Daphne by Justine Picardie Page B

obscuring inkblots were as infuriating as they were intriguing. But even so, Symington's letter suggested that he suspected there had been some previous deception concerning the Brontë manuscripts. If this were true, then she might be on the trail of a most remarkable literary scandal, and the very idea of this was thrilling to her now. Symington did not say who was responsible for the forgeries, though Daphne wondered whether he might have been hinting that his former colleague, T. J. Wise, was the culprit? Why else would Symington have referred to what he called 'the fog and mist' that surrounded Wise? It seemed unlikely - after all, Wise was a widely admired president of the Brontë Society - and Daphne wondered if there was another element to the story; perhaps Symington had some hidden feud with Wise?
    But the important thing was that he had replied to her letter in the most tantalising of ways, and as she reread his words, holding them in her hands, an anticipatory sensation seemed to tingle in her fingertips. Symington asked her to keep the information a secret, not that he had given her any hard facts or provable information, not yet . . . But part of Daphne's pleasure was triggered by that request, for he had chosen her to share his secret, and in doing so, perhaps he was extending a tacit invitation to share more with him? She would become his confidante, she was almost certain of that; and there was something intensely exciting to her about the prospect of this being conducted in a manner both intimate -for Symington's handwritten letter seemed to bring him very close to her; she could sense his presence between the lines -and yet also at a safe distance. Daphne was less sure, however, about whether she could reciprocate in kind; she preferred keeping her own secrets, for now, in the safety and security of Menabilly.
    As for Branwell himself: well, Daphne wanted to be entirely alone with him, so she took his books with her to the writing hut, telling Tod not to disturb her, she would not be needing lunch, and settled down at her desk there to read his volume of letters. The door to the hut was closed behind her, but the window was open, letting in the soft scent of honeysuckle and the temptations of a clear blue sky. Yet as Daphne worked her way though the volume of letters, it seemed to her as if they summoned up a cloud that was obscuring the sunlight; not constantly, but little mackerel clouds, gathering together and then scurrying apart; and with this came a troubling undercurrent of anxiety, mixed in with her excitement.
    The letters appeared to corroborate the story told in Mrs Gaskell's biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, suggesting that Branwell's downfall was precipitated by his dismissal, in July 1845, from his position in the Robinson family household at Thorp Green Hall in Yorkshire as tutor to their son, Edmund. Daphne's childhood copy of Mrs Gaskell's book lay open on the desk, covered with her pencilled notes and asterisks, though as she reread it, alongside Branwell's letters, she found herself wishing that his youngest sister, Anne, had provided some form of substantiating evidence. After all, Anne had also been working for the same family as a governess to the Robinsons' two daughters, and left her job just before Branwell's abrupt departure. Mrs Gaskell believed that Branwell was disgraced because of the discovery of his scandalous affair with Mrs Robinson, who was not only married, but fifteen years older than her son's tutor; and certainly, that was the impression Branwell himself gave in his letters to Leyland. But what did Anne believe to be the truth of the matter? And anyway, whispered a small voice in Daphne's head, what gave her the right to uncover the truth over a century afterwards? Who was she to rummage through the indignities of someone else's life, when she protected the fragile dignities of her own?
    Still, she could not stop reading, she felt a kind of compulsion to