The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  21

  WHAT TRANSPIRED AT THE BALL CAUSED ME SUCH TUMULTUOUS emotion that I tossed in my bed that night, my mind awhirl; I then fell into dreams of waltzing with Mr. Slade. I awoke breathless with anticipation of what the day would bring.

  When I went into the dining room and joined Mr. Slade and Kate at the breakfast table, he handed me two letters. “These came in the morning post.”

  One letter was from Anne, the other from Emily. I opened Emily’s first, and as I read, consternation filled me. “Emily writes from Haworth. She’s left the Charity School. She gives no explanation. What can have happened?”

  Mr. Slade’s grave expression said he feared that Emily had somehow compromised our inquiries. “What does Anne say?”

  Her letter was even more disturbing, as her own words can attest.

  My dear Charlotte,

  I write in haste to convey important news.

  The day after the mysterious visitor came, Mr. Lock and I again dined together. He looked so much more haggard and preoccupied than usual that I was emboldened to ask him what was amiss. With unconvincing haste he attempted to assure me that all was well.

  When I confessed I had seen him arguing with a man last night, and asked him if it was this man who troubled him, his countenance went deathly pale. He swayed in his chair. Perspiration on his face glistened in the candlelight. I hurried to him and poured him a glass of wine, which he gulped. I blotted his forehead with a napkin, and he drew shuddering breaths as his color returned.

  As soon as he was able, he thanked me for my assistance and apologized for disturbing me. His courtesy while in distress increased my sympathy for Henry Lock. He seemed little more than a boy, and I had an urge to cradle him in my arms. Hesitantly, I suggested he tell me his worries, that perhaps I could help.

  There must be something about me that engages other people’s trust. Friends, employers, and total strangers have told me their woes. Now Henry Lock confided how he had tried to dissuade his elder brother Joseph from placing him in charge of the family gunworks, for he sensed that his brother had been compelled to retire against his will. Regardless, Mr. Joseph Lock announced his decision to his workers the very next day.

  A shudder passed through Henry Lock as he reached this point in his sad tale. “Joseph’s wife sent me a message to come home at once. When I arrived, she said he had locked himself in his office and she’d heard a shot.” He looked haunted, as though he were reliving his discovery. “I broke down the door and found Joseph slumped over his desk. His head lay in a pool of blood. The room smelled of gunpowder. The pistol had fallen from Joseph’s hand, onto the floor.”

  After murmuring my condolences, I ventured to ask why his brother had taken his life. Mr. Lock told me his brother had left no explanation, but a week after Joseph Lock’s death, he began to understand.

  “I was working late at the gunworks, reviewing the account books,” he told me. “It was after ten at night, and I was alone at my desk. Suddenly the man who came here yesterday stalked into the room. I asked him who he was and what he wanted. The man never gave his name, and to this day, I do not know it. He said, ‘I’m here to fetch the guns I ordered from Joseph Lock.’”

  A stir of excitement passed through me, for I sensed that I was about to hear something important.

  Henry Lock continued, “The man told me to unlock the warehouse. Then he walked out of my office as if he expected me to follow and obey him. I ran after him, calling, ‘My brother is dead. I know nothing of your transaction with him. I must see some proof of it before I can give you any guns.’

  “There were four other men standing by the warehouse. They grabbed me and threatened to beat me unless I cooperated. I watched helplessly as they carried out crates of guns and loaded them on a wagon. The men all climbed on the wagon and prepared to drive off. The leader told me that my brother had already been paid an agreed-upon price, and that I was bound to keep his bargain now that Joseph was dead. He told me he wanted hundreds of rifles, pistols, and cannons and he would come for them in two weeks.

  “I argued that those guns were more than the factory could produce in that time, and I called him a thief. I said I would report him to the law. But he said there were things that my brother wanted kept secret. He mentioned that one concerned a Miss Isabel White, and that this and other secrets would ruin not only Lock Gunworks but Joseph’s memory and my good name if they were made public.”

