The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte tsaocb-1

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Mireille was a Catholic and a fiery, passionate Frenchwoman,” Mr. Slade continued, “while I was a serious Briton and ordained clergyman of the Church of England. She was a rebel, and I the agent bound to destroy her and her comrades. In spite of our differences, we fell in love.”

  Though my spirit recoiled from hearing of his love for another woman, I felt a poignant kinship with Mr. Slade: We both had loved unwisely. I recalled his sister Kate’s allusion to a broken heart and presumed that this affair had not ended well.

  “Mireille and I married,” said Mr. Slade. “We were very poor and lived in a garret, but we were happy together. Soon she was expecting our child. She didn’t know that I wasn’t what I seemed-until one night shortly before the child was due to be born. A man in the society had learned my true identity. He told her I was a British spy. That night she confronted me with her knowledge. She was enraged, hysterical. She accused me of betraying her and her cause. I tried to calm her and apologize for lying to her. I said that since we’d met I had grown sympathetic to the rebels, which I truly had. I swore that I’d never reported on her or her comrades to my superiors, as indeed I had not. I had betrayed my own cause for love of her. But Mireille refused to believe me. She called me a filthy scoundrel, then ran out of the house.”

  Mr. Slade stood motionless, his hands steady on the railing, his manner stoic. “I let Mireille go because I was too proud to follow. I thought she would soon return and we would make peace. But the next night, the police raided the professor’s house during a meeting of the secret society. They arrested all the members. Mireille was among them. The police took everyone to prison. The professor was executed for treason. And Mireille-”

  The muscles of Mr. Slade’s throat contracted. “She gave birth to our son in prison that night. He was stillborn. She died some hours afterward, hating me.” Mr. Slade paused and, with a visible struggle, regained his composure. “Never have I spoken of this to anyone.”

  What shock, horror, and compassion I felt! “I am so sorry,” I murmured, inadequate to comfort him, yet glad he’d confided in me.

  His gaze was fixed on some inner horizon. “Seven years have passed since Mireille’s death. Seven years during which I threw myself into my work because I had nothing else, though I’d come to doubt the morality of what I did. Mireille taught me to see the rebels as people oppressed by their rulers, the allies of my superiors. I closed my mind to those thoughts, and closed myself to anybody who might gain my affection and cause me more pain. But now I see the sun rising after a night I expected to last forever. I begin to think that God is benevolent as well as cruel; He compensates for what he takes away.”

  Bemusement inflected Mr. Slade’s quiet voice. He glanced at me, but I instinctively averted my eyes so that I missed the look in his. He spoke in words almost inaudible: “I begin to find happiness and meaning in life again.”

  My hands tightened on the rail. I wanted to believe that our companionship was the cause of his renaissance; yet I knew that his beautiful, beloved wife was my rival, even though she was dead. Now I faced a dismal fact: I was as much in love with Mr. Slade as I had been with M. Heger, in spite of there being as little prospect for requital. Perhaps the search for Isabel White’s master was what had diverted Mr. Slade from his grief; perhaps he endured my company only because he wanted me to draw the criminal out of hiding.

  As with my previous journeys, what happened in Brussels was something I could never have anticipated.

  We disembarked at Ostend, where we caught a train for Brussels. As we traveled across the flat, bare Belgian countryside, I gazed out the window. The sky was a leaden, uniform grey; the air was warm, stagnant, and humid. Pollarded willow trees edged fields tilled in a patchwork of green hues; torpid canals lined the roadsides. Painted cottages added specks of color to the serene landscape which gave no hint of the many wars fought here. First conquered by Julius Caesar, Belgium was later ruled by the Franks, by the Dukes of Burgundy, and then the Hapsburgs; these were followed by the Holy Roman Emperors of Austria and Spain, by France under Napoleon, and by Holland under the Prince of Orange. Belgium finally won independence in 1831, and it kept peace during the revolutions this year. Here I, too, had won a battle-to tear myself away from M. Heger before my love for him destroyed me.

