“By thinking,” Emily said. “Though I realise this is an endeavour that you are largely unfamiliar with. I have received a request that though on the one hand it would give me great pleasure in its execution, it would also require me to be . . . social . . . and nice to those I am not at all interested in. In short, other people.”

“You should decline immediately,” Charlotte advised. “If I recall, and I do my best not to recall, your last social engagement resulted in us moving to Brussels.”

“That is not true!” Anne laughed. “Emily, what request has been made of you?”

“One Lord and Lady Hartley,” Emily said, handing a letter headed with a coat of arms to Anne as if it were imbued with some terrible plague, “most often of London, but sometimes of that ghastly gothic folly Oakhope Hall, wish me to play at a musical evening they are arranging for some charitable cause. Apparently, word of my prowess as a pianist has somehow reached their notice.”

“Lord and Lady Hartley?” Charlotte whipped the letter out of Anne’s hand and was examining it intensely before Anne was able to read one line. “But, Emily, they are very great and important people. You must know that.”

“I know that they are very rich,” Emily said. “And I know that some, Charlotte, dear, equate riches with status.”

“Their wealth is an aside. Lady Hartley is a famous philanthropist. Her charitable work has eased the suffering of many a poor soul here in the North, where she grew up. I have heard it said she converses with Thackeray, and Mrs. Gaskell . . . and has even been received by Her Majesty the Queen. You must accept!”

“Must I?” Emily turned to look at her older sister. “There will be dozens of accomplished young women of good families lining up to play a pretty piece. What on earth does she want with a Brontë daughter?”

“‘What does she want with you?’ is a more pertinent question,” Charlotte said, unable to hide her regret at not receiving such a prestigious request.

“You should have practised your lessons more, Charlotte,” Emily said. “It seems the great Lady Hartley has no use for someone who is expert in talking.”

“But you will do it,” Charlotte said. “Imagine what an acquaintance with the Hartleys might do for us. And just at this moment when we have sent our poetry out into the world. It might make all the difference to our success, Emily. To have our work put before the eyes of important personages, to have their patronage, could change our fortunes entirely.”