The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte tsaocb-1 Read online

  Afraid that I would say something regrettable if Mr. Nicholls and I continued together, I halted. “Here’s the post office. I must step inside.” I said firmly, “Goodbye, Mr. Nicholls,” entered the building, and left him standing alone in the rain.

  Inside the post office, drawers and compartments lined the walls. Behind the counter sat the postmistress, Nancy Wills, a stubby woman with frizzy grey hair beneath her muslin cap.

  “Oh, Miss Bronte,” she said, “I heard tha was back from London. It were a nice trip, I hope? I saw your pa the other day when he come from visitin’ the Oaks farm. They’ve got th’ fever there.”

  More village gossip followed. When she paused for breath, I handed her my letter and said, “Is there any post for me?” As Nancy began searching through letters and parcels, a thought struck. “Has there been a stranger asking about me?”

  “Matter of fact, there was,” Nancy said. “It were two days ago. A man were botherin’ me with all sorts of questions, like who do tha send letters to or get them from.”

  I felt a ripple of foreboding. “You didn’t answer him, did you?”

  Nancy’s cheeks flushed. “Nor me. I told him to mind his own business.” She turned away and mumbled, “I think I did see something for thee, Miss Bronte. Now where can it be?”

  I shuddered to think that a murderer may have tapped her extensive store of knowledge about my family. “Can you describe the man?”

  “Oh, he were a gentleman with black hair and city ways.” Nancy tittered. “Fair handsome, too.”

  At least she had better powers of observation than did Mr. Nicholls, even if she lacked his discretion. The stranger could have been the dark man from the train. If he now knew where I lived, why had he not approached me?

  While I stood stricken by fear, the postmistress exclaimed, “Oh! Here it is!”

  She gave me a flat rectangular package that was approximately seven inches long, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It had a London postmark, but no sender’s address. “Whoever could have sent thee a present?” she said with expectant curiosity.

  My thoughts flew to Gilbert White. Had he gone back to London and from there sent Jane Eyre for me to inscribe? Would there be a letter? Happy anticipation replaced my earlier fear. I hurried home and shut myself into the room above the front hall. With trembling fingers I unwrapped the package.

  A letter is a wondrous treasure. Letters from my friends and family had comforted me while I was away from home. The absence of letters caused terrible unhappiness; I once had waited three years for a letter that never arrived. This time, however, fortune had blessed me.

  Inside the package was a book wrapped in the same brown paper as the entire parcel-I could feel the curved spine and the edges of the binding. A sheet of white paper bearing a few lines of script accompanied the book. As I eagerly read the letter, anticipation turned to shock. Dear Miss Bronte, Forgive me for initiating a correspondence which you did not authorize and may not welcome. But I am in desperate straits, and I must presume upon you. Enclosed is a package. I beg you to deliver it, unopened, to my mother, Mrs. Mary White, 20 Eastbrook Terrace, Bradford, Yorkshire. Thank you for your kindness. I hope I will be able to repay it someday.

  Isabel White

  10

  Evening at the parsonage generally follows a longstanding routine, and so it did on the day I received Isabel White’s package. My family ate a simple dinner, and by half past nine, we had finished our evening prayers. Papa had locked the parsonage doors and gone upstairs to his bedchamber, where he sleeps near his loaded pistol in case thieves or marauders should come. Branwell was out, presumably carousing at the Black Bull Inn. My sisters and I sat around the table to read aloud and discuss our literary works in progress. The wind from the moors wailed around the house; drafts rattled the windows. The flickering candlelight painted our shadows on the walls as I read aloud from the manuscript of my new novel.

  On the surface this resembled any other of our gatherings, but I was uncomfortably aware of the difference. Emily had remained unrelentingly taciturn all day. Anne’s hurt was palpable; there was none of our usual camaraderie. And I kept thinking of the package. What was the book? Was it the object sought by the thief at the Chapter Coffee House, and the reason I’d been chased at the opera then nearly abducted in Leeds?

  While I read, the image of Gilbert White materialized upon the pages. He had asked me to write, and now I had something to tell him. Distracted by my pondering, I lost my place in the manuscript and ceased reading. I looked at Emily and Anne, but neither spoke. Anne unhappily watched Emily, who gazed downward, seething with ire.

