It had been sunny for most of the trip but we disappeared into a cloud at Todmorden and got out in Hebden Bridge to a drizzle. Emily had dressed practically for the occasion, wearing jeans, jumper and a pair of athletic trainers I had not imagined her to possess. Now she pulled out a pac-a-mac, unfolded it and carefully put it on over her jumper. I zipped up my own cagoule and we set off like a married couple into town, crossing a bridge over the river, talking about how nice it would be to live here, where they had scenery, fresh air and an art-house cinema.

While we waited at the bus stop we looked in the window of an estate agent and cooed. Our dreams, really, were very conventional.

*

The bus reached the top of the moors and shook the hills out below us. The sun only shone through some of the clouds, lighting up bright-green planes tinged with orange and purple, casting great moving shadows upon the hillscape, squirming clots of darkness shifting shape like my worst envies. Small, crooked farmhouses passed in and out of the light, and we tried to guess which one was Wuthering Heights. A man turned round and asked if we were from round there. ‘You’re looking for Top Withens,’ he said, ‘a way over that peak.’ He pointed out the Haworth old road branching left from the road we were on, going down into the valley while we climbed higher and higher.

‘How long would it take to walk that way?’ asked Emily. ‘Maybe we should get off?’

‘About three hours, love. If you’re fit, that is, and you’ve got the right shoes on.’

I looked out at the paths and imagined us alone together there, on the grass that blazed green and darkened again.

‘It’ll be quicker from the parsonage, if you’re going that way,’ he said.

So we stayed on the bus and climbed up to Haworth.

It was raining again when the bus dropped us off. We trudged up the street, past souvenir shops, past galleries selling hobbyists’ landscapes, until we reached the Black Bull, Branwell’s local. A Chinese woman asked if I would take a picture of her and her husband under its sign, and I did so happily, asking her if she’d return the favour using my phone.

‘This is so cheesy,’ said Emily, as I put my hand on her shoulder and grinned.

‘Shall we have one for Branwell?’ I asked.

‘We should have one for his sisters, stuck at home or earning money as governesses,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to the museum before we have a drink. I might need to take notes.’

*

The first room we came to was the famous parlour where the sisters had written their novels, where Charlotte and Branwell had elaborated their childhood fantasies about their kingdom of Angria.

‘Angrier,’ I said. ‘Do you think they knew about Brexit?’