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

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I know,” I said, sparing her the pain of describing her son’s career in England.

  “I prayed that he would see the error of his ways and mend them,” Lady Kathleen said sadly. “But I knew in my heart that something was missing in him from the start. A moral sense, the ability to care about other people. When I saw him this last time, I gave up hope.”

  “When was that?” I spoke quietly, controlling my eagerness.

  “In early May. He hadn’t been home in three years, and he’d changed so much I barely recognized him. He was skin and bones. His hair was long, and he’d grown a shaggy beard. He looked and smelled as if he hadn’t washed or slept in days. And his eyes were wild, like a madman’s. He said he was in trouble. When we asked him what kind, he wouldn’t explain. He just begged us to protect him. Sir William said he could stay here. We thought that was what he wanted. He’d brought his trunks, and some packages.”

  An internal thunder reverberated through me. Niall apparently hadn’t left everything behind in his house in Whitechapel or his secret laboratory. Did he have with him the makings of his weapon?

  “But Niall said that people were after him, dangerous people, and he couldn’t stay here because they would find him.” Lady Kathleen sounded as perplexed and frightened as she must have been that day. “So Sir William sent Niall…”

  “Where?” I asked urgently.

  Lady Kathleen compressed her lips. We listened to Slade say, “Your son is a danger to himself as well as to others. I’ll ask you again: Where is he?”

  “If he’s a problem, I’ll deal with him myself,” Sir William said.

  Lady Kathleen’s face twitched, responding to the tug of the conflict inside her. “Sir William doesn’t want me to tell.”

  “There really are people after Niall,” I said. “Your best hope of keeping him safe is to help Mr. Slade find him first.”

  “I’ve never gone against Sir William’s wishes.”

  I could see that she longed to place the heavy weight of her son’s troubles in other hands. “This time you must. For Niall’s own good.”

  She exhaled a tremulous, forlorn sigh. “I can’t.”

  “Then you must help Mr. Slade persuade Sir William to change his mind. Come.”

  When I brought her to the terrace, I was shocked by the transformation that Sir William had undergone. He looked older and shrunken, his confidence diminished. In his heart he knew the worst about Niall despite his lifelong effort not to believe it, but he raised his fist to Slade and said, “Get off my property, or I’ll have you shot!”

  Lady Kathleen hastened to him. “Mr. and Mrs. Slade are right. You must tell them where Niall is.”

  He turned his anger on her. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

  She persisted bravely. “We can’t protect Niall anymore. We need help.”

  “You’re no match for Wilhelm Stieber,” Slade interjected. The force of his personality held Sir William captive as if he had the man by the throat. “Let me save Niall.” Compassion mellowed his clear, hard gaze as he glanced at Lady Kathleen. “For his mother’s sake.”

  Sir William stared at us in wounded fury, as though we’d all conspired against him. Then he lowered himself into a chair and spoke to his wife in a quavering voice. “Our son is a criminal. He’s gone mad. He killed those women. I’m to blame because I didn’t help him when I could have.”

  The sight of a strong, proud man breaking is terrible. I could hardly bear to watch.

  Lady Kathleen laid her hand on her husband’s. “Help him now,” she urged softly.

  Sir William turned to Slade. “I lied when I said I hadn’t seen Niall in years. He came home a few weeks ago.”

  “In early May.” Lady Kathleen repeated the words she’d spoken to me.

  “I sent Niall to France the next day. A distant cousin of mine owns a chateau in Normandy. Niall is there-as far as I know.”

  33

  I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in fiction: whenever the author tells the reader what his characters are planning to do, it does not happen. Something else occurs to render their careful forethought useless, to foil their hopes and the reader’s anticipations. Whether or not this is always true in books, it is in the case of the story that I am now telling.

  Before we left Ireland, Slade and I formulated a plan to travel to London, where I would stay with his sister while he went on to Paris. There he had friends who would accompany him to Normandy and help him capture Niall Kavanagh. Afterward, he would determine what to do with Niall Kavanagh and the weapon and how to take his revenge on Wilhelm Stieber. I couldn’t like this plan. Not only was it vague, but I dreaded sitting idle and waiting for news of what had happened.

