Part One: The Family Home
Noise
The large windows glint, eager to show off their recent washing. They face a lush bed of grass. Bright flowers line the edges of the garden, hiding the ugliness of the brick wall. A tree stands old and proud before it. A bird swoops down to admire. The magpie perches upon a low hanging branch flashing its iridescent wings.
Elizabeth sits at a circular table positioned behind the glass. Here, she is safe from the elements and the wind, but on days like today all she can think about is how she is kept from feeling the sun warm her skin. Her desire to write someplace else is only made worse by the sound of the servants bustling in their quarters directly below.
Before the magpie had landed, Elizabeth had been scratching away at her parchment. Seeing the flashing, she stops for a moment to look up at the scene. Her quill rests in hand, hovering slightly above the page. The magpie cocks its head to gaze back at her. The beauty of it all hits her hard and fast, forcing her hand back down to the page. The tip of her quill touches the sheet, ready to resume scratching, when a loud crash echoes through the house. A moment of stillness follows. The moment passes, stillness shredded by a piercing wail. Footsteps chase after the noise, ready to console whatever child has fallen. The shushing bounces off the walls.
Reassured that the situation is under control, she moves to put her quill to page again when she hears sticky fingers find ivory keys. The hands play poorly, but they play away, driven by childhood confidence. Elizabeth contemplates bursting in and demanding silence, but she quickly abandons the thought, knowing that cannot ask her daughter to stop. After all, how else would the dear improve?
Elizabeth tilts her head to the right, pressing her ear to her shoulder. A forefinger from her spare hand blocks the other. She breathes a deep sigh of relief as all becomes muffled. She cannot help but wonder if William has ever had to do this in his study.
Dark shelf after shelf lined with tomes. Just being in there, looking around and catching the names of her friends, Dickens, and Bronte, she feels inspired. The desk, large and sturdy, is wide enough to fit every one of his documents. The door is heavy enough to block out the noise. She shifts slightly to watch the wall. She notes the small scratches in the paint along the bottom corner. She’ll need to get the staff to add a coat before the horde of guests come to stay for the exhibition. With a jolt, she realises how off track she is.
She forces her quill to move across the page. As the house quiets, words begin to flow. She could make this deadline! Charles had made his disappointment over the last one she missed quite clear. Another day or two along these tracks and she would be able to mail him the chapter.
She turns the sheet, ready to write landscape now, when she feels a tap at her shoulder. Elizabeth turns to see her housekeeper looking down at her.
“Sorry Ma’am I can see you are…working, but we need your opinions on the arrangements for the exhibition guests.” she says.
“Whatever input do you need from me?” Elizabeth replies.
“The sleeping arrangement, who is staying and for how long, the food. I can get the full list out now if you like Ma’am.”
Elizabeth puts her quill down and stands.
“Let us get it out the way now then, Ann.” she sighs. Her work will be late. Again.
The Bedroom
Since the minute her eyes have opened, something has been wrong. She is not completely sure what. All she knows is that she needs to be left alone. William, ever understanding, leaves the curtains drawn before he leaves their room. He makes sure to tell Ms Hearn to please not disturb Mrs Gaskell today.
Elizabeth drifts in and out of consciousness as time melts away like fat falling away from a bone.
A soft knock at the door. Elizabeth ignores it. A soft knock again.
“Mamma?” says a small voice from behind it. “May we come in?”
Her pain ebbs momentarily. “Yes, darling.” she croaks.
The handle takes a second to turn, the child standing on her toes to reach it. It cracks open slightly, the girl knowing not to let too much light in. The smaller one leads the way.
Elizabeth peers down from her bed to see Julia and Florence. How can two babes so small look so worried?
“Get Ms Hearn to light the fire and bring me up something to clear my throat.” she instructs them, attempting to keep her voice clear and stable. Ever the angels, they run out of the room following their mother’s command.
In what feels like no time at all Elizabeth sits before the fire in her room, a girl on each side. The pair listen intently to the rise and fall of their mother’s voice as she brings the poems off the page. They grip their mother’s forearms, holding themselves up to get a better look at the pictures on the pages. Elizabeth is close to end when Florence’s grip begins to loosen. From the corner of her eye, she catches Julia’s eyes grow heavy. Looking upon her daughter, she sees the faces of all four of her girls and wishes that she could give her the slightest idea of the love and hope bound up in them.
The Morning Room
The room floods with morning sun as the grass glimmers with dew. Elizabeth stands before the window and watches as a spider weaves a web, silken silvery threads interlacing one another. She thinks back to the years of watching her children take their first steps in here. Watching them play with one another, occasionally fight. Watching them learn watching her darlings grow. Her and William had worried at first, about what they would do without a morning room, but watching their children explore their nursery they knew they had made the right decision.
