The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte tsaocb-1

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “This is impossible!” she exclaimed. “I won’t allow a purge of my entire household!”

  “My dearest,” the Prince Consort soothed her while he patted her hand.

  “It’s in your best interests, Your Majesty,” Lord Palmerston said gravely.

  “Nonsense!” The Queen flung off her husband’s hand and swept away Palmerston’s words with an imperious wave. “My ladies-in-waiting and servants are some of my most loyal, beloved friends in the world. I’ll not throw them all out just because there might be a few bad apples in the barrel! Nor will I tolerate an entire house full of strangers!”

  “But you must, for the sake of the children,” her husband coaxed.

  “Their safety must be our primary concern,” Mr. Slade said.

  The Queen huffed. “I am the mother of the children. I’ll decide what’s best for them!” I wondered how often she’d been pushed around; it was clear she hated it.

  “Then what will you have us do, Your Majesty?” Condescension edged Lord Palmerston’s deferential air.

  Her eyes darted and rapid breaths fluttered her bosom; she rose from her divan and paced in search of an answer. Her feverish gaze lit on me. “Miss Bronte will take up her post as governess. She will help us to thwart and capture our enemies, as was originally suggested.”

  I could see that she liked the plan no better than before, yet was determined to oppose the men and unable to think of an alternative. The Prince Consort rose, put his arm around her, and led her back to her chair, saying, “Calm yourself, or you’ll be ill. Think of the danger to the children.”

  The Queen sat with a heavy, graceless thump. “They’re in danger as long as this villain Kuan is at large, whether or not I replace my attendants. He might suborn the new ones as well as the old. Trapping him, with Miss Bronte’s assistance, is the only solution.”

  “But the plan is neither that simple nor so foolproof, Your Majesty.” Lord Palmerston’s tone derided her judgment. “Something could go wrong, despite our best endeavors.”

  She glowered at him, showing a hint of the formidable old woman she might well become, many years hence. “Your best endeavors must suffice. I’ve made my decision. And you had better not fail me.”

  Her tacit threat encompassed Mr. Slade, Lord Russell, and myself. The Queen had spoken.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Lord Palmerston said meekly.

  Slade nodded while the Prince Consort sat in glum, troubled defeat. Lord Palmerston hid a smug smile behind his hand, for the Queen had done exactly as he’d predicted when he’d described his strategy beforehand at the club. He had expected that pushing her in one direction would cause her to move the opposite way. By pretending to support the Prince Consort’s idea of replacing her attendants, he had manipulated her into allowing the royal children to be used as bait for the purpose of entrapping Kuan. Such a wily, conniving character was Lord Palmerston! I thanked God that he was working for the British Empire and not against it.

  The Queen smiled, placated. “Now that this matter is settled, I trust it shan’t interfere with our journey to Scotland.”

  Her husband’s expression grew all the more troubled. Mr. Slade frowned. Even Lord Palmerston looked disconcerted as he said, “I’d quite forgotten that Your Majesty and Your Highness were planning to visit your new estate in Balmoral.”

  “We are set to depart tomorrow,” said the Prince Consort.

  “I must respectfully advise that you postpone the trip,” Lord Palmerston said.

  “But we’ve so been looking forward to it,” the Queen protested. “As have the children.” Her gaze hardened. “Why should we disappoint them?”

  “You’ll be extremely vulnerable to attack while you’re traveling,” Lord Palmerston answered.

  If the Queen and her children should go to Scotland, then so must their governess. Alarm filled me. Things had seemed difficult enough when I thought I would be fulfilling my duty here in London. Traveling with the Queen was far beyond the scope of my experience and capabilities. I desperately hoped that Lord Palmerston would dissuade her.

  “Under such conditions, protecting Your Majesty and the children would be difficult,” Slade said.

  “Certainly no more than here,” the Queen said. “Your security precautions on my behalf are so lax that intruders can come and go as they please. Need I remind you of that boy named Jones who wandered round inside the palace for days before he was caught and arrested?”

  “Yes, well,” Lord Palmerston said, abashed. “But Your Majesty had best stay in London until Kuan is apprehended and the danger is past.”