  Henry Lock exhaled in desolation. “I surmised that Joseph had committed improprieties with the childrens’ governess. But it was obvious that he’d done something else, something even more terrible, that had put him under this man’s power, and he’d bartered the guns to protect himself, our family, and the firm. I thought that if I honored the bargain, I could avert whatever disaster Joseph had feared. But when the two weeks were up and the men came for the guns, I had completed only half of them. That man came here yesterday to demand that I deliver the rest.”

  The candles burned low. Henry Lock, crumbling with despair, admitted that he feared that even should he be able to deliver the guns, the demands would never stop. His firm would go bankrupt, and his family would be destroyed.

  “Surely there’s some other recourse,” I said. “Perhaps your brother’s secret isn’t as dangerous as you’ve been led to believe. Have you any idea what it is?”

  He had none, he told me. He supposed he would never know the whole truth until the blackmailer made good on his threat and a scandal broke.

  Thinking of Mr. Slade, I mentioned I had a friend connected to the Crown who might be able to help him. But Henry Lock begged me not to involve my friend or anyone else. He knew his brother had broken the law, he said, and he could not allow his family to be punished for his sins. The wine in the glass he held trembled as his body shook with fear, but he proclaimed that he would endeavor to produce the guns and pray that the business would be resolved.

  I could not share his blind faith, for I believed Isabel White’s evil master was behind his troubles and would have no mercy on him. I determined on learning more, and the next day brought an opportunity.

  The children went on a holiday with friends. I was left with no duties and a great wish to escape the gloomy house, so I asked the coachman to drive me into Birmingham. There I noticed a man outside a tobacconist’s shop. I recognized his distinctive beaked nose and jutting chin. He was the man who had threatened Henry Lock. As he walked away, rash impulse seized me.

  I told the coachman to wait, and I hurried out of the carriage. Crowds around the shops blocked my view of the man, and I almost lost him. But I spied him passing the church and ran to catch up. We traversed districts that grew shabbier until the man turned down a dark, forbidding road. There, moldering tenements bordered a narrow cobblestone pavement. The man entered a dingy brick public house called Barrel and Shot. I peered cautiously through its window into a dim room. The man I’d followed sat drinking amidst others who looked to be crude, unemployed laborers.

  So occupied was I that I didn’t notice two men enter the street until they neared me. They were rough young scoundrels, their smiles malicious. They advanced on me, and fear caught my breath.

  “What in there was you so interested in?” the first man said, pointing towards the Barrel and Shot. I shook my head in mute terror.

  “Might be she was lookin’ for a man,” the other taunted. Nudging elbows, they exchanged sly glances and snickers replete with insinuation, then grabbed my arms. Panic assailed me. I struggled to free myself and pleaded for them to let me go. The men laughed, jeered, and propelled me along the road.

  I screamed for help and a constable strode towards us. Some blows from his stick sent my attackers fleeing. He inquired after my well-being, and I replied that I was unharmed and thanked him. The constable escorted me to my carriage, chastising me that this was no place for a lady. I took the opportunity to describe the man in the public house, Henry Lock’s tormentor, and asked, “Could you tell me who he is?” T
he constable said, “No, but he’s someone you’d best not associate with, I’m sure.”

  Yet I felt sure that the man in the public house is a link to the person responsible for Isabel White’s murder and Joseph Lock’s suicide, as well as the attacks on you, dear Charlotte. I regret that I was unable to discover his identity, and I hope for a chance to rectify my failure.

  Anne

  After Mr. Slade and I had read this letter, I exclaimed, “If the constable hadn’t been near, Anne might have been hurt by those scoundrels! I should have anticipated that she would get herself in trouble. She must leave Birmingham at once!”

