Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Dear God,” I said.

  There was a gigantic, inflated balloon, made from panels of gray cloth, shaped like a fat sausage that tapered to a point at each end, more than a hundred feet long. A net of ropes encased the balloon. Some tethered the balloon to pegs in the ground. Others suspended a pole horizontally below and parallel to its long axis. From the pole hung a large wicker basket that contained a bulky machine with a huge propeller. Three men worked on the contraption. One stood in the basket, tinkering with a triangular cloth that resembled a sail and was attached to the ropes below the balloon. A second shoveled coal into the machine, which belched smoke and roared. The third man adjusted the boiler, which puffed clouds of steam.

  It was an airship, similar to the model I’d seen at the Crystal Palace.

  Stieber, Friedrich, and Wagner were as stunned as I. “We are going to London in that?” Stieber said.

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Slade said.

  Hot air balloons had been invented long ago, and they were common enough that I’d seen them at fairs, but the steam-powered airship was a recent innovation. The one based on the model at the Crystal Palace had never yet flown. I could hardly believe that I might get a ride in this one. My heart fluttered with excitement, then quailed. Would it not be dangerous?

  We approached the airship. Stieber and his men stopped me a few paces from it. He told Slade, “We’ll wait here.” While they held me hostage to his good behavior, Slade moved forward and called to the man in the basket, “Dr. Crick!”

  The man wore a helmet over gray, frizzled hair. His lean, stooped figure was clad in a blue coverall. He peered at us through dark-tinted spectacles perched on his beaked nose. “Hello?”

  “I don’t know if you remember me,” Slade said, “but I’m—”

  “John Slade. Of course.” The man had a toothy grin and a fluty, cultured accent. “I never forget a face, even though I haven’t seen yours since you attended my class in physics at Cambridge. Wasn’t it you who demonstrated Newton’s principles of gravity by dropping an apple and a bathtub off Magdalen Tower?”

  Slade laughed. “It was, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Boys will be boys,” Dr. Crick fluted. “To what do I owe your sudden reappearance?”

  “I ran into a former classmate some time ago. He told me you’d retired from teaching and made great progress in developing a steam-powered airship.”

  “Voila!” Dr. Crick spread his arms, made an exaggerated bow, and said, “I’m giving rides. Would you like one?”

  “Yes, and so would my friends,” Slade said, indicating Stieber, the soldiers, and me.

  “It would be my pleasure. Those ladies and gentlemen are next, but if you can wait—”

  “I can’t,” Slade said. “We must go to London, and we must go now.”

  “London?” Dr. Crick hunched his shoulders. “But I’ve never flown that far. I don’t know whether my airship can make it.”

  “Could you try? It’s urgent.” Slade added, “I’m on official business.”

  “Official business, oh, well, then.” Dr. Crick’s look said he was privileged to know that Slade was, or had been, an agent for the Crown. “In that case, we’ll give it our best shot.”

  Slade turned and beckoned. Stieber, his men, and I hurried forward. Slade introduced me as his wife, and Stieber and the soldiers as friends visiting from Prussia. Dr. Crick said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He was oblivious to our companions’ menacing air. “But I’m afraid I can only accommodate three of you, plus myself and my assistants. Any extra weight will drag the balloon down, and the basket only holds six.”

  “Leave your men behind,” Slade told Stieber.

  I knew what he was thinking: their absence would much improve our chances of thwarting Stieber. But Stieber said, “We all go or no one goes.”

  “My friends and I will take the place of your assistants,” Slade said to Dr. Crick. “Just teach us what to do.”

  “Very well.” Dr. Crick was glad to cooperate for the sake of crown and country. A speedy but complicated lecture on operating the airship ensued. Then he said, “You should use the conveniences before we take off. All we have on board is a pail.”

  We took his advice. Stieber made sure that Slade and I had no chance to escape in the airship without him and his men. Dr. Crick’s assistants helped us climb into the basket. It was crowded with the engine, a coal bucket, and sundry equipment. I gazed nervously up at the balloon, which resembled a levitating whale caught in a net. Could it really carry us aloft?

