Emily and I dragged him into the bedroom he shared with Papa. Anne turned down the coverlet of his bed and pulled out the pillows he had rearranged to trick our father. Emily and I heaved Branwell onto the bed.

“Lydia, my distant, darling Lydia,” he keened. “My love for you has ruined me!”

Six years ago, Branwell had become a tutor to the son of the Reverend and Mrs. Robinson at Thorpe Green Hall, near York. Lydia Robinson, a wanton woman of forty, had seduced Branwell. He had fallen madly in love with her, and they’d conducted a torrid affair until her husband had discovered it and dismissed Branwell. Ever since then, Branwell had pined for Lydia, drowning his woes in liquor. What a sorry waste he had allowed that terrible woman to make of his life!

“None of you understand how I suffer,” he moaned as Emily tugged off his shoes. “You have never loved and lost as I have!”

With great self-restraint, I forbore to remind him that our father had many years ago lost his beloved wife, and we our mother. Emily, stern and unrelenting, went downstairs without a word, but Anne tenderly arranged the coverlet over Branwell.

“Oh, Anne, don’t fuss so,” Branwell cried. “Lord, I wish you would all go away!”

Chastened, Anne crept out of the room. Papa sat beside Branwell. “We must pray for God to forgive your sins and give you the strength to reform.”

“I cannot bear another sermon now,” Branwell said in a tone of rising hysteria, “and besides, there’s no use moralizing, Father. It’s too late; it’s all over with me.”

Stifling a sigh, I left the room. I knew I ought to finish sweeping and set out for my afternoon visits to parishioners suffering from the hard times that had fallen upon the country. Yet the tedious routine of my days oppressed me so that I succumbed to the powerful urge to escape to my other life, the secret existence known to but three other people besides myself.