Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte tsaocb-2

by Laura Joh Rowland

“Have you had any further contact with the man you thought was John Slade?” Lord Eastbourne asked.

  I experienced a cold, sick sensation of dismay, for I could tell that Lord Eastbourne had revised his opinion concerning Slade: he was no longer certain Slade was dead. I had tried so hard to convince him that Slade was alive that I had gone too far toward succeeding. Probably he would send more agents to hunt down Slade, execute him, and make sure he was really dead this time. And I could not forsake my loyalty to Slade, even though he’d treated me badly.

  “No,” I said, “I haven’t.”

  Although I trembled with nerves, I looked Lord Eastbourne straight in the eye. I watched him try to discern whether I was lying. I saw that he was undecided, but I could tell he knew I’d withheld information.

  “I must go now, Miss Bronte,” he said.

  Panic struck. “Please don’t leave me here!” I thrust my hand through the bars of the cage to prevent him from going.

  Lord Eastbourne patted my fingers, barely touching them, and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll pull some strings and have you free in no time.”

  “Are you ready to be good?” the warder asked me.

  Eager to avoid another stint in the dark cell, I said I was. He took me to the dayroom where I’d had my altercation with Poll. The women pretended I wasn’t there, except for Maisie. She sidled up to me during dinner, which was greasy mutton stew.

  “When Poll gets out of the dark cell, she’ll have your hide,” she whispered.

  I prayed that I would be gone before then. In the evening, the warders marched us to our cells. These measured some thirteen feet by seven; each had iron bars and an iron gate across the front, a barred window, and a stone floor. Amenities consisted of a table and some stools, a copper basin with a water tap, shelves of bedding, and a water closet. A gas lamp with a tin shade burned dimly on the wall. My cellmates were three streetwalkers, two drunks who reeked of liquor, and two pickpockets. Our beds were mats that we spread on the floor. I wanted to lie down and drift into the blessed oblivion of sleep, but sleep proved to be impossible.

  The other prisoners regaled one another with stories about the crimes for which they’d been arrested, the men who’d done them wrong, and their hard lives. The galleries rang with chatter and laughter. Even after the lights went out, the noise continued. My cellmates said to me, “It’s your turn. Tell us a story!”

  Fearing what they would do to me if I refused, I began to recite an abridged version of Jane Eyre. None of them had heard of the book, let alone read it. They loved the tale of Jane’s suffering at the hands of the Reed family, her imprisonment in the Red Room, and her experiences at the dreadful Lowood School. They hung on every word. Women in nearby cells quieted down to listen. Those farther away shouted for me to speak up.

  Everyone wept when Jane’s friend, Helen Burns, died.

  I remembered my childhood, when the pupils at the Clergy Daughters’ School had thought me the best storyteller among them. Now my audience of criminals wouldn’t let me stop, even though my voice grew hoarse. I told my tale until what must have been midnight, when a warder appeared outside my cell and unlocked its gate. Two men were with her, dressed in white coats, their faces in shadow.

  “Charlotte Bronte, get up,” she said. “You’re leaving.”

  An outcry arose from the prisoners: “She can’t leave! We want to know what happens to Jane Eyre!”

  Gladness filled me as I sprang up from my mat. I didn’t know that I was bound for somewhere much worse than Newgate Prison.

  15

  The secret adventures of John Slade

  Easter 1849. After midnight mass, a huge crowd filled Red Square, a vast open expanse within the walls that enclosed the Kremlin. Domes glittered in the damp, fecund spring air. St. Basil’s Cathedral loomed above the crowd, as brightly colored and patterned as Christmas candy. Everyone carried candles. Thousands of faces lit by the flames glowed like medieval icons. The doors of all the churches in the Kremlin opened. Light from within flooded the square. Out marched parades of priests wearing golden vestments and swinging censers, followed by congregations bearing banners and lit tapers. Singing from choirs rose to heaven.