  The assistants shoveled a last load of fuel into the engine. They spun the propeller, whose three blades began to turn lazily. Smoke puffed out of the engine’s funnel, which was pointed downward so that sparks from it wouldn’t ignite the hydrogen gas in the balloon. Dr. Crick and Slade hauled up the anchor. The assistants untied the balloon’s tethers. The airship began to rise.

  “Bon Voyage!” Dr. Crick said cheerfully.

  “How fast does this go?” Slade shouted above the roar from the engine and propeller and the hiss of the boiler.

  “I clocked it at ten miles per hour last time.”

  “It’s about seventy miles from Portsmouth to London,” Slade said. “That should take us at least seven hours.”

  He sounded disappointed, but Dr. Crick said, “Maybe less, depending on the wind. And unlike a train, we needn’t stop for passengers or follow a track. We’ll go as the crow flies.”

  The lawn fell away beneath us. The floor of the basket pressed up against my feet as the balloon lifted my weight. My stomach plunged while I rose. My heart pounded; I grew giddy. As the airship gained altitude, the people and the mansion below shrank until they were as small as dolls and a dollhouse. Dr. Crick worked the controls on the engine. The propeller blades accelerated into a whir. The funnel discharged smoke that streamed behind us as the airship moved forward. I felt a wave of something akin to seasickness, but I was too thrilled to care.

  Ever since I was a little girl, I have wished for wings, for the ability to soar above the earth. Now I floated through thin air, looking down at the treetops, free from the shackles of gravity. I would have jumped up and down with glee had I not been afraid to upset the basket, which rocked gently in the wind. Airborne by the miracle of science, I gazed up at the sky and marveled that I was in it. The billowy white clouds seemed close enough to touch. I clapped my hands and laughed.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” I exclaimed.

  “It certainly is,” Dr. Crick said, pleased and proud. “We’ve got a good tailwind.”

  Friedrich sat in a rear corner of the basket, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms and hands clasped over his head. Wagner’s ugly face was pale and dripping sweat. I gathered that both men were afraid of heights.

  Slade stood beside me, gazing at Stieber, who stood in the opposite side of the basket. They wore the same hard, calculating expression, and I knew what they were each thinking: If I attack him, what are my chances of throwing him off the airship before he throws me? Neither moved. Fighting was too dangerous hundreds of feet above the ground. Stieber wouldn’t risk his life before he’d completed his mission, and Slade wouldn’t risk dying and leaving me with Stieber. Their stalemate allowed me to enjoy my first flight in peace.

  We soon left the city, which resembled a toy village. We motored over fields, pastures, and woodland—a patchwork of different shades of green, like a quilt, that rippled over hills. Tiny people on the roads looked up, pointed, and waved. How small, how petty, did the tribulations of the world seem from my lofty perspective! Could mankind not forget them and enjoy the God-given miracles of life?

  I glanced at Slade. He and Stieber kept watch on each other while viewing the scene below us. Slade flashed me a smile, sharing my delight. Stieber seemed impressed against his will. I think he resented being at the mercy of nature and science, hated anything he couldn’t control. I could almost pity him, but not quite.

  Dr. Crick yanked on a
rope, adjusting the sail, which functioned as a rudder. Friedrich remained huddled on the floor. Wagner sat next to him, green and rigid as a corpse. We floated over sparkling streams crossed by miniature bridges, and farmhouses suitable for Tom Thumb. Hours passed, during which I was so enchanted that I didn’t notice when Slade left me to stand beside Stieber. Then I happened to glance up and see them facing out the other side of the basket, talking. I moved next to Slade, to listen.

  “It’s invariably fatal. There’s no antidote.” Slade was speaking about woolsorter’s disease. “If Russia uses Kavanagh’s bomb in a war against Britain, it won’t only destroy Britain. The plague will spread everywhere.”

  “That may be the case, but I am not concerned about it,” Stieber said.

  “You can’t stop it outside Russia’s borders,” Slade persisted. “Millions of Russians will die, too. Even the Tsar isn’t immune.”

