Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte tsaocb-2

by Laura Joh Rowland

  But railing at my fate would do me no good; I must endure until rescue came. Walking to the tables where the women sat on benches to eat, I saw a vacant place. I started to set my food on the table, but one of the women said, “That place’s taken.” When I tried other tables, the women said, “You can’t sit there.” They were subjecting me to the sort of treatment that bullies at school inflicted on new girls. Soon I was the only person without a seat. I stood alone in the middle of the room, holding my food, all eyes on me.

  “Sit here.” The woman who’d spoken patted the place next to her on the bench. She had a dumpy figure and the face of a prizefighter who’d lost too many matches. Her nose looked as if it had been broken and healed crookedly. Her eyes were shrewd in a broad face marked by a hint of a mustache.

  I was afraid of her, but I sat. “Thank you,” I said politely.

  The women smirked and repeated my words, mimicking my accent. With my first utterance I’d established myself as a member of a different class, an outsider.

  “My name’s Poll,” said the prizefighter. “What’s yours?”

  “Charlotte,” I said.

  “If you aren’t going to eat your food, Charlotte, I’ll take it,” said a young blonde girl who sat on Poll’s other side. She would have been pretty if not for the permanent sneer that twisted her mouth. Her hand shot across Poll to snatch my bread.

  Poll slapped her and said, “Not now, Maisie.” She seemed to be the leader of this set of women. “What’re you in for?” Poll asked me.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong,” I said. “I really shouldn’t be here.”

  The group hooted with laughter. “Neither have we,” Poll said, “but here we are, and so are you. Now, what’re you in for?”

  “Murder,” I reluctantly admitted.

  “Really?” Maisie said. She and the other women stared at me in respectful awe.

  A scowl turned Poll’s face even more menacing. “You ain’t no murderess. I am.” Her hand thumped her ample breast. “I knifed that son-of-a-bitch slave driver who beat me when I was workin’ in the poorhouse. After I’m tried and convicted, I’ll hang.” She apparently enjoyed special status in the prison because she’d committed the most violent, serious crime, and she didn’t want someone else overtaking her. “You’re lyin’.”

  “Who’d you kill?” Maisie asked me.

  “A Russian actress named Katerina was stabbed to death,” I said, “but I didn’t-”

  “You’re havin’ one on us,” Poll said, her ugly face turning crimson with rage. “You never killed no one.”

  How I wished the police were as convinced of my innocence as she was! “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I’ll teach you to play jokes on me!” Poll hauled back her fist. I lurched sideways, dodged the blow, and toppled off the bench. Poll lunged after me and bumped another inmate, a woman with wild red hair and a stevedore’s build, who happened to walk past at that moment.

  “Hey! Watch what yer doin’!” The other woman shoved Poll.

  They began to fight. Suddenly, all the pent-up energy in the prison was let loose. I watched with amazement as women jumped up from the tables. They egged on Poll and her opponent. Fights broke out among them. They slapped and kicked and clawed and screamed; they hurled bowls. Gruel splattered me as I crawled, frantically seeking safety. Male warders plunged into the chaos, yanking combatants apart. Soon they had restored order. As they dragged Poll away, she pointed at me and yelled, “She started it!”

  A warder grabbed me. “It wasn’t my fault,” I protested.

  “It’s the dark cells for you both,” he said.

  “Not the dark cells!” Poll cried, her tough bravado turning to fright. She struggled as the men marched us down a corridor. “Please! No!”

  I went without resisting. I couldn’t imagine what place could be worse than the one I had just left. My escort opened a door and pushed me in. I saw a tiny, windowless cell, a wooden bench, a tin chamber pot. Then the door slammed, shutting me in complete darkness and silence. The room was soundproofed; not a noise could I hear from outside. I groped over to the bench and sat. For a time this punishment seemed mild. I was thankful to be away from the women who’d mocked and abused me, glad to be alone with my thoughts. By now the priest should have arrived in Gloucester Terrace with the news of my arrest. George Smith would obtain me a solicitor, who would persuade the court to drop the charge against me. Soon George would come to take me home. All I needed to do was wait patiently.

