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

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I need a favor,” Slade said.

  “Just ask.”

  “We need to go to Cherbourg. Can you take us?”

  “I’d be glad to, but why not take the packet? It would be much more comfortable for your wife.”

  “We’ve run into some trouble. We can’t leave England in the usual manner.”

  Captain Arnold asked no questions. “I can get you to Cherbourg.” Later Slade told me that Arnold had a sideline: he smuggled people out of countries in which they had enemies after them or were wanted by the law. “There’s just one problem. Business hasn’t been good lately. The big ships undercut the small operators like me. I don’t have the money to take my ship out without payment up front.”

  He and Slade put their heads together and figured the cost of the journey. The price they settled on would use up almost all the money Lord Palmerston had given me. How Slade and I would manage later, I knew not; but we paid, gladly. We were on our way to France, and that was all that mattered.

  34

  Captain Arnold led us up the Gipsy ’s gangplank. The Jamaican carried our bags aboard. He and the lascar crewmen wore sharp knives. They were alien and frightening. As we went below deck, Captain Arnold said, “You’ll have to hide down here while we travel out of England. I apologize for the accommodations. They aren’t very pleasant.”

  That was the understatement of the century. The room was a compartment inside the empty cargo hold, its door a panel cleverly designed to look like part of a solid wall. Not much larger than a closet, it smelled of the tea, spices, coffee, and wool that the ship had carried. It contained a washstand and basin, a chamber pot-and a single mattress covered with an old blanket. I tried to hide my dismay.

  “I’ve slept in worse places,” Slade said, affecting a light tone. “And my wife can put up with it for a short time.”

  “I’ll leave you to settle in, then,” Captain Arnold said, “while I get the ship ready for the journey.”

  Alone, we stood in awkward silence on either side of the bed, which nearly covered the grimy floor. Slade said, “We’ll take turns sleeping. You can have yours first. I’ll go up and help Captain Arnold.”

  Hidden behind the sliding panel, I felt as if I’d been sealed into my coffin. I examined the bed, which smelled stale, as if it had been used by people who didn’t wash. I spread the shawl Kate had lent me over it before I lay down. Exhausted, I promptly fell asleep.

  I dreamed that I was hurrying through the criminal lunatics’ ward in Bedlam. I carried the dying Oliver Heald cradled in my arms. Drenched with blood, he looked up at me, smiled a ghastly smile, and said, “Anything for my favorite author.” Ellen Nussey and Arthur Nicholls trailed us, arguing about whether I had gone mad and should be committed. Julia Garrs stood by an open door and beckoned me. Entering, I found Niall Kavanagh’s secret laboratory. The mutilated corpses of three women hung from hooks like sides of beef. They sizzled in the fire that Lord Eastbourne had set. I lay strapped to a table. Gas hissed as Wilhelm Stieber bent over me, fixed clamps around my head, and turned the crank on his torture machine. A jolt of lightning seared my mind and ignited the gas in a white, thunderous, rattling explosion.

  I awakened with a scream caught in my throat. I sat up, and the nightmare faded, but the rattling continued. The panel opened, and Slade entered the compartment. He carried a tray laden with bread, cold meat, and cheese, a teapot and cup. “I’ve brought your dinner.”

  “What’s that noise?” I said.

  “They’re hauling up the anchor.” Slade set down the tray and crouched beside me. “What’s the matter?”

  “Just a bad dream. What time is it?”

  “About ten o’clock at night.”

  I’d slept the whole day. Now I heard the Gipsy ’s steam engines roar. The ship began to move, plowing through the river. In spite of my nightmare, I felt refreshed and alert; dreaming often purges the emotions. I realized, more clearly than before, what had happened.

  I was no longer Charlotte Bronte, the respectable spinster daughter of Haworth’s vicar, or Currer Bell, the toast of literary London. I was a fugitive on the run, a criminal in the eyes of the law. Cut off from society, from my friends and family, I was leaving my homeland, perhaps for good. Surely I would never write another book. My name would sink into infamy, then obscurity. Yet I didn’t collapse into tears and sickness and utter helplessness as I had at other times when disaster struck. I felt as if a storm had swept through my life, cleared everything away, and left me calm. If the worst had already happened, what more had I to fear?

