1999
I only went back to the estate twice, though when I left, I didn't think I would ever return. I suppose it's been about sixty years. I've never had the sort of attachment most people have to their childhood home. Earnshaw Estate holds only lukewarm memories at best.
Earnshaw, like the family in Wuthering Heights. Mother used to joke proudly with her friends that that must have been where Miss Brontë got the name. I used to say that too when I was little, because my mother did and I thought it made me sound adult. That was when I was when I was proud to be Violet Earnshaw, direct descendant of Lord Earnshaw. The year was 1909 and I was 9 years old. Ninety years later, so much has changed.
****
I woke up one morning, about a fortnight after my ninth birthday. I had all of the usual symptoms: headache, dizziness, fever. My mother hurried in and took my temperature as all mothers with chronically sickly children did every morning, and gasped in horror at the rising red mercury.
“Mr. Baker! Mr. Baker!” Mr. Baker, my father’s footman, strode in quickly but calmly, in the obedient manner of a good footman. I always liked Mr. Baker. “Mr. Baker: Violet is running a temperature. She says she is dizzy. Please send Allan to fetch Doctor Dickens immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
One would think I would have hated being a sickly child, but it’s not entirely true. Make no mistake, it was not enjoyable in any way, but there’s a certain attitude that children develop when they know they will likely not be long on the Earth. From my experience, these children, myself included when I was young, have a certain air of silent acceptance. They are years ahead of children their age in maturity and know how to take things as they are and not want beyond plausibility. They do not wish to live when they know it cannot be so.
What’s more, I liked the doctor, Dr. Dickens. He was sort of plump in the middle but he had the advantage of a kind face, a great benefit to have when one must deliver morose news daily. Besides, he would give me candy when mother wasn’t looking.
Mother didn’t like me having too many treats. She said nothing good can come of indulging sickly children with unhealthy foods. Our cook, I always just called her Cookie, disagreed; she said that children who are unwell should get extra treats. One day when I was allowed out of bed to wander the house, I heard Cookie whispering sharply to Mr. Baker:
“That woman is wound too tight. She’s squeezing the life out of herself and that poor girl and I daresay I can’t wager which one’ll burst first.”
Cookie was one of my best and only childhood friends. On the occasional day when mother had to go off to one of her luncheons for Very Important Ladies and I was left under the care of a housemaid turned nursemaid, I would go to the kitchen, wearing a pair of my mother’s long white gloves.
“Cookie, dear, how are you?” I would call, in the exact same way Mother’s delicate friends did when they saw each other at garden parties.
“Miss Violet, you take your mother’s gloves off this instant!” Cookie would always act stern when I did this, but I could tell she thought I was darling in the white gloves that slipped off my bony elbows. “Good. Now come over here. I have a special lunch I’ve prepared for you, it’s especially good today.”
Whenever my mother was out for the day, Cookie would make my favorite meal, fried fish that she bought from the fishermen in town and green peas that she grew herself. Flounder was my absolute favorite. Papa didn’t usually eat lunch with the rest of us. As a matter of fact, Papa was scarcely seen throughout the house much at all, he was mostly in his study. It has become fashionable recently for fathers to have a large role in their children’s lives, but that’s just not how it was done back then. Children were the job of mothers and nursemaids. Papa was fond of me and I of him; that was as much of a relationship as we had.
On days that I was feeling especially well, I was allowed to go outside into the garden, as per Dr. Dickens’s orders. He told mama that fresh air was good for me. I would usually go visit the gardener, another one of my friends. On one particular day, in that ninth year of my life, I found not just the gardener, but a boy as well.
I can still picture The Boy perfectly. He had light brown hair that was cut extremely normally and he was about an inch taller than me at the time. The thing I remember most about him, though, were his eyes: wide, a stunning china blue.
What’s ironic is that I have no recollection of his name. The Boy, around whom my childhood would exist from then on, who had as great an influence on my life as anything else, and his name eludes me. I sometimes wonder if I ever knew it at all.
“He’s about your age,” the gardener, Tompkins, told me. “He’ll help me around the garden and I’ll give him part of my salary until your mother sees fit to keep him on permanently.”