  Her eyes flashed with renewed anger. “Oh, is the Queen of England to be a prisoner in her own home?” She tossed her head. “I will not bow to some foreign criminal, and I refuse to cower inside the palace. I might just as well hand over my kingdom to anyone who threatens me! We shall go to Scotland as planned.”

  I saw resignation on the faces around me. The pride of Britain was at issue and the Queen’s cooperation had reached its limit.

  “Very well, Your Majesty,” said Lord Palmerston.

  Lord Unwin, tired of being ignored, thrust himself into the conversation: “May I at least arrange a special escort to guard the children?”

  “Certainly.” Ready to be agreeable again, the Queen turned to me. “Have you ever seen the Highlands, Miss Bronte?”

  “No, Your Majesty,” I said.

  She gave me a look that said she would endure my presence as a necessary evil, and woe betide me if I did anything to cross her. “What a wonderful experience our holiday will be for you.”

  And thus I found myself bound for Scotland with the Queen.

  34

  The Royal yacht, christened VICTORIA AND ALBERT, sailed from Woolwich on the morning of 5 September 1848. The sun sparkled on the Thames, along whose docks huge, noisy crowds had gathered to admire the magnificent paddle steamer decorated in white and aquamarine blue with richly carved crowns. Spectators cheered as the Queen and Prince Consort boarded the yacht, accompanied by their entourage. Behind them up the gang-plank, I shepherded the Princess Royal, aged eight years, the Prince of Wales, aged seven, and their four-year-old brother. I was glad that the other three children had been left at home, reducing the number of my charges as well as targets for abduction. Looking towards the three ships that would carry the equerries, royal physician, steward of the household, and more court attendants, I glimpsed Lord Unwin strutting on deck, but Mr. Slade was nowhere in sight. Along the river floated the Royal Squadron-four armed warships ready to escort the Queen to Scotland. I felt reassured that Kuan couldn’t possibly breach such heavy defenses, yet I knew that he was biding his time. The journey ahead seemed an undertaking composed of equal parts grandiosity and terror.

  When everyone had boarded, the gangplanks lifted; moorings were cast off. The fleet moved up the Thames, while the crowd roared and waved. A band played a rousing, cheerful tune. Streamers, confetti, and flowers fell like colored rain. Pleasure boats filled with more spectators followed the royal fleet. The spectacle dazzled me as I stood watching on the deck. I could hardly believe I was part of it. Yesterday I’d written my family to tell them where I was going, and I doubted they would believe me.

  Presently, the river and noise gave way to the sea, and we sailed along the coast. The Queen and Prince Consort retired to the cabin, while I began my duties, for they’d made clear to me that I would not merely pose as their children’s governess; they expected me to earn my keep. Little Prince Alfred stayed constantly with his mother, but I supervised the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales on deck. The Princess Royal, called Vicky, was a perfect little lady, and mature beyond her years. Her manners were courteous and charming, her clothes immaculate.

  “Look, Miss Bronte,” she cried. “Those sailors on that ship are saluting us!” She smiled, nodded, and waved at them like the royalty she was.

  Her brother Albert-called “Bertie”-was the sort of child that every governess dreads. The
heir to the throne had a fair-haired, fair-faced, angelic countenance behind which lurked the very Devil. He raced about, yelling as he bounced a ball along the deck.

  “Stop making such a racket, Bertie,” the Princess commanded. “You’ll disturb Mama and Papa.”

  Bertie paid no attention to her-nor to me when I warned him that his ball might bounce overboard. “I don’t have to obey you,” he said in a childishly imperious manner. “Someday I’ll be King of England, and everybody will obey me.”

  Someday I should like to boast that I’d once administered a thorough paddling to the King of England. But I hesitated to punish him, lest I displease his parents and sink myself further in their esteem. I begged Bertie to quiet himself, but he ignored me. His ball bounced over the railing. He let out a yelp as it bobbed on the waves and the ship moved away from it. He climbed upon the railing.

  “No, Bertie!” exclaimed Vicky.

  “I must get my ball back,” he said.