  I didn’t foresee the dangers that lay ahead. I had a sense of lightness, a great relief despite my sorrow. I felt more alive than I ever had. Suddenly I was famished. I gobbled the food that Slade had brought. It seemed the best I’d ever tasted. But when I’d finished eating, how alarmed I was by Slade’s appearance! He was unshaven, his clothes dirty from working on the ship, the skin under his eyes shadowed. He looked tired to death.

  “When will we be at sea?” I asked.

  “Early tomorrow morning.”

  “Then you’d better sit down. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  Slade reluctantly eased himself onto the bed and sat beside me. Neither of us spoke as the paddlewheels churned and the ship steamed down the Thames. After a while I felt him relax: he’d fallen asleep.

  When one is in love, each new discovery about the beloved is miraculous. I’d never seen Slade sleeping, and I gazed upon him with fascination. Slumber erased his usual guarded expression, drained the tension from his muscles. He looked young, innocent, and vulnerable. My desire to touch his face had nothing to do with lust. I felt a new, purer affection toward Slade. Yet it was wrong for me to be in bed with a man to whom I wasn’t married.

  That undercut my happiness only for an instant. Ideas I’d never entertained before argued with my sense of propriety. Who said I was doing wrong? Society did. But society had already turned against me because it believed I’d broken the rules. Why should I be obligated to obey them any longer? Why hold myself to society’s standards of honor? I experienced an elating sensation of recklessness. Perhaps I was now free to live as I pleased.

  During our journey down the river, troops stopped and boarded the Gipsy. I remained calm as they tramped through the ship. Slade slept on, and I didn’t wake him when I heard them outside our compartment. I fancied myself his protector. When they were gone, I congratulated myself on my newfound bravery. Little did I know how severely it would soon be tested.

  Hours passed. The engines began to roar at full throttle. A rapping on the panel awakened Slade. Captain Arnold called, “You can come out now.”

  As we emerged up on the deck, my eyes were dazzled by the sun, a brilliant beacon that had just risen above the horizon where sky met ocean. The sea was calm, colored violet, rippled like shirred silk. The coast of England was a mere smudge behind us, France not yet visible in the distance. Other ships rode the waters, but none near. The Gipsy blazed a steady course, paddlewheels splashing, smoke billowing from her stacks. The light had a strange, animated quality; it glinted and danced; whatever it touched shimmered with radiance. I was conscious of each breath of fresh salt air that swelled my lungs, of my heart’s rhythm, of the blood swiftly flowing in my veins-and of Slade, who stood in the bow beside me.

  I exclaimed, “We’ve lived to see another day, and I am truly thankful!”

  “As am I,” Slade said. “Better alive than dead, has always been my philosophy.” Sleep had knit the raveled fabric of his health; his color was good. But the eyes he turned to me were clouded by dark thoughts. “Now that we have a moment’s leisure, I must tell you how sorry I am for involving you in such bad business.”

  I couldn’t let him shoulder the entire weight of guilt. “It was my own choice to become involved.” I could have walked away from him in Bedlam, and I had not. That I had pursued him was wholly my fault.

  “I’m not talking about what’s happened these past two we
eks,” Slade said. “I mean the first time I saw you three years ago, when I struck up an acquaintance with you to further the investigation I was conducting. It was selfish of me. I should have left you alone.”

  “Do you regret knowing me?” I said, hurt by the idea.

  Slade said with passion, “Never! My only regret is that you must regret knowing me, and that I have destroyed your love for me and ruined your life. I promise to make things right for you and set you free of me.”

  “But I don’t!” My passion more than equaled his. “You haven’t! To be free of you is not what I want!”

  Incomprehension rendered his face blank. “But when we were at the laboratory, you indicated that you didn’t want anything to do with me except to find Niall Kavanagh and get us out of trouble.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Now was the time to correct his mistake under which I’d allowed him to labor because I couldn’t express myself honestly. “I’m in love with you still. That’s why I’m here.” Slade’s company was as important to me as finding Niall Kavanagh and saving England. “I wanted to be with you then. I do now.”