When Tompkins went to go retrieve a spade from the garden shed, The Boy and I were left alone. He looked at me curiously with those china blue eyes, as though he expected me to say or do something very particular.
“Hello,” I said after a moment, “My name is Violet. I am going to die.”
“Hello,” he replied. “Does that make you sad?”
“Does what make me sad?”
“That you’re going to die.”
I blinked. “No, not especially. Why should I be sad if I cannot help that I am dying?”
“Because you cannot help that you are dying.”
I would see The Boy more and more as time went on. He helped Tompkins every day, he told me. On days that I was well enough to go outside, I would hurry to the garden, where I would wait patiently for Tompkins to pause for lunch. Then, The Boy and I would be free to play for a half hour or so.
The Boy liked to play pretend. It was a game I had never considered, but as time went by, I learned. At first, it was very hard.
“Let’s play family,” he would say. “I can be the dog. I like being the dog. You can be the mother, and use one of your dolls as your child.”
“I don’t know how to be a mother” I would reply.
“But you can pretend that you’re a mother, even if you don’t know how. Surely you’ve pretended something like that before.”
I would occasionally stomp my foot in frustration and huff away indignantly. How should I know how to be a mother, I thought, I am never going to be a mother, so why do I have to pretend? Who does he think he is, anyhow, gliding onto my estate and reminding me that I’ll never grow up? Of course, The Boy was never being malicious, but I was something of an antagonizing little twit when I got jealous.
In all of my self-absorption and self-pity, I was remarkably imperceptive. I never noticed that the angles of The Boy’s face became more pronounced with every visit, nor that I could feel his ribs poking out of his skin when his dog character jumped on me. Nor did I pay any heed when he asked Tompkins if instead of money, he could be payed with food for his younger sister.
Then came my bout of pneumonia. I had had pneumonia before, but not like this. Everybody thought that this time I was most certainly dying. I could hardly speak much less go to the garden. Relatives from all over God’s creation were coming to see me before I went, bringing all sorts of wreaths and words of sympathy, both of which made the house cramped and unbearable. Even my father separated himself from his study to see to the guests and sit at my bedside. It was several months before I was well. All of the relatives had gone home, tired of waiting, and the house had fallen silent. I was more eager than ever to go to the garden.
When Doctor Dickens finally approved, I used all of my regained energy to bound outside to the garden to see The Boy. In my time away, I had developed a sort of affection for him, the kind that forms from separation. I had a new appreciation for him now that I knew what a bore it was without him.
My eagerness was halted, however, when I arrived at the garden to find a solitary Tompkins digging up a flower bed.
“Where is he?”
“Oh, Miss Violet! You’re looking well! My, am I glad to see you feeling better!”
“Where is The Boy?”
Tompkins looked around: at the ground, at the sky, at the half-dug flower bed; everywhere but at me. He dug around in his pocket, pulled out a pipe and some tobacco, considered the items and then put them back.
“Tompkins, please, where is he?” My voice was strained. I knew the answer before Tompkins said it. I was acutely aware of these sorts of formalities.
“You missed him by a few days. Just a few days, Miss Violet.”
“He’s dead,” I finished.
“Yes. I’m so sorry, Miss, there was nothing anybody could do. I tried to give him a little extra food, but I doubt he ate any of it himself, he likely gave it all to his sister. He was getting bad, Miss Violet, no meat on his bones, no energy to speak of. He hadn’t come to work for a few days, so I went to the village yesterday to see what was the matter. The little girl, his sister, answered the door. Poor little thing, she was so scared, said her brother wouldn’t wake up. Well, I ran to get the doctor as fast as I could, but there wasn’t any use. He’d starved to death.”
My vision blurred and I swayed. I had to put my hand on a tree for support.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, "it must be the pneumonia. I'm not entirely well yet." Tompkins eyed me curiously.
"Yes, that must be it. You're just not well yet. Come Miss Violet, let me help you back to the house."
I am not quite sure how long my shock lasted; it was a while. What I do know was that as I waited to die of one sickness or another, everybody began to die around me. First it was Papa of disease and then a few years later Tompkins. Then, one day when I was sixteen, Cookie came to tell me that my mother was on her deathbed.