  John Slade stood among the crowd. He saw a familiar figure-the Third Section agent who’d been watching him for four months. The agent was a common Russian type, a slim man with a pale, melancholy face and a dark mustache. Slade noticed something different about his shadow tonight. The man hovered closer than usual. For the first time he met Slade’s gaze. Slade sensed that the opportunity he’d been waiting for was at hand. He moved slowly out of the crowd, allowing his shadow to keep up with him. When he reached the bank of the river, he stopped. It was dark beneath the trees, and quiet. The lights in Red Square shimmered in the distance. Slade didn’t have long to wait. His shadow joined him and said, “Happy Easter, Mr. Ivan Zubov.”

  “The same to you, Mr. Andrei Plekhanov. And to your colleagues in the Third Section.”

  The man’s dark eyes widened. “How do you know who I am?”

  Slade had done a little spying on his spy. He had followed Plekhanov to his lodgings and obtained the information from another tenant. Plekhanov hadn’t noticed that Slade had turned the tables on him. Now Slade said, “I borrowed a leaf from your book.”

  Plekhanov smiled tensely. “You’re an unusual dissident, Mr. Zubov. Your friends-Peter, Alexander, and Fyodor-would never have spotted me, let alone managed to discover my name. But they are too preoccupied with plotting against the government, aren’t they?”

  Slade knew he was supposed to be upset by the news that the Third Section knew who and what his friends were. He arranged his features into the proper expression of alarm and fright. Plekhanov’s smile relaxed.

  “So you see, we know what you are up to,” Plekhanov said.

  “I’m not up to anything,” Slade said, deliberately speaking with a tremor in his voice, avoiding the other man’s gaze, and signaling a lie. “I’m not a dissident.”

  “Oh? What about the articles you write for the radical journals?”

  “I write for anybody who will pay me. I’m just a poor author trying to make a living.”

  Plekhanov laughed. “You are poor, that’s true enough. Your landlord says you’re behind on your rent. You also owe money at all the shops and taverns in the neighborhood.” Slade had deliberately created his reputation as a debtor, and Plekhanov had swallowed the bait. “But never fear. I have a proposition to make you. Should you accept, it will solve your financial problems.”

  Slade combined hope with wariness in his expression. “What sort of proposition?”

  “You work for me as an informant. You report on your friends, and I pay you enough to cover your debts and put vodka in your cup.”

  “I can’t betray my friends,” Slade said, aghast.

  Plekhanov’s melancholy face turned cruel. “If you refuse my proposition, I will have you sent back to St. Petersburg. I happen to know you’re wanted by the police there.”

  Slade himself had spread the rumor that he’d committed petty crimes in St. Petersburg and he was a fugitive from the law. That story had led Plekhanov to believe he had power over Slade, just as Slade had intended. Slade let his shoulders sag in defeat. He nodded.

  “You’re a wise man.” Plekhanov clapped Slade on the back. “Now that we’ve settled our bargain-are your friends up to anything the Third Section would like to know about?”

  Slade thought of their conspiracy to assassinate its chief. They’d been spying on Prince Orlov, and their plans were almost set. Slade felt guilt descend upon him like the blade of a guillotine. Duty required him to deliver his friends to their enemies.

  “Yes,” he said with genuine reluctance, “there is.”

  16

  I walked out a free woman, albeit still dressed in prison clothes. Incredulous and joyful, I offered my fervent thanks to the two white-coated men who had procured my release. They didn’t speak. Escorting me down the gallery,
they looked straight ahead; they walked in step, as if in a military parade. Both were tall, both some thirty years old; but the man on my right had the strong musculature and carved features of a Greek athlete, while his comrade on my left was thin and lanky, with puffy lips and eyes that bespoke sensuality and dissipation.

  “Were you sent by Lord Eastbourne?” I asked.

  They didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. But who except Lord Eastbourne could have sent them to get me out of prison? Neither of the men showed any interest in me, but I was too grateful to care about their behavior. Outside the prison, gaslights burned dimly up and down Newgate Street. It must have been two or three o’clock in the morning. Smoke drifted across the sky, which glowed orange over a foundry, like a false dawn. I didn’t see a soul. How was I to get home? I doubted I could find a carriage for hire, and I was afraid to walk. London teemed with cutthroats.

