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Natalia, noticing Sam and Laura had already paired up, suddenly felt thankful to have been sent to the front like a miscreant by Neill, when the chirp of Mr Dinkey encroached her right ear.
‘Natalia, in a pair pl—’
‘Right!’ barked Neill, stepping right between them. ‘Onward, onward! …Single file here please, don’t be animals!’ as they as they all traipsed toward the steps. ‘Let the normal civilised public through!’ he hollered, to grins of appreciation from visitors squeezing out, and Natalia found herself the first to step inside, with pupils filtering around her as she stood reading:
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‘WELCOME TO THE BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM’
‘Inspirational home of the world’s most famous literary family from 1820 to 1861. This is the place where the Brontë Family’s great, romantic novels including Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were written.’
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‘I reckon by the time you get to the exit you’ll have finished and published yours, you brainbox amongst backfische.’
The voice of an impertinent ghost behind her made itself known followed by a husky breath an inch by her side. She turned her face to see he’d removed and hung his long coat somewhere and stood in a thick blue wool jumper and jeans.
‘Do you want to see where Emily popped her clogs?’ Neill blinked down on her.
‘What, by the ticket entrance?’
‘No, just over here…’
She turned to see Dinkey busy guiding in the pupils pair by pair, one of those being Sam and Laura, headed to her spot just as Neill beckoned her to turn the other way to the Dining Room - complete with fireplace, a couch, and a centre table set with writing paper and quills.
‘90% original furniture and furnishings,’ he read as Natalia pored her eyes over it in disbelief.
‘This is all real? This is where Jane Eyre was written?’ She joined him in reading the plaque:
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‘Charlotte, Emily and Anne did much of their writing here. At night, the sisters would walk around the table discussing their writing. After Emily and Anne died, Charlotte was left to walk in solitude. By the fireplace stands the rocking chair where Anne would sit with her feet on the fender and it is believed that Emily died on the sofa in this room.’
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‘The way that reads,’ he leant at her ear, ‘Emily and Anne both died after listening to Charlotte read the entire draft of Jane Eyre before bedtime.’
Natalia stifled a laugh as a silver-haired American tourist squeezed past.
‘I should know myself,’ Neill continued, ‘I’ve been reading the damn thing at home—’
‘You’ve been reading Brontë, in your Brontë cottage?’ she whispered, wide-eyed.
‘Yes. Have to brush up in time to mark your Mocks. Besides, you saw me almost clueless in English that time—’
‘It was many moons ago that I read it!’ she imitated, laughing. ‘Oh, yeah… didn’t I lead that lesson?’
‘You did, you bluestocking bastard,’ he knock-nudged her arm.
‘Your language!’ she giggled.
‘Fuckin’ thrashes buckin’ Brontë.’
She squealed. ‘Don’t... stop it!’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
‘So that teacup, are they saying that’s original?’
‘Don’t drink from it. It will be crawling with dysentery.’
Natalia gazed around the room, whilst Neill stepped away to address the growing clusters of pupils hovering at the staircase. ‘Yep you can go ahead’ - ‘Yep that's original I’m told’ - ‘Your exam stress is thanks to that lady in the portrait, correct’ - ‘Yes, but I’m sure the couch has been disinfected since’ - as their hushed chatter shuffled on, and Neill wandered back to Natalia still standing in a trance.
‘It’s just so surreal seeing this,’ she continued, noticing Sam and Laura going off ahead, and Neill gravitating back to her side, ‘to imagine them walking around the table boring each other to death - I mean, inspiring each other with their ideas - it’s like a little writers’ paradise.’
‘Yep, till Charlotte got knobbed, pregnant, then died upstairs in the first trimester from dehydration.’
‘Oh. More grim than glamour. Didn’t anyone get her some water after her, er, ‘knobbing’’?
‘Apparently not, for around 13 weeks.’
She laughed. ‘Oh dear. Malnutrition in a monster manor like this?’
‘They had money. I'm not sure exactly why pregnancy was dangerous back then.’
They fell silent as a guide was showing another tourist something etched into the table:
‘…And this ‘E’ right here, is the initial of Emily that she scratched into the table…’
Neill and Natalia both leaned to peer down, her hand on his thick jumper of his arm as she craned her head to see. As their postures resumed upright he muttered:
‘Could’ve drawn a cock. Narcissistic bitch.’
‘Did she really have time to doodle on the table like a kid?’
‘She missed out the baa gum.’
The guide was now explaining to the visitor that paper was in sparse supply and the Brontë sisters had to limit their usage.
‘Wow,’ murmured Neill, his mouth practically at Natalia’s forehead, ‘can you imagine having to handwrite your girly novel on a short supply of paper?’