How I managed to not realize her sickness I do not know. Those years after The Boy's death were spent reading in my room and in the library, I did not speak much except when Cookie made me. I had probably ignored any sign from my mother. As I had gotten older, most of my ailments had abandoned me. It seemed mother was next.
My lack of future planning had left me aimless. I hadn't learned any of the formalities common to respectable young ladies or started husband hunting. Now there would be no one to teach me. All I knew of the world was what I'd read, which I suppose remedied my ignorance we'll enough.
I got to Mother's bedside and fluffed her pillows, made sure she was comfortable. Then I sat down in the chair next to her and drew a deep breath and let start talking.
I sat in a haze, not used to listening to things that didn't interest me. I soon heard quiet until I realized that I was being addressed.
"Violet? Violet!"
"Yes? Yes. I'm sorry mother, what do you need?"
"Nothing, but dear, I'm concerned about you. You've turned into quite a misanthrope. You do not seem to wish to interract with anybody, not even young people. The only person I've ever seen you with was that grubby little child who helped the gardener."
My attention had been caught. I had not realized she had ever noticed The Boy at all. "You knew him?"
"Thankfully, we had only a fleeting meeting at best. What a little urchin. And he had the nerve to ask me for money."
My heart tightened. "He asked you for money?" I reflected in a hushed voice.
"He did indeed!" huffed Mother. "And of course, I told him that he would get not a sixpence from me! If he wanted more money, I told him, he ought to earn it and not ask other people for support in such an unattractive way."
She continued on, but I heard not a word of it. My heart pounded in my ears. He asked her. He asked her for money and she said no. That money could have saved his life perhaps and she said no. Of course, she did not know that, I told myself over and over. But she looked at him, she saw the tattered clothes, the skeleton of a child, and she turned him away. I leaned back in my chair. She said no.
Before long, Cookie came and told me that it was time for Mother to go to bed. By then, I had decided.
"Mother, I want to go to London."
Her eyes shot open and flashed towards me. "London!" She exclaimed, "London! Such filth and dirt! Your asthma will act up, you'll be mugged!" It was so very typical of mother- she could hardly sit up and yet she was working herself into a fit of worry over me.
"Very well then, mother. We'll talk about it later." Mother died later that night. The next day, I began arrangements for my passage to the city.
"But Miss Violet, your inheritance!" Cookie fussed, "You're the mistress of the estate now! It's your responsibility." I had already thought this through.
"It's yours now, Cookie. Yours and Mr. Banks'."
"Miss Violet, I could never! And neither could Mr. Banks!"
"I insist. You've done more for the estate than I or my family ever has. So you may have it. If you really don't want it, I will sell it. I will be going to London in two days time. Please let me know of your decision by then."
I knew of course that Cookie and Mr. Banks would take it. They were an old couple who had never had the money to marry. They loved Earnshaw more than anyone, and that is why they deserved it.
As I've said, I only went back to the Estate twice. Once when Cookie died and then when Mr. Banks did. A few years ago, a young curator contacted me asking if I would attend the opening of Earnshaw Estate as a historical museum. I wished him well, but declined. I was in my late eighties and I had just entered into assisted living after my husband died. I was fond of my husband. I met him very shortly after I left home. He had blond hair and his eyes were not china blue, but maybe that was better for me. After his death, I didn't want to stay at home, but I was too old to travel and didn't want to be a burden to anyone, so I checked myself in here.
Now here I am, well into my ninety-ninth year, spending all of my time thinking of my past, oft of The Boy. I am almost one hundred years old now, but I doubt I will make it there. By no means would I tell anyone this, though. Young people so enjoy being optimistic.
Thomas. Thomas was The Boy's name. I cannot believe I remember it now, all of the sudden, after years of racking my brain.
So there you have it, Julia. You asked me for my opinion on a name for your baby, and there it is. I started this letter a farewell to my life, but I will instead end it as a welcome to new life. Thomas is a lovely name for a boy. And I hope your Thomas will save you like mine saved me.
All my love,
Your grandmother.