Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

21

Everything in the way of food, clothing, shelter, and service was provided for me at Osborne House, but I didn’t like to impose on the Queen after the last, disastrous time I’d spent under her roof in 1848. I hardly slept. The next day I traveled to London and arrived in the evening. I trudged up the steps to 76 Gloucester Terrace and found the Smiths seated inside at dinner. They beheld me with surprise.

“Charlotte,” George said as he rose from his chair. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

So soon? I’d been gone for three days. I was surprised that he didn’t seem worried. “I’m sorry I left without telling you.”

“Never mind,” George said. “You’re always welcome here.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Smith said, but her smile was false. “Please join us.”

George pulled out a chair at the table for me and ordered the maid to set another place. “That’s a pretty frock,” his sister Eliza said. “Is it new?”

“Yes.” The Queen’s servants had obtained it for me. It was a blue-and-white striped summer frock, much more fashionable than the clothes I usually wore. They’d also provided me with new undergarments, shoes, stockings, coat, and parasol. I hardly felt like myself.

“I’m sorry you had to interrupt your visit because you’d been called home,” George said. “Is everything is all right with your family?”

I regarded him in confusion. “I wasn’t called home. What gave you that idea?”

He looked to his mother. Avoiding my gaze, she said, “Why, I just assumed that was what had happened.” She added, “I packed your things and sent them to Haworth.”

“How kind of you.” I deduced that Mrs. Smith had been glad to have me gone and persuaded George to think I’d been called home. She hadn’t cared what had really become of me.

“Then what did happen?” George asked. “Where did you go?”

“I was arrested and put in Newgate Prison,” I said.

Shocked gasps burst from everyone at the table. George said, “Whatever for?”

I explained that I had gone to call on Katerina and described the condition in which I’d found her. “I didn’t kill her. I was wrongfully arrested.” I didn’t tell the Smiths what had happened afterward. If I told them where I’d been last night, they would never believe me. Indeed, there was much about me that they would never believe. But my manner must have convinced them that I was telling the truth about my arrest.

“How terrible.” Mrs. Smith spoke with pity and distaste, but she couldn’t hide her delight.

I suppose I should have been embarrassed about what had happened and fearful of what the Smiths would think of me; but I had other, bigger concerns.

George was aghast. “Why didn’t you let me know?”

“I tried to send word.” I told him about the priest at the police station. “But it seems the priest didn’t bother to deliver the message.”

“That’s unfortunate,” George said. “Had I received it, I would have hurried to your rescue at once.”

Some impulse made me look at Mrs. Smith. Her expression was compounded of slyness and pleasure. George’s gaze followed mine. Astonishment appeared on his face as he drew the same conclusion that I had. “The priest did come,” he said. “I wasn’t at home. He delivered his message to you, didn’t he, Mother?”

She stammered, then said, “Well, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” George demanded.

Guilt flushed her cheeks. “When the priest said Miss Bronte had been arrested, I didn’t believe him. I thought he was a prankster.” It was obvious to me that she was lying. I could tell by their expressions that it was obvious to George and her other children as well. They all looked appalled. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she finished lamely.

I had turned the other cheek to her gibes, but this malicious act I could not tolerate. “You knew I was in trouble and you deliberately turned your back on me! Madam, you are a selfish, jealous, wicked woman!”

She reacted with the chagrin of someone who has been tormenting a cat and had it suddenly scratch her. I could have raged at her until Christmas, but as her family gaped in shock at both of us, I remembered that George was my publisher and refrained from telling off his mother as thoroughly as I would have liked.

“I won’t inconvenience you any further,” I said, icily polite now, to Mrs. Smith. Then I walked out of the room.

I heard Mrs. Smith sputter and George say to her, “You and I will talk later.” He hurried after me. “Charlotte, wait!” He caught up with me outside the house. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into Mother. I thought she liked you.”

Men are so thickheaded, I thought. “It’s quite all right.”

“No, it isn’t,” George said. “That my mother would do such a thing to an author of mine! And I’d hoped you and she could be friends. Because…” He gazed into my eyes. I was dismayed to see tenderness in his. “I’d hoped that you and I-that perhaps we could be more than author and publisher.”

Once I would have thrilled to hear that. Now I had no time to let him down gently. I had only a few days of freedom, their definite number unknown. “George, I’m sorry, but what you suggest is impossible. I am not the sort of woman who could make you happy. Please say no more. Let us just continue to be friends.”

George was clearly disappointed, and surprised. “Well. If that’s what you wish.” Few women he knew would have spurned him. Then I saw a gleam in his eyes: he was a man who relished a challenge. “Friends, then. For now.”

I was glad his feelings hadn’t been hurt too much, but sorry that I’d not discouraged him. I saw a carriage coming up the road, hailed it down, and climbed inside. “Goodbye.”

“Are you going back to Haworth?” George called as the carriage rattled away.

“Yes.” I called to the driver, “Take me to Euston Station.”

Although time was short, I had to return home. There I could recover from my ordeal. Only there could I find enough peace of mind to figure out how to exonerate Slade and myself.