Withering Heights

have been a Barbara or a Joan or maybe a Margaret. A Melody is never supposed to be older than fifteen, either in books or in real life. It isn’t possible to believe there will ever be nursing homes peopled with residents named Tiffany, Megan, or Stacie.

“She’s older than me by a couple of years. But never no maturity. Our relationship went from bad to worse when we was teenagers. She accused me of stealing her boyfriend.”

“Did you?”

“’Course not!” Much affronted, Mrs. Malloy sat up straighter in her chair. “I borrowed him, is all. And only for an afternoon, at that. But you’d have thought when I gave him back it was with tea stains all over him. Such a carry-on I got. Miss Melody Dramatic, I called her.”

“If she was in love with him-”

“Nothing of the sort. I don’t think he’d ever washed his neck. He was just someone to get Melody’s mind off the other one.”

“Unsuitable?”

“A doomed relationship from the word go.”

“Oh, dear! A married man?”

“Mr. Rochester.”

“As in…?” I’d stuck my elbow in my saucer and toppled the cup, much to the chagrin of Tobias, who was sitting on my lap.

“That’s him. Edward Fairfax Rochester.”

The man against whom all other gothic heroes must be judged and the majority of them found wanting! The storm had picked up again. Thunder rolled and rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed. Rain rattled against the kitchen windowpanes. When it ended, would we be left with a blighted oak on the grounds?

“Melody couldn’t think how to get Mr. R to leave Jane Eyre for her. She said no one else would ever come close.”

Some might think this a little odd, but having felt much the same way before meeting Ben, my heart went out to the unhappy Melody. I found myself wondering if it might not be possible for her to begin life again, even at this late date, as a primly garbed governess-after establishing, of course, that there was no mad wife in the attic.

“You shared a love of great romantic fiction. Doesn’t that count for something?” I asked Mrs. Malloy.

“After sobbing herself to sleep for five years, it seems Melody turned in her library card and vowed never again to darken the threshold of a bookshop. All her cooped-up passion went into learning to type. She’s worked for the last forty years as secretary to an accountant in Yorkshire, some small town not all that far from Haworth.”

“Home of Charlotte Bronte and the rest of her famous family! But why would your sister torture herself that way? Why not get as far away as possible from painful associations with the man of her dreams?”

“Never happy unless she’s miserable herself and depressing everyone around her. The boyfriend moved home and never again let go of his mother’s apron strings. I’ve not met her boss, but my guess is she’s done a number on him too.”

“That sounds unkind, Mrs. Malloy.” Tobias wandered off my lap onto hers.

“I suppose it does.” She had the grace to look shamefaced. “Truth be told, it bothers me the way I never could stand her. My chums in the Chitterton Fells Charwomen’s Association get on me all the time. ‘Your own sister,’ they say, ‘and the only contact you have with her is exchanging Christmas cards. Go and see her. Make up your differences!’”

“They’re right.”

“You would say that, Mrs. H! But there’s no explaining it even to meself. Just looking at Melody’s photo gets me hopping mad. That daft expression on her face! Like she’s afraid if she don’t smile just right the camera will zoom in and suck off her nose. I’m not saying as I’m proud of it, but I remember looking at her when she was two years old and thinking, You’re a miserable little cow, Melody Tabby, and always will be.”

I was doing some laborious arithmetic. “Wouldn’t you have been a newborn at the time? You said she was a couple of years older than you.”

“Did I?” The rouged cheeks turned a deeper brick-red. “Maybe it’s the other way round. Melody always seemed elderly. By the age of nine you’d have thought she’d started collecting her pension and going on coach rides to Margate with a bunch of gray-haired old biddies. Still, I knew girls at school like that and they didn’t drive me up the wall quite the same way. But then again, none of them was me own sister. I can see what you’re thinking, Mrs. H, but it wasn’t a case of having me nose put out of whack when she came along. This was something different, almost like…”

“Go on!” I urged.

“Well, almost like… I’d known her before.”

“Before what?”

Mrs. Malloy heaved a pained sigh that inflated her bosom and conveyed clearly that I was being even dimmer than usual. “Before we was born. Into this current lifetime is what I’m getting at. But maybe I was wrong.”

“No sign of Melody floating around the periphery of your trance?”

“Not a hint. Madam LaGrange didn’t mention her.”

Even Tobias looked sorry. And I wondered if I should invite her to spend the night. I pictured myself sitting up with her through the small hours, holding her hand to make sure she didn’t have the vapors or go into a decline. Doing so was something I wouldn’t begrudge, even though with the children gone I’d made other plans for an evening alone with Ben. These had included my sea-foam green nightgown, music from Phantom of the Opera playing in the background, and an atmospheric arrangement of chamomile-scented candles on my dressing table.

I reminded Mrs. Malloy that it was something to discover that she had been a person as exciting as a tightrope walker in a previous life. And a cat too, if one discounted the possibility of Madam LaGrange’s having made that part up. Come to notice it, in close proximity Mrs. Malloy and Tobias did bear a certain rememblance to each other, around the eyes and the twitch of their mouths.

“Go on, say it, Mrs. H; you think she’s a fraud.”

“But sincere about it,” I consoled. “It could be she’d do better in another specialty.”

“She did say she’s just finished a postdoctoral course on seances and is thinking about going into them full- time.”

“Well, there you are! Her heart wasn’t really in her session with you.”

“Still, I don’t think it’d be wise for me to dismiss that bit about her seeing a woman falling in front of a bus in the rain.” Mrs. Malloy’s pious gaze shifted to the windows, where the storm was still going at it, hammer and tongs. “Or that business about the old girlfriend showing up. That sort of thing can ruin the best marriage.”

“Possibly.”

“Take Mr. H, for starters.”

“Yes, do let’s.” Had Tobias presently been within reach, I would have thrown him at her.

“Not that I think he’d seriously misbehave himself.” Mrs. Malloy solemnly shook her head. “But there’s no getting around it, he’s a very attractive man, besides being able to cook like a dream at home as well as at work. An old girlfriend might go all out-plunging necklines, skirts up to her knickers-to win back the chance she’d missed. Of course, like I said, it wouldn’t come to anything in the end, but-”

“Interesting you should mention Ben’s culinary talent.” I got up to put the tea things in the sink. “His latest cookery book will be out next month. There’s a review of it, an excellent one, in the magazine Cuisine Anglaise that arrived in this morning’s post. But getting back to Melody, I think that having given Madam LaGrange a try you should attempt the more conventional approach. Go see your sister.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. There’s never been no talking to Melody when she’s in one of her snits.” Mrs. Malloy came up beside me with the teapot. “Like I told you, this one’s lasted close on forty years.”

“That’s nothing.” I added more washing-up liquid. “For Moses that was a walking tour in the desert, hardly enough time to get sunburn. And speaking of fresh air and relaxation, it occurs to me that you’re due for a holiday. Now don’t argue.” I held up a soapy hand. “With the children away at their grandparents’ and my not having any decorating jobs going at the moment, this would be the ideal time to reunite you with Melody.”

“There is that.” Mrs. M picked up a dish towel and stood with it draped over her arm as if auditioning for the part of a waiter. “And Madam LaGrange did say I was about to take a trip to foreign parts, which I suppose could be Yorkshire, seeing as the people there talk different from the way we do. Then again, I’m not so sure I want to spoil