  That Mr. Slade didn’t remind me how he’d warned us of the danger was a credit to his tact. “Indeed, Anne should leave. She has learned more than she realizes. We have her description of Henry Lock’s mysterious tormentor, as well as the name of the public house.” Mr. Slade narrowed his eyes in contemplation. “The Barrel and Shot is a notorious meeting place of Chartist agitators. I begin to see how the man fits into the scheme of Isabel’s master.”

  “I shall write immediately to Anne and tell her to return home,” I said, rising from my chair.

  Mr. Slade rose too. “Better yet, we’ll fetch her. A trip to Birmingham to find the man Anne saw promises us more good than staying in London in case the prime minister should contact us.”

  Kate ordered the carriage, while I hurried to pack. Mr. Slade and I boarded the train to Birmingham that very morning.

  22

  WE ALL EXPERIENCE EMOTIONS THAT WE WOULD RATHER DIE than confess, and sensations we experience with shame and guilt. To relish what is deplorable seems a sin; that evil can inspire such pleasure shows how wayward is the human flesh. The spectacle of human violence should repel me; yet under some circumstances, I instead feel the same exhilarating passion as when I watch storms rage or the ocean’s waves crash. This I learned, to my disgrace, on my trip with Mr. Slade to Birmingham.

  When we arrived there, he deposited Anne and me in a lodging house owned by a respectable married couple he knew—the man was a retired East India Company sergeant with whom Mr. Slade had served. Anne and I were given a comfortable room upstairs, where we rejoiced to be together again and talked over our experiences. Our hosts had two sons who worked as police constables. That night, they and Mr. Slade went out to seek the man who had extorted guns from Henry Lock. Anne retired to bed, but I sat up, too restless for sleep. I mused upon how my relations with Mr. Slade had evolved. Although my feelings towards him had gained power, I felt easier with him than any other man I’d ever met. It seemed we had reached some unspoken accord, the paths of our lives had converged, and we traveled side by side towards some unknown destiny. But who was John Slade? I could now count many hours we had spent together; yet all I knew beyond doubt was that he was a man inclined to disappear and leave me waiting.

  At dawn, Mr. Slade returned. I hastened to meet him. “What has happened?” I said.

  “We arrested three men at the Barrel and Shot,” said Mr. Slade. His hair and clothes were disheveled. “One of them may be familiar to you. Another fits Miss Anne’s description of the man she followed there. I must ask you both to come to the prison and identify the men.”

  Mr. Slade escorted us in a hackney cab to the Birmingham prison, a forbidding, brick-built dungeon in Moor Street. Through its barred windows, inmates shouted rude remarks at passersby. Sharp spikes topped the surrounding wall. Outside, constables unloaded shackled men from a horse-drawn van. A warden unlocked the massive, ironclad gate for us. In the lodge, he sent Anne and me into a cubbyhole where a hatchet-faced woman groped over our bodies and under our clothes, seeking hidden weapons or other contraband. While Mr. Slade and the warden escorted us through a maze of gloomy passages lit by guttering gas lamps, I experienced increasing trepidation.

  Through rusty window gratings I spied male prisoners marching around the yard. A stench of urine, excrement, and misery grew worse as we proceeded deeper into the prison. The walls and floor of the passage were slick with fetid moisture. Yells, groans, and raucous babble echoed from the prison galleries. Guards dressed in blue uniforms patrolled the corridors, the keys on their belts jangling. Chained prisoners leered at Anne and me as they were marched by. Mr. Slade halted us outside a door that had a small glass pane set at eye level.

  “Look inside,” Mr. Slade told Anne. “Do you recognize the man you described in your letter?”

  Anne peered through the glass; I looked over her shoulder into a room with a scarred plank floor, whitewashed walls, and exposed gas pipes. The two constables stood guard over three men seated on benches at a table. One man had a craggy, beak-nosed face. His right eye was blackened, his clothing stained with blood. Mr. Slade must have fought a strenuous battle to capture the prisoners.

  “That is the man who threatened Henry Lock,” said Anne.