‘I've deleted and restarted it about seven times. God bless modern technology.’
‘Or rather curse it. Come on,’ he softly pushed her shoulder, ‘everyone’s gone and I’m supposed to be looking after them.’
‘Thought the point of bringing Year 11 to the moors was to lose them?’
‘Yes but to find them again, dead or alive,’ as he swivelled her arm decidedly toward the stairs, Natalia laughing.
‘So how is the novel coming along?’
Neill’s hand was still on her arm as he guided her up the first few steps.
‘Er, well, I’m not sure it’s a novel. It’s more like a journal now.’
‘A journal of your life?’
‘Ish.’
‘Embellished?’
‘Think it would have to be.’
‘I’m doing that for you aren't I?’
‘Oh, always,’ she giggled, with a bolt of giddiness as they arrived on the first floor, hurriedly composing her face upon the sight of Ryan turning. He seemed to stare for a moment., as Natalia frowned.
‘You alright?’
To her surprise Ryan was talking to her.
‘Keep moving please Ryan,’ Neill stepped between them. ‘Museum’s busy today.’
Feet clomped over floorboards, a steady scattering of pupils now visible ahead moving through the next few rooms.
‘Ah good, they haven’t slipped down the fire escape,’ remarked Neill. ‘And they’re all so good and quiet, too! Is there a slow carbon monoxide leak in here?’
They passed with umms and aahs through Mr Brontë’s red-velveted quarters, then into an exhibit of dresses in Charlotte’s bedroom.
‘Says this is where Charlotte died, with her husband praying at her bedside. Praying she’d hurry up.’
‘Neill that’s awful—’
‘No wonder they split Jane Eyre into five bits. Bet he wanted to do the same to her by the time he’d spell-checked the bloody thing.’
Next they stared at Branwell’s bedroom of disarray, strewn with candlesticks, bottles and papers.
‘Ah, he beat Tracey Emin to it. Didn’t he ever think about calling Maid2Clean?’
‘Tidier than mine,’ chuckled Natalia.
‘Tsk. Vile teenagers.’
Natalia stood reading the plaque whilst Neill cracked jokes with Luke and Bernard, then as Natalia floated back to his side, his prompt conclusion of that small talk seemed to confirm her suspicion, or rather wish, that he was waiting for her, which prickled her spine with bemusement, just as she caught another gaze from Ryan as he drifted into the next room.
‘Wait, wait Neill—’
‘What?’
‘Let them go ahead. They keep staring.’
‘I need to keep those hoodlums in line just as much as you.’
‘Let’s go this way.’ She pushed her knuckles against his woolly elbow, gesturing anti-clockwise around the next exhibit.
‘Alright, alright rascal.’
They advanced to a display of historical Q&As about school life in Brontë days, as Neill pointed to a liftable plaque.
‘Dare you lift that?’
‘’What would happen if you were naughty?’’ Natalia read sardonically, as she raised it, revealing a sketch of a boy being caned. ‘Is that the vision for the Lewd Rage Head?’
‘Jesus yes, but not with boys.’
She laughed and lifted another. ‘Well this one has a girl reciting lines.’
‘Hmm, good inspiration on this school trip,’ he hovered his phone camera over it. ‘Never mind the pupils, I’ll have the staff repeating after me.’
‘You already do, don’t you?’
Just at that moment Dinkey tottered over. ‘Ha! Inspiration from those days on this school trip eh, Neill?’
Neill and Natalia exchanged looks.
‘Oh, quite, Steve. Enjoying the museum?’
‘Yeah, a good lot to see. Over there is a trunk, the actual trunk, bought by Charlotte Brontë in Brussels.’
‘Is she in it?’
‘No, no, I don't think so like!’
‘I wasn’t being fucking serious,’ Neill muttered to Natalia as Steve stepped away.
‘You want to go see it, like?’ she whispered back.
‘No, I want him to take care of all thirty pupils whilst we go and look at The Apostle’s Cupboard.’ He nudged her forward, rather hard, so that she found herself taking a giant step and gazing into faces painted on a cupboard.
‘Wow, beautiful,’ she admired. ‘An Apostle on each pane.’
‘Read the plaque - it says it inspired the scene where Jane gets freaked out by a cupboard like this whilst she’s tending Thomas Mason's wounds.’
‘Mmm. Interesting how everything in a novel comes from pieces of real life.’
‘Absolutely. So your girly novel can have contraband fags, duff government proposals—’
‘And half of M&S’s confectionary aisle.’
He chuckled. ‘I’ll hold you to it.’
‘You can't. There’s a rope barrier around it.’
He tutted. ‘You're such a bad example. I can’t be hanging around with you.’