  Upon reaching Brussels, I rode with Mr. Slade in a carriage through the avenues. Medieval houses still sheltered in cobbled lanes near boulevards lined with stately mansions. Colorful open-air cafes and markets still bustled; the air still smelled of the foul River Senne. Burghers clad in dark coats and hats abounded, as did peasants in rustic garb. Voices babbled in French and Flemish. I couldn’t help searching the crowds for M. Heger. We entered the Grand Place, the main square in the lower city. The bell in the tower of the Gothic town hall tolled seven o’clock. Gas lamps illuminated the scrolled gables, fanciful statuary, and elaborate gold ornamentation that graced the merchant guild houses. In the east, the towers of the Church of St. Michel and Ste. Gudule rose majestically on the hillside. I gazed beyond it, towards the aristocratic upper city, where the Pensionnat Heger stood.

  Mr. Slade secured us lodgings in the Rue du Marche aux Herbes, at the Hotel Central. Such palatial elegance! Such glittering mirrors and chandeliers! Such a smart clientele! My spacious room was furnished with brocade chairs, fluted lamps, and luxurious Flemish carpets and tapestries. I spent my first evening there, and much of the following day, while Mr. Slade went out to recruit his friends among the Brussels police on a hunt for the exiled French radical LeDuc.

  He returned the next day at dusk. We sat together in the hotel’s candlelit dining room, where ornate silver and fine crystal sparkled on tables laid with white linen. Suave waiters served us wine, mussels in garlic and cream, and rabbit stew. The rich food overwhelmed my palate. I felt drab among the fashionable diners. Mr. Slade looked handsome in his evening dress, but weary and discouraged.

  “We found LeDuc,” he said. “ An odd, repulsive fellow he is-not above four feet high, with a bald head, pale, blazing eyes, and an arrogant manner. He lives in a dirty attic room, and he was conveniently at home.”

  “What happened?” I asked, wondering why he didn’t act happier to have located our quarry.

  “At first he denied any connection with the Birmingham Chartists, but after the police roughed him up a bit, he changed his mind. He claims to take orders from a man who is immensely wealthy and extremely secretive. This man told LeDuc to instruct the Birmingham Chartists to take guns from Joseph Lock and murder Isabel White. He paid well for these services, and his money also went towards financing the recent insurrection in France. However, LeDuc doesn’t know the man’s name. They are in frequent contact, and they meet in person, yet LeDuc has never set eyes on him.”

  “How can that be?” I said in puzzlement.

  “Whenever the man wants LeDuc, he sends a carriage. The driver blindfolds LeDuc and drives him to a house. When he arrives, he and his master talk together. His blindfold stays on the entire time, so he doesn’t know where the house is or what it looks like. Nor can he describe his host. Afterward, the carriage takes him home. LeDuc stuck to his story even when the police threatened him with prison.” Mr. Slade drank his wine, as if to swallow his exasperation. “I’m forced to believe Leduc is telling the truth, and the criminal we seek isn’t him, but his nameless master.”

  We had come all the way to Brussels to discover that we had misidentified our quarry and the chase was at a dead end. “LeDuc must have noticed something about the man that might identify him, or something about the house that will help us locate it,” I said.

  “He furnished two observations,” said Slade. “The house has a peculiar, sweet smell. And the man speaks French with an odd foreign accent that LeDuc didn’t recognize.”

  These seemed meager clues to me. As Slade and I sat in mutual discouragement, a waiter approached me. “ Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle, mais vous avez un visiteur.”

  “A visitor? For me?”
I said, so startled that I forgot my French and spoke in English.

  The waiter said, “ C’est un gentilhomme, qui vous attende au jardin,” then departed.

  Mr. Slade regarded me with alarm. “What gentleman knows you’re in Brussels?”

  “I cannot imagine,” I said.

  “He must have traced you here.” Excitement animated Mr. Slade, and I knew he referred to the criminal we sought. “He has come to you, or sent one of his henchmen, as we hoped he would.”

  We hurried to the glass doors and peered out at the garden, but trees concealed my visitor. “I cannot go out there,” I said, shrinking back in terror.

  “You must. This may be our only hope of capturing the criminal.” Mr. Slade took hold of my shoulders, gazed intently into my eyes, and spoke with adamant insistence: “You’ve nothing to fear. You won’t be alone. I’ll be watching every moment.”

