“I’m not nervous,” Charlotte said, the lie plain for all to hear in the tension in her voice. “Not for myself, at least. I just want our household to reflect well on Papa. It is not often we receive visitors of such note. I would hate for word to get out that we live in a ramshackle hodgepodge of chaos and clutter, Tabitha Aykroyd!”

Though Tabby’s back remained firm, Charlotte didn’t need to see the old woman’s face to know she had grievously upset her, for it was plain in the set of her shoulders and the angle of her head.

“Oh, Tabby, I’m so sorry,” she cried, rushing to wrap her arms around Tabby’s waist and resting her head on her shoulder. “I am nervous—I’m terrified. I so wanted to make Lady Hartley’s acquaintance, but now she is here, in our shabby little house, I am quite overcome. You know how I am with great people, people of breeding. I am always so afraid that they will see me, small and plain and inconsequential as I am, and laugh in my face.”

Tabby turned towards her at last and held her close, just as she had used to when Charlotte was a child.

“Now, you listen to me, Charlotte Brontë,” she said. “You are not small—not in any sense, excepting the obvious. You have a giant’s heart and a giant’s intellect, and I daresay that even the writing that you are constantly wittering on about is very decent too, for how could it not be when you learnt your storytelling at my knee?”

Tabby took Charlotte’s face in her hands and planted a kiss on her forehead. “This Lady Whatever-her-name-is may have fine clothes and fine ways and a carriage with six horses waiting in the lane—as if anyone ever needed six horses to pull one person!—but she is still just flesh and blood, not better nor worse than you and me under the eyes of God. So you remember that, and you go in there with your head held high, and if that don’t work, throw a few of them long words you are so fond of into the conversation—that shuts most folk up.”

“Thank you, Tabby,” Charlotte said. “Thank you, and I am sorry.”

“Here’s a cloak and bonnet.” Martha held both items up. “What am I to do with them?”

“Hang them up, you foolish child,” Tabby said. “What else are you going to do with them—bake them into a pie?”

“Oh, Martha, I am sorry I was so sharp,” Charlotte said.

“S’all right, miss,” Martha said. “I know you are feeling nervous about the lady, but you needn’t be. Fine people like her are used to dealing with ordinary and plain folk like you and me.”