“But you are in my house, Miss Brontë,” Bradshaw said. “And there’s a dead child that someone hid in my house. Now, you ask anyone round here who they think would be so low to do such a thing—Clifton Bradshaw or an Irish beggar—you see what they say.”

Anne bit her lip, for it was true that the anger and fear felt against those fleeing starvation in Ireland seemed to mount weekly, increasing with every shrieking newspaper headline. Of course the recent influx of desperate people could have nothing to do with this event, which had taken place thirteen years earlier, yet for some the relevance of such facts didn’t matter at all when they were searching for an excuse to hate and blame.

“So you believe a migrant committed the crime, stole your keys and went to great lengths to stow away their evil deed within your house—a theory that can never be proved either way.”

“Can’t help my bad luck, can I?” Clifton said with a shrug.

“Some say you have the luck of the devil himself,” Emily said.

Anne wasn’t sure what reaction she might have been expecting from Bradshaw, but it certainly wasn’t the one she got: uproarious laughter, as the man tossed his head back, revealing his blackened teeth, and slapped his thigh hard until he wheezed for breath.

“Lass,” he said, leaning across the table, “you should be careful saying his name too loud hereabouts. He might hear you and think you are calling on him. For let me promise you this: once you’ve invited the devil in, you’ll never get rid of him, not even in death. Mark my words, for none knows this better than I.”

17

Anne

As it turned out, Clifton let them take the stones without further protest, his smug self-assurance that nothing could be found to incriminate him infuriating Anne.

In any event, it was well that when they met again after dinner, the process of fitting the stones back together took time, and that in itself it was rather diverting, as the report that Charlotte delivered from Celia Prescott was more than sobering. Each detail added humanity to the discovery, substance to their imaginations, hurt to their hearts. That the child had been so ill and malnourished that it had been prevented from growing to its proper size was a common enough plight, especially with the children who worked in the mills. And that Celia could find no remaining evidence of violence in the bones was something to hold on to.

“Could it be that the child simply died, a victim of circumstance, and that its parent, originating from another land, found a place to inter the child with ceremonies we aren’t familiar with?” Anne suggested.