The Triumph of Katie Byrne (17 page)

Lavinia pushed open the door, and cried,
‘Voilà!
Here it is, Katie. Isn’t it great?’

Katie had to agree. The barn was of medium size, with a cathedral ceiling; at the opposite end, the wall had been removed and replaced with a sheet of glass. This allowed bright daylight to flood into the barn so that it became the perfect place to paint.

‘Dad put the big picture window in, but it’s really
a French window. It slides open,’ Lavinia explained. ‘I have easy access to the outside. Come on, Katie, I want to show you my paintings.’

The paintings hung on two walls of the barn, and they were very well illuminated by pin-spots that shone down from beams in the cathedral ceiling. Katie knew at once that they were not merely good, but quite extraordinary. Jarvis is right to sound so proud, Katie thought; this girl is talented beyond belief.

The first painting that Katie lingered in front of was of a young girl sitting on a bale of hay in front of a haystack. It reeked of a hot summer’s day. Lavinia had brilliantly captured all of the inherent elements of high summer: a cerulean-blue sky, white puff-ball clouds, and golden hay. And sunshine spilled forth from the large-sized canvas. The laughing, dimpled girl with gypsy-black curls and cheeky black eyes was simply enchanting. The sleeves of her red shirt were rolled up to show her plump arms, which were as tanned as her merry face, while her luscious ripe mouth echoed the red of her shirt. Katie was captivated.

Lavinia painted in the Impressionist style, and she had obviously mastered it well. It happened to be the school of painting Katie had always preferred, especially the great French Impressionists, such as Renoir, Monet and Degas, and so she understood how talented Lavinia was.

‘They’re all fantastic!’ Katie exclaimed, when she had finally viewed the entire collection. ‘I think your art show at the gallery in Harrogate is going to be a smash hit, Lavinia.’

‘Oh, I do hope so, and I’m glad you like my paintings, Katie. Rex Bellamy thinks some of them are like those from the Newlyn School. That was a group of painters who worked in the 1930s, and they were tremendously popular. He keeps talking about those painters, and he actually thinks some of my work is a little bit like that of Dame Laura Knight…Well, I don’t know about that. I’m flattered he thinks so of course, but I just paint what I love, the images I want to get on canvas, because they touch my…soul.’

Katie nodded her understanding, and pointed to another. ‘I like this as well,’ she murmured, hovering in front of a painting of two children sitting under a willow tree, next to a large body of water. ‘Who are these children? They’re beautiful. Did you have real models? Or are they from your imagination?’

‘They’re the grandchildren of Jarvis and Dodie.’

‘
Oh.
’ Katie stared at her, speechless for a moment, and then she asked, ‘Are you saying that Jarvis is married to Dodie?’

‘Yes. They have a daughter, Alicia, and she’s married to Alex Johnson, and these are their children, Poppy and Mark. They’re adorable, aren’t they? And I’ll tell you something, Katie, they were such good kids when
I was painting them. They sat really still, and behaved like little angels.’

Katie smiled, but there was a perplexed look in her eyes. ‘I just can’t connect Jarvis and Dodie, somehow…’

‘I know what you mean, they don’t seem to work together, do they? But they’ve been married for donkey’s years. And they both grew up on the estate here. Jarvis’s father was the butler before him, and Dodie’s mother was the cook for a while. So in a way I suppose they’re like family to Verity in one sense. Certainly they’re really part of this place.’

‘And tell me, Lavinia, do you think Dodie’s psychic?’

Lavinia burst out laughing. ‘I don’t know what to think. I’m not really into hocus-pocus, that kind of thing, if you know what I mean. But for what it’s worth, my mother is absolutely certain she is, and so is Dad.’

‘I see. You know, I have a feeling that Verity is a believer, too.’

‘Oh yes, I agree. Course she is.’

It was the juvenile writings of the Brontës which Katie found fascinating. After a full tour of Haworth Parsonage, where they had grown up, she lingered in the parlour. Xenia was with her, and the two of them stood looking down at manuscripts penned by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, and their brother, Branwell.