Her ruminating is sharply interrupted by the trail of adults and children that enter the room slowly, sleep still in some of their eyes. The Sunday School had made it clear how grateful they were to Elizabeth for teaching the lessons. She appreciated their kindness but felt that there wasn’t much to be grateful for. After all, she was simply doing her duty. And did not everyone deserve an education?
The Piano Has Improved
Marianne sits at the semi-grand Broadwood, her fingers flying across the keys. Her sisters sit around her in the drawing room. Meta lounges on an armchair, Florence perches on the arm rest next to her and Julia sits at Marianne’s feet. Despite all their differences, all three girls sit quietly and listen with their eyes closed. They let their sister’s music take them to another place. Where were they dreaming of, Marianne wonders.
The piano is loud enough to cover the click of the front door closing behind William. He cannot help but smile slightly, able to hear that Marianne’s lessons have been paying off. He returns his bag to his study before joining her. His smile grows. He was not expecting to find all his girls in here, listening to their elder sister so patiently. Even little Julia.
On seeing her father, Marianne stops playing immediately. The other girl’s eyes fly open to see her embrace her father. Since going away for school, she feels that her love for him has intensified. William only returns the embrace briefly.
“Why did you stop?” he asks while pulling away.
“To see you, father.” she tells him.
“You have seen me. Now, play on. And play something that we can dance to!”
The children all light up, delighted as Marianne returns to the piano eager to follow her father’s command.
The music starts up, faster and livelier than before. He grabs his daughter’s hands and spins his girls around the room to get them started. As he bends to scoop up Julia, he feels eyes on the back of his head. He lifts the child before turning to see his wife sitting among leaves of parchment at her table.
She smiles at him, and he at her.
Part Two: Motherless Children
Meta Alone
I had thought I had finally found love as my man got down on one knee and asked me to be his forevermore. My voice caught in my throat. I tripped over my words to tell him yes, of course I would. I tripped over my words again mere months later when I told him forever was over.
I returned home and walked straight into my mother’s arms. Although our losses were not alike, she knew what it was to love and to lose. I became my mother’s unofficial companion. Or she mine. It was difficult to say, and unimportant either way.
One day she set off down south to prepare the home she had bought to surprise father. They would retire down there, she told us. I found it difficult to believe and doubted it would be a welcome surprise. Father settling outside of Manchester was a thought so absurd that even I could not conjure the image. Fortunately, she never had to be let down. On a normal morning of a perfectly normal day, my mother left this earth suddenly. Selfishly, I am glad I was not there to see it. In my memory she is still at her table quill in hand. Or before the fire in her room, book in tow. Perhaps she is at the door, greeting our dinner guests. This is what I must tell myself as I haunt these halls that my family once filled, collecting my mother’s letters.
I step into the garden, arms laden with sheets. The flames stand tall. I open my arms wide, like my mother did for me and watch it all burn. I picture her watching me, proud of her ever-loving Meta.
Marianne and the Letters
Everyone around us started on what mother had asked. They began to remove every trace of her cursive slant, of her love for us. Father was the most diligent. Meta was not far behind, cleaning up all we had left at the house.
I tried my hand at it too, standing before the open flame, the years of my mother’s love between my arms, weighing them down. I gingerly dropped one in. I saw the flames lick and spit as they ate it whole. A pit began to open in my stomach as I saw my mother’s words flash before my eyes.
The love which passeth every earthly love, and the hope that however we may be separated on earth, we may each of us so behave while sojourning here
that we may meet again to renew the dear & tender tie of Mother and Daughter.
Words my mother wrote for me before we had even met. I thought of what was in my arms. My mother’s humour, her intelligence, her occasional bite. I fed the flame once more. As they spat at me eagerly, I could not help but think of my children. How would I show them who their grandmother had been? They had her work, but her work was not all she was. How would they wear her veil with the pride I had if they did not love her as I did? I pulled my hand back before the fire reached out and took her away from me. I pulled her words to my chest as she had once done with me.
As I think of her demand, I wonder if she would have said differently if she had known how much I cherished them. I have to only hope that she would have.
Generations/ Wedding Veil
I pull out the drawer of my mother’s wardrobe that holds only the veil of her mother, still in place of pride all these years later. I think of my grandmother on her wedding day, of what she told my mother of it.