  Would Wilhelm Stieber kill Slade? Or would Slade prevail, but abide by his stubborn intention to leave me because he didn’t want me tainted by his sins?

  But I could not follow Slade where he was going. Impropriety aside, I would only be in the way, and the danger was too great. I therefore reluctantly agreed to the plan. We had no idea that unexpected complications would force us to change course.

  We arrived in London early the next morning. I was exhausted and disoriented from crossing the kingdom so many times that I’d lost count. The trains roaring in and out of Euston Station, the hurrying crowds, and the smoke and heat of the city all dazed me. I didn’t notice anything amiss until Slade said, “There are more police than usual.”

  I blinked and saw the constables patrolling the platform. “What are they looking for?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Slade said. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”

  When we entered the station, his instincts proved correct. Two large posters hung on the wall. One showed a black-and-white reproduction of my portrait by the artist George Richmond, which I’d sat for last year. Beneath it were printed the bold words, “Have you seen this woman?” Smaller print gave my name, description, and words to the effect that I was wanted by the police. The other poster bore a crude drawing of Slade, with a similar legend.

  Slade cursed under his breath. I said, “This is surely Lord Eastbourne’s doing.” The few days’ grace that Lord Palmerston had obtained for me were over. Now I, and Slade, were the objects of what appeared to be a massive manhunt.

  “We’d better make ourselves scarce.” Slade took my arm and we hurried but did not run outside, lest we draw attention. He waved down a carriage, flung our bags on top, and bundled me inside, shouting an address to the driver as he jumped in with me. Fortunately the driver didn’t recognize us. Slade shut the windows, to keep us hidden while we rode through London. “You’ll be safe at my sister’s house.”

  “When shall you leave for France?”

  “Today. The sooner I get out of England, the better.”

  The carriage eventually turned onto the fashionable street in Mayfair where Slade’s widowed sister, Mrs. Katherine Abbott, lived. Slade pulled his hat low over his eyes and looked out the window. He called to the driver, “Don’t stop! Go around the block.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “There’s a constable standing in the square. He’s watching Kate’s house. Lord Eastbourne must have ordered surveillance on my associates.”

  I trembled with fear. As we rattled down the alley behind the house, Slade peeked out the window again and said, “Good. They didn’t think to station a man here. Come on.”

  We jumped from the carriage. Slade hauled down our baggage and paid the driver. The alley was lined with brick walls that enclosed the back gardens of elegant Georgian houses. When we hurried through the gate, I recognized the pretty garden-I’d stayed here before, during my adventures of 1848. Slade sneaked us in the back door. We stole through the kitchen and up the stairs. The house was quiet. We saw no one until we entered the morning room. There, a woman dressed in a pale green silk gown sat at a desk, writing a letter.

  “Kate,” Slade said.

  She started, exclaimed in surprise, and tu
rned. Her hand clutched her throat.

  “John! And Charlotte! Good Lord, what a fright you gave me!” Katherine Abbott bore a strong resemblance to her brother. She had his black hair and striking gray eyes, but her figure was small, slim, and graceful, her features prettier. “If I were the kind of woman who gets the vapors, I’d have fainted dead away!”

  “I’m sorry,” Slade said. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have sneaked into my house like thieves.” Kate’s anger turned to relief. She embraced Slade, then me. “Thank God you’re all right! Do you know that the police are after you? Do you know what they think you’ve done?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How do you know, Kate?” Slade asked.

  “They were here,” she said, “not an hour ago. Two of the most arrogant, menacing fellows I’ve ever had the bad luck to meet. John, they said you went insane and murdered two nurses in Bedlam. As for you, Charlotte, they said you murdered a Russian actress and three women of the streets in Whitechapel. Of course I didn’t believe it. It’s utter hogwash!”