Known as the Juvenilia, these particular manuscripts were housed in glass cases, and to Katie one of the most remarkable things about them was their size. None of them was any bigger than a standard matchbox; the tiny pages, handstitched together by the Brontës, were about three inches in size, and the handwriting on the pages was minuscule. In fact, it wasn’t really handwriting at all, but tiny print-writing, which the Brontë children had adopted in order to make their manuscripts look more like real printed books.

‘How extraordinary they are,’ Katie murmured, leaning closer to the glass case in order to see them better.

‘Listen, when Mrs Gaskell, Charlotte’s friend and
biographer, first held them in her hand, she was astonished, truly startled that the children’s imagination had been the source for the material in them. Later she wrote that they gave one the idea of creative power carried to the verge of insanity,’ Xenia said. ‘And from what I’ve read about the Brontës, the imaginary world of Angria did become the centre of interest for Charlotte and her siblings for a long time. She was the driving force behind all of them and their writing, by the way.’

‘What about Gondal? Wasn’t that important to them?’

‘To Emily and Anne, absolutely. You see, first came the stories of the Glasstown Confederacy, by Branwell and Charlotte. Later, all four children shared that imaginative world,’ Xenia explained. ‘Eventually it was split into two separate entities…one they called the kingdom of Angria, the other the kingdom of Gondal. Emily and Anne took Gondal for themselves, and many of Emily’s great poems, written later, are Gondal poetry.’

‘I see. But for the most part, I’ve noticed only Angrian material here in the museum. Weren’t there many Gondal stories, or more of the little books?’

‘I believe there were, but they were penned in later years by Emily and Anne, although Anne began to lose interest before Emily did. The story goes that Charlotte destroyed the manuscripts after Emily’s death.’

‘But
why
?’ Katie exclaimed, sounding puzzled. ‘Was Charlotte jealous of her sister’s greatness as a writer, do you think?’

Xenia shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. On the other hand, how will we ever really know the truth? The theory put forward by scholars and experts on the Brontës is that Charlotte was only following Emily’s wishes, her overriding desire for privacy. Charlotte believed Emily wrote only for herself, and didn’t want anything read by others, especially strangers, i.e. the public.’

Katie murmured, ‘What you’re saying is that she wrote because she had to, in order to be fulfilled as a human being.’

‘Exactly. She remains a tantalizing figure, mysterious and mystical. Emily was driven by her own demons…She’s one helluva part for you to play, Katie.’

Straightening up, turning to face Xenia, Katie smiled, and nodded. ‘Oh, I know that. And the more I see of Haworth, the more I’m intrigued.’ Glancing around the parlour, she walked over to the window, stood there for a moment, her eyes resting on the graveyard. Then she sighed to herself. ‘Not much of a playground for children, was it?’

Xenia joined her at the window, also looked out at the bleak scene, the gravestones. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But there is a little garden in the back, and Emily apparently used to take her lap desk out there, and sit and write under the shade of a tree. It seems she didn’t like to stray far from Haworth…this house, the garden, and the moors. I suppose she felt safe here…secure and unafraid.’

‘I can’t imagine that Emily Brontë, the creative genius who wrote
Wuthering Heights
, was
timid.
’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘The implication’s there, Xenia.’

‘Perhaps. You know, at one point Charlotte and Emily went to Mme Heger’s school in Brussels. Professor Heger, who taught at the school, and whom Charlotte fell in love with, once wrote to the Rev. Brontë to say that Emily seemed to have lost some of her timidity while at the school. But it was well known by the family and friends that she really did want to remain in Haworth, did not wish to step out into the greater world, although she did actually go away a few times.’

‘Perhaps, like most writers, she was selfish, and just wanted to stay in a familiar environment in order to write,’ Katie suggested.

‘That’s true. I think she was hell-bent on perfecting her art, her craft.’

‘And what became of Charlotte’s romance with Professor Heger?’

‘Oh, it never blossomed into a real romance, as such. He was a married man, remember. There was Madame Heger, who owned the school, and she was awfully suspicious of Charlotte and her husband at one point. I think it was during Charlotte’s second visit to Brussels that Madame Heger cottoned on.’

‘Do you think that the professor reciprocated Charlotte’s romantic interest in him?’ Katie asked.

