Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

13

My heart gave a mighty lurch and my breath caught as the footsteps mounted higher up the stairs. Katerina’s killer was coming back. Whoever he was, he meant to make sure that Katerina was dead or finish her off if she wasn’t. If I let him find me here, he would surely kill me, too.

The stairs creaked. Light crept into the hall. I was trapped. Panic spurred me to action. I bent and snatched up the knife from the floor where I’d dropped it. I gripped it in both hands, prepared to fight for my life.

The lantern appeared in the doorway. I saw the man who held the lantern aloft, and another man beside him. They wore tall helmets decorated with metal badges: they were police constables. Exclamations burst from them: “What in the devil?” “Holy Mother of God!”

The one holding the lantern was a young man so fair that his eyelashes were white; the other a rugged, older fellow. As their gazes took in Katerina’s bloody corpse, then moved to me, their faces wore identical expressions of shock.

“Put down that knife,” the older constable ordered me. “You’re under arrest for murder.”

I gaped, stunned. They thought I’d killed Katerina! “But I didn’t-”

He advanced cautiously into the room, his hand raised to ward off an attack and admonish me. “Put it down and come along peacefully, miss.”

The younger constable beheld me with horrified awe. “Is she the Whitechapel Ripper?”

“Looks like it,” said his comrade.

“A woman! Blimey! And we thought this was just another domestic disturbance.”

I realized what must have happened: The neighbors had heard Katerina screaming and fetched the police. Now the police thought me responsible for the murders of which Slade had been accused!

“No,” I said, even as I looked down at myself and saw what they saw. My hands were red with blood, clutching the bloodstained murder weapon. My clothes were also smeared with Katerina’s blood. I looked every bit the murderess. “She’d been stabbed before I got here. I found her. The murderer ran away. I tried to save her.”

The older constable lunged, wrenched the knife from my hands, and twisted my arm behind my back. I cried out in protest and pain.

“This is a mistake!” I wailed as he marched me down the stairs. “I’m innocent!”

He laughed. “That’s what they all say.”

The constables took me to a dingy local police station and locked me in a small room. During an endless night, police officials interrogated me, badgered me, threatened me, and ordered me to confess. I grew so exhausted that I felt tempted to comply, if only they would stop. But I managed to continue proclaiming my innocence. After a while, they left me alone. I thanked God for the silver lining in the cloud: When I’d given them my name, they hadn’t recognized it. They didn’t know that Charlotte Bronte was Currer Bell, the famous authoress. I shuddered to think of what would have happened if they did. “Currer Bell arrested for murder!” the headlines of every newspaper would read. “Is Currer Bell the Whitechapel Ripper?”

Near dawn, a Roman Catholic priest came to me. He brought a blanket to cover my bloodstained clothes, and he invited me to talk. Although I was raised to distrust Romans and I wondered if he’d been sent by the police to extract an admission of guilt from me, I was thankful for his company. His was the only kind face I’d seen since I’d been arrested, and when I told him what had happened at Katerina’s house, he said he believed me.

“Have you a friend who might help you?” he asked.

“Yes. His name is George Smith. He lives at Number 76 Gloucester Terrace.”

“I’ll go to him and tell him what’s happened,” the priest promised.

In the morning, the police put me in a prison van-a long, covered carriage drawn by black horses. My fellow passengers were seven ladies of the street. Our ankles were chained to prevent us from escaping. As we rode through London, they sang obscene songs and yelled bawdy invitations to men we passed. I was so mortified that I wanted to die.

How I regretted going to see Katerina! I was glad to have the information she’d provided, but what a price I’d paid! I was too upset to determine whether it could exonerate Slade, and I wondered whether it would do me any good now.

We arrived at Newgate Prison, a massive brick edifice near the Old Bailey. Fear sickened me, for I had heard tales of how evil a place it was, filled with depraved, dangerous criminals. Its reputation attracted gawkers, who were gathered outside. They jeered at us while we clambered out of the van, hobbled by our chains. My companions jeered back, but I hung my head, as ashamed as if I were guilty.

Two guards led us through the gate, to a courtyard surrounded by high walls with barred windows. The guards removed our chains and handed us over to three female warders, who ordered us to strip naked. Disrobing in front of strangers of my own sex was enough of an affront to my modesty, but I could see men leering from the windows. Although glad to shed my bloodstained clothes, I wept from embarrassment.

The warders confiscated my pocketbook and some knives carried by the other prisoners. They made us line up at a water pump and wash ourselves. We had to share towels; there weren’t enough to go around. My skin crawled as I wondered what vermin I was picking up from the other prisoners. The warders gave us uniforms to wear-blue gowns, blue-and-white-checked aprons, and white muslin caps. After we dressed, they led us inside the jail.

Galleries of cells rose three stories high, to a glass roof. They stank of privies. My throat closed up, my stomach turned, and I tried not to breathe. All around me echoed the deafening chatter and noise of hundreds of women who milled about a large room below the galleries. As we were brought into their midst, the inmates stared at us. Some were mere girls; others tough, hardened crones. Many called out lewd greetings or insults. The warders herded everyone into a line for breakfast. When I got to the front, I received a piece of bread and a bowl of gruel. The food was meager in portion, grayish and sour. Outrage rose up through my misery. I was a law-abiding citizen, a bestselling authoress. I didn’t deserve to be treated thus!

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.”