  I was so thankful for her loyalty that tears momentarily blinded me.

  “What in the world is going on?” Kate demanded.

  Slade said, “We’d better sit down.”

  We sat in the parlor. Slade told Kate about his travails in Russia, Wilhelm Stieber, Niall Kavanagh and the invention, his arrest, and his incarceration and torture in Bedlam. “I killed those nurses in self-defense. Had I not, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m sorry, Kate.”

  “Well, I’m not,” she said staunchly. “I won’t have a Prussian mercenary spy murdering my brother.”

  I took up the story, telling Kate how I’d spotted Slade in Bedlam and all that had led up to my finding Katerina and being arrested for multiple murders and thrown in Newgate Prison.

  “Oh, you poor dear!” she exclaimed, hugging me. “If only I’d known! I’d have rescued you.”

  Her sympathy was balm to my spirit, which had suffered from too much cruel treatment of late. “Fortunately, the Queen intervened.” I detailed my search for Niall Kavanagh. Slade and I took turns describing Kavanagh’s secret laboratory in Tonbridge, what we’d found there, and what had happened-except for our personal matters.

  Slade finished our tale with an account of what we’d learned in Ireland. “I’m going to France,” he told Kate. “I brought Charlotte to stay with you while I’m gone, until this whole business is cleared up.”

  I expected that Kate would readily agree, for she’d helped me before, during Slade’s and my collaboration in 1848. She had liked me and encouraged my relationship with her brother. But instead she looked stricken. “John, I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “Why not?” Slade asked.

  “Do you know that the police are watching this house?”

  “Yes. That’s why we had to sneak in.”

  Kate shook her head, twisted her hands. “You can’t get out of the country.”

  “Of course I can,” Slade said. “The policeman outside didn’t see us arrive, and he won’t catch me when I leave.”

  “No, you don’t understand!” Kate explained, “You’re the most wanted criminal in the kingdom. The army has troops stationed at the ports, watching for you. They have orders to capture you alive or dead.”

  “What?” Slade said as I gasped in dismay. “How do you know?”

  “Your former superior told me,” Kate said.

  “Lord Eastbourne?” Slade said. “He was here?”

  “With the police,” Kate said. “He’s questioning everybody connected with you. He knows you’ll try to leave England. He told me that if I saw you, I should persuade you to turn yourself in-if I wanted you to live.”

  Slade and I exchanged a look of horror. Lord Eastbourne had anticipated our moves all too well.

  “He’s also looking for Charlotte,” Kate told us. “He suspects you’re together.”

  “Don’t worry,” Slade said. “I’ve sneaked out of England unnoticed before; I can do it again. And Charlotte should be safe here as long as she stays out of sight.”

  “No. She won’t. Lord Eastbourne and his men searched the house. Even though you weren’t here, he thinks you’ll show up eventually. He said he’ll come and search it again.” Kate turned to me, regretful. “I want more than anything in the world to help you, but you mustn’t be here when he comes back.”

  “She’s right,” Slade said.

  I was dismayed that our plan had foundered, and Slade’s voice troubled me because it sounded so forlorn. Exhaustion and pain had caught up with him; he hunched over in his seat, arms resting on his knees, hands dangling. I was frightened because I’d counted on him to know what to do next, and he didn’t. But he quickly rallied and got to his feet.

  “There must be some trustworthy friend I can lodge you with,” he said, pacing the floor. “Just let me think.”

  “No,” I said, for I saw the only solution. “I must go to France with you.”

  Kate exclaimed in astonishment. Slade stopped pacing, his expression grim rather than surprised: he had been expecting my suggestion.

  “A woman has no place in such business,” Kate told me. “Think of the danger!”

  “My work will be harder if I have to worry about you,” Slade said bluntly.

  “I’ll be safer away from England. You won’t have to worry about Lord Eastbourne finding me.” I added, “I’ve been useful so far. I can be again.”

  “Very well.” Slade turned to Kate, who gamely accepted our decision. “Our first challenge is to get away from this house without being caught. Sister, dear, we need your help.”