  To my relief, a carriage drawn by two horses emerged from the darkness between the lampposts. My escort who looked like a Greek athlete climbed onto the box with the driver. The other man opened the door for me.

  “Please take me to Number Seventy-Six Gloucester Terrace,” I said.

  Riding in the carriage, I looked forward to a good meal, a hot bath, and the company of friends. I peered out the window to see how close to home I was, and saw an unfamiliar street. I called to my escorts, “Excuse me-is this the way to Gloucester Terrace?” They didn’t answer. I had a distinct, uneasy feeling that they were taking me in the wrong direction on purpose. “I’ll get out here, if you don’t mind.”

  The carriage didn’t stop. I tried the door. It was locked from the outside. Fear washed through me in a cold wave. “Let me out!” Beating on the door, I called out the window, “Help!”

  There was no one to come to my aid. The window was too small for me to jump out. The carriage moved faster, racketing through the deserted streets, veering around corners. When it finally slowed, the sight of our destination filled me with horror. Bedlam loomed black against the fire-glow in the sky, like a haunt of demons. Gaslights burned at the portals. A guard opened the back gate.

  “No!” I cried as the carriage rolled in. It stopped; the door opened. My escorts reached in and seized me. I resisted, but they dragged me out.

  Two attendants brought a litter whose metal frame had leather straps attached to it and wheels on the bottom. My escorts flung me onto the litter. As I kicked and screamed, they held me down. The attendants buckled the straps across my body and wheeled me into the asylum. My escorts followed us through the dim wards.

  “Help me!” I called to the nurses we passed. “I’ve been kidnapped! Please get me out!”

  No one paid me any notice. Madwomen resisting incarceration must be a common sight in Bedlam. The attendants carried me up the stairs. I knew where we were going before I saw the heavy iron door.

  “No!” I pleaded.

  We entered the criminal lunatics’ ward. As we moved down the corridor, I saw Julia Garrs peering at me from a window in a cell door. My captors wheeled me into the room that contained the table with the straps and the machine with the wires-the room where Slade had been tortured and the two nurses murdered.

  I strained against my bonds; I shrieked; I tossed my head. A man leaned over me. He was the doctor with the white coat, the spectacles, and the gray tonsure of hair. I struggled harder, shrieked louder. He regarded me with detachment, his eyes as cool as gray pebbles. I might have been an insect under a magnifying glass.

  “Lift her head,” the doctor ordered the attendants.

  They obeyed. He put a glass beaker to my mouth. I tried to turn my head away, but the attendants held it tightly. I clamped my lips shut, but the doctor pinched my nose. Unable to breathe, I had to open my mouth. He poured in bitter-tasting liquid, and although I spat and coughed, much of it ran down my throat. My captors gathered around me. They watched me closely as I continued to struggle, scream, and beg them to let me go. The drug burned inside my stomach, then seemed to spread outward in warm waves. I lost the strength to scream anymore. My limbs felt too heavy to move; my struggles ceased. The men’s faces wavered in my vision, and the gas lamps behind them grew large, blurred halos. An unnatural calm spread through my body even as my mind reeled with terror.

  “Don’t be afraid.” The doctor spoke in a soft monotone. “Just relax.”

  My will bent to his command. A sense of detachment came over me. My thoughts were clear, and my powers of observation intact, but I felt as if I were inside an invisible glass bell, sealed off from my emotions. My terror didn’t abate, but it existed apart from me. The thundering of my heart quieted.

  “Is she unconscious?” a voice said, outside my field of view. It was inflected by a foreign accent that I’d heard before, in Belgium. There I’d met some Prussians who spoke German. The man had the same accent as theirs.

  “No,” the doctor said, “she’s quite alert.”

  “Good,” the Prussian said. “Will you use the galvanometer?”

  “That wouldn’t be advisable,” the doctor said. “She’s too small and delicate. The galvanometer could damage her brain before she can tell you what you want to know.”

  I remembered seeing Slade hooked up to the machine that delivered jolts of electricity to his brain. I value my own brain above all else that I possess, and I should have felt relief at escaping from harm to it, but at that moment I did not care. I should have been worried about what these people were going to do to me, but the glass bell kept my anxiety at bay.