  My attention was caught by another prisoner, seated opposite the one Anne had identified. He wore a black suit, and his head was wrapped in a bandage; he had ginger hair and a cruel, coarse face I would never forget.

  “The bandaged man is one of the pair that attacked us on the train and came to the Charity School,” I exclaimed.

  Mr. Slade flashed a brief, triumphant smile. “I thought I recognized him from your drawing. It seems our hunt was doubly successful. What about the third prisoner?”

  This was a fellow whose thin figure, sleek hair, and pointed features gave him the appearance of a greyhound. His narrow eyes shifted and his foot tapped nervously. His suit boasted scuff marks and torn sleeves. Neither Anne nor I had ever seen him before.

  Mr. Slade thanked us for our help, then said, “The cab will take you to your lodgings while I interrogate the captives.”

  Though Anne readily acquiesced, I said, “I want to watch and hear what those men reveal.”

  Mr. Slade moved between the door and myself, his expression disapproving. “This is not what a lady should witness.”

  “It can’t be worse than the murder I saw,” I retorted.

  He frowned, clearly impatient to begin the business at hand and loath to argue. “If you insist.”

  The warden ushered Anne away. Mr. Slade led me into an adjacent room. A window, covered by an iron grate, gave a view into the room which held the prisoners. Mr. Slade drew a chair up to the window for me. “Look all you wish, but be quiet,” he said, then departed.

  Eagerly I sat. A moment later I saw Mr. Slade enter the other room. The constables stood alert; the prisoners tensed, eyeing Mr. Slade with hostile wariness. I must confess that I felt much sympathy towards the Chartist cause—in spite of the riots perpetrated in its name—for I believed that its demands for a voice in the government were reasonable and its proponents well intentioned. But these men seemed the despicable sort that takes advantage of social unrest as an opportunity to cause trouble

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” my ginger-haired attacker said haughtily, in the voice of a man educated above low-class origins. “Why am I under arrest?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Mr. Slade said.

  “You might as well let me go,” came the reply, “because I’ve nothing to tell you.” The other captives nodded defiantly.

  “Oh, but you do,” Mr. Slade said. His manner was calm, though edged with determination. “First, you’ll tell me your names.”

  “Joe Blow,” my attacker said sardonically.

  “Peter Piper,” the gun thief and blackmailer said in a rough Northern accent.

  “John Jones,” said the greyhound. His voice was London Cockney.

  Mr. Slade and the constables seized the prisoners, twisted their arms behind them, and slammed them against the wall. The men struggled and shouted curses.

  “Your real names, please,” Mr. Slade said.

  A lady should turn away from the sight of violence and close her ears to foul language. I should have experienced disgust at watching Mr. Slade coerce the prisoners, but his action roused some primitive instinct in me. My breaths came f
aster; I thrilled to a stir of dark pleasure and leaned closer to the window.

  The prisoners capitulated. My attacker revealed himself to be Charles Ogden; the blackmailer was named Sid Jakes; and the third man, Artie Crowe.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Slade said, as polite as if this were a social occasion. He and the constables shoved the prisoners towards the benches. “You may sit down now.”

  The men obliged, glaring at Mr. Slade, their hatred like blood in the air. Though dismayed that Mr. Slade would use force to obtain facts, this hitherto unseen dimension of his personality fascinated me. And I had no sympathy towards these criminals.

  “Mr. Ogden, why did you and your friend attack the Misses Brontë on the train near Leeds on the eleventh of July? And on whose orders?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ogden. “You have the wrong man.” His manner was so plausible that even I, his erstwhile victim, almost believed him.

  Mr. Slade turned to Jakes. “Who receives the guns you stole from the Lock Gunworks?”

  “I never stole nothing,” the blackmailer huffed, but I spied guilty fear in his eyes.

  Crowe, the third man, watched this exchange with such caution that I surmised he had something to hide. Mr. Slade flicked a glance at him, then addressed the whole group: “Why were you in the Barrel and Shot?”