Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “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.

  Out came everything Slade had said at the zoo, plus that which I’d learned from Lord Eastbourne. I told Stieber that the Foreign Office had sent Slade to aid Russian revolutionaries in their uprising against the Tsar and find out what the Tsar was plotting against Britain. I did not neglect to mention the reason Slade had returned to England. “You’re trying to find Niall Kavanagh and his invention,” I told Stieber. “Slade followed you in order to stop you.” I could no more stanch the flow of my words than I could have halted a flood from a broken dam.

  Shock quenched the gleam of satisfaction in Stieber’s eyes. Apparently Slade had managed to keep his intentions secret during his torture. Now, thanks to me, Stieber knew. But I didn’t realize just how much I had compromised both Slade and myself until Stieber spoke.

  “You said that I am trying to find Niall Kavanagh and his invention.” He leaned closer, his gaze boring into me. I could see smaller pits within the pits that marred his face. Breathing the air around him, I made an unsettling discovery: he had no odor. “So you know who I am?”

  “Yes.” Common sense blared a distant warning that I was unable to heed.

  “What is my name?”

  “Wilhelm Stieber,” I said. “You’re the Tsar’s favorite spy.”

  He drew back, the instinctive reaction of a man who travels in disguise and hears his true identity suddenly proclaimed. “What else do you know about me?”

  I perceived a chasm yawning before me. The drug and the magnetic forces banished my instinct for self-preservation. I stepped right over the edge. “You killed Katerina.”

  “How do you know this?” Stieber spoke in a level yet menacing tone.

  “Katerina told me. Before she died.”

  Stieber turned away. I could surmise what he was thinking: my story would sound preposterous to most everyone, were I just an ordinary woman, but I was not. My service to the Crown had gained me the confidence of people in high places, and if I told them about Stieber, they might believe me. Stieber didn’t know I had already passed on much of the information to Lord Eastbourne and been rebuffed. He only understood that I knew far too much.

  The doctor put a stethoscope to my chest and listened to my heart. “She can’t withstand the magnetic forces any longer. Are you finished?”

  “Oh, yes,” Stieber said.

  “Your men can take her back to Newgate.” The doctor lifted the magnets from my chest. I was vaguely conscious of physical relief, but doom vibrated like thunder outside the bell jar.

  “No,” Stieber said.

  Confusion wrinkled the doctor’s smooth brow. “What am I supposed to do with her?”

  “Dispose of her,” Stieber said. This was my death sentence, uttered in the perfunctory tone of a man ordering a servant to clean up a mess his dog had made.

  “Do you mean . . . ?” As the doctor turned to Stieber, dismay broke the monotone of his voice; its pitch rose high with fright. “No. I can’t.”

  “You will.” Stieber’s voice was flat, authoritative.

  “But I’ve never killed anyone before.” The doctor’s protest was the bleat of a coward. If only his fear of taking my life were stronger than his fear of displeasing Stieber! “It’s against my principles.”

  “Your principles didn’t prevent you from accepting money for torturing people,” Stieber said.

  “That wasn’t torture, it was medical research!”

  Stieber made a moue of contempt, then said, “She can’t be allowed to live.”

  “But how will I dispose of her body?” The doctor had given in to Stieber; only the practicalities of killing me were in question. My hope of a reprieve faded. “What if I’m caught?” My last chance rested on his fear of the consequences. “Even if I can convince my superiors that her death was accidental, they’ll put a stop to my research. I’ll lose my position!”

  “You’ll lose more than that unless you do as I say.”

  The doctor wiped sweat off his upper lip with his finger. “Very well.”

  He stepped out of my view for a moment. When he reappeared, he held a glass cylinder with a plunger at one end and a long needle at the other. It was the same kind of instrument that I’d seen him use on Slade, and that Slade had driven through the eye of the nurse. The doctor pushed up my sleeve; his fingers probed my arm. I should have bolted for the door, but I could not overcome my lethargy. My gaze fixed on the instrument. The colorless poison inside vibrated; the doctor’s hands were shaking. Stieber looked on, impassive. I knew he wouldn’t leave an important task in the sole care of a less capable subordinate. He’d killed Katerina himself, no matter the risk, no matter that it was dirty work unfit for the Tsar’s chief spy.

  How strange that I should spend my last moments on earth a
nalyzing my murderer. But I am an indefatigable observer of human nature, and the spell that the doctor had worked on me had detached me from the terrible fact of my own impending death.

  The doctor found a vein in my arm. He positioned his instrument. I waited for the lethal prick of the needle.

