The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Wrap them up,” the Duchess whispered to the guards, “and let us be gone.”

  These guards were also in Kuan’s employ! How many other accomplices might there be in the royal household? I asked the Duchess, “Why don’t you and the guardsmen kidnap the children yourself ? Why not spare me?”

  “We all have roles to play for Mr. Kuan,” she said. “Yours is to take the children. Ours is to stay behind.”

  I now understood that Kuan intended that his minions remain inside the royal household, in the event he should need them again. Such foresight he had! I watched helplessly as the guards drew back the covers from Vicky and Bertie. The children neither stirred nor made a noise.

  “I slipped laudanum into their cocoa,” the Duchess said. “They’ll not waken for quite some time.”

  The sight of the men bundling the two frail, pliable children into blankets pained my heart. I forgave Bertie his mischief. When the men reached for little Alfred, protest rose in me. “Please don’t take him!” I cried. “He’s just a baby.”

  “Be quiet!” The Duchess eyed the door as if fearing someone would burst in upon us.

  Heedless of her gun, I tried to pull Alfred away from the guards. As we tussled, the boy mewled.

  “Leave him,” the Duchess said urgently to the guards. “We can’t take the risk that he’ll make more noise and wake people. The others will have to suffice.”

  I had at least saved one child. The Duchess opened the nursery door. The guardsmen slipped through, one carrying Vicky, the other Bertie. The Duchess pushed me after them. We filed along the dark corridor and descended the stairs. The castle was as silent and deserted as a crypt. The guards who’d once patrolled Balmoral had vanished; the Queen and her retinue slept peacefully in the mistaken belief that the children were safe. Our furtive procession continued outdoors, through the forest that had sheltered Mr. Slade and me last night but now seemed a godforsaken wilderness. Predatory birds shrieked above trees whose branches groaned and creaked. My heart ran a race with fear. I was so weak from it that I could not have walked except for the gun at my back. At last we emerged onto a moonlit road. There we met a carriage. Two men jumped down from the box. One helped the guards stow the sleeping children inside the carriage. The other man approached me.

  “We meet again, Miss Brontë,” he said.

  I recognized his gallant, mocking voice; the moon shone on his blond hair. It was Mr. Hitchman. “Good evening,” I stammered while my fear scaled new heights. The man had never quite trusted me. I recalled his threatening to kill me if I should betray his partner.

  “Please get in the carriage,” Hitchman said.

  While I reluctantly obeyed, I cast an anxious glance towards the Duchess, who knew I had turned in Kuan’s other accomplice and tried to prevent the kidnapping. If she should tell Hitchman . . . But she was gone. She and the guards had slipped away into the forest. They probably hated Kuan as much as they feared him, and they cared not if they sent an enemy into his camp.

  Hitchman proffered me a vial. “If you would be so kind as to drink this laudanum, Miss Brontë? It will relax you and spare me the trouble of worrying about you during our trip.”

  I was reluctant to lull the wits that I needed to plot my escape; nor did I wish to leave the children alone at Hitchman’s mercy. But I feared Hitchman as much as ever. I must give the appearance that I was a willing ally to him and Kuan. I therefore accepted the vial and downed the bitter draught.

  “Excellent,” Hitchman said.

  He closed the carriage door on me. The bolt clanged into place. I heard him jump up on the box beside the driver; I heard the whip crack. The carriage sped down the road in a storm of rattling wheels and hooves. I hugged the sleeping, blanket-swathed Vicky and Bertie, whose innocent lives depended on me. I could not fail them.

  As the carriage sped onward, I fought down my rising hysteria. I told myself that Mr. Slade would soon find me gone from Balmoral and rescue me and the children. My last thought, as I drifted into black oblivion, was a disturbing question: Once Kuan had Vicky and Bertie in his hands, what further use would he have for me?

