“It would soothe me a great deal if you would first calm yourselves,” Anne said. “Stop fighting like a pair of sparrows and face what truly ails you. If we concentrate our efforts in our novels, then we will all feel much more settled. I am going to write about a governess.” Anne smiled as she recalled the idea that she had been unwinding in her head for the last few days. “My heroine shall be ordinary and plain, decent and good and at the mercy of wicked children and unpleasant gentlemen.”

“Who on earth would want to read about a governess?” Charlotte said. “I was thinking about writing about a young woman who is exceptionally bright and brilliant, and how she finds herself drawn to a much older professor. . . .” Charlotte’s cheeks pinkened at the thought of it.

“Clearly you both need reminding that we are attempting to write fiction and not our autobiographies,” Emily sighed, shaking her head. “We are the architects of Gondal and Angria. If we cannot conjure up something truly remarkable, then we should not try at all.”

“Very well, then, what revolutionary idea are you proposing?” Charlotte asked.

“I do not know,” Emily admitted, dropping her chin. “If I go out on to the moors, they talk to me in song and verse, and I can write a hundred poems in a day. But this dreary business of putting one word after another to make a book—it’s much more laborious than one would imagine.”

“Well, then.” As much as they infuriated her, which was a very great deal, Anne was pleased to see the tension between her sisters begin to ebb away. “Let us walk and talk around the table as I suggested, and see what arises.”

But Anne had scarcely pulled back her chair when there was a quiet knock at the door and their housekeeper of many years, dearest Tabby, entered, her pallor greyish, and her mouth set in a thin, firm line that spoke of deep discomfort and unease.

“Tabby, are you quite well?” Anne asked her, taking her hand and drawing her to her chair. “Whatever is the matter?”

“I am not,” Tabby said. “For there has been a discovery made—a most diabolical one. A discovery of a body, and I am very afraid that if something is not done about it, all that we know and love will be engulfed by evil.”

3

Charlotte

“I would speak to your father,” Tabby said, agitated. “But with his eyes so bad and it being almost Christmas, it hardly seems right. And young Mr. Nicholls is a decent enough fellow, but he don’t have the grit—he don’t have the strength of mind or the stubbornness. Not like you girls.”

“Really, Tabby,” Emily said with a smile, “I do believe that is the nicest thing you have ever said to us.”

“Tell us all you know, dearest Tabby,” Anne said, “and let us soothe your fears.”