The Diabolical Bones Read online

  BRONTË SISTERS MYSTERIES

  The Vanished Bride

  The Diabolical Bones

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Rowan Coleman

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ellis, Bella, author.

  Title: The diabolical bones / Bella Ellis.

  Description: New York : Berkley, [2021] | Series: A Brontë sisters mystery; 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020019722 (print) | LCCN 2020019723 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593099155 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593099162 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855--Fiction. | Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848--Fiction. | Brontë, Anne, 1820-1849--Fiction. | Women authors, English--19th century--Fiction. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6103.O4426 D53 2021 (print) | LCC PR6103.O4426 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019722

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019723

  First U.S. Edition: February 2021

  Cover art: woman (left) © LML Productions / Arcangel; women (middle and right) © Magdalena Russocka / Trevillion

  Cover design by Emily Osborne

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Dedicated to my dear friend Julie Akhurst

  Contents

  Cover

  Brontë Sisters Mysteries

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2: Anne

  Chapter 3: Charlotte

  Chapter 4: Emily

  Chapter 5: Charlotte

  Chapter 6: Anne

  Chapter 7: Emily

  Chapter 8: Emily

  Chapter 9: Charlotte

  Chapter 10: Anne

  Chapter 11: Anne

  Chapter 12: Charlotte

  Chapter 13: Emily

  Chapter 14: Anne

  Chapter 15: Emily

  Chapter 16: Anne

  Chapter 17: Anne

  Chapter 18: Emily

  Chapter 19: Charlotte

  Chapter 20: Emily

  Chapter 21: Charlotte

  Chapter 22: Emily

  Chapter 23: Charlotte

  Chapter 24: Anne

  Chapter 25: Charlotte

  Chapter 26: Emily

  Chapter 27: Anne

  Chapter 28: Emily

  Chapter 29: Charlotte

  Chapter 30: Charlotte

  Chapter 31: Anne

  Chapter 32: Charlotte

  Chapter 33: Emily

  Chapter 34: Anne

  Chapter 35: Emily

  Chapter 36: Emily

  Chapter 37: Anne

  Chapter 38: Emily

  Chapter 39: Charlotte

  Chapter 40: Anne

  Chapter 41: Emily

  Chapter 42: Charlotte

  Chapter 43: Emily

  Chapter 44: Anne

  Chapter 45: Charlotte

  Chapter 46: Anne

  Chapter 47: Charlotte

  Chapter 48: Emily

  Chapter 49: Charlotte

  Chapter 50: Charlotte

  Chapter 51: Anne

  Chapter 52: Emily

  Chapter 53: Anne

  "Music on Christmas Morning"

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  The night is darkening round me,

  The wild winds coldly blow;

  But a tyrant spell has bound me,

  And I cannot, cannot go.

  The giant trees are bending

  Their bare boughs weighed with snow;

  The storm is fast descending

  And yet I cannot go.

  Clouds beyond clouds above me,

  Wastes beyond wastes below;

  But nothing drear can move me;

  I will not, cannot go.

  —Emily Brontë

  Haworth Parsonage, April 1852

  Charlotte could not conceive of a place more beautiful than Haworth and the surrounding countryside in the spring.

  The trees were heavy with blossom, the moors green and fecund with new heather, still tender and soft underfoot, dotted with the little white clouds of cotton grass that danced in the brisk breeze. And yet, as much as Charlotte was glad to be at home, recovering after a long illness and with nothing but time and the freedom to write, it could not be denied that even now, all these long months later, months filled with travel and acclaim, she felt trapped: a prisoner of isolation.

  Still, even with the trips to London, the company of Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell and, yes, dearest George Smith, she felt always as if a part of her heart were missing. No, that wasn’t quite right: as if three-quarters of her heart were missing, each one taken on to heaven before her by her late brother and sisters. If only some miracle could return them home to her, then perhaps she could laugh more, perhaps she could love more and, most important, perhaps she could write more. Indeed, there were some long, stormy days and nights when she felt such a craving for support and companionship as she could not truly express. It was as if her loneliness were whittling away a little bit of her, day by day. When the prospect of marriage, of being loved, had come to her, in the form of Mr. James Taylor, all she had felt was ice in her veins.

  With the playful wind cooling her cheeks, Charlotte walked on, her mind wandering so far from her route that it was with some surprise she stopped outside the highest dwelling on the moor, Top Withens Hall. She paused for a while, even now a little reluctant to draw nearer to the cold grey edifice that looked more like a haunted ruin than a busy home and farmhouse.

  Top Withens’s gargoyle sentinels looked down on her just as fiercely now as they had on that dark afternoon. Was it really six years since the bitter Christmas when Charlotte, Emily and Anne had trudged through the snow to this very gate, unaware of the hidden horror that lay beyond? Despite the mild sunny afternoon, Charlotte shuddered at the memory; she had never forgotten what it felt like to stand in the presence of unadulterated evil.