  “What do you think of my story, Anne?” said I.

  Anne murmured, “It seems quite good to me,” then fell silent, although she was usually an astute, voluble critic.

  “Emily?” I said. “What do you think?”

  Her head came slowly up. Her eyes were the turbulent dark green of stormy oceans; she rose and spoke in a hushed, ominous voice: “Do you really want to know what I think?” Pacing around the table, as was her habit, she said, “Well, I don’t like it at all.”

  “Why not?” My chest constricted with alarm.

  “Caroline Helstone is a weak, insipid, pitiful excuse for a heroine. Robert Moore is a cad.” Emily’s eyes shot vindictive sparks; her shadow followed her like a malevolent ghost. “And the curates are silly. In fact, all the characters are trivial and lifeless.”

  Her cruel criticism provoked a surge of anger in me. “Suppose you show me what good writing is,” I said. “It’s been months since you’ve read us a new story.”

  She recoiled as if I’d struck her, then muttered, “I’ve nothing ready yet. But that doesn’t change my opinion of your book.”

  That I knew Emily was venting her rage at me upon my book did not relieve my fear that there might be some validity to her criticism. Perhaps Shirley was indeed a bad book. Yet its defects were of secondary concern to me at present.

  “Emily, you are torturing me!” I cried. “I’m sorry I broke my promise. I’ve apologized over and over, and so has Anne. How can we gain your forgiveness?”

  Hands clenched, Emily stood rigidly by the fireplace, her face ashen and her angry eyes reflecting the candle flames.

  “No harm has come of telling Charlotte’s publisher the identities of Currer and Acton Bell,” Anne said in a pleading voice. “Smith, Elder amp; Company know nothing of you.” She rose and moved towards Emily, her hand outstretched. “Everything is quite the same as before.”

  “Everything has changed!” Emily flinched violently away from Anne’s touch. “Mr. Smith will tell more people the secret, and soon curiosity seekers will be knocking on our door.” Her voice ragged with hysteria, she began pacing the room, as if already under siege. “I can’t bear that. I’ll die!” It would do no good to tell Emily that she was magnifying the threat, for her fear of strangers was real and extreme.

  “We must talk about what happened to Anne and me,” I said.

  “Anne has already told me everything. It makes me ill. I won’t hear anymore.” Emily pressed her palms over her ears. But as I told Anne how a strange dark man had questioned Arthur Nicholls and the postmistress about me, Emily’s hands dropped. She crouched on the floor. “It’s started,” she whimpered. “The public has found Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell. The hordes will invade Haworth, and we’ll never have another moment of privacy!”

  This explanation for the stranger in the village had not occurred to me. Had a reader of our books tracked the authors Bell to their lair?

  Anne put her arms around Emily. “It seems more likely that the stranger is one of the men from the train, come to harm us again. Oh, Charlotte, we must keep the doors and windows locked. We must tell Papa, and we must never go out alone. Should we take turns staying up at night to watch over the house and keep Branwell inside?”

  “Those measures might postpone trouble,” I said, “but the only way to protect ourselves is to ide
ntify our enemies so that they may be apprehended.”

  “But how can we identify them?” Anne stroked Emily’s hair.

  “This may provide the answer,” I said, and drew from beneath my notebook the package from Isabel White. “I retrieved it from the post office this afternoon. Miss White sent it the day we arrived in London. She must have conceived the idea while we were on the train-surely, that’s why she took such pains to learn my address and the correct spelling of my name.”

  “How strange,” Anne said, though Emily seemed not to listen. “Do you think Miss White’s package contains clues as to who killed her and why?”

  “I hope so; but alas, I can’t look inside.” I read aloud Isabel’s letter. “My conscience won’t allow me to open the package.”

  “Your conscience allowed you to break your promise to me,” Emily said bitterly.

  How well she knew how to worsen my guilt! “That was necessary. This matter is altogether different. Isabel White’s letter represents her dying wish, and I cannot defy it.”

  “Will you tell Gilbert White about the package?” Anne said.