  The door burst open.

  He lost his grip on the instrument. It fell to the floor; the glass cylinder shattered. Three men surrounded me. They wore British army uniforms—red coats decorated with gold epaulets and shiny buttons, and black caps, trousers, and boots—and they carried rifles.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Stieber said, all surprise and fury.

  “We have orders to take custody of this woman,” said one of the officers, the sort of ordinary, stolid man who’d helped win many wars for Britain.

  “I won’t permit it,” Stieber said. “She’s seriously insane. She needs treatment that can only be provided here.”

  The officer glanced at the doctor, who shrank against the wall, then regarded Stieber with the suspicion and distrust of a proud Englishman toward a foreigner. “And who might you be?”

  “Dr. Richard Albert, chief physician of the criminal lunatics wing,” Stieber lied smoothly. “I’m responsible for her care.”

  “Not anymore,” the officer said. “She’s coming with us.”

  His comrades wheeled my litter out the door. Stieber stood with his hands clenched at his sides, containing his rage: he dared not oppose the troops; he could not afford to be arrested. As the soldiers rolled me down the corridor, we passed Julia Garrs. She waved to me and smiled. I realized that however the army had learned that I was in Bedlam, once the soldiers had arrived it was she who had guided them to me. She clearly thought she’d done me a good turn.

  I only wished I could be so certain.

  17

  THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF JOHN SLADE

  1849 June. Summer in Moscow flares briefly, like a fever before the chills of winter return. In the alleys around Trubnaya Square, northeast of the Kremlin, red lights burned above the doors of squalid brothels. Cheap prostitutes in tawdry finery called invitations to men who passed. Some of the men stopped to banter, bargain, and take their pleasure. But Peter, Fyodor, Alexander, and Slade ignored the women. Furtive and solemn, they hurried along. The Russians sweated in the coats they wore despite the hot night. Peter the poet carried Slade’s pistol hidden under his coat. He had volunteered to do the shooting. Although Peter had been eager and confident when they’d planned the assassination, Slade could see his bravado wane. By the time they reached Tsvetnoy Boulevard, Peter was trembling with nerves.

  “Don’t worry,” Fyodor said. “It will be over soon. Then we can go have a drink.”

  Peter responded with a sickly smile. Slade felt no less ill: he knew the Russians would never drink together again.

  Elegant mansions inhabited by expensive courtesans lined the boulevard. Inside, chandeliers sparkled behind velvet drapes. Piano music and laughter tinkled from open windows, but the street was empty. Slade and his friends slipped through the gate of one small, exclusive establishment and hid in the shrubbery in the garden. The air was heavy with the odors of garbage and flowers, perfume and latrines. They waited for Prince Orlov. Their spying had produced the information that he spent every Wednesday night in this brothel, with his favorite courtesan.

  The revelry ended. Silence engulfed the street as the women entertained clients in their boudoirs. Hours passed. The street slumbered. Slade watched the Russians grow more nervous by the moment. Near two o’clock, they tensed and became alert. The Prince always left the brothel at that hour. Slade and the other men riveted their gazes on the door. Peter drew the pistol in his shaking hand and took aim.

  A carriage rumbled up the street. Plekhanov and six other policemen from the Third Section jumped out of the vehicle and charged into the garden. They assailed Slade and the Russians in a welter of punches, kicks, and shouts. The Russians screamed and struggled as the police wrested the gun away from Peter and pinned them on the ground. Slade fought valiantly. The police singled him out for a particularly rough beating before they finally overcame him. They put iron shackles on him and his friends.

  “You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit assassination,” Plekhanov said.

  “How did they know we were here?” Peter asked as the police dragged him and the others to the carriage.

  “Someone must have talked.” Fyodor regarded Slade and his friends with suspicion. “Have we a traitor among us?”

  “It’s not me,” Peter and Alexander hastened to say.

  “Nor me.” Slade’s nose was bleeding, his mouth swollen. “We weren’t careful enough. We must have been overheard by a spy.”

  “That’s enough babbling,” Plekhanov said.

  As he and his men pushed the prisoners into the carriage, Slade looked toward the mansion. In the doorway stood Prince Orlov. His body was thick with fat and muscle. His bald head resembled a bullet, hard and shiny as steel, rising from a thick neck to a rounded point at the top. He studied his four would-be assassins through the monocle that glinted in his right eye. His unsmiling gaze lingered on Slade.

  A hot, sultry morning suffocated Moscow. Slade stood in Prince Orlov’s office inside the Kremlin. His shirt was stained with blood; bruises marked his face. Orlov studied Slade from behind a carved mahogany desk the size of Red Square.

