Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte - Couverture souple

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

 

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ALSO BY LAURA JOH ROWLAND

Shinjū
Bundori
The Way of the Traitor
The Concubine’s Tattoo
The Samurai’s Wife
Black Lotus
The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria
The Dragon King’s Palace
The Perfumed Sleeve
The Assassin’s Touch
Red Chrysanthemum
The Snow Empress
The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë
The Fire Kimono

This edition first published in the United States in 2010 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

New York & London

 

NEW YORK:
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012

 

Copyright © 2010 by Laura Joh Rowland

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

 

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

 

Book design and type formatting by Bernard Schleifer

ISBN: 9781590205303

To Juliet Grames, my editor.
Thank you for daring to take a chance.

PROLOGUE

BEFORE I LEFT MY BED IN THE MORNING, LITTLE ADELE CAME running to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.

Reader, that sentence is from a novel I wrote. It ends the scene in which Mr. Rochester proposes marriage to Jane Eyre, she accepts, and a fierce storm rages over Thornfield Manor. The lightning symbolized the earth-shattering event in Jane’s life; the split chestnut tree, the lovers soon to be torn asunder. When I wrote the sentence, little did I suspect that I had prophesized my own future.

In the summer of 1848, lightning struck me when I was plunged into an adventure the like of which I had never believed possible. I journeyed far beyond my wildest imaginings; I experienced momentous events now cloaked in secrecy. If I now say that my actions influenced the fate of nations, please forgive me the appearance of immodesty: I only speak the truth.

During my adventures, I found the man of my dreams. His name is John Slade; he is a spy for the British Crown. We shared the love that I had hoped for all my life but despaired of ever knowing. But we were too soon torn apart. My heart was rent as severely as the poor chestnut tree. The similarity between my situation and Jane’s did not escape me; nor did the fact that the division between fantasy and life is sometimes akin to a line drawn in sand blown by the wind. While I mourned the loss of adventure as well as love, I had no intimation that what happens once can happen again.

In 1851, adventure came calling once more. The circumstances were different, but the second adventure had an important aspect in common with the first. Both involved John Slade. The first adventure led me to him, then took him away. The second brought him back.

Nearly three years had passed, time during which many changes transformed my life. But I never ceased to remember those events of 1848, nor to yearn for the happiness that had departed when he left. And I never suspected that far away, in the country to which he had gone, events were building into a tide of peril that would sweep me along in its current.

These events I did not witness, but the mind of an author can travel to places where she cannot. Her imagination substitutes for actual experience. Fiction built upon facts creates a semblance of the truth. I will now, to the best of my ability, reconstruct the events in question.

1851 January. The city of Moscow lay beneath a heavy fall of snow. Its rooftops glittered white in the light of the moon and stars that sparkled in a sky as dark as obsidian. Near the city gate loomed Butyrka, the dreaded prison built in the eighteenth century during the reign of Catherine the Great. Snow frosted the crenellated towers, blanketed the tops of the high stone walls, and covered the prison compound. The scene was as bright as day, but devoid of color, painted in stark shades of white and black.

The ironclad portals opened, and three men stumbled out. Blindfolds hid their eyes. Ropes bound their wrists behind their backs. They wore only shirts and trousers; their feet were bare. Prodded by three guards armed with rifles, they limped and staggered. Cuts, bruises, and gashes marked their faces and bodies. They shivered in the bitter cold as the guards, joking among themselves, lined them up against the wall. Their breath crystallized in the air. They trembled so hard they could barely stand as the guards aimed the rifles at them, but they were too weak to protest. Without ceremony, the guards fired.

The men uttered agonized cries; their bodies jerked. Blood spattered the wall and flooded the snow, wet and black and steaming. Gunshots blared until the prisoners fell. Three corpses lay on the ground. Cruel justice was served.

The echoes of the gunshots faded as they reached the heart of town. There, bonfires burned on the banks of the frozen Moscow River. Skaters glided over the ice, in rhythm to gay music from an orchestra. High above the river rose the Kremlin. The turrets, domes, and spires of its palaces and cathedrals soared to the heavens. The Grand Kremlin Palace was a magnificent Byzantine structure of white stone, lavishly gilded. Tiers of arched windows shone, the rooms within lit by crystal chandeliers. From one window, a man gazed down at the skating party. A high, intelligent forehead crowned his eyes, which drooped at the corners. His mustache curled up at the ends, but his mouth did not. His posture was proud, his expression humorless and calculating.