  His determination overcame my resistance; I nodded. “Wait a few minutes while I steal into the garden from the back,” he said, then rushed from the room.

  I stood quaking with fright, unwilling to leave the safety of the hotel. But I could not throw away what might be our mission’s only hope of success. Nor could I waste the work for which my sisters had risked their safety. I opened the door and stepped outside.

  The setting sun gilded the garden. The day’s lingering heat engulfed me as I crept down the flagstone path. I heard crickets chirping, birds singing, carriages in the streets, and the pounding of my own heart. Rosebushes bordered the path, and each ragged breath I drew filled my lungs with the sweetness of the blossoms. Ahead stood a gazebo. I perceived a man standing inside at the same instant I smelled pungent smoke from the cigar he held. Memories too potent to articulate halted my progress. I stared in astonishment as the man stepped out of the gazebo and walked towards me.

  “So, Miss Charlotte,” he said in the brusque, heavily accented English that I’d not heard for almost five years, other than in my dreams. “We meet again.”

  He doffed his hat to me. His black hair and beard were streaked with grey, and time had etched new wrinkles around the eyes behind his spectacles; but otherwise his stern visage was the same as that which lived in my memory.

  It was M. Heger.

  25

  I stood transfixed while my lips formed soundless words. I felt faint and dizzy; a violent trembling seized me.

  “Is this how you greet your old teacher?” M. Heger snapped. His face took on the same fierce scowl as when he’d discovered mistakes in my essays long ago. “Shameful! Deplorable!”

  Composure failed me: I burst into hysterical weeping. M. Heger’s expression softened, the way it always had after his savage criticism wounded me. He tenderly dried my tears with his handkerchief.

  “Ah, petite cherie, do not cry,” he said. “The shock, it was too much for you. I should not have arrived without warning. My sincerest apologies.”

  While M. Heger patted my shoulder and murmured endearments, I cried for anguish remembered; I cried for joy. And when it ended, I was calm as the sea after a storm.

  “How did you know to find me here?” I asked. “Why have you come?”

  “It is a strange story,” he said with a characteristic shrug. “This morning I received a letter from someone who did not sign his name. This letter said that my old pupil Charlotte Bronte was at the Hotel Central, and would I kindly deliver to her the enclosed message.”

  M. Heger gave me a small white envelope. So dazed I was that I didn’t think to wonder at the meaning of this happenstance. I simply put the envelope in my pocket.

  “I must admit that this errand for a mysterious stranger was just a-how do you say it?-a pretext for coming,” M. Heger said. “I wished to see Miss Charlotte, to know how the years have treated her.”

  His penetrating gaze examined my face. I worried that I must seem aged and ugly to him. Concern, sympathy, and sadness played across his Gallic features. “Life has brought you suffering, oui?” he said. Then he smiled. “But the impassioned spirit still burns bright within you.”

  His perception had always rendered me transparent. Now I felt a tinge of anger that he should treat me with such familiarity. “If you wanted to know of me, then why did you break off all communication between us? Why did you not answer my letters?”

  Sorrow and guilt clouded M. Heger’s face. “How I treated you has long disturbed my conscience. I will explain, if you will grant me the honor of listening. Shall we walk together?”

  M. Heger drew my arm through his, and we strolled the paths. It was as if some magic spell had transported us back in time to the garden behind the Pensionnat. The smoke from his cigar and the scent of the roses completed the illusion.

  “Let us imagine that there was once a man who lived in this very city,” said M. Heger. “He was respectably married to a woman of impeccable character. He was a teacher, she the directrice of a school for young ladies. A fitting match, non?”

  I nodded as I understood that M. Heger was telling his own story.

  “Perhaps their marriage had been arranged for convenience,” M. Heger went on, in the same dispassionate voice. “Perhaps their souls spoke different languages. But they had four beautiful children, the esteem of their acquaintances, a modest fortune, and a comfortable place in the world. The man had his profession. He thought himself happy. Then one day the man met a new pupil at his wife’s school,” M. Heger said as we circled the gazebo. “This pupil was une demoiselle anglaise. She was little, poor, and plain, but such a rare, wonderful intellect she had!”