‘No. Now why am I saying that? How do we know anything?’ Xenia muttered, shaking her head wonderingly. ‘We weren’t there. We weren’t witnesses. And anyone who was is now dead and buried. Let’s face it, Katie, there’s no saying what men and women will do when driven by that all-consuming, overwhelming feeling of sexual passion and romantic love.’

‘Almost anything, I guess,’ Katie responded. ‘You know what men are.’

Xenia burst out laughing. ‘It takes two to tango, Katie. Don’t forget, a man can’t do it all by himself; he needs a woman. A partner. And there’s something else to consider. Without Professor Heger in Charlotte’s life, if only as a teacher, we would not have had those two marvellous books,
The Professor
and
Villette.
’

‘Those I haven’t read. But I did read
Shirley
and enjoyed it. Charlotte was much more prolific than Emily, wasn’t she?’

‘Oh yes, and very much the professional. And also the promoter. What I mean is, she was the one who got them published, who was actually out there in public, doing her stuff like a modern-day press agent. And she sort of stage-managed them all, in a sense. If she hadn’t had the energy and drive, and the ambition, to make their lives better, the world might never have heard of the Brontë sisters.’

A short while later, Xenia and Katie left the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and went out into the cobbled streets. Since Xenia knew Haworth well, she led the way past the church with its square tower and clock, up to the top of this Yorkshire hill village, poised high above the industrial valley of the West Riding far below.

Within minutes, the two of them stood looking out across the wild, untenanted moors. These stretched away in an endless, unbroken line towards the distant horizon, a sea of dun browns and purples for as far as the eye could see.

‘They’re stunning,’ Katie said, feeling slightly awed by the harsh implacability of this bleak and desolate scenery. ‘But kind of forbidding.’

‘Yes, I tend to agree with you.’ Xenia shaded her eyes with her hand, went on: ‘I’ve always thought that this landscape was daunting, although quite breathtaking in its windswept loneliness, its emptiness.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I suppose it’s an acquired taste. A lot of people think it too harsh altogether. And I must admit, I’m really sorry you’re not seeing the moors in August and September, when the heather is in full bloom. Then they’re magnificent. Right now, you’re getting the end of the season, the last of ling.’

‘What’s ling?’

‘The local heather. It’s not quite as bonnie as the Scottish heather,’ Xenia said. ‘It’s about three miles to Top Withens, which is supposedly the setting for
Wuthering Heights
, as I told you before. However, a
lot of scholars believe that the old farmhouse itself was never the actual
model
for the Earnshaw home, that Emily used the much grander High Sunderland Hall for her descriptions of Wuthering Heights, but that she put High Sunderland Hall in the location where Top Withens stands; that’s a ruin now. But if you wish, we can take a walk over the moors. I’m game.’

Xenia paused, lifted her head, glanced up at the pale-blue sky. ‘Well it’s still clear, a fair day. But you never know what might happen up here on the moors. The weather is unpredictable. It can change within seconds, easily start pouring. That’s why I brought an umbrella.’ She patted her shoulder bag as she spoke.

‘I would like to walk across the moors,’ Katie responded. ‘But we don’t have to go all the way to Top Withens. I don’t need to see the ruined farm. I just want to get a feeling of the landscape, a sense of this place, because Emily
did
spend so much time up here.’

‘Then let’s go!’

The two women began walking along the dirt track in silence, both lost in their thoughts.

Katie was contemplating Emily Brontë, a woman who had seemingly been so enigmatic she appeared, at times, to be unfathomable. To play the part of Emily, Katie knew she must truly understand her character and personality; if she were to succeed in the role she had
to be fully aware of Emily’s motivations, intentions, passions, desires, and even her dreams.

The prospect was frightening, in a way, but she knew there were a number of books in the library at Burton Leyburn Hall which would be helpful. Verity had taken down several biographies and studies of the Brontës, as well as some of the novels the sisters had written. Verity had shown them to her, and told her she could borrow them, as long as they eventually came back to the library. ‘Because they’re all catalogued,’ Verity had explained.

