“Oh, my dear.” Celia frowned. “How terrible! If I may help you, I will. To have gathered such information shows great foresight; often there are stories to be told in the very last of what remains of us.”

Charlotte had been afraid that Celia would be horrified, distraught at her request, and she was grateful that her friend was a woman of science and reason who viewed the establishment of fact as the most certain path to the truth.

“Tea, ma’am.” Hattie entered, the door swinging open with a resounding bump against the corner of the sideboard as she brought in the refreshments on a tray. Unlike the first time she had served tea to Charlotte the previous summer, she lowered the tray carefully and steadily, and Charlotte was pleased to see that lemon and milk were present on this occasion.

“Hattie makes great progress,” Celia said. “In the last few months, I have seen her begin to talk and even laugh again. And when I think of the poor silent woman she was when I brought her into my home, it seems rather churlish to admonish her for raising her voice earlier. We are all humans, after all—all facing unseen suffering.”

“Indeed,” Branwell said, nodding enthusiastically. Charlotte predicted the composition of love poems on the homeward-bound omnibus.

“Show me what you have,” Celia suggested, holding out her hand. “Let me see the notes, and I will tell you what, if any, conclusions I am able to draw from them.”

“We indexed the drawings and the notes to sit side by side,” Charlotte explained as she passed the ream of papers to Celia, “so that one directly relates to the other. Included are measurements, and each bone is labelled, though I can only hope accurately so. Emily had a book of anatomy, but it was more than a hundred years old, and Papa’s medical dictionary is so heavily annotated it is rather hard to make out some of the information.”

Celia took the papers from Charlotte and began to spread them out on her lap. Silence fell as she began to examine their contents. Charlotte watched her for any reaction, but her expression was steady, save for one moment when she bit down on her bottom lip, closing her eyes for a moment. As Celia read on, Charlotte let her thoughts drift away, listening to the crackle of the fire and the steady ticking of the longcase clock that stood in the corner. A life of purpose, a home of one’s own: what greater contentment could there possibly be for either woman or man?

“Charlotte, dear,” Celia asked when she looked up at last, “would you bring my writing desk so I may make a note of my conclusions while they are fresh in my mind? I must congratulate you and your sisters. This really is a first-rate record.”

Charlotte obliged at once, holding a pot of ink for Celia, who spoke aloud as she wrote.