  “I have my orders to capture Dr. Kavanagh and the weapon and deliver them to His Highness. I will do so.”

  “If you explained to the Tsar, he would understand that the weapon is too dangerous ever to use. He’s ambitious, but not stupid.”

  “It’s not my place to explain.”

  Slade stared at Stieber in disbelief and repugnance. “How can you be so blindly obedient? Have you no conscience?”

  “What you call conscience, I call a luxury in which I do not indulge,” Stieber said calmly.

  “Why?” Slade said, vexed and bewildered. “Why does someone as intelligent as you not want to think for himself and do what’s right?”

  “Because I bow to the authority of those I serve,” Stieber said. “That is my calling.”

  The engine thundered; the boiler shrieked; the propeller beat the air. Slade regarded Stieber with the air of a scientist studying a poisonous snake because he wants to know what is in its venom before it bites him and he dies. Stieber contemplated a village on the ground, the minute spire of its church glinting in the sunlight. Perhaps he was more affected by the miracle of flying than I’d thought, and it relaxed his discretion, for he began to talk.

  “I was born in Merseburg, Saxony. My father was a government official. My mother was from a family of wealthy English landowners.”

  I was surprised to hear that Stieber had English blood; he seemed so foreign. Slade and I listened with interest as he went on, “My family moved to Berlin.” We both abided by the saying, Know thine enemy. “My father wanted me to enter the church, and so I studied theology at the University of Berlin.”

  Nor had I imagined Stieber as a former clergyman. Slade raised his eyebrows in surprise that he and his foe had that much in common.

  “There, I had an experience that changed my life,” Stieber said. “A young friend of mine was accused of theft. I believed he was innocent. I argued for him in court, and he was acquitted. I realized that I wasn’t meant to be a cleric. I left the divinity school to study law. I kept it a secret from my father because he wouldn’t approve. I had to pretend to be continuing my theology studies. I even preached a sermon.

  “As I spoke, I felt ashamed because I was an impostor who proclaimed the word of God in order to procure tuition money from the father I was deceiving. There was then a stir among the crowd. His Highness Friedrich Wilhelm, King of Prussia, walked into the church.” Nostalgia brought a smile to Stieber’s face. “His presence inspired me. My words rolled through the arches like thunder: ‘Divine forgiveness will not be accorded you on the flaming day of the Last Judgment—unless you bow to the earth in penitence!’”

  Had his character been as holy as his preaching was dramatic, he might have made as good a vicar as Papa.

  “The King was impressed,” Stieber said. “As he left the church, he gave me a most gracious bow. I experienced the glory of approval from on high. From that moment, I desired to experience it again.”

  That desire was what drove Stieber, I realized. It was more seductive than the wish to achieve power, wealth, and fame for himself. I began to understand why he’d made service to the high and mighty his calling.

  “But I was not so free of conscience then as now,” Stieber said. “I felt guilty for deceiving my father, so that night I confessed. My father was furious. He drove me out of his house and refused to pay for my studies. I then had to earn my own tuition and living. This I did by working as a secretary to the Berlin police department. I met police inspectors, who took me along when they investigated crimes and arrested criminals. I found much more satisfaction in that than in the courtroom, even after I was appointed a junior barrister. I instead became a police inspector in the criminal division.

  “I solved a murder that the police had been investigating unsuccessfully for eighteen months. I also traced a band of robbers who’d been hiding in the woods, after the army had searched in vain. I heard them snoring in a cave.” Pride radiated from Stieber even as he smiled wryly. “Then came the Tomascheck case. A tailor named Franz Tomascheck had insured his life for one hundred thousand talers. When he died a year later, the insurance company paid the money to his widow, who left Berlin for parts unknown. I arrested a Hungarian swindler who said he’d recently met Tomascheck in Bohemia. Acting on this evidence that Tomascheck was alive, I had his grave opened. The coffin contained only his old flatiron and a load of bricks. I then traveled incognito to Bohemia, where I found Tomascheck living with his wife. I also found the physician they’d paid to sign a fraudulent death certificate. I arrested them all.”