  But as time went on, I noticed the discomforts of my cell. It was dank, too warm, and smelled of stale urine. I had to use the chamber pot, which added to the unsavory atmosphere. The bench was hard, and the eerie silence gave me a frightening sense that the world outside had ceased to exist. While the hours passed-I knew not how many-my hopes of rescue ebbed. I felt as if the darkness were preying on me, dissolving my body. I touched my arms, legs, and head, trying to make sure that they were still there. Because I could not see myself, I felt like a wraith. I began to think I would die.

  Ridden by fear, I closed my eyes in an attempt to shut out the darkness. But the darkness behind my eyelids was the same as in this black tomb. I tried to envision the moors that surround Haworth, their grasses waving in the fresh wind, their purple heather blooming, the wide blue sky. But instead I saw a large, stately chamber, its walls colored a soft, pinkish fawn hue. On a crimson carpet stood a bed piled high with mattresses beneath a snowy white counterpane, supported on massive mahogany pillars, hung with curtains of deep red. Blinds covered windows festooned with red damask drapery. It was the Red Room at Gateshead Hall, where Jane Eyre had been sent by Mrs. Reed as punishment for disobedience.

  I opened my eyes, but the vision persisted. It appeared utterly real, perfect in every detail, no matter that Jane Eyre, Gateshead Hall, and Mrs. Reed were pure fantasy that I had created myself. The darkness, the silence, and my fear pushed me across the magic threshold between fact and fiction. I became the ten-year-old Jane Eyre, seated on her ottoman by the chimneypiece in the Red Room. I saw her small, forlorn figure-mine-reflected in the great looking glass. I raged against the injustice that had been done to her, to me.

  What a consternation of soul was mine! How all my brain was in tumult, all my heart in insurrection!

  The same, irrational terror that had afflicted Jane now took hold of me, for I saw a gleam of light glide up the wall to the ceiling and quiver over my head. It was the ghost of Mr. Reed, who had died in the Red Room. Seized by panic, I would have jumped up, rushed to the door as Jane had, and pounded on it until my hands bled, had I not been too scared to move. My body shook so hard that the bench rattled. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. Hiding my face against my knees, I prayed for deliverance.

  Much later, a key rattled in the lock. I sat up and wept with relief as the door opened and blessed light fell over me. A warder stood at the threshold. “Come out,” he said. “You’ve got a visitor.”

  14

  The warder led me out of the building. I was blinded by sunlight and assailed by noise in the yard where the prisoners took their daily exercise. The women strolled and chattered together. Although it had seemed that I’d spent an eternity in the dark cell, the sun was still high in the sky; the time was not long past noon. The warder led me to a long, narrow cage that spanned the yard. A man stood waiting inside. The cage was the place where people came to visit the inmates; the bars protected them and kept the prisoners from escaping. George Smith had finally come! I ran to him, then stopped short.

  The man wasn’t my publisher. He was Lord Eastbourne.

  His air of affluence and elegant suit bespoke the sane, comfortable, normal world outside the prison. His blunt, strong face looked even ruddier in the sunlight than it had at the Foreign Office. He seemed as at ease within the cage as he had in his own chamber.

  “Good day, Miss Bronte,” he said.

  I was so surprised that I forgot my manners. “What are you
doing here?”

  “I just heard you’d been arrested.” Lord Eastbourne’s shrewd brown eyes regarded me with concern and sympathy. “I came to help you.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” I said, tearful with gratitude.

  Lord Eastbourne nodded, then said, “You must tell me everything that happened.”

  I told him how I’d gone to see Katerina and found her tied up, wounded, and dying. “I didn’t kill her!” I finished, desperate for him to believe me.

