"The foaming cauldron of the Strid"
The gravestones crowding the gray old house in the churchyard, pushing it back toward the moor, were thick as an army on parade—a sad, starved army, where dying soldiers lean on each other for support; and the parsonage, shadowed by dripping trees, was plain and uncompromising as a sermon that warns you not to love the world or you will spend eternity in hell. But behind—just beyond the wall—billowed the moor, monotonous yet majestic, the scene that called to Emily and Charlotte Brontë's hearts, always, when they were far away.
My heart contracted as I thought of them there; and when we'd walked back to the village street, and been admitted to the museum, I was on the point of crying—not for myself, but with the choked grief one might have on opening a box of old letters from a loved, dead friend. It is the most intimate, touching little jumble of pathetic souvenirs you ever saw in a museum; more like treasures guarded by near relations than a collection for public eyes to see; but that makes the poignant charm of it. I could have sobbed on a pink print frock with a cape, such as Jane Eyre might have worn at Thornfield, and on bits of unfinished needlework, simple lace collars, and water-colour sketches with which Charlotte tried to brighten the walls of her austere home. There was the poor dear's wedding shawl, and a little checked silk dress of which I'm sure she was innocently proud; a few fantastic drawings of Bramwell's; a letter or two from the sisters; and a picture of the Reverend Carus Wilson, who was supposed to be Mr. Brocklehurst; just the rather handsome, well-fed, self-satisfied man you would expect him to be.
I think, dear, that Haworth has done me good, and helped me to be brave. Again and again I turned, when we'd left, to look back at the church tower, and try to gather some of the Brontë courage before we slipped away down many a dark hill toward Bradford, as night gathered us in.
I may need all the courage that I have borrowed and cashed in advance, because suspense is worse than the pain of any blow.
We leave here early to-morrow morning for Graylees Castle in Warwickshire—and the tour is at an end.
Your Audrie,
who loves and longs for you.
XL