The wind picked up sometime after their second cup of tea, rattling the shutters in fits, as if it too wished to join the conversation. Jane had taken to mending a glove by the hearth, while Charlotte and Wilkie lingered near the bookshelf, the air between them steadily thickening with literary opinion.
“You know,” Wilkie said, sipping loudly, “I’ve been meaning to say, while I have the ear of thee Charlotte Brontë, there’s a matter I’ve long pondered.”
Charlotte, cautious, tilted her head. “Oh?”
“Wuthering Heights,” he began, with a sniff as though even the title gave him indigestion. “Now, there’s a book that could have done with… supervision.”
Charlotte blinked once. “Pardon me?”
“Brilliantly atmospheric, yes—I’ll grant that. And a certain rugged appeal. But I daresay the structure is erratic, the characters mad beyond sympathy, and the narrative practically eats its own tail.”
Jane, sewing, gave a tiny cough that sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh.
Wilkie continued, oblivious. “Heathcliff is all brooding snarl and no justification, Catherine is emotionally feral, and don’t get me started on the endless generational recursion by the time I sorted out who was haunting whom, I needed a map and a séance.”
Charlotte said nothing, her face a perfect mask of still civility. She stared into her teacup like it might prevent violence.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Wilkie went on, plucking a biscuit with cheerful ignorance, “There’s promise in it. Real promise. But what it needed. What it cried out for was a steady editorial hand. Yours, perhaps! You, Miss Brontë, you know restraint. You wouldn’t let a ghost story run feral across the page like a moor pony with a fever.”
Jane dropped her glove in her lap.
Charlotte finally set down her cup and turned to face him.
“Mr. Collins,” she said, her voice remarkably even, “do you make a habit of giving unsolicited criticism to authors in their own homes?”
Wilkie hesitated, then smiled, as if she’d paid him a compliment. “Only when I feel I might be saving a future classic from its worst impulses.”
“I see,” Charlotte said.
“And surely you agree with me?” he said, genuinely eager. “It’s too much, that book. All that passion! Like a thunderstorm married a fever dream.”
Charlotte nodded slowly. “Yes, Mr. Collins. And had I written it, I daresay I’d be wounded.”
Wilkie blinked. “Had you? I thought…”
“You thought incorrectly,” Charlotte said, standing now. Her small stature had never seemed quite so formidable. “My sister Emily wrote Wuthering Heights. She died of tuberculosis. Shortly after it was published.”
Wilkie’s mouth opened. And closed. Then opened again.
“I… good heavens… I didn’t…”
Jane, now calmly threading her needle again, said, “You may want to check who you’re insulting next time, Mr. Collins. Especially when ghosts are involved.”
Charlotte folded her hands. “I must say, Mr. Collins, I admire your courage. It takes a certain fortitude to criticize the dead to her living kin—under their roof—while eating their biscuits.”
Wilkie looked down at his half-eaten biscuit as though it had betrayed him.
“I shall… offer my regrets. And my compliments to the biscuit-maker.”
“That,” Jane said, without looking up, “was also Emily.”
Wilkie’s eyes widened in horror.
Charlotte relented, only slightly. “You’re safe, sir. I bake. Emily haunts.”
“Good lord,” Wilkie muttered, finishing his biscuit anyway.
Outside, the wind howled a little louder, and a shutter creaked ominously. Wilkie, looking distinctly paler, glanced at the darkened hallway behind them.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I seem to have developed a sudden and completely irrational fear of narrow staircases.”
Jane smiled. “We all do, in time.”
The wind had barely stopped rattling when the door burst open with the force of a cannon shot.
“Ladies!” cried Samuel Clemens, wild-eyed and snow-dusted, as he staggered into the parlor like a man chased by revelation, or a bear.
Wilkie Collins let out a startled yelp and nearly dropped his teacup.
Jane stood up sharply. “Mr. Clemens! What on earth?”
“No time!” Twain barked, slamming the door behind him with a thud that shook the panes. He was panting, one glove missing, scarf askew, hair in mutinous rebellion.
Charlotte frowned. “Are you pursued?”
Twain blinked once, then pointed a trembling finger toward the hearth.
“It’s happening,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “It’s started. I… I don’t even know how to begin…”
“What’s started?” Jane demanded.
Twain opened his mouth, closed it, and looked around at them all as if measuring their fortitude.
And then he said:
“You may want to sit down.”