‘Better go look for the other 29 then.’
They hurried their pace down the next stairs that led to the exit. ‘They’re all there. Dinkey Donk’s with them,’ Natalia whispered, peering down the banister.
‘Gift shop time, girl.’
They drifted apart as they perused the well-stocked array of books, jigsaws, and Brontë-themed kitchenware; Natalia trying not to turn her head too frequently to see where Neill had gone - now in chit-chat with Dinkey, for long, too long, longer than Dink-Donk deserves, she thought - as Sam and Laura ambled up to the stationery, in rambling gossip about home woes, as if they had not internalised a single detail of the museum. Now there was the shrill call of Neill’s phone and a thrust to his ear of, ‘yep hello Claire! We’re at the end, are you halfway through?’ and he was stepping outside. Natalia glimpsed him through the glass, pacing to and fro with a new fag in hand, and then pulling open the glass door again, wordlessly letting out Sam and Laura like two mangy cats, and she turned away quickly, her heart going pitter-patter as she flicked through a Jane Eyre graphic novel, hoping, just hoping he was pacing softly back behind her, fresh-air-and-fag-scented, to mutter:
‘You’ve been staring at that for what, ten minutes?’
‘Oh! Cool isn’t it? I love it. Oh, I’m not buying it, it costs £10.’ She reached to sliced its spine back into the others.
‘Which will take me ten seconds to spend,’ he whipped it from her fingers. ‘Watch this.’
Raising it aloft to the smiling cashier just behind him, his smug eyes latched onto the astonished Natalia’s, the cashier took it, bagged it - and held the reader for him to wave his card over it - till the beep went, the bag was handed over, and he presented it to her.
‘Oh, wow,’ she blinked. ‘Tenacious.’
‘Teh—’
‘Sorry love, you need to insert your card.’
‘…Typical,’ he grunted, as Natalia laughed. Finishing up, she thanked him, as he gave a gentlemanly cock of the head.
‘What else do you want in here?’
‘Oh! Oh, nothing…’
‘Come on, I know you want one of those ornate copies of Jane Eyre—’
‘No, no, too ornate to annotate... I prefer my dog-eared one.’
‘Ok, a Parsonage mug to remind you forever of this facetious visit every time you glug your over-sugared caffeine?’
‘Er, no no, it’s ok. We've enough mugs.’
‘Yep, the other 30 of them are right behind us and coming through any moment. We’d better make a move, Dinkey's already got his out,’ he peered through the glass, ‘his pupils, thank god. …My lot, finish up please!’ he called, as the last few uniformed bodies drew toward him like a magnet, a couple of them dashing to the till.
Coleman was now arriving in the shop with her gaggle including Alana, Aisha and Gemma - as Natalia followed out onto the cobbles into the milder breeze of midday, a ray of sun even making an appearance, as the milling group of teenagers released their civil constraint with chattering laughs and shrieks. Dinkey stood with Neill over by a farm gate that led out to the moors, Neill smoking a new cigarette, whilst Natalia, in a state of quiet bewilderment that she’d just gone around the entire museum within five inches of Neill like time-old friends, wandered away in slight resignation that she’d had her fill of the Headmaster of her dreams and for fear of looking like a lost puppy begging for more attention, she’d pretend for at least a moment to seek Laura’s.
‘So what did you think of Brontë's house?’
Laura was murmuring a vague response about it being cool, but was now staring past Natalia to engage with boys behind her: ‘Alex! You div! What are you doing—’ whilst Natalia turned awkwardly to some buffoonery that enraptured Laura and had Natalia stepping back like a spare part, and then, tiring entirely of their noisy, jerky behaviour and conversation that was decidedly animalistic and alien to her, she huffed off downhill, past a still-staring Ryan, toward where she spied a row of pretty cottages.
Placing her palm on a cool gate that led to a row of dinky doors that looked like they belonged to characters from Beatrix Potter, she watched a woman picking a bottle of milk from her stone doorstep, and wondered if it would be too early to pull out her lunchbox and eat it right here with nostrils impregnated by the smell of casserole drifting from a clattering kitchen.
She glanced up the cobbles to see Ryan wandering down. Oh god, wrong person. Fuck off Ryan. Was he building the confidence to ask her out or something, since seeing her all tickled and smiley-cheeks with a grown man?
She ducked behind a hedge till he’d gone, then scuttled the other way toward the high street, peeping round a wall at the shopfront names.
‘Running away again are we?’
Oh god, right person.
‘Tempted,’ she turned, trying not to smile too hard. ‘Haven't you had... enough of those?’ she nodded at his fag.
He puffed and gazed back silently. Goosepimples prickled down her forearms.
‘Didn’t you enjoy the museum?’
