickered a bit and Jane seemed accustomed to smoothing their differences. Mead had warned her, when he’d offered to drive, “Whatever you think of me, I’d be the best part of the journey, I’m pretty sure,” but Eleanor was enjoying the change of scene, the more modern home with large windows, linen curtains, bright lights, and white furniture. For the most part, the conversation was light and lively: a little American politics, a bit of fashion with Jane.

“There was something you didn’t want to discuss on the phone,” she reminded Mr. Wilcock as he scooped the last bit of cream and cobbler from his bowl.

“Oh, that. Sorry, no. I suppose that was just a ruse to get you out here.” He dabbed around his mouth with the linen napkin.

“Ah . . .”

Jane interjected, “Father wanted to know you better and we knew you wouldn’t be staying long.”

“I want to make sure,” Mr. Wilcock began, “that you understand we are all your family. You shouldn’t be the least bit anxious about Trent Hall and all that goes with it. It won’t be a burden you’re inheriting, I promise you that. I’m here, I’m always here to help you in any regard.”

“Gwen said it takes care of itself, but it’s not that . . . ,” Eleanor said.

“I knew your mother, when we were young. I think she’d be pleased.” His eyes moistened. “It’s a long time ago, but I thought the world of her, and I think the world of you. Whatever you decide to do with Trent Hall”—he reached and took her hand now—“it’s something you want to be proud of. It’s a fine estate, Trent Hall.”

“Yes, well, Papa.” Jane rolled her eyes at Eleanor in a friendly way. “Are you up for a walk, Eleanor? We hear from Mead you’re a noble walker. I imagine it’s in your blood! I think we should take you to Top Withens.”

“Do you know it?” Mrs. Wilcock asked.

“I saw something about it last night, at the parsonage.”

“It’s our little Disneyland,” Jane said. “Haworth and the Brontës. The parsonage, the ghosts. Top Withens is thought to be Emily’s inspiration for Wuthering Heights, the house itself, that is. Do you want to go? It’s not a difficult trek.” Jane’s accent was particularly British, with musical lilting
intonation, sharp consonants, and swallowed syllables. Eleanor nodded and without delay everyone was up and gathering scarves and coats.

Along the way the moor grew barren and dry, but the walk was easy. Mr. Wilcock reviewed with Eleanor some of the details of the estate, what it meant for Eleanor, whether she stayed in England or not. The house could not be sold under any condition, he reiterated, but she needn’t live there all the time—Alice and Gwen hadn’t. There were people to care for it, if she found she couldn’t stay. Still, he encouraged her to find a way to stay and she began to feel obligated.

“What about Mead? Can’t I give it to him?”

“You can’t. No. One has nothing to do with the other . . . ,” Mr. Wilcock said, somewhat breathless as they passed a low bridge and the climb grew more steep.

“But he lives there and he should stay there. I mean, of course, he’ll live there as long as he wants. It’s his house.” She looked at Jane.

“Mead makes do,” Jane said, and there was something about the way she’d spoken his name. Eleanor supposed that Jane had been a girlfriend of Mead’s at one time. And this made Eleanor a little more curious. Everything she’d encountered on this journey seemed to have another side: a shadow, a shimmer, an underbelly.

Jane hooked her arm through Eleanor’s and walked with
her more quickly so they’d pull ahead of her parents. In a conspiratorial tone she said, “Don’t be overly bothered. Father wants you here. He’s sentimental that way. You must do what’s right for you.” She slowed down to light a cigarette, cupped her hand around the flame, her arm still hooked with Eleanor’s arm.