  Slade shook his head. Gladness tugged his mouth into a smile even as he frowned in disbelief. “Can this be true? Surely I hear you wrong.”

  I hurried to sweep away his conviction that he was a pariah and that I thought myself too good for him. “I didn’t declare my feelings for you because they seemed so hopeless. But things have changed.”

  “Not all things. There’s still blood on my hands. I’m still a fugitive.”

  “So am I.” I endeavored to share the thoughts I’d had while he was sleeping. “We’ve gone beyond ordinary law and morality. The past is over; we can only go forward. And if I am to be alone in the world but for one companion, I thank Heaven that my companion is you.” This was the most fervent, unguarded, and audacious speech I’d ever made to a man; yet I felt neither hesitation nor shame. Some force within me had overpowered the shy, convention-bound woman I once was. I flung my arms open wide. “I will be with you on any terms.”

  Slade leaned back from me, alarmed. “You are too generous.”

  “It isn’t generosity that compels me, it is pure selfishness. I want you. I mean to have you if you still want me.” Even though my brazenness astonished me, I said, “Whatever time I have left on this earth, I want us to live it to the fullest together, and if you refuse me this, then God damn you, John Slade!”

  I was shocked by my profanity, and further shocked when Slade threw back his head and let loose a boisterous laugh that carried across the water. “Well spoken for a parson’s daughter, Charlotte Bronte! You’ve just made me the happiest man alive!”

  He lifted me off my feet and spun around. I laughed, too, with the same joyous, reckless abandon. Sea and sky whirled past me. Giddy and lightheaded, I exulted. Then Slade’s expression sobered. He stopped whirling and lowered me to the deck. I felt the smile vanish from my face. The sun struck his at an angle so that all the light of the day seemed to emanate from his eyes. Never had I so wanted him to kiss me; but he did not. Instead, we gazed at each other in full, awed realization of the pact we’d made. I heard myself utter words I’d never imagined speaking.

  “I don’t care if we can’t marry. I’ll be your wife in fact if not in name or law.”

  I was dizzied by the thought of the physical intimacy that my proposition implied. Slade was visibly shaken by the heat that flared between us. Then his eyes crinkled with sly humor. “I’m pleased to tell you that the sacrifice of your virtue won’t be necessary.”

  Contrary to a popular fallacy, ship captains are not permitted to officiate at weddings while at sea. Any marriages thus created are not recognized by the law. But circumstances had favored Slade and me. Captain Arnold was an ordained clergyman who’d served as a chaplain for the East India Company’s army, who preached Sunday sermons aboard his own ship. Indeed, he had converted his entire crew to Christianity. I know not what reason Slade gave him as to why we wanted him to marry us after telling him we were already married. Maybe Slade explained; maybe Captain Arnold was bound by loyalty to take his old comrade’s request in stride; at any rate, he agreed.

  Slade and I took turns washing in cold seawater in a shower bath that the crew had rigged up in a shed on deck. I dressed in a lilac-colored gown I’d bought in London, Slade in a clean set of spare clothes from his valise. That very morning Captain Arnold performed the ceremony. Slade and I stood side by side in the bow, with the crew for witnesses. I had no veil or flowers. Our music was the sound of the ship’s engines and churning wheels. It wasn’t the wedding I’d envisioned. In fact, I’d been so certain I would never marry that I’d avoided trying to imagine the impossible. Now I could hardly believe I wasn’t dreaming.

  “If anyone present knows any reason why this couple may not be joined together in holy matrimony,” Captain Arnold said, “speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  I thought of Jane Eyre and her first, ill-fated wedding to Mr. Rochester. I almost expected a stranger to materialize and declare the existence of an impediment. But none did.

  Captain Arnold said, “Do you, John Slade, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better and for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do you part?”

  Slade turned to me. I doubt that any other bridegroom had ever looked so serious and ardent. He said in a quiet, firm voice, “I do.”