He was Nicholas Pavlovich, Tsar of Russia.

In the chamber where he stood, a lofty, vaulted ceiling arched from carved columns encrusted with gold. An entourage of soldiers, courtiers, and servants awaited his orders. Footsteps rang on the mosaic floor, and a man joined the Tsar. He was a Prussian, whose face had a Germanic cast laid upon pale eyes with heavily hooded lids and a long nose whose end overlapped the upper lip of a cruel, sensual mouth. His close-cropped silver hair gleamed. The Tsar waved his hand, dismissing his attendants. They discreetly faded away.

The only person who remained was a man who had secreted himself behind a column, from where the faintest word spoken in the chamber could be heard.

“What have you to report?” the Tsar asked.

“The agents from England have been put to death,” the Prussian said.

“All of them?”

“. . . Yes, Your Highness.” The Tsar didn’t notice that a heartbeat had passed before the Prussian answered.

Troubles weighed visibly upon Tsar Nicholas. “More will come. The British are determined to extend their control over the world and diminish mine. They have allied with France, Spain, and Portugal for the sole purpose of keeping me in check. But they are not content to stop at mere political maneuvering. They send their agents to spy on my regime, to foment insurrection among my people, to weaken my empire from within.” His eyes burned with the reflections of the bonfires on the river. “It is just a matter of time before our hostilities culminate in war. If only there were a way to guarantee a victory for Russia.”

“There may be.”

The Tsar turned to his companion. “Oh?” His eyes narrowed. His court was full of men who placated him with false assurances. “Have you a new idea?”

“I do. It arose from a message I’ve just received from our agents in London.” The Prussian related the contents of the message and told the Tsar how the information could be used to Russia’s advantage.

The hidden listener overheard everything. He knew he should make his escape before the men discovered him, but he lingered, rapt with horror. The details provided in the message were sketchy, but the Prussian built upon them a scenario of a battlefield that spread east as far as China, west over Europe and across the English Channel, of countries laid to waste and carnage on a scale greater than ever known in history. Yet the listener had more immediate, personal concerns: his own days were numbered.

All of this I learned about much later. By then I was already embroiled in the adventure, and it was too late to turn back. By then I had learned a lesson.

Lightning does strike twice.

Reader, I am proof.

Herein is my story.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Haworth, England, 1852 June

1

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I WISHED FOR ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE, for travel to exciting locales far from Haworth, the tiny village where I have lived most of my life. I wished for success as an author, to be famous and sought after, to leave my mark on the world. Outrageous ambitions these were for the daughter of a Yorkshire parson! Little did I realize that when I achieved my ambitions, the reality would bear scant resemblance to the dream. Nor did I realize that I should have been careful what I wished for because I might get it.

These thoughts were much on my mind on the Thursday evening of 29 May 1851.

Arm in arm with my publisher, George Smith, I strolled into Almack’s Assembly Rooms in London. We entered the salon, where a chattering crowd of society folk occupied rows of damask-covered benches. Light from gas chandeliers gleamed on the women’s silk gowns, upswept hair, white bosoms, and glittering jewelry. The scene dazzled my nearsighted eyes as I peered through my spectacles. Miserably destitute of self-possession, I hesitated.

“Have courage, my dear Charlotte,” George Smith said. Tall and youthful, he had brown eyes and smooth brown hair; he looked elegant in formal evening dress. He was as perceptive as he was handsome, and he knew about my shyness. “Everyone is positively dying to meet you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” This was my fourth trip to London, but my dread of appearing in public had never diminished. Before leaving home I’d been so plagued by nerves that I had suffered one of my bilious attacks. I was still weak, my stomach still queasy.

George Smith laughed and patted my hand. “Fear not. I’ll protect you.”

Four years ago, I’d sent the manuscript of my novel to him. Smith, Elder and Company had published Jane Eyre, and it had become a famous bestseller. When we had first met in 1848, I had become briefly infatuated with George. We had since become friends—indeed, very intimate friends. Flirtation pervaded our letters and our talk. Three years ago I could not have anticipated such a turn of events. Nor would I have believed that if one of us fell in love with the other, it would not be me.