  39

  DRUGGED AND ASLEEP WHILE I RODE TOWARDS AN UNKNOWN destination, I was unaware of the other events associated with Kuan’s scheme. I cannot describe with precision the scene the next morning when the Queen discovered that her children were gone, for she and I never spoke of it. But in my mind’s eye I see the Queen opening the nursery door and her puzzlement at the sight of the two vacant beds in which she had tucked Vicky and Bertie the previous night. Little Alfred sits up in his crib and calls to her. As she takes him in her arms, she asks where his brother and sister are. She enters my room, sees that it is empty, and rushes to her husband, crying, “Bertie, Vicky, and the governess are gone!”

  The Prince Consort summons their attendants and mounts a search of the castle and grounds, but we are nowhere to be found. The Queen inspects my room, where she discovers my outdoor clothes missing. There is but one terrible conclusion for her to draw.

  I do know what happened next, because Mr. Slade later told me. He and Lord Unwin came riding up to the castle in a carriage intended to take Mr. Slade and me to the train station. Lord Unwin meant to go along and ensure that we departed. The Queen and Prince Consort rushed outside to meet them.

  “Miss Brontë has kidnapped Bertie and Vicky!” the Queen announced in distraught rage.

  “That cannot be!” Mr. Slade said.

  “She and the children are gone,” said the Prince Consort. “What else are we to believe?”

  “This is all your doing,” the Queen fumed at Mr. Slade and Lord Unwin. “Had you not convinced me to go along with your outrageous scheme and bring Miss Brontë here, this would never have occurred!”

  As she burst into hysterical tears and the Prince Consort tried to calm her, Lord Unwin hastened to say, “It was Mr. Slade’s idea.”

  “Miss Brontë is a woman of good moral character,” Mr. Slade said. “She would never harm the children.”

  I know Mr. Slade was sorely vexed by Lord Unwin’s attempt to put all the blame on him, and even more upset on my account. Did he wonder if Kuan had suborned me into carrying out the kidnapping after all?

  “I never trusted Miss Brontë,” said Lord Unwin. “Now she’s proven herself a criminal.”

  “Well, I don’t give a damn which of you is at fault!” the Queen shouted. “I order you to get my children back. And find Miss Brontë, that I may have her hanged for treason!”

  Lord Unwin turned to Mr. Slade. “You’d best hurry up.”

  “You discharged me yesterday,” Mr. Slade reminded him.

  “You’re reinstated,” Lord Unwin said grudgingly.

  As to events that transpired farther afield, I learned them from another source. Into my tale I insert pages from a letter written by Branwell to Francis Grundy, an engineer he had met while working for the Leeds and Manchester Railway, a letter he never sent.

  My dear Francis,

  Since we last met, I have had a most astounding, incredible experience. I hesitate to write of it, for fear that you will not believe me.

  As you know, I have been in quite a bad state. Daily I grow weaker and more wretched. I must drink liquor and laudanum or suffer the worst, blackest despair. When their blessed sedative effects wear off, then come the chills, the trembling, the nauseous stomach, the pounding headache, the intolerable bodily misery. Worst of all, I am plagued by regrets for what I might have been—a great artist, writer, and hero in my own life story. That was my condition on what I believe was 10 September, when I found myself without a drop of either remedy at hand. Nearly insane with desire for relief, I ransacked the room and oh! Good fortune smiled upon me, villain that I was! I found money in Father’s drawer!

  I hastened to the village and bought a vial of laudanum, which I tucked in my pocket; I then stumbled into the Black Bull Inn. A boxing match was in progress. Two country lads were throwing fists at each other. Spectators
roared, laughed, drank their pints, and flung down coins. They welcomed me, and soon the wine was flowing like fire through my veins. I felt like a candle burned down to its end, the wick sputtering in a pool of wax. My head whirled. I remember nothing of the hours that ensued, until I awoke in an upstairs room. A maid from the inn came and told me I’d slept all day and it was time to go home.

