The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë (32 page)

Lord Unwin sneered. “You’ll obey my orders, or face punishment for insubordination.”

Belatedly, my mind absorbed what he proposed regarding me. Not only must my family tolerate strangers in our home; I would lose Mr. Slade and our friendship. Such heartache filled me that I blurted, “I won’t have anyone but Mr. Slade!”

The men all turned to stare at me, surprised by my outburst. “My dear Miss Brontë, I’m afraid you have no say in the matter,” Lord Unwin said in a tone of polite disdain.

“If your agents come near my house, I won’t let them in.” I knew I sounded rude, and even childish; but I cared for nothing except to bind Mr. Slade to me. “If I receive a communication from the villain, I’ll not tell them.”

Before Lord Unwin could reply, one of his associates said to him, “A lack of cooperation from Miss Brontë could jeopardize our mission. Under these circumstances, I advise against replacing Mr. Slade.”

Lord Unwin pondered, frowning as he looked from me to Mr. Slade. Then he nodded grudgingly. “Very well.”

My heart rejoiced. Mr. Slade gave me a look that was as quizzical as grateful. Did he guess why I had so vehemently taken his side? I averted my gaze from him.

“Lest you think I’ve conceded because of your protests or Miss Brontë’s threats, I must disabuse you of the notion,” Lord Unwin said to Mr. Slade. “The search for this criminal has gained a level of urgency such that we cannot afford the slightest disadvantage. Last night there was a fire at the Paradise Club.”

I recognized the name of the den of iniquity where girls from the Charity School were sent to work and where Isabel White had brought the prime minister under the villain’s influence.

“The blaze was extinguished before it did much damage. You’ve had agents watching the club since you discovered its connection with our criminal, and they summoned help,” Lord Unwin continued, sounding reluctant to give Mr. Slade credit for anything. “Most of the patrons escaped without injury, but three women, and the men with them, were found strangled upstairs in private rooms.”

Horror chilled me. Mr. Slade’s gaze darkened with consternation. “The criminal has eliminated more people who had connections to him,” Mr. Slade deduced. “Could the fire have been set to cover up the murders?”

“It seems likely. There was a strong smell of kerosene near the rooms where the victims died.” Lord Unwin added, “Two of them were Jane Fell and Abigail Weston, former pupils at the Reverend Grimshaw’s Charity School.”

They had died because we had not yet caught the killer. Guilt lowered upon me.

“The men came from noble families, who have besieged the government with demands that the killer be brought to justice,” Lord Unwin said. “We now need Miss Brontë’s cooperation more than ever.” He shot me an ireful glance. “Miss Brontë shall place her advertisement tomorrow morning. Immediately thereafter, you and she shall return to Haworth to wait for a response.” Lord Unwin pushed back his chair; his subordinates followed suit. The gaze he bent on Mr. Slade turned colder. “This is your one chance to make amends for your Belgian escapade. Disappoint me again, and you’ll be out of Her Majesty’s service despite your illustrious career.”

It suddenly occurred to me that Emily had saved the day for Mr. Slade and me. Had she not gone to the Charity School and linked the villain to the Club Paradise, Lord Unwin would never have connected the murders to the villain, and nothing would have swayed him in our favor. We owed Emily a great debt indeed. How strange that she who had been least interested in our business should have the responsibility for its continuation.

As we all rose, Lord Unwin bowed with mocking courtesy to me. “I hope for your sake that henceforth Mr. Slade will do better at protecting you than he did in Brussels.”

Mr. Slade and I passed four days in Haworth—days that were uneventful yet strained with the tense pitch of waiting. On the last morn, Mr. Slade accompanied me on my visits throughout the parish, which I had shamefully neglected of late. He again sported the clerical garb and the guise of my cousin John from Ireland. He walked by my side, carrying the basket of food for the needy, across moors in their full summer glory. Flowers colored the cottage gardens and the hedgerows; thrushes swooped over meadows where fat sheep grazed. The sky was such a serene blue that I could almost forget the dangers that menaced my world.

“This is the existence that would have been mine had I not chosen a different path after I took my orders,” Mr. Slade said.

Once more he appeared such a convincing clergyman that I could well imagine him as the vicar of some country parish. “Have you ever regretted your choice?”

“I didn’t when I was younger. To tread an unvarying routine, to be confined within narrow environs, seemed repellent to me then.” Mr. Slade gazed across the hills that receded in hazy green swells. “Yet now, after all I’ve seen and done, I can understand the value of a life spent ministering to souls rather than adventuring in foreign lands. I find pleasure, instead of boredom, in England’s peaceful countryside.”

As we descended a slope towards town, I reflected that while Slade had come to appreciate the pleasures of a village parish, I had developed a taste for intrigue. The divide between us had narrowed. But I again recalled what Mr. Slade had said about
Jane Eyre
, and his implication that a man like him could never love a woman like me. The happiness he’d expressed on the ship must have resulted not from our comradeship but from the natural end to his mourning for his dead wife. I couldn’t know whether my regard for him was any less unrequited than before our trip to Belgium. I did know that this time we had together was but a transient interlude.

“What will happen when the villain contacts me?” I asked.

“He’ll instruct you as to where to meet him. My superiors will use the information to find and capture him.”