  I looked into his eyes, and I began trembling violently; I felt hot, then cold, as realization sank in: I had gained the man I loved, but with what consequence? My happiness would be dependent on Slade, our fates entwined. I felt my separate identity dissolving. In another moment, Charlotte Bronte-and Currer Bell-must give way to Mrs. John Slade. What a solemn, strange, and perilous thing was marriage! Yet my attachment to Slade never faltered. When Captain Arnold repeated the ritual question to me, I answered, “I do,” without hesitation. Triumph swelled inside me. Slade smiled as if he’d read my last-minute doubts but never believed they would prevent our marriage. It seemed predestined, a step along a course from which neither of us could deviate.

  “Have you a ring?” Captain Arnold asked.

  Slade took from his pocket the ring I’d bought for myself. I proffered my hand, which was steady now. He slipped the gold band on my finger. My eyes filled with tears, through which the ring sparkled as brightly as if set with diamonds.

  “I pronounce you man and wife.” Captain Arnold said to Slade, “You may kiss your bride.”

  The crew grinned as Slade drew me into his arms. Our kiss was brief, possessive, and fierce. Captain Arnold offered his congratulations. The crew cheered. They improvised a wedding breakfast of bread and cheese enlivened with rum. Afterward, they played wild, exotic music on drums and peculiar stringed instruments. Imagining what Papa and Ellen and my other friends would say if they could see me, I felt a stab of sorrow because they were absent. But I would not ruin this day by dwelling on what I’d lost instead of on what I had. Slade and I danced, exhilarated and laughing.

  After the celebration, the captain and crew went back to work, but we lingered on the deck. We were both impatient for what necessarily followed a wedding, yet anxious because it might not live up to our expectations. At last Slade said, “You can go in first.”

  “All right.” Quaking, I went to the cabin where Captain Arnold had said we could stay now that we didn’t need to hide anymore. It was small, but the linens on the berth were clean, and it had a porthole that admitted the sunlight and sea wind. I undressed, then put on my plain white nightgown. My reflection in the mirror over the washstand looked less like a bride than a nun, I thought ruefully. I sat on the berth, pulling the sheets up to my chin.

  Soon Slade entered the room and shut the door. He looked as nervous as I felt. I watched him undress. Although I blushed, I did not turn away. We were married; I could know him as well as I wished. Slade stripped off his shoe
s, socks, shirt, and trousers, his motions clumsy and self-conscious. Wonder filled me as I saw him completely naked, his muscles lean and strong, his skin sleek with black hairs. The only nude males I’d ever seen before were Greek statues, and these had not prepared me for my first full sight of my husband. Slade’s aroused manhood moved me profoundly. I burned with need for him. Forgetting modesty, I undid my night-dress and let it fall around my waist.

  Such delight I took in the sharp breath that I heard Slade draw; what pride in the desire I saw in his eyes!

  He slid under the sheets with me. The press of his body against mine as we embraced was shockingly personal. There is no warmth like the warmth of bare flesh touching bare flesh. It consumed me as flames consume dry kindling. This physical part of marriage seemed an ordeal by fire. At first we were awkward together. His hand caught in my hair when he stroked it; when we kissed, our noses bumped; knees and elbows jarred as we attempted to meld ourselves together. I didn’t mind the awkwardness; it made our lovemaking seem real, rather than a fantasy of the sort I’d had during lonely nights. Nor did I fear what must happen, even though I’d heard married women speak in whispers about how painful it was. Rather, I feared that I would fail to please Slade, that he would find me lacking or offensive.

  But the fervor with which he kissed me soon convinced me that he found me as desirable as I could hope. And my own desire banished my inhibitions. When he caressed my breasts, I shamelessly moaned with pleasure. I eagerly caressed him, greedy to acquaint myself with his body, smug in my wifely right to enjoy him. I gloried in the exclamations of pleasure that I provoked from him. Between us we conjured up the ancient magic that all lovers do. We moved in graceful rhythm on the bed, turning and entwining and arching together, as if in a dance. I heard the ocean, and we became one with it. I smelled the sea on Slade, tasted salt on his skin. When I stroked his manhood, it pulsed with the swift current of blood inside. An urgent tide of desire rose in my own loins. I grew wet and slick with it. I gasped out, “I am ready.”