  Dizzy and nauseated, I staggered through the village. It was the dead of night; the streets were deserted. Stars shone like evil eyes in the black sky. The wind howled from the moors. Having laboriously scaled the hill, I fell against the door of the parsonage. It was locked. I banged loudly, calling for someone to let me in. It was opened by a big, brutish man I’d never seen before.

  “Who are you?” the stranger said.

  Surprised and disturbed, I said, “I am Branwell Brontë. I live here. What are you doing in my house?”

  He hauled me inside, then slammed and bolted the door. I fell to my knees. Terror kindled in me, for even though my senses were still befuddled by drink, I knew something was seriously wrong.

  “Where are my father and sisters?” I said. “What have you done with them?”

  Two more men materialized in the hall. I blinked, unsure if they were real or my vision had multiplied the image of the first man. He said, “It’s the son. I couldn’t leave him outside to make noise and attract attention. What should we do with him?”

  Another of the men said, “Put him down with the others.”

  The third man opened the cellar door. They forced me towards the stairs. How I shrieked and fought! Since childhood I have always been afraid of the cellar; I cannot shake my notion that it is haunted by goblins. But I was too feeble to resist. I tumbled down the stairs into the black pit. The door slammed and locked. The cold miasma of the grave enclosed me.

  “Let me out!” I shrieked in terror. “I beg of you!”

  I tried to crawl up the stairs, but I was trembling so violently that my efforts failed. Whimpering, I curled up on the floor. I heard whispers and rustling movements.

  “No!” I cried, thinking that the goblins were coming to pull me down into hell. “Go away!”

  “Branwell, is that you?” said a voice near me.

  “Leave me alone!” I pleaded.

  Cold fingers touched my cheek. I screamed and writhed until the being that I’d taken for a goblin said, “It’s Anne.”

  Now I recognized her voice, and the murmuring voices of Emily and my father. Such relief overwhelmed me that I wept. We embraced in the darkness. “What has happened?” I asked her. “Why are those men holding us prisoners?”

  Anne told me a fantastic tale of murders, of Charlotte and a Foreign Office spy and the Queen, and a pursuit of a villainous madman. I did not understand most of it; nor could I believe it. But the fact remained that we were locked in the cellar, at the mercy of strangers.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  Father said, “We must trust in God to deliver us.”

  Anne clasped my hand. “Help will come,” she said.

  I was suddenly overcome by sickness. My stomach convulsed and heaved as if there were a wild beast inside me trying to get out. I vomited time and again, while tremors wracked me. Oh, what pain, what mortal suffering!

  “O, death, take me now!” I begged. “Release me from this misery!”

  Anne stroked my forehead and spoke soothing words. Emily said, “Enough! You’re only making things worse for the rest of us!”

  With such scorn and hatred did she speak! It stabbed me to the heart. I began to sob. But Emily cared not for my feelings. She said, “If you were the man you should be, you wouldn’t have let those men throw you into the cellar. You would have fought them and rescued us. At the very least, you could have run for help.”

  She berated me with accusations that I was weak, wretched, selfish, stupid. I knew she was right. Such woeful shame did I feel! Such a poor excuse for a brother and son was I!

  “You’re no good to anyone including yourself,” Emily said in a tone so cruel that it withered my spirit. “You might as well die.”

  But though I prayed for an end to my sorrows and humiliations, there leapt within me a contradictory desire almost as strong. Emily’s harsh words had awakened some long-dormant part of me that wanted to live. It urged me to rise up and prove her criticism undeserved, to fend off the shadow of death that encroached upon me. I realized that I might have but one more chance to atone for my evils, to show some small degree of the heroism I had craved all my life, before I died. Beneath my sickness and tremors, a force hardened like a steel tendon inside me. It was my will, which I had thought long gone.

  “I’m going to save us all,” I declared.

  But my voice was as weak as my body. Anne and Papa said nothing; Emily uttered a disdainful laugh and said, “Just how shall you do that?”