Flowers collected from her aunt’s garden lay thick and heavy along the crown of her head. The perfume was rich. Too much. It was slightly sickly, she thought, inhaling a lung full, her stomach turning. Sweat started to collect in the creases of her palms. She tried to dry them against her dress. Her hands simply slid off the white material.
Her nerves started to get the better of her. She shifted the bright bouquet with its trailing ribbons from hand to hand. Without warning the church organ began to play, the noise leaking through the large oaken doors. Her father patted her back once. A weak attempt to reassure her. As if on cue, the doors swung open revealing her to the almost full chapel. Every head turned to watch her father lead her down the carpeted aisle. Her heart began to race as she felt the eyes narrow in on her. Had they noticed the crease near the back of her left thigh? Was her necklace askew? What did they think of her?
She locked eyes with the man standing at the altar. For a moment she saw herself through him. A child of spring born from her beloved aunt’s garden, her white lace veil flowing around her, she shone as she approached him. Something small, but powerful, formed in that space between them. The promise of a new life together, a bright future, a giggling baby. It grew as she approached.
I lift the lace out carefully, making sure no loose thread snags and pulls. I hold it before the window and silently watch the light pass through. Today I will make the same journey as her. My father may be the one walking me down, but my grandmother’s veil, her legacy will stand strong behind me.
Part Three: Transformation
The Pink House
It was the first time most of us had been away from our parents for longer than a week. Now here we were on the other side of the world, in a place where most people didn’t look like us, didn’t sound like us. When I arrived here, all I wanted to do was turn back around and go home. I chanted my promise to my parents like a mantra. I would at least try here. It was all that kept me moving. And then I arrived at the garish pink house at the end of the road, with the limp International Student Society banner tied loosely above its once grand door.
Worries don’t stick around too long in the Pink House. The wall’s crumbling? Oh well. Let’s go to the party in the basement that the Nigerian students are throwing. Tough day? Let’s sit on the grass and finish off the leftovers from the cultural food swap last night.
The Pink House allows us to find one another. It gives us a place where we can just be us. It tells us we belong here just as much as the next person.
The Restoration
The students certainly loved this place. Years and years of love seeped into the walls. Unfortunately, the walls were falling apart, shoddy repair jobs finally catching up with the place, leaving it crumbling and ruined. Until we arrived, hammers in hand. We work away, tearing through the cheap plaster, revealing traces of wallpaper, a doorway. Surprise after surprise.
Today we tackle the first floor. The staircase had clearly once been beautiful. I feel the grain of the banister rub my palm.
I watch as my team carry my second to tallest ladder up behind me. We work to position it at the peak of the stairs.
“Any volunteers?” I ask. No one steps forward. Not one to shirk away from responsibility I announce, “Alright then. I’ll do it.”
I start to climb my way up. Soon, I feel wobbling beneath me and look down to check that the ladder is still being held on to. Quickly reassured, I continue my ascent, arriving to find wooden boards precariously nailed into the ceiling. I carefully work away nail after nail, passing down plank after plank. It doesn’t take long for me to lose myself in the repetition.
The gasps of my team below me snap me out.it. Light pours out from above. A grin splits my face in two. This place was once full of light, and we are going to be the ones to bring it back.
A Visitor
I take my headphones off and let them rest around my neck. Quiet settles in the air like a fine layer of dust, certainly a change to the city traffic I picked my way through. My hand hovers above the back of a chair, unsure if I am allowed to move it. A smiling woman in a lanyard sees me.
“Go ahead. You can even sit there if you like!” she tells me brightly.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a museum like this before, I think to myself as I pull it back and take a seat. It’s more comfortable than I expected. I flick through my guidebook. Horsehair and leather. What a combination. I guess they were on to something.
My hands begin to wander, finding a small box. Press me. Well, if you’re asking. The sound of a pen scratching away fills the room. It’s not what I expected. I let out a small chuckle, enjoying the company.
A small girl bursts into the room.
“Look, Mummy!” she exclaims, hand outstretched, pointing at something in the corner. “A cat!”
I follow her finger. She’s right. A cat teddy bear sits atop the curtain, bell around its neck and all.
“Yes, yes.” the woman with her says. “Sorry for disturbing you.” she says to me.
“Oh, it’s no problem. Thanks for pointing out the cat!”
We all smile politely at one another for a moment before the girl and her mother move along the room, the girl attempting to use her inside voice to point out all the different food on the dining table.
I lean back into the chair. I turn back to my guidebook and make myself at home.
This work by Guruleen Kahlo was produced for Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in collaboration with The Writing Squad and Manchester City of Literature. This project was been funded by National Lottery players, via The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Click Here for more information on the project.
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0).
