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Aunt Elizabeth dreo slove
“You’ll have to buy supper for you and your sister once the girls have gone,” she said in her reedy, wobbly voice “Here’s a shilling and sixpence; give it to the ive you a pair of fish pies You h road Bring the change safely horeed?”
Branwell took thehand He felt unsteady on his feet, his head spinning, practically drunk Finally, he had been given mastery over his sisters! He had the money; he had position! He was a irls and guide their soft, gentle eneral But, Bran decided, a generous one Mostly His brain began working on wild plans at once After the beastliest business was done, of course he would cry and feel terribly sorry, but he and Anne would still be in Keighley And Keighley had a brand-new train station And at a train station, you wi
ll al, shrieking trains the size of dragons! The most incredible inventions ever devised! No one he knew had ever seen one He would be the first He and his sisters, of course But mainly him Bran’s heart started to beat hard and fast in his chest like an engine chugging down the tracks
Papa clapped his hand against his only son’s shoulder, e “Think you can do the day proudly, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bran stoically
Aunt Elizabeth wept a great deal and kissed them all over She hated this whole business Even when they were safe at home, Elizabeth could hardly bear to leave the children alone, and rarely let them out of doors, lest they catch their death of dah, if she turned her back even for a ht wind down and stop just as her sister had, just as Maria and Lizzie and all the rest of the souls ere ever born into this vale of tears But she must bear it now
Eed at her father’s sleeve Anne had already run out the door, holding up her arms to the sunshine they’ddown the path
“Papa,” E with Branwell’s coat and bla in their lives Finally, the boy untangled himself from all that paternal attention and strode out into the day like a peacock
“Papa, listen,” she whispered harder, alroan
“What is it, ruff ray eyes of his daughter
“Don’t send Anne away to School,” Eed “Please, Papa You can teach her here like you teach Bran, can’t you?”
The parson sighed His breath s air “Now, E their fathers what to do, you know”
E in the warht Branwell pinched her, and the little girl screamed very satisfactorily They could never understand, those two They’d never know Emily felt that little needle-stab of hate in her stomach They couldn’t even stay decently sad for five minutes, even on the Beastliest Day She shut her eyes and said: “I know, Papa I shall never do it again Butcannot one of us be spared from that place? One of us should escape One of us should have nono horrors hanging on her heart Please, Father If you will o, let her stay”
Emily kissed her father’s bearded cheek and ran out of the Parsonage to join her sisters He blinked after her, his own heart as heavy as a church bell, never to be rung again