  “Of course you didn’t,” he said, so adamant that I wept with relief. “But unfortunately the police think otherwise. I’ve spoken to them. They doubt that you just happened to arrive on the scene at the same moment that someone else was torturing Katerina.”

  “But it’s the truth!”

  “Perhaps the police would be more likely to believe your story if you could explain why you were there.” He clearly thought that a lady of my class, alone at that hour of the night in that neighborhood, must have looked extremely suspicious.

  I knew he wouldn’t like the reason, and I had an instinct to keep my business to myself because I didn’t know whether to trust Lord Eastbourne; but if I held anything back from him, he might realize it and change his mind about helping me. “Katerina was with John Slade at the Royal Pavilion Theater the night before last. I saw them together. I went to her house to ask her where Mr. Slade is.”

  Lord Eastbourne frowned. “I told you yesterday that John Slade is dead.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t stop trying to find him. Katerina was my last hope.” Now my hunt for Slade had reached a dead end, and my liberty and life were at stake. I felt a spark of anger toward Slade. Although I still loved him, I realized that if not for him, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  Lord Eastbourne didn’t move except to stroke his chin; but he seemed to withdraw from me. He contemplated the other visitors who’d entered the cage, and the prisoners who flocked to see their families and friends. Hands were pressed together and kisses were exchanged through the fence. I feared that my obstinacy had angered Lord Eastbourne and he’d turned against me. The warm day seemed suddenly chilly.

  “Did you tell the police why you went to see Katerina?” Even though Lord Eastbourne met my gaze, the distance between us remained.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That’s unfortunate. Most certainly they think you were in love with Slade, you found out that Katerina was his mistress, and you tortured her and killed her in a jealous rage.”

  “That’s not how it was!” Had I found Slade making love to Katerina, I might have been angry enough to kill him, but I wouldn’t have hurt her. Or would I have lashed out at both of them? I was horrified to realize that I could have. I have always been sedate and disciplined in my physical actions, but I couldn’t deny the emotions that had assailed me while I was inside Katerina’s house. The impulse to violence exists in all of us, and it could very well have overpowered me, with fatal results.

  Lord Eastbourne shook his head regretfully. “Appearances often count more than facts do. In a court of law, a prosecutor would cast you as a woman scorned and out for revenge. The jury might well find you guilty.”

  My legs went weak at the thought of myself on the gibbet and crowds lining up to see Currer Bell hang. I grasped the bars of the cage for support. My future was looking bleaker by the moment.

  Lord Eastbourne lapsed into another thoughtful silence; he watched arguments break out between prisoners and men who’d come to see them. Warders patrolled, keeping order. “Did you tell the police who John Slade was and how you knew him?”

  “No,” I said, offended by the suggestion that I would talk about the events of 1848 after I’d been sworn to secrecy. “I’ve kept my promise.”

  “Good,” Lord Eastbourne said. “If the police question you about Slade, say you never heard of him. Pretend you’ve forgotten you said anything about him. Say you went to see Katerina because you admired her acting.”

  Consternation filled me. “I can’t lie. They’ll know.”

  “You must. Changing your story will serve you better than sticking to the truth.”

  I wondered whether changing my story would serve others better than it would myself. Lord Eastbourne and I had conflicting aims. I wanted to be exonerated; he wanted secret affairs of state kept secret. Even if he owed me a favor in exchange for my service to the government, how could I trust him? Alas, I could not.

  “You could also help yourself by providing evidence that someone other than you killed Katerina,” Lord Eastbourne said. “Have you any?”

  “I heard a man in her house. He was talking to Katerina.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No. He ran down the back stairs and out the door.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Lord Eastbourne said. “The police questioned the neighbors, but no one else seems to have observed a man at Katerina’s house. There are, however, witnesses who saw you going in. You are the obvious culprit.”

  My spirits sank deeper. “But I have Katerina’s own last statement, which says otherwise.”

  Suddenly alert, Lord Eastbourne moved closer to the fence. “Did she say something before she died?”

