It had been built to be a working house for a working family, and it was not aristocratic or ornate in the same way that Chester Grange and Oakhope Hall were. It had earned its status amongst the people of the area much in the same way that the name of the Heatons, the family who had always lived there, had: through endurance and consistency. The Heatons of Ponden had not always been strictly good, nor were they constantly respectable. They did, however, employ a large number of local people; sit on the parish council; donate to charitable works, including the school; and do their best to show the world that their more infamous days were behind them. There was some friction between Papa and Mr. Heaton these days, not least because the elder Heaton son was rather too much of a willing drinking partner for Branwell, but throughout their childhoods, all the Brontë children had always been welcome at the Heaton table, and of the four of them, it had always been Emily who visited the most, for held within Ponden Hall’s sturdy walls lay one of the greatest loves of her life: the Heaton library, a most wondrous and curious array of books, some of which were centuries old, that included volumes on botany, poetry, philosophy and law and, it seemed to Emily, at least one book that concerned itself with every subject under the sun. Within this room she could travel through the ages without taking a single step.

“Branwell!” Robert Heaton greeted their brother first, hanging out of an upstairs window, waving cheerily. Robert Heaton was a nice young man, distinct from his rougher-hewn forebears in that he was sweet tempered and gentle. He was also, rather inconveniently, terribly in love with Emily and had been since he was about fourteen and she eighteen.

“Oh, Emily,” he said the moment he saw her. “How very fine to see you! I was thinking only this morning how this damned snow had kept you apart from us for too long and that the house seems less bright without your presence in it. Come in—I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“And I suppose we are but the chaff blown along in her wake?” Charlotte said, affronted, as Robert disappeared within.

“Poor Robert,” Anne said. “All these years and he has yet to give up hope on Emily returning his affections one day.”

“I cannot help my natural attractiveness to the opposite sex, Anne,” Emily said. “It’s a curse to be this alluring.”

It was not Robert who met them at the door, however, but Mr. Barraclough, master clockmaker.

“Mr. Barraclough!” Charlotte greeted him, a little startled by the sudden appearance of his tall figure in the hallway. Mr. Barraclough was a dour man, imposing, with a dark and sallow face that had always given Emily the impression of a malevolent cat poised to attack.