  Kate insisted that Slade and I must eat before we departed. After breakfast, I hurriedly washed myself; then she helped me dress in a teal silk gown and frilled bonnet she’d lent me. When I rode off in her carriage with her driver, the police constable tipped his hat to me; he’d mistaken me for Kate. He didn’t see Slade crouched on the carriage floor with our bags. We traveled across the Thames to Southwark.

  Southwark is populated by dock laborers, boatmen, and other folk who make their living on the water. Their disreputable lodging houses and taverns stood amid shops stocked with ropes and sails, quadrants and brass sextants, chronometers and compasses, and preserved meat and biscuits guaranteed to keep during long voyages. We proceeded to the wharves that had existed long before the new walled docks on the other side of the river had been built to accommodate large modern steamships. The wharves handled London’s coastal trade, and international trade in goods that didn’t need guarding. Here, the river was crowded with passenger steamers, lighters, and barges. Stevedores loaded grain, coal, tea, wool, produce, and timber onto ships that looked rundown, blackened by the smoke that puffed from their stacks. Laborers pushed wine casks in handcarts to the warehouses. The fragrance of coffee and spices competed with the stench of hides. When we alit from the carriage, Slade’s eyes scanned the scene.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “A friend who owes me a favor.”

  While we trudged along the wharves, I heard loud swearing near a particularly disreputable hulk of a steamship. Discolored sails furled around its masts. Its hull was scuffed, patched, and stained with algae. The captain stood on the dock, shouting orders peppered with curses to a crew comprised of turbaned lascars and a Jamaican with skin as black as ebony, who were fixing the paddlewheels.

  Slade called, “Francis Arnold! Why don’t you junk that crippled wreck of yours?”

  The captain turned and scowled. He had a long torso and short legs; he wore a threadbare military coat and cap. Fierce blue eyes blazed under shaggy brows and tousled, sun-bleached yellow hair. “The Gipsy is as seaworthy as any ship in the world.” His accent was unexpectedly cultured. His complexion was a weathered red-brown, lined and freckled, with a tracery of white scars on his left cheek. “Who in hell are you to say-” He stared in wonder and recognition. “No! My eye
s deceive me!” His face broke into a grin full of white teeth. “It can’t be John Slade!”

  “In the flesh,” Slade said.

  They exchanged greetings, which involved punches, backslapping, and jokes in different languages. Captain Arnold said, “What have you been doing all these years?”

  “Working for the Foreign Office, among other things.”

  “Ah.” Captain Arnold raised a bushy eyebrow. He obviously knew Slade was a spy.

  Slade declined to elaborate. “What have you been up to?”

  “Carrying cargo to and from America and the West Indies,” Arnold said. Slade later told me that Arnold belonged to a breed of ship captains who had no fixed schedule and no regular ports of call. They took on cargo wherever they could find it and transported it anywhere. Their vessels were often built of junk from marine yards, and they sometimes had space for passengers. “I just returned from Antigua.” That explained why he didn’t know that Slade was the most wanted man in England. Now he noticed me hovering uneasily in the background.

  Slade drew me forward. “May I introduce Captain Francis Arnold. He and I served together in the East India Company army.”

  “He saved my life during a brawl in a tavern in Lisbon.” Captain Arnold touched his scarred cheek. He bowed to me, said, “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, um-?” and looked questioningly at Slade.

  Slade swallowed. “This is my wife, Charlotte.” He seemed as abashed as I felt. To appear before strangers as a married couple was one thing; to lie to a friend was embarrassing; but the truth about our lack of a legal relationship would have disgraced me worse.

  “Your wife, eh?” Captain Arnold punched Slade’s shoulder. “Well done, man! My congratulations. I never thought you’d settle down. You did right to wait. You’ve found yourself a lovely woman.” He smiled at me.

  I blushed hotly.

  “What brings you here, Slade?” Captain Arnold said. “Are you taking your bride on a tour of your old comrades in hell-raising?”