  “If you jump in the ocean, you’ll drown,” I said, attempting to tug him off the railing. “Come down at once!”

  Impervious to common sense, he struggled. He seemed-dare I say?-a rather stupid boy, more intent on getting his way than mindful of danger. It boded ill for the future of the nation when he ascended the throne.

  “Let me go!” he shouted.

  He struck out at me and kicked me, all the while he kept shouting. Vicky ordered him to stop, but he refused. As I tried to restrain him, he swung his leg over the railing. This was a child I had sworn to protect! Our noise brought the crew and royal entourage running towards us. The Queen and Prince Consort rushed from the cabin.

  “What is all this commotion?” the Queen demanded.

  “Bertie is trying to jump off the ship,” Vicky said. “Miss Bronte is trying to stop him.”

  The annoyance on Her Majesty’s face turned to terror as she beheld her son, who was now dangling overboard while I desperately clung to his ankles. “Bertie!” she shrieked. Turning to her husband, she said, “Don’t just stand there, save our darling boy!”

  Before the Prince Consort could react, the captain of the royal guard hurried to my aid. Captain Innes was a soldierly man some fifty years of age, resplendent in uniform. He grabbed Bertie, hauled him up, and set him on his feet on the deck.

  “There, Your Highness,” he said. “Safe and sound.”

  His bright blue eyes twinkled at me from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows. His bushy grey mustache didn’t quite hide a sympathetic smile as I murmured my thanks and the assembly breathed a collective sigh of relief. “No harm done,” he assured the Queen.

  Bertie, overwhelmed by all the attention he was getting, began to cry. The Queen hugged him. “Come along, my darling,” she said, and held out her hand to her daughter. “We’ll have some cake.” She shot me a look so acid that it could have dissolved steel. “Take better care of them in the future, Miss Bronte.”

  She, the Prince Consort, and both children went into the cabin. The crew returned to their duties, and the entourage to whatever their business. I sensed everyone’s unspoken disapproval. I had almost let England’s future monarch drown. Standing at the rail, gazing at the sun-dappled waves and coastline, I felt a gloomy amusement that such twists of fate had landed me in a profession at which I had always been incompetent. I had disgraced myself in front of employers more exalted than any others I had served. To them I must seem an unlikely person to save the kingdom from evil, when I could not even control a seven-year-old boy.

  The Queen’s chief lady-in-waiting came beside me. She was the Duchess of Norfolk, a woman whose elegant dress and poise intimidated me. Now she smiled at me in a friendly, conspiratorial fashion.

  “Don’t feel that you’re to blame, Miss Bronte,” she said. “The fault is Her Majesty’s. She is prone to spoiling Bertie. How can anyone expect him to learn good behavior when she constantly rewards him for bad?” The Duchess shook her head, which was crowned by an upswept mass of yellow hair and a wide-brimmed hat laden with flowers. “I fear he will grow up to be the worst tyrant that England has ever known.”

  “You are too kind, Your Grace,” I murmured.

  “Oh, there’s no need for such formality between traveling companions,” she said. “Please call me Mathilda. May I call you Charlotte?”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  She chatted with me, attempting to put me at ease and make me feel welcome. I was grateful to her and to Captain Innes, who had saved Bertie and spared me the ruin that would have followed had any harm come to the boy. Yet I remembered that someone among the royal household was Kuan’s accomplice. Until I knew who, I dared trust no one.

  While on this exhilarating journey, I had not forgotten those dear to me whom I’d left behind. I often wondered how Papa, Anne, Emily, and Branwell were faring in my absence. I judged that my pretense of cooperating with Kuan would protect them from him, and that I was the only one in danger. I remembered the parsonage as a haven of tranquillity.

  How wrong was I!

  I present my sister Emily’s account of events at home during the night I spent aboard the royal yacht:

  The Journal of Emily Bronte

  I dreamed I was chasing a golden book which flew on golden wings and gave off a splendid, unearthly golden light. It was the book I longed to write, and unless I caught it, I never would write it. Down a dark, winding tunnel I ran, while the book flitted just out of my reach. It disappeared around a curve, and suddenly a loud, rapping noise startled me. I awakened standing in the front hall at home: I had sleep-walked from my bed. The noise was a knocking at the door.