  “I owe you my thanks.” Contempt inflected his rough voice. He didn’t like rats, even though he employed hundreds of them. But his contempt was nothing compared to that which Slade felt for himself. He had just sent three hapless men to their death.

  The Prince looked over Slade’s injuries. “I am sorry about your face.” He didn’t sound sorry. “It was necessary, you understand.”

  Slade nodded. The police hadn’t wanted to favor him and expose him as the man who’d betrayed Peter, Alexander, and Fyodor. The three Russians would “disappear,” but Slade would be freed to continue working for the Third Section. The bruises and scars from a beating by the police would give him extra cachet with the other secret societies that he’d already infiltrated. Now he tasted his own blood; he welcomed the pain. A beating was far less punishment than he deserved.

  “You have proved to be worth ten other informants,” Orlov said with grudging respect. “I can use a man of your skills. From now on, you work directly for me.”

  Slade felt no triumph, even though he’d achieved his goal of penetrating the Tsar’s inner court. He was as happy as a man can be when he stands before the gates of hell and watches them open.

  18

  WHENEVER I EMBARK UPON A JOURNEY, I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS. Excitement about encountering fresh vistas and new people vies with anxiety about travel arrangements, the strain on my health, and uncertainty about what awaits me at my destination. Even in cases of journeys that I undertake reluctantly, I can look forward to getting them over with. But my journey from Bedlam was different. I felt unadulterated dread.

  Day broke as the soldiers lifted me into a carriage outside the asylum. The rising sun shimmered dull orange behind a haze of smoke and heat. The effects of the drug and the magnetic forces had begun to weaken and my free will to revive.

  “Let me go,” I said. But the lethargy still possessed me, and I slumped in the seat, as limp and heavy as a rag doll stuffed with sand. “Where are you taking me?”

  The soldiers climbed into the carriage with me. The commanding officer said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just relax.”

  We rode through streets that came alive with people hurrying to work, shopkeepers opening their establishments, and peddlers wheeling carts. I realized the futility of calling for help. Who would take on the British army? We stopped at King’s Cross Station. An animating prickle spread through my muscles; I could flex them, but when I tried to jump from the carriage and run away, I was so weak that I fell on my knees. The soldiers supported me through the station, to a train. They laid me on a berth inside a s
leeping compartment.

  “If there’s anything you need, just ask,” said the commanding officer. “I’ll be right outside.”

  It appeared that I would be a prisoner under guard for the duration of this trip to Heaven knew where.

  The whistle blew. The train rolled out of the station. As I watched London stream past the window, I experienced the aftereffects of my ordeal in Bedlam. The glass bell that had separated me from my emotions dissolved. Shame, guilt, and horror rushed upon me like horsemen of the Apocalypse. They tormented me while I faced the full extent of what had happened. I had revealed secrets and betrayed Slade, my country, and myself; I had put us all in jeopardy. Now that Wilhelm Stieber knew that Slade knew about Niall Kavanagh and the weapon, he would hunt Slade to the ends of the earth. And he could not let me go free to tell the world what I knew. He would hunt me down, too. The British army couldn’t protect me forever. Furthermore, my confession had put sensitive information about Britain into the hands of a man who served its rival. What dangerous ideas might Stieber and the Tsar glean from my story? If there were a repeat of the events of 1848, I would be to blame.

  I am a harsh judge of other people’s faults, but no less of my own. I have always denigrated myself for lacking the beauty, intellect, competence, and moral and physical strength that I crave. But never until today had I had as much reason to hate myself. I cursed my failure to stand up to Wilhelm Stieber. There seemed no chance of rectifying the evil I’d done.

  Many hours and many miles passed. I was so absorbed in my misery that I didn’t know which direction I was traveling in; I didn’t care. If I was to be murdered when I reached my destination, I deserved it. Finally I grew so exhausted that I fell asleep. I awakened when the soldiers came to fetch me. Stiff and dazed, I emerged at a small station, in late afternoon sun so bright that it hurt my eyes. A sign above the platform read: Southampton.

  Southampton is a pretty seaside town about a hundred miles from London. As we rode in a carriage through its streets, I was blind to its charms. Dirty and disheveled, still wearing my wrinkled jail uniform, guarded by troops, I felt like a prisoner of war being transported to the enemy stockade. My life as Currer Bell, the famous author, seemed part of a distant, glittering dream. We reached the port, where the captain on a steamboat called, “Last ferry to East Cowes! All aboard!”