  40

  A RHYTHMIC CREAKING NOISE PIERCED THE VEIL OF SLEEP THAT enshrouded me. I became aware of the hard surface upon which I lay, a rocking motion, and a sensation of nausea. My head ached; my tongue felt furry inside my parched mouth. Rough, thick fabric covered my body, which was stiff and sore. I heard splashing noises. Above me was the night sky, filled with stars that wheeled, like lanterns on a carousel, around a full moon. A cold, reviving breeze swept my face; I inhaled the scent of the ocean. My memory was a blank. More puzzled than afraid, I sat up, and the world rocked; my stomach slid to and fro inside me. I saw that I was in a boat—a small, open craft. A man sat not far from me, rowing. His oars splashed in the ocean, which spread all around us, its black waves shimmering with reflections from the moon and stars. For one frightful moment I imagined that I had died and that the man was Charon, ferrying me along the River Styx. Then I recognized him. It was Nick, the mute servant of Kuan.

  “Good evening, Miss Brontë,” said Hitchman’s voice.

  I turned and saw him seated behind me in the boat. Eerie lights from the sea played across his face, which wore its familiar, sardonic smile.

  Terror surged within me. “Where are the children?”

  “Right next to you,” Hitchman said.

  Now I became conscious of warm, solid weight pressed against me. Vicky and Bertie lay under the blanket that covered us. Their delicate faces were pale in the moonlight. Vicky’s eyelids fluttered; Bertie whimpered. I felt them stirring.

  “How long have I been asleep?” I said, trying to speak calmly and hide my fear lest it rouse his suspicion.

  “Long enough,” came the reply.

  My heart plunged, for I calculated that I must have slept through an entire day. By now the Queen must have discovered that the children and I were gone, and Mr. Slade must have begun a search, but still no one had rescued us.

  “Where are we?” I said.

  “On the North Sea,” Hitchman said.

  I looked backward as Nick rowed and our boat cut across the water. Lights twinkled on a distant shoreline. My hope that Mr. Slade would come for me waned further.

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “To meet Kuan.”

  Ahead loomed the dark form of a steamship floating at anchor. I deduced it to be the vessel that Kuan had stolen from the opium traders and that had brought him to England. Lanterns burned on its deck. Skeletal masts supported weather-beaten sails on rigging that was like the web of a giant spider. The huge, curved wheel-houses bulged with latent power. The funnel rose tall enough to impale the heavens. Nick brought our boat alongside the ship. A ladder was mounted on its hull.

  “Up you go, Miss Brontë,” Hitchman ordered.

  Still weak and sick from the laudanum, and trembling with fright, I climbed the ladder. The ship’s hull was scarred from long journeys, infested with barnacles, algae, and wormholes. Two Chinese sailors hauled me aboard. Their narrow, hostile eyes stared at me; they wore pistols and daggers at their waists. More Chinamen loitered around the deck. I felt as though I’d stepped onto foreign territory. I despaired, knowing that Mr. Slade woul
d never find me there.

  Hitchman, Nick, and the sailors brought Vicky and Bertie and the dinghy onto the ship. Hitchman said, “Come, Miss Brontë, I’ll show you where you’ll live during our voyage to China.”

  China! I felt a stab of horror. I never imagined events would reach this point. Hitchman and Nick carried the children down a flight of stairs below deck. My responsibility towards Vicky and Bertie outweighed my fears for myself: Whatever happened, I could not allow harm to come to them. I followed them into a narrow passage that smelled of coal smoke, tar, and fish as well as those odors produced by humans living in close, unsanitary quarters. We entered a tiny chamber that had four bunks mounted on the walls, a washstand, and a porthole window.

  “See to the children,” Hitchman said as he and Nick laid them on the two lower bunks. By now they were restless and yawning. “Make sure they behave themselves. Nick will bring you food and water. You’ll find everything else you need in the cupboards under the bunks.”