  Anne came down the stairs, saying, “It’s after midnight. Who could be calling so late?” Fear resounded in her voice as she answered her own question: “No one who can mean us any good.”

  But I was so drowsy that I forgot the dangers that threatened the household. I could still see the golden book; I heard its wings fluttering outside. I started towards the door. I heard Anne call Papa, and both of them hastening after me. Before they could stop me, I unlocked the door and opened it. Three men burst across the threshold. Anne gave an alarmed cry.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Papa demanded of the men. “Who are you?”

  The tallest of the three held a pistol, which he aimed at Papa. “Raise your hands,” he said. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot you.”

  His speech told me he hailed from the upper social strata of England, but I was too confused to observe more about him. I could neither speak nor move.

  Papa stood frozen for a moment; then his hands crept skyward. The man pointed the gun at Anne, who also lifted her hands as she edged close beside Papa.

  “If it’s money you want, we haven’t much,” Papa said, “but I’ll give it to you if you’ll only go and leave us unharmed.”

  “Be quiet,” ordered the man with the gun.

  My dream dissipated like mist in the wind. Shocked alert, I realized that I had let evil into our house. “No!” I screamed. “Get out!”

  One of the other men was near me, and I flew at him in outrage. He grabbed my arms. As I howled and kicked his shins and we struggled together, horrified exclamations came from Anne and Papa. Hysteria filled me: I fought harder. The third man leapt to his comrade’s assistance. Together they pinned my arms behind my back. The man with the gun seized Anne and jammed its barrel against her throat.

  “Be still, or she dies,” he told me.

  Anne’s mouth gaped with silent terror. Papa said, “Emily, please. Do as he says.”

  My mind at last absorbed the idea that the man would kill Anne unless I obeyed him. Fear drained the resistance from my muscles.

  The man with the gun ordered Anne: “Light a lamp.” She obeyed, her hands trembling. The lamp illuminated the men, who were all dressed in dark clothes, their hats shading vicious faces. One kept hold of me; the other bolted the door. He then snatched the lamp and roved around the house, while the man with the gun held us paralyzed. Soon he ret
urned and said, “There’s nobody else here.”

  Branwell must have sneaked out to the Black Bull Inn while we slept. Luck had favored him for once in his miserable life.

  “These three will do.” The gunman told Papa, “Show us to the cellar.”

  Papa reluctantly unbarred and opened the cellar door, beyond which a dark staircase led beneath the house.

  “All of you go down,” ordered the gunman.

  We went in single file, Papa first, Anne next, then the man with the lamp. My captor propelled me after them. The gunman followed close behind. None of us called for help; the village was too far away for anyone there to hear us. As we descended, the narrow stairwell enclosed me. I breathed the dank odor of earth and experienced the suffocating sensation that the very idea of captivity provokes in me. I suppressed an urge to fight my way back above ground. We reached the cellar, a room whose walls are made of stone and earth, in which my family rarely sets foot. The intruders flung Papa, Anne, and me on the floor amidst the odds and ends that had accumulated there over the years. They backed up the stairs.

  Papa said, “Please have mercy.” His voice wavered. Anne and I huddled together; she moaned, and my terror choked me. “Please let us go.”

  “Keep still,” said the gunman.

  He and his comrades vanished through the door and banged it shut. The cellar was immersed in darkness. I heard the bar drop into place. Then there was silence, except for our breathing.

  “This must be another in the same series of troubles that have plagued us,” said Papa.

  “There can be no doubt. I sense the hand of the same villain at work,” Anne said mournfully. “I had hoped that the danger from him was past; but alas, it seems that it is not.”

  “But why would he have us imprisoned in our own home?” Papa said. “And for how long do these men intend to keep us here?”

  Anne made no reply. The suffocating sensation constricted my chest. Trapped in the subterranean darkness, I gasped for air.

  “They can’t lock us up forever,” Papa said, as if trying to reassure himself as well as Anne and me. “People in the village will notice our absence. They’ll come to investigate. They’ll rescue us.”