  And yet for all the fear and misadventures the three of them had endured in the pursuit of truth, at least she had had her family around her. Even in the darkest moments of her life, it had been her brother and sisters who had given her strength.

  Take courage: those had been Anne’s last words to her, and take courage she must, for there was no alternative but to continue. Charlotte took one more long look at Top Withens, searching for any remaining traces of the infestation of wickedness that had once thrived here, but to her relief, she could find none. These days Top Withens was a quiet house occupied by a quiet and decent family man.

  But in December of 1845, things had been very different.

  1

  The scream ripped through the frozen air, sharp as a knife.

  Liston Bradshaw sat bolt upright in bed, his quick breaths misting in the freezing air. Outside a snowstorm raged, and the wind tore around Top Withens Hall, imprisoning it in a howling, furious vortex of noise. When the dreadful cry sounded for the second time, Liston stumbled out of bed, dragging on his breeches and shoving his bare feet into his boots. Careering down the stairs into the hall, he heard his father’s violent shouts.

  “Begone with you, demon, begone!” Clifton Bradshaw railed at thin air. Liston arrived to see his father swivelling this way and that, a rusty old sword from above the fireplace in his hand, as he jabbed at and threatened empty spaces. His eyes were wild with fright and red with drink. The hounds barked madly at his side, in turn cowering from and snarling at some invisible threat. “Show yourself, and let me fight you!”

  “What is it, Pa?” Liston asked as the latest scream died away, and he searched out every dark corner for the phantom intruder. “Why are we cursed so?”

  “I’m mortal afraid that she has come back to claim my soul,” Clifton told his son, his voice trembling.

  “Who? Is there someone outside?” Liston went to the door, grabbing a poker from the fireplace.

  “There’s no one outside, fool,” Bradshaw spat. “This fury comes from within the house. It comes to take revenge.”

  When the wailing came again, it was heavy with a piercing, plaintive sorrow that soaked the very air in grief. His father was right. There was no mistaking it: the cries were coming from the oldest part of the hous
e, from the rooms that his father had shut up on the day Liston’s mother died, and none had set foot in them since.

  “Mary.” Bradshaw’s face crumbled as he spoke his dead wife’s name aloud, dragging the sword across the stone flags. “Mary, why do you hate me so? Please, I beg you. Tell me what you want from me!”

  “Pa?” Liston called after him uncertainly.

  “Are you coming, or will you be a milksop all your life?”

  Liston swallowed his misgivings and followed his father into the perfect dark.

  The dull jangle of heavy keys, the clunk of the stiff lock opening and the creak of the old door echoed in the night, and Liston held his breath. His mother’s mausoleum had been unlocked.

  The rush of air that greeted them was stiff with ice.

  Liston shuddered as he stepped over the threshold into the old house. Thirteen years since his mother had gone to God. Thirteen years since his father had shut off these rooms, keeping the only key on his belt at all times, even when he slept. In all that time there had been no fire in the grate, not even a candle lit at the window.

  It was as cold and silent as the grave.

  “Mary?” Liston was stunned to hear his father’s voice thick with raw and bloody sorrow. “Mary, is it you? Are you coming back to me, my darling? Mary, answer me!”

  As they entered what had once been his mother’s bedchamber, it was as if time stopped. The storm quietened in an instant, and suddenly every corner was lit up by the full moon, almost as bright as day. The ancient box bed crouched in the corner, as if it might pounce at any moment. The few things that his mother had owned were still laid out on the dressing table, and a howling wind swept in through a shattered window, leaving jagged, frosted shards glinting in the moonlight.

  What had happened here?

  Bradshaw fell to his knees on the dust-covered floor, tearing at his hair. “Mary, I’m here. Come back to me. I beg you. Please, please, tell me you forgive me.”

  For the space of one sharp inward breath, there was silence. Then the screaming began again, so loud that Liston felt for a moment it was coming from within him. Furiously his father grabbed the poker from him and dug it into the gaps of the drystone chimney breast, forcing out one stone and then another. Dropping the poker, he frantically began to pull the loose stones out, until, at last, a great cascade of them tumbled onto the floor, making the rotten boards tremble.

  The shrieking stopped, as if cut short by a smothering hand.

  Warily Liston took a step closer to see what his father was staring at. There, tucked into a sooty alcove more than halfway up the chimney, was something bundled and bound into a blackened cloth parcel of considerable size.

  “Fetch it down, then,” his father commanded him, and though he felt a sense of dread in his gut unlike any he had ever known, Liston obeyed his father. Though it was large, the parcel was light as a feather, shifting in his arms. As he laid it down, all the fear Liston felt drained suddenly away, and he was left only with horror.