As we walked through the salon, faces turned in my direction. I felt dowdy in my black silk frock. Having a bestselling novel to my name did not quell my lifelong fear of what other people thought of how I looked. When I’d dared to imagine myself famous, I’d always imagined myself transformed into a beauty. Would that all dreams could come true! Yet, even though I remained as small and plain as ever, excited murmurs arose. Before the publication of Jane Eyre, no one had ever heard of Charlotte Brontë. Now, it seemed everybody had. Once I could have walked as if invisible among these folk, but no more: I was an object of curiosity and speculation. That I had never expected.

George’s mother, walking on my other side, said, “Miss Brontë, if you’re uncomfortable, we’ll be glad to send you home.”

Mrs. Smith was a portly, dark-haired woman, still attractive despite her age, and she did not like me any more than I liked her. Despite her solicitous tone, I knew she wished I would go back to the Smith family house, where I was staying, so she could enjoy the evening with her son. That was something else about fame that I hadn’t expected—that I would make enemies.

When George had first introduced her to me three years ago, he had not told her that I was the author of Jane Eyre; for reasons I will not detail here, it had been published under my pseudonym, Currer Bell, and I had wanted my true identity kept confidential. When my identity was finally revealed, Mrs. Smith was furious at the deception. She was also mortified that I—whom she’d treated as a poor, dull nobody—was responsible for earning a fortune for her son’s publishing company. And she feared that I had designs of a matrimonial nature on George.

Mrs. Smith didn’t know that my heart belonged to another man, whom I would most probably never see again this side of Heaven.

“Thank you, but I don’t want to go home,” I said, hiding my antipathy behind politeness. “I would not want to miss hearing Mr. Thackeray.”

The great author William Makepeace Thackeray had lately embarked upon a series of lectures, The English Humorists of the 18th Century, which were all the rage with the fashionable literary set. This was the kind of event I had once dreamed of attending.

“Be careful not to steal his thunder,” George said playfully.

“I could never,” I said, aghast at the idea.

At the front of the room, surrounded by fawning ladies and gentlemen, stood the author of the famous novel, Vanity Fair. He was above six feet tall, with a mane of gray hair, and quite ugly, his expression at once stern and satirical. His sharp gaze homed in on me through the spectacles perched on his nose. He smiled, and I smiled back. I was proud to count him among the friends I’d made since the publication of Jane Eyre. I was glad he had noticed me, but the glint in his eyes should have warned me to expect mischief.

He left his admirers, drawing one of the women with him, a fine old lady with snow-white hair. They approached me, and Mr. Thackeray said loudly to her, “Mother, allow me to introduce you to Jane Eyre.”

The room fell silent. Everyone stared at me. Mr. Thackeray smiled as if he’d done me a favor by identifying me as the heroine of my novel and making me the center of attention. But I was mortified...

"[Rowland] creates a believable Charlotte whose intelligence, stubbornness, and wit recall Jane at every turn. Even more important, the mystery itself is particularly fine."-Entertainment Weekly

"Bedlam invokes a Queen Victoria that's reminiscent of the petulant Japanese ruler in Rowland's other series (Sano Ichiro mysteries), and her minutely drawn scenes of street life in Victorian London are just as memorable as those from the Tokyo of 400-plus years ago." -- Times-Picayune

"This lighthearted romp is a veritable festival of the Penny Dreadful." -- New Jersey Star-Ledger

"This delightful and sophisticated mystery transports readers through an era of Victorian history, with Charlotte Brontd leading the way...A must read for historical fans." -Romantic Times

"A sure bet...[Charlotte is] spunky and adventurous and a die-hard romantic all the way. She's a heroine for our times."-New Orleans Times-Picayune

"Rowland simply refuses to let readers lift their eyes from the page." -Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Sharply relevant, Rowland's inventive action-thriller delivers enough intrigue and romance to satisfy a wide array of readers." -- Booklist

"A wide variety of interesting scientific, political, and literary tidbits are crammed into this romantic mystery" -- Library Journal

"The audacity of building a mystery caper around this unlikely heroine is part of the novel's considerable charm. Elegant stylist Rowland's prose remains as pitch-perfect as in Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte (2008), in what should be another long-running series from the author of the Sano Ichiro mysteries." --Kirkus

"Laura Joh Rowland's apt recreation of Charlotte Bronte's style is still as accomplished and mesmerizing as the first time around" -- Bronte Blog

"Readers will fully believe the last Bronte sister's adventures. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action and feels plausible even with Charlotte turning into an amateur sleuth of sorts. As with the previous Charlotte Bronte's secret adventures (in Moscow), fans of Victorian thrillers will be thrilled reading about the heroine's bedlam escapades." -- Midwest Book Review