  This subject was dangerous territory; I knew even before my mind had time to articulate the reasons. I felt as though a field of traps and sinkholes had opened up before me. What should I tell Lord Eastbourne, and what must I not?

  “She said it was a man named Wilhelm Stieber who tortured her and left her to die.” That was what I’d thought I understood Katerina to say, and it would now be my story. I needed to incriminate someone other than myself and didn’t want to point the finger at Slade, in spite of everything.

  “Wilhelm Stieber.” Lord Eastbourne repeated the name as if he’d never heard it before and wanted to commit it to memory.

  But I am adept at detecting faint signs of emotion, even in those well trained at masking them. I learned my skill while I was a charity pupil and later while a governess in the house of wealthy employers. It is the skill of the weak and downtrodden, whose survival depends on the ability to read their masters, the better to avoid punishment. When I’d said “Wilhelm Stieber,” I’d seen a brief but definite flare of recognition in Lord Eastbourne’s eyes.

  “Did Katerina say who he is?” Lord Eastbourne asked.

  He already knew; I could tell. That gave credence to Slade’s story and justified my tendency to believe Slade had been telling the truth. “She said Stieber is a spy for the Tsar of Russia.”

  “Indeed,” Lord Eastbourne said, as if impressed and interested. “Did she also say what her relationship was with Stieber?”

  “She worked for him as an informant.” Although I distrusted Lord Eastbourne more than ever, and I didn’t like to release the information, my hope of freedom hinged on him. I could not evade his questions and risk offending him. “She consorted with Russian immigrants. She learned about plots against the Tsar and reported them to Stieber.”

  Skepticism crossed Lord Eastbourne’s face. “Then why did he torture her?”

  “She said she had crossed him.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, compelled by my instinct to conceal the details and protect Slade. If Lord Eastbourne learned that Katerina had named Slade as a party involved in her death, it might convince him that Slade was alive, even though my sightings of Slade had not. Lord Eastbourne already thought Slade was a traitor; he surely wouldn’t hesitate to deem him a murderer as well. I imagined Lord Eastbourne launching a manhunt for Slade, and myself forced to participate. I didn’t want Slade persecuted for yet another crime-at least not until I discovered whether he was guilty. “Katerina was dying, she was growing incoherent, babbling in Russian.” I decided to test Slade’s story. “But she did say that Stieber was looking for someone. A scientist named Kavanagh. She said he’d invented a device that the Tsar wants.”

  Lord Eastbourne listened without visible emotion, but I
sensed excitement rising in him. “What kind of device?”

  “A new kind of gun. She indicated that the Tsar wants to use it against England.” Here I blended Katerina’s statement with Slade’s. “Stieber thought she knew where to find the scientist. That’s the other reason he tortured Katerina.”

  “Well.” Lord Eastbourne pondered, then said in an offhand manner, “Anything that has to do with Russia is of interest to the Foreign Office. Did Katerina tell you Niall Kavanagh’s whereabouts?”

  My heart beat faster. I hadn’t mentioned Kavanagh’s Christian name. Lord Eastbourne knew it, and he’d let the fact slip.

  “No,” I said. “She died.”

  Kavanagh existed, and so, presumably, did his invention. What Slade had said was true-but perhaps only in part. I didn’t yet know which side Slade was on-England’s or Russia’s-or whether he was guilty of murder. Perhaps he’d mixed truth with lies. Still, I was glad I hadn’t spilled everything to Lord Eastbourne. He’d deceived me by concealing the fact that he knew about Wilhelm Stieber, Niall Kavanagh, and the secret invention. Maybe he’d done so to protect state secrets, but maybe he had other, baser motives. If my experiences during the summer of 1848 had taught me anything, it was that men in positions of authority weren’t always honorable.

  Another thought occurred to me. Slade had told me that the British government had Kavanagh hidden, but Lord Eastbourne had asked where Niall Kavanagh was. Did that mean the government didn’t know? If Stieber didn’t have him, then who did?