  I had promised to tell him if I had further information regarding the murder. I also wanted to tell him that my attackers appeared to have located me in Haworth; yet my doubts concerning Mr. White had resurfaced. Was this package what he sought when he asked if Isabel had given me anything? Had he befriended me that I might lead him to the book? Would I receive aid by communicating with Mr. White, or further endanger myself and my family?

  Before I could frame an answer to Anne’s question, Emily exclaimed with caustic triumph, “Ah, I understand! This man Gilbert White is the reason for your interest in the murder. You’ve fallen in love with him, just as you did with Monsieur Heger in Belgium!”

  I was shocked by her accusation and by the mention of a name I still cringed to hear. I stammered, “That’s ridiculous. I am not in love with Mr. White, and I was never in love with-”

  “Oh, yes, you were.” A spiteful smile lit Emily’s face. “I saw how you looked at him during our French lessons. I saw you writing letters to him and watching the post for his reply. Do you think I’m blind, that I wouldn’t notice?”

  Horror filled me. If my self-absorbed sister had noticed, how many other people had guessed my secret love for my professor, the married man over whom I had humiliated myself? I hated Emily for suggesting that I had fallen in love with Gilbert White as unwisely as with Monsieur Heger. She wanted revenge, and if I wanted peace between us, I should let her wound me; but I couldn’t bear to discuss Monsieur Heger-or Gilbert White-in this manner.

  “My feelings towards Mr. White are beside the point,” I said coldly. Loath to mention my suspicions of him, I went on: “I may or may not write to him, but the fact is that Isabel has assigned me the duty of conveying the package to her mother. I must go to Bradford at once. Since I shouldn’t travel alone, I need someone to go with me.”

  “Not I,” Emily declared with a passion. She huddled closer to the floor, as if sinking roots in it. “When we returned from Belgium, I said I would never leave home again, and I-unlike you-always keep my word.”

  Anne’s expression was pensive, worried. Still embracing Emily, she said, “Perhaps you should send the package by post.”

  “There must be a reason why Isabel didn’t want to post the package directly to her mother,” I said. “I must deliver it in person. Anne, since Emily won’t go with me, will you?”

  Emily turned a fierce gaze upon Anne, who looked torn asunder. I said, “The package is a possible clue to discovering who killed Isabel and attacked us. The only way to learn what’s inside it is to obtain her mother’s permission to look. Papa is too frail to travel, and Branwell too unreliable. Anne, you must go to Bradford with me.”

  Neither of my sisters spoke. They looked as they had in childhood, when they would whisper together, and if I came into the room, they would fall silent and wait for me to leave. “Dear Charlotte, I’m sorry,” Anne said with quiet regret.

  As I recall the scene above, the wind wails round the parsonage; candles glow. But mine is the only shadow on the wall, for I sit alone at the table. The chairs once occupied by Anne and Emily are vacant. Emily’s bulldog, Keeper, lies near the hearth beside Anne’s little spaniel, Flossy. They prick up their ears and look towards the door, expecting the return of their departed loved ones. How my heart aches with loneliness! In the hope of distraction, I will relate a part of my story which occurred on the same night Emily and I quarreled, although at the time I knew nothing of these events.

  John Slade’s travels had again brought him to London. At midnight, the River Thames, black and oily under a clouded, moonless sky, flowed past the city, beneath the arches of London Bridge, and wended onward to the sea. By day, the Thames is a busy highway crowded with ships, barges, and ferries, but the traffic was now ceased, the shipyards deserted, the vessels moored at the wharves. The river slept-until a lone ship glided into view. Her tattered sails had borne her from the Orient. Painted in faded letters on her hull was the name Pearl. She approached the London Docks and navigated the canals along the quays. Warehouses loomed, dark and abandoned except for one: Here, lamplight shone through windows, and a man waited outside.