  Stieber fell silent. We watched the landscape passing below us. A miniature waterwheel paddled in a creek as narrow as a ribbon. Tiny men fished in the stream. As Stieber contemplated them, I sensed his thoughts: he was fancying himself as God, from whom no human sins could remain secret, who could dispense justice as he saw fit.

  “Not long afterward, a privy councilor in the Ministry of the Interior asked me to come and see him,” Stieber said. “He told me that the authorities in Silesia had uncovered a conspiracy to overthrow the government. He ordered me to conduct a secret investigation. I traveled to Silesia in disguise. Upon arriving I contacted a man named Hermann, who’d supplied the tip about the conspiracy. Hermann said the conspirators planned to seize property from the rich and distribute it to the poor. I discovered their identities and arrested them. They were charged with treason and sentenced to prison. The case caused a scandal. Politicians excoriated me for illegal ‘secret police’ work. But I was just following orders. I didn’t reveal who gave them because I’d been sworn to secrecy.”

  In addition to his desire to please his superiors, he had such a strong sense of loyalty that he would rather bear the brunt of public censure than betray them. His loyalty transcended the law and the fact that they were mere mortals with human failings. Slade and I were amazed that such an evil man was motivated by such a noble trait.

  “In 1848, I was drawn into the turmoil of the revolutions that plagued Europe,” Stieber continued. “The King had made himself unpopular by dissolving a new constitutional convention formed by his people. He rode through the city alone, hoping that his boldness would prevent a rebellion. Instead, he was assailed by a violent mob. I happened to be there. I single-handedly cleared a path for him and pulled him to safety inside the palace gates.”

  Stieber clearly relished his heroism. “The King fainted. I carried him into the palace, where I was surprised to discover that he was an actor impersonating the King. The real King thanked me for my brave service. He actually took my hands in his and squeezed them,” Stieber marveled. “And he recognized me from my sermon that he’d heard. I informed him that I was now a police inspector and secret agent. I took the opportunity to tell him about my accomplishments. He rewarded me with a promotion to chief of the Berlin police force. It was the proudest day of my life.”

  I suspected that the King’s esteem had compensated Stieber for his father’s disapproval, but not entirely. Perhaps Stieber had never recovered from being cast off by his father, and he continued to seek approval from his s
uperiors out of a need to heal the wound that would never heal. That need was the vulnerable human core in Stieber.

  “I investigated and thwarted many conspiracies against the King’s regime,” Stieber said. “Word of my expertise spread. Other heads of state applied for my assistance in unmasking members of secret societies in their kingdoms. One of them was the Tsar.”

  “That explains how a Prussian agent became the Tsar’s chief spy,” Slade said. “I was wondering. But how do you justify working for the Tsar? Doesn’t that interfere with your loyalty to your King?”

  “Not at all,” Stieber said. “The King loaned me to the Tsar in exchange for certain favors.”

  “Favors such as military support from Russia, I suppose,” Slade said. “But how can you serve the King while you’re chasing Dr. Kavanagh and his weapon for the Tsar? Aren’t you spreading yourself a bit thin?”

  “I am killing two birds with one stone. The King ordered me to travel to England to track down the Communist League, a revolutionary society that has established its headquarters in London. I infiltrated it and befriended its leader. He suffers from painful hemorrhoids. I posed as a physician and obtained a remedy for him. When I brought it to his house, I stole the register of the Communist League. The members will soon be arrested.” Stieber added, “In case you are interested, the leader’s name is Karl Marx.”

  Slade said with incredulity and contempt, “How can you do it? Have you no sympathy for the people that your masters oppress?”

  “I have much sympathy,” Stieber said. “I believe that the soil that nourishes their grievances is poverty, and eliminating poverty is the only truly effective weapon against subversion. Poverty can only be eliminated by providing better education, better pay, and a better standard of living for workers. But I disapprove of secret plots and attempts to overthrow governments. Changes in society must be implemented within the framework of law and order, rather than by rebellion and violence.”