Katie now made up her mind to read as much as she could about Emily while still in Yorkshire, and, if necessary, she
would
take some of the books to London with her.

For her part, Xenia’s mind was on the party her company was to prepare for clients on New Year’s Eve. Alan, her partner, had phoned from New York yesterday, and confirmed for the second time that she should definitely go ahead and use the Winter Palace in St Petersburg for the decorative theme.

And so now she was thinking about the drawings Lavinia would do for her this weekend, scenes taken from some of her own photographic books in the library at Burton Leyburn. Her father had given them to her years ago, at the time he had taken her on a trip to Russia.

It was going to be a challenge to re-create the ballroom of the Winter Palace, at the time of the Tsars, in the
ballroom of the Plaza Hotel in New York. But it was one she looked forward to enormously. Challenges helped her to keep her mind off the loss of her child and her husband, helped to subdue her continuing grief. Challenges held pain and anguish at bay. For a short time, at least.

They had been walking for twenty minutes when the weather unexpectedly changed, just as Xenia had predicted it could. Without warning, thunderheads suddenly rolled in across the high-flung sky, the diffused pale blue darkening to leaden grey in an instant, and in the distance there was the loud rumble of thunder.

‘I think we ought to turn back,’ Xenia exclaimed, glancing up at the sky. ‘It’s going to pour. I can promise you that.’

‘Yes, we’d better go. At least I’ve seen a bit of the moors.’ Katie felt the splash of raindrops on her face, and added swiftly, ‘Come on, Xenia!’

The two of them started to run along the dirt road, heading for Haworth village. They had just reached the end of the moorland when the rain began to come down in a steady stream. Huddling together under Xenia’s umbrella, they flew down the main street, their feet clattering on the wet cobblestones as they ran.

‘That was definitely a close call.’ Xenia wiped her wet face with tissues and handed the box to Katie. ‘A few
minutes longer on the moors and we’d have been soaked to the skin.’

‘Thanks.’ Katie pulled out a bunch of tissues, also dried herself off, and then sat back in the car seat. ‘I’m sorry our visit was cut short, but you were right to insist I come, Xenia. It’s given me a much better picture of Emily.’

‘I thought it would.’

Xenia turned on the ignition and drove the vintage Bentley out of the car park, which was virtually empty on this cool October Saturday. Most visitors came to Haworth in the spring and summer, or when the heather bloomed in August and September.

Xenia pulled out onto the main road to Keighley, which would take them to the motorway leading to Skipton and Harrogate. She drove along at a steady speed, from time to time exchanging the occasional comment with Katie.

At one moment, she said, ‘If you need a little more insight into Emily Brontë you should talk to Rex Bellamy. He’s something of an expert on the family.’

‘Is he really. But then it doesn’t surprise me, he sounded quite knowledgeable about their novels and poetry last night.’

‘I didn’t hear him talking about the Brontës.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have. It was when you went upstairs to get your sweater.’

‘I see.’

‘What does he do? He looks like an academic.
Is
he a teacher?’

Xenia laughed. ‘No. And don’t be taken in by that donnish air of his…it’s very misleading, as no doubt he fully intends it to be.’

‘So what does he do?’

Xenia was silent.

Katie waited for a moment, eyeing her surreptitiously, wondering why she was suddenly being mysterious about Rex. After a second or two, she pressed, ‘Isn’t he a professor then?’

‘No.’ There was a pause before Xenia said, ‘He’s a spy.’

‘
A spy
? What do you mean?’ Katie sounded startled.

‘Just that. He’s a spy, in my opinion anyway. I believe he’s with MI6.’

‘MI6…but what exactly is that?’ Katie asked.

‘MI6 is like your CIA, in that it operates outside Great Britain. MI5, on the other hand, operates within this country, much like your FBI.’

‘I see.’ Katie pondered for a moment. ‘I didn’t know a spy let people know he was…I thought spies kept their profession a secret.’

‘Oh goodness, Rex doesn’t go around
telling
people he’s a spy, not at all. Actually, he likes to give the impression he’s an academic, just as you thought he was, and a writer. Certainly he’s very scholarly, well
informed about the arts and literature. But he’s a spy, of that I’m fairly certain.’