  He was Isaiah Fearon, a prosperous merchant, once a trader in the East Indies. As he spied the Pearl drawing near, he shouted an order. The warehouse discharged a horde of dock laborers. They hurried along the quay to guide the ship into a berth and secure her; they transferred cargo from the Pearl ’s hold to the warehouse. The captain disembarked, carrying a small wooden chest, and joined Isaiah Fearon. The chest exchanged hands. Fearon’s men brought out scores of heavy crates, which they stowed aboard the Pearl. Soon the ship sailed away down the canal. Isaiah Fearon dismissed the men; alone, he locked himself inside the warehouse, a vast, dim cavern filled with goods and reeking of exotic spices. He went to his office, placed the chest on his desk, and opened it. Inside were hundreds of gold coins.

  A sudden noise interrupted his contemplation of the profits earned from his secret venture: It was the sound of wood splintering under a hard blow. A distant door opened. There was an intruder in the warehouse. Fearon took a pistol from the desk drawer, snuffed the lamp, and tiptoed out of his office.

  A wavering light moved behind the high rows of piled goods. Stealthy footsteps walked the stone floor and echoed in the gloom. Pistol in hand, Fearon stole through the shadows, circling his unseen adversary, determined to protect his property. Suddenly a cord whipped over his head and pressed tight around his neck, choking him. Fearon squealed; as his muscles tensed in shock and panic, he squeezed the trigger. The pistol discharged with a great boom. Fearon dropped the gun and clawed at the cord, which squeezed his throat harder. His attacker gripped him in an iron embrace. His body sagged to the floor. The terror in his expression faded as his features went slack. All was silent.

  Over the corpse stood John Slade.

  He held a lantern above Fearon’s livid, swollen face. He breathed hard and fast, spent by exertion; his unruly dark locks were wet with sweat, his eyes afire. He hastened to the office and noted the chest of gold, then turned to the ledgers piled on the desk. He skimmed pages listing quantities of opium sold in China, and of silks and tea imported to England. Impatient, he yanked open the desk drawers, searching through the letters there. One document read as follows: “I am terminating our business agreement, and you should expect no more merchandise from my firm. Yours sincerely, Joseph Lock.”

  Slade folded the letter into his pocket, read the remaining correspondence, and cursed in frustration, for the name he sought appeared nowhere. Then he heard men’s excited voices outside, and running footsteps: Fearon’s gunshot must have alerted the dock guards. Slade fled soundlessly from the warehouse and vanished into the dark labyrinth of the docks.

  11

  I spent the following days wondering and fretting over whether I should write to Gilbert White about the package. Each arrival of the post
caused me a flurry of expectation that I might receive a letter from him; but time passed, no letter came, and my caution won out.

  Emily observed my discomfort with grim pleasure. The burden of my duty to Isabel pressed upon me, and my previous adventures had left me hungering for more. Then on Thursday, July 20-six days after I had received the package-I heard a carriage rattling up Church Road. I dared to think that Gilbert White had come to call instead of writing me, and I hurried to open the door. Disappointment struck me.

  My dear friend Ellen Nussey glided into the house, smiling. Ellen is plump and fair; her blue summer frock matched her round, light eyes. A straw bonnet covered her fluffy yellow curls. “My dear, the look on your face!” she exclaimed, enfolding me in an embrace as gentle as her voice. She always smells pleasantly of lavender potpourri. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Yes, of course,” I hastened to say. “I’m just surprised.” Ellen lives in Birstall-some twenty miles from Haworth-and never visits without prior arrangement. “You must be weary from your journey. Let me fetch you some nourishment.”

  I laid a light repast upon the parlor table. Pouring tea, I said, “What brings you here?”

  As I passed the bread and butter, I contemplated the differences between us. Ellen is placid, while I am nervous. I am a daughter of a humble clergyman, but Ellen’s father had been a wealthy owner of textile mills which still provided ample livelihood for the Nusseys. While I have worked to earn my keep, Ellen spends her days visiting, waiting on her mother, and fancy sewing. We first met seventeen years ago, at Roe Head School. I thought Ellen a prim, dull-witted busybody, and I did not like her; but over time, a mutual attachment had grown and flourished, and I learned to appreciate her good qualities.

  “I came because of your letter,” Ellen said. “Such dark hints about strange experiences! I felt certain that you were in a bad way and needed my help. I’m glad to find you in a good condition, but has something happened to your family?”