‘Yes - of course.’
‘So why do you look so miserable? What’s wrong now?’
‘Oh! Erm, nothing…’
‘Uninspired by the company again, I take it.’
‘Yeah. I mean, no... not yours. I mean…’
‘You put the blues in bluestocking. Here—’ He glanced behind him, then held the fag to her. ‘You're right, I've had enough. You have some. No-one’s looking.’
‘Oh, god…’
‘Have it, have it, quick, before it burns out!—’ As if he was holding a sparkler only she could extinguish, she plucked it hastily, wild-eyed for a second as she inclined her head to the hedge and took a tepid suck.
‘What a bad girl,’ he chuckled as he took it back.
‘Unbelievable,’ her smirk broke out.
‘What?’
‘Always... putting things onto me.’
‘What, that smile? I’ve only just started. It’s going to be far bigger by the time the day’s out.’
She stared as he went on smoking.
‘Well, you know I love it here,’ she sighed, turning their attention to the adjacent row of cottages.
‘Nice, quaint properties. Bit like mine except I don’t have the neighbours quite so much on my doorstep as they do.’ He exchanged manly grunts with a man in wellies walking by with his Labrador, who was crossing by a mother with a pram, inserting a key into his elfin door, looking as though he’d need to stoop to fit through it.
‘I really like Haworth. And that’s why coming here makes me feel, er... a bit miserable.’
His eyes screwed. ’How does that even make sense?’
‘Because it’s so different from the shabby shite place where I live. This is somewhere that could feed my soul rather than crush it.’
‘That’s a good thing then?’
‘But I can’t get to what I want yet.’
He sighed. ‘It was a different story for the Brontë sisters who grew up here. They kept coming back when they failed at other jobs. They struggled to get their writing noticed because they came from such a puny place in Yorkshire no one had heard of. Still the case for this place really,’ he chuckled, glancing around. ‘Only famous for Brontë tourism. You can get this beauty hundredfold in Edinburgh or York.’
‘You’re, er - very knowledgeable on their history.’
‘Read it in a pamphlet in there,’ he nodded blasé back at the museum.
Their faces shot sideways to Dinkey now jogging down to them.
‘Ah, there he is! They’re all going to have their packed lunches on the green, Neill!’
‘Let's grab our chance for the pub then mate,’ Neill chucked his fag and stubbed it on the ground, as Natalia blinked:
‘Hot lunch?’
‘Yes. You... brought your own?’ asked Neill.
‘Yeah, a nice cold one.’
‘Oh we’ll be having one of those too,’ winked Neill at Dinkey, then looked back to Natalia and shrugged. ‘Shame you can't come.’
‘Well, enjoy,’ she smiled as she set off back up the cobbles, as he suddenly called:
‘Wait, wait! I tell you what—’
Neill stepped ahead of her as he turned a beckoning hand to her and Dinkey.
‘You two, come with me. …Come, come!’ watching Natalia's hesitant face. ‘Dinkey, grab a hold of her pigtail and I’ll get the other…’
Dinkey laughed, whilst he, as bewildered as Natalia, lagged behind the man with a plan. Neill stepped up to group of pupils, stretched his arms around them as they turned their faces in surprise, then after a momentary tight circle of unheard conversation, the ring broke out like dandelion clocks with grins and nods announcing:
‘Neill’s buying us lunch at the Black Bull!’
‘How many of us?’
‘There’s five here.’
‘Neill can we bring Gemma?’ asked Alana.
‘And can I bring Ben?’
‘Neill can Ashley come?’
‘How many is that now?’ squinted Neill. ‘As long as we’re ten in total!’
A flurry of voices followed. ‘Why ten?’ - ‘Dunno, magic number’ - ‘Are only ten teenagers allowed in the pub at once?’ - ‘No he only has enough wages for ten’ - ‘Ok bring Dean’ - ‘And Emma too!’ - ‘No, that’ll be eleven, there’s Natalia’ - ‘Oh I didn't see her’ - ‘Is she coming?’ - ‘Yes’ from Neill.
Within a minute the Headmaster was Pied Piper to a small army of gleaming-eyed Year 11s mostly from Clayton's class, and the guest list seemed to crystallise just as the perceived undesirables from Natalia’s class including Laura, Sam, Bernard, Ryan and Luke were looking over wondering what was going on. A flush grew on Natalia’s face as she watched from Neill’s side astonished, and even more so, when she heard in his lowest husk of a voice that brought her straight back to the moments in the bike shed:
‘There. Better?’
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Read new chapters first on www.headmastersflame.com. Free, slick reading experience, tailored for mobile phones, where you can subscribe your email for a free Kindle book. - LS x
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