  “Out of my way.” Bradshaw elbowed his son to one side, taking the knife from his belt, slicing through the bindings and revealing to the night what had been hidden within.

  “Dear God in heaven, deliver us from evil,” Liston whispered as he fell back on his heels at the sight.

  “I’d say that God was nowhere to be found when this occurred,” his father replied.

  For contained within the desiccated cloth were the skull and bones of a child.

  2

  December 1845

  Anne

  Though the fire was banked and burning brightly, and she was wrapped in her warmest shawl, Anne had never felt so cold, not even during her father’s lengthy sermon in church yesterday. At least on a Sunday, there was the rest of the congregation to create a community of warmth among them. On this freezing December Monday, however, the air was thick with frost, without and within, as evidenced by the filigree etched onto every window. And the paper that Anne had laid out on her writing desk was still as pristine as the last fresh snowfall.

  “Emily, you have yet to write to Ellen and thank her for her letter,” Charlotte told her sister from her seat at the table, a neat pile of correspondence before her. “As it is, Ellen is vexed with me for not visiting Brookroyd recently. I find myself having to beg her not to scold me further! Please don’t compound the matter with ill manners. If you write a note now, I can enclose it with my letter. Perhaps she will forgive me, for honestly her letter is as prickly as the holly leaf on the mantel, and quite unfair. A person cannot help that they are occupied with writing, detecting and disastrous brothers, not that I have told her about the first two. And now we are marooned in the midst of all this snow. I am surprised that Ellen cannot understand that which is quite plain.”

  “Ellen is your oldest and dearest friend, Charlotte,” Anne reminded her sister mildly. “Do not hold her regret at not seeing you against her. Think of all that she is managing, with her brother ill again and sent to the asylum.”

  Charlotte pursed her lips, just as Anne knew she would. If there was one thing Charlotte did not like, it was to have her own shortcomings revealed to her.

  “Well, at least I have written to her, Anne, and sent your regards as you requested,” Charlotte said primly. “Emily is ignoring her completely, and that, I would say, is the worse transgression.”

  “Heavens!” Emily replied, with a deep sigh as she stood at the window peering into the freezing air. “Cannot you see I am occupied?”

  “Occupied?” Charlotte snorted. “By standing?”

  “By thinking,” Emily said. “Though I realise this is an endeavour that you are largely unfamiliar with. I have received a request that though on the one hand it would give me great pleasure in its execution, it would also require me to be . . . social . . . and nice to those I am not at all interested in. In short, other people.”

  “You should decline immediately,” Charlotte advised. “If I recall, and I do my best not to recall, your last social engagement resulted in us moving to Brussels.”

  “That is not true!” Anne laughed. “Emily, what request has been made of you?”

  “One Lord and Lady Hartley,” Emily said, handing a letter headed with a coat of arms to Anne as if it were imbued with some terrible plague, “most often of London, but sometimes of that ghastly gothic folly Oakhope Hall, wish me to play at a musical evening they are arranging for some charitable cause. Apparently, word of my prowess as a pianist has somehow reached their notice.”

  “Lord and Lady Hartley?” Charlotte whipped the letter out of Anne’s hand and was examining it intensely before Anne was able to read one line. “But, Emily, they are very great and important people. You must know that.”

  “I know that they are very rich,” Emily said. “And I know that some, Charlotte, dear, equate riches with status.”

  “Their wealth is an aside. Lady Hartley is a famous philanthropist. Her charitable work has eased the suffering of many a poor soul here in the North, where she grew up. I have heard it said she converses with Thackeray, and Mrs. Gaskell . . . and has even been received by Her Majesty the Queen. You must accept!”

  “Must I?” Emily turned to look at her older sister. “There will be dozens of accomplished young women of good families lining up to play a pretty piece. What on earth does she want with a Brontë daughter?”

  “‘What does she want with you?’ is a more pertinent question,” Charlotte said, unable to hide her regret at not receiving such a prestigious request.

  “You should have practised your lessons more, Charlotte,” Emily said. “It seems the great Lady Hartley has no use for someone who is expert in talking.”

  “But you will do it,” Charlotte said. “Imagine what an acquaintance with the Hartleys might do for us. And just at this moment when we have sent our poetry out into the world. It might make all the difference to our success, Emily. To have our work put before the eyes of important personages, to have their patronage, could change our fortunes entirely.”

  “Sister dear,” Emily sighed. “I care no more for who sees our rhymes than I do for writing ridiculously superfluous thank-you notes for thank-you notes’ sake. All that will happen is that I will write to Ellen saying ‘Thank for your letter,’ and then Ellen will write to me, thanking me for my letter, and then I shall be obliged to write her and so on for all eternity. To save us all some precious time, I shall trust that Ellen knows me well enough to know that I am always most thankful!”