  “We’ll use a technique called mesmerism.” The doctor placed flat, heavy metal plates on my chest and stomach.

  “What are those?” the Prussian asked.

  “Magnets. According to the great Dr. Mesmer, they enhance the flow of the magnetic fluids within the body and render the mind susceptible to manipulation.”

  Their cold weight crushed my breasts and my ribs. The drug didn’t take away the pain, but rendered me as impervious to it as to fear. The doctor bent over me and said, “You will not move or speak unless I tell you to. You are under my power.”

  A spark of rebellion flared in me, for I detest being told what to do, but it quickly faded, as if the glass bell that enclosed me lacked enough air to sustain fire.

  “Can she speak?” the Prussian asked.

  The doctor said to me, “State your name.”

  “Charlotte Bronte.” The name issued from me against my will.

  He unbuckled the straps that bound me to the litter. Here was my chance to flee, but my body lay inert, uncooperative.

  “Raise your right arm, Miss Bronte,” the doctor ordered.

  My arm rose, of its own, eerie volition.

  “Drop it.”

  My arm hit the litter with a thud.

  “She’s ready,” the doctor said.

  The Prussian joined the doctor in my field of vision. I recognized him as the foreigner I’d seen on my previous visits to Bedlam. His face was pitted by old scars, healed over with tight, shiny skin. His eyes were the palest blue I’d ever seen. They reminded me of windows reflecting the sky at an angle, deflecting all the light. It was as if he could see out of them, but no one could see inside to his soul.

  “My colleague is going to ask you some questions,” the doctor informed me. “You will answer truthfully.”

  I deduced that the Prussian was Wilhelm Stieber, spy for the Tsar. He had indeed turned Bedlam to his own, criminal purposes. Everything Slade had told me was true. I should never have doubted him. I should have forgotten Slade as he had ordered me to do, should have ceased following his trail. I’d thought he was spurning me, but he’d been protecting me from Stieber. Now I was under Stieber’s power.

  “Why did you go to see Katerina Ivanova?” Stieber asked.

  He meant Katerina the Great, I realized. He’d somehow learned that I’d been caught at the scene of her murder and arrested. “I was looking for John Slade,” I said, even though I knew I must keep silent to protect Slade, and
myself. “I thought Katerina might know where he was.”

  Stieber regarded me with the interest of a hunter examining an animal caught in a trap he’d set. Important human traits such as kindness and humor appeared to have been left out of his nature. He seemed a man composed entirely of intellect, discipline, and purpose. “Why were you looking for John Slade?”

  “Because I’m in love with him.” The words I’d never spoken aloud to a soul slipped out of my mouth.

  “How do you know Slade?”

  I didn’t mean to tell, but the drug and the magnetic forces had broken my inhibitions. The whole story spilled out of me. I told Stieber about my adventures in 1848 and described how Slade and I had foiled an attack on the British Empire. Not only did I violate my oath of secrecy, I gave up my own most personal secrets. I told Stieber how Slade and I had fallen in love, while shame and guilt assailed the glass bell like pounding fists.

  When I had finished, Stieber wore an expression that I had often seen on the faces of people to whom I’d just been introduced. They could hardly believe that my small, plain self was the famous Currer Bell. Now Stieber couldn’t believe that I had collaborated with a secret agent for the Crown and together we had saved the Royal Family.

  “Can she be telling the truth?” he asked the doctor.

  “Either she is or she thinks she is. In her condition, she cannot lie.”

  Stieber shook his head, as nonplussed as the fashionable literary set meeting Currer Bell for the first time. “Did you find Slade?”

  Even as I prayed for the strength to protect Slade from his enemy, I answered, “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “At the zoo.”

  “When?”

  “On Sunday afternoon.”

  Stieber’s pale eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Helpless misery joined the league of emotions trying in vain to inhibit my speech. I had made Stieber aware that Slade had still been in London as recently as two days ago.

  “What did Slade tell you?” Stieber asked.