“Sister dear,” Emily sighed. “I care no more for who sees our rhymes than I do for writing ridiculously superfluous thank-you notes for thank-you notes’ sake. All that will happen is that I will write to Ellen saying ‘Thank for your letter,’ and then Ellen will write to me, thanking me for my letter, and then I shall be obliged to write her and so on for all eternity. To save us all some precious time, I shall trust that Ellen knows me well enough to know that I am always most thankful!”

“I do believe that we are all rather strained by being so much indoors,” Anne interjected quickly, noting how the colour rose in Charlotte’s cheeks. “Perhaps if we took a walk around the table, put all thoughts of letters and recitals aside for a moment and shared our ideas aloud . . . ?”

Anne often wondered what would become of her sisters if she was not present to mediate with them. Though Emily and Charlotte loved each other fiercely, they each took a perverse delight in irritating the other. Charlotte knew that Emily would always resist anything Charlotte asked her to do, and Emily was perfectly aware that Charlotte would not be able to rest until she was certain that everything had been properly done. They goaded each other out of boredom, competition and a new sense of unease that neither of them would admit to. For Anne was certain that this most recent skirmish had nothing to do with the banks of snow that seemed to engulf them, or their continuing lack of paid employment. She was sure that it was because just recently, after a series of polite refusals, Charlotte had sent their collected poems to the publisher Aylott and Jones, asking if they would consider them for publication. There were eyes outside their own on their work once more, and soon they would know if there was any merit to their efforts. It was terrifying.

Emily could barely speak of it without having to storm off in a fluster, and as for Charlotte, well, it did not help that last month she had written to Monsieur Héger, after waiting the six long months he had bade her, and now she was in a state of torture, desperate for a reply. Anne had hoped the passing time, the distraction of detections and their book might divert her sister from her devotion to that individual, but still her longing for his favour lived on within her, like a fever that would not abate. The wait for the post had become a fraught affair that had so far resulted only in double disappointment, and now this Lady Hartley business would only distress and vex her more, for Charlotte would so dearly have loved to move amongst those rarefied circles that Emily cared for not one jot. Christmas was meant to be a time of family, of communion, companionship, contentment and prayer, and yet . . .