After the villain was caught, the Foreign Office would have no further need of me, and Mr. Slade would have no reason to dally in my vicinity. I couldn’t wish to prolong our mission, or for England to remain in danger, in order that the dreaded separation would be postponed; yet the thought of ending our association opened a chasm of emptiness and anguish before me.

Stepping back from the edge of the chasm, I said, “What if the information is insufficient to find the villain? Must I do his bidding and go to him?”

“Indeed not,” Mr. Slade said with firm resolve. “One way or another, we’ll get him without endangering you.”

Yet his reassurance didn’t negate the possibility I feared. “Suppose I did go. What would happen?”

Mr. Slade gave me a look that scorned what he thought was unnecessary speculation, but he humored me: “You wouldn’t go alone. I, and other agents, would follow you.”

“And after I arrive at my destination?”

“We would remain within your reach and protect you from the villain until his capture.”

“What should I do until then?” I said. “How should I behave that he would fail to see me as a decoy to draw him out of hiding?”

“Just be Miss Charlotte Brontë, the humble governess,” Mr. Slade said. “That’s what he thinks you are. He’ll never know otherwise.”

I hated to think that was how Mr. Slade viewed me too. “What might he want me to do for him?”

“Whatever it is, you won’t have to do it, because we’ll have him in chains first,” Mr. Slade said as we traversed the village along Main Street. Sunshine brightened the grey stone houses. “But this is idle talk. Don’t worry yourself. You won’t be going near that criminal. Besides, he hasn’t even summoned you yet.”

Walking the road uphill towards the parsonage, we met the postman. He handed me a letter that struck ice down my spine. It was enclosed in a plain envelope addressed to me in the same elegant script as the letter that the villain had sent me via M. Heger in Brussels. I opened it with trembling hands. Inside I found banknotes, a railway timetable, and a letter that read:

W
HEN WRITING A FICTITIOUS STORY, ONE SHOULD ALWAYS choose the most exciting possible course for the story to follow. Characters in a book should experience action rather than inertia, and thrills rather than contentment. How fitting, therefore, that what I would write in fiction is what transpired in actuality. But life, unlike fiction, guarantees no happy ending. The dangers I faced were not mere words that could be expunged by the scribble of a pen. The villain who had summoned me was not harmless ink on paper but flesh and blood.

These notions haunted me as I journeyed by rail towards Penzance. That town is located in Cornwall, the county at England’s southwest extremity. Dread of an evil, ruthless man sank deeper into my bones while I traveled past fishing villages that clung to cliffs above the glittering blue sea. In meadows green and gold beneath the southern sun rose dark stone pillars, monuments built by ancient folk for mysterious rituals. The ruins of Roman fortifications dotted the countryside. This was the land where King Arthur was born at Tintagel. Would that I were an ordinary traveler, come to explore the scenes of legend!

A casual observer might suppose I journeyed by myself; but Mr. Slade had kept his promise that I should not go unaccompanied. He rode, disguised, somewhere on the train. At all times seated near me was a Foreign Office agent, duty bound to protect me. Other agents had been dispatched to Penzance to arrange for the surveillance and capture of our quarry. Yet I felt as alone as if I had entered another world. How I wish I had heeded the objections raised by Papa, Emily, Anne, and Slade when they learned I’d been summoned!

“Dear Charlotte, you mustn’t go,” Anne had said.

“How else will we locate the villain?” I countered.

“We now know he is in Cornwall,” said Papa. “Let Mr. Slade and his colleagues seek him out.”

“He could be anywhere in an area thousands of acres in breadth,” I said. “Or perhaps he’s not there at all. Perhaps the instructions I receive in Penzance will send me on to some other, unknown place where he awaits me.”

“Mr. Slade can intercept the instructions,” Emily said.

“But what if the villain sends a henchman to deliver the instructions only to me?” I said.

“We can watch the station for anyone who looks to be waiting for you,” Mr. Slade said. “When he leaves, we can follow him to his master.”

“That would do very well, if you pick the right person,” I said. “Bear in mind that he may not know where his master is, and may only have orders to deliver me to some place to be fetched later by someone else.”

“He can direct us to the next link in the chain leading to the villain,” Mr. Slade said.

“If I don’t appear,” I said, “the villain will know that something has gone awry with his plans. He’ll go deeper into hiding.”

“Even worse, he may deduce that Charlotte betrayed him and seek revenge,” Emily said, reluctantly taking my side.

“We shall all be in more danger than before.” Worry shadowed Anne’s face.

“And no one can recognize him except me,” I said. “I have at least heard his voice.”

Papa nodded, unhappy but persuaded by our logic. Together my family and I convinced Mr. Slade that I should obey the summons. I must confess that I did so for other reasons than those I’d spoken, and not only out of a desire to protect Britain. Although Isabel White had been reduced to a small portion of a larger concern, I still felt a duty to gain justice for her. My sense of obligation extended to Mr. Slade. If the villain remained free, Mr. Slade would bear the blame. Furthermore, going to Cornwall would prolong my association with him the only way I knew how.

Hence, we traveled to London to report our plan to his superiors and procure their aid. We expected opposition from Lord Unwin, but received none. The murders at the Paradise Club had outraged the government’s highest echelons. Pressure to apprehend the culprit had been brought to bear upon Lord Unwin. His own welfare was more important to him than my safety, and his need to win favor among his superiors outweighed the risk that Mr. Slade might fail him again. Therefore, he quickly supplied all the helpers and funds that Mr. Slade requested.