Emily A story of the Brontes, by Nadine Sutton. Part I

"I don't want to go to Brussels, why should I? Take Anne." "Anne will have a turn later when we have a school. Emily, Papa won't let one of us go alone, and we need to learn more. Languages mostly." Charlotte sighed. She had come to realise that Emily was not as learned as she liked to make out. She had never been happy at school. And she was obstinate. She hated being away from Haworth. Charlotte herself loved their home but she longed to travel and learn as well. She had found the pensionnat in Brussels and wanted to go there but her father insisted that Emily should go as well. Emily sighed heavily and finally said, "Very well, I will go". However, in the next few months, she was not very cooperative. Papa had escorted them to Belgium and left them at the Pensionnat Heger. They were older than the girls at the school, being in their 20s. Emily disliked M and Madame Heger and the girls. She was not popular among the pupils either. Charlotte found the schoolgirls silly and vain but she did her best to get on with them. Emily hated Brussels almost as much as she had hated being away from Haworth in England. Charlotte tried taking her to parties and meals with the English community, but she would not go after a month or two. She sat silent and gloomy, and only talked a little with Mary and Martha Taylor. She was irritated by M Heger and Charlotte's dog like devotion to him. She quarrelled with him and defied him over her lessons. "How can you like him so much, Charlotte? He is an ugly cross little monster. And you sit with him and the dreadful wife each evening." Charlotte said nothing. Emily sighed, then put on her cloak and walked out. The girls were not supposed to go out alone, but she often walked around the city to tire herself out. She did not find it very interesting, and although she could now understand French fairly well, she did not find the inhabitants interesting either.