  Awe inflected M. Heger’s tone, and I grew hot with embarrassment at my entry into the story.

  “Such a thrill it was for the man to instruct la demoiselle anglaise,” said M. Heger. “She responded to his teaching as no other pupil ever had. She read, she wrote, she studied with a passion that matched his own. At first he thought his interest in her to be purely professional. When he noticed her growing attachment to him, he told himself it would benefit her education.” Self-mockery tinged M. Heger’s smile. “But alas, things are never so simple between male and female, are they?”

  My heart began to pound in anticipation.

  “The man believed he was only flattered by his pupil’s affection. He believed that the new meaning he had found in life was due to his success in teaching her. When they walked and talked together in the evenings, he convinced himself that he regarded her only as his star pupil. He did not notice that all his attention was for her, until his wife confronted him. ‘You have fallen in love with la demoiselle anglaise,’ she said.” Exhaling deeply, M. Heger shook his head. “And the man realized it to be true.”

  M. Heger was confessing that he had loved me! This was shock upon shock, and my legs buckled. M. Heger hastened me into the gazebo and seated us on a bench.

  “Why didn’t you tell me then?” I cried. “Why did you let me think you cared nothing about me and withdraw your friendship from me?”

  “Ah, petite cherie, what else could I have done?” M. Heger’s voice was rueful. “To have revealed my feelings for you would have encouraged yours for me, non? Together we must surely have succumbed to temptation. I had no choice but to cast you off. And although I treasured every letter from Miss Charlotte, I could not reply, lest our correspondence provoke me to rush across the sea towards her.”

  His revelation was balm to my hurt pride. A peaceful quiet enveloped us as the sunlight faded to a coppery glow and cool shadows gathered in the garden. “Time quenches desire and transforms love into affection,” M. Heger said, voicing my own thoughts. “Can we put the ills of the past behind us and remember its good? Can you forgive me?”

  “Gladly,” I said with all my heart.

  A look of worry persisted on M. Heger’s face. He said, “Yet I wish I had given you more than pain.”

  I felt like a fairy tale princess awakened by the shattering of a spell. I thought of the stories I’d penned before we met-those pointless, rambling, overwrought tales that ar
e fit only for scrap paper. I recalled the days of writing Jane Eyre and hearing M. Heger’s voice inside my head: Clumsy expression! Unnecessary verbiage! You must sacrifice, without pity, everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude, and effect! The suffering I endured as a result of my love for him now seemed worth the book which was as much a product of his teaching as of my own creation.

  “You gave me something more valuable than you ever thought,” I said.

  I told M. Heger about my literary success, and he was deeply gratified. When I told him of my business in Belgium, he expressed surprise, wished me good fortune, and clasped my hands. He espied that I wore no wedding ring.

  “You are not married,” he said regretfully. Then a mischievous twinkle lit his eyes. “But perhaps your state may change.” He cocked his head towards the hotel. “Who is that gentleman over there who has been watching us?”

  To my surprise, I saw Mr. Slade standing not far away. I had all but forgotten our plan for him to protect me and trap the criminal. He had apparently deduced that I was in no danger. I was mortified that Mr. Slade had witnessed my display of emotion, yet amused by his obvious perplexity.

  “He regards you with a possessive interest.” M. Heger asked slyly, “Is he your suitor?”

  “No,” I said, abashed.

  M. Heger smiled in a manner that said he, with his worldly Gallic wisdom, knew better than I. “I wish happiness to you both,” he said.

  We bade each other an affectionate farewell. M. Heger kissed my hand; then I stood in the gazebo and watched him walk briskly away. He paused to give Mr. Slade a formal bow. Then M. Heger was gone.

  Mr. Slade hurried to me. “Who the devil was that?”

  I felt as though I had journeyed into another sphere and abruptly returned, with an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders. “An old friend. His name is Constantin Heger.”

  “How did he find you here?”

  I explained. Now that my shock at seeing M. Heger had abated, the circumstances that brought about our reunion seemed more and more implausible.