The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

27

Alas, Mr. Slade and I were not the only ones disappointed by our misadventure in Brussels. We traveled posthaste to London and there presented ourselves to Mr. Slade’s superiors in the Foreign Office. Again we sat with Lord Unwin and his officials at the long table in the smoky chamber on Downing Street. After Mr. Slade described my rendezvous with the villain and his own thwarted pursuit, Lord Unwin regarded him with contempt.

“You had this man within your reach and allowed him to elude you.” Indignation elevated Lord Unwin’s reedy, affected voice. “Your ineptitude appalls me.”

Yet the sparkle in his pale eyes attested to how much he relished Mr. Slade’s failure. Mr. Slade endured the reprimand with clenched jaws. I knew he excoriated himself no less than did Lord Unwin. I sat silent and mournful to hear Mr. Slade abused.

“The trip was not a complete loss,” Mr. Slade said. “Communication was established between the villain and Miss Bronte. Should she place the advertisement in the Times and accept his offer of employment, he’ll contact her again. That will give me another chance at him.”

“Another chance, perhaps, but not for you,” Lord Unwin said. “We cannot afford the risk that you might blunder again. As of this moment, I am removing you from this inquiry.”

“You can’t!” Mr. Slade was outraged. “Not after I’ve handled the investigation this far, and it has produced what information we have about the villain. Not after one unfortunate mishap!”

“Indeed I can.” Lord Unwin’s cruel, haughty smile deepened. “And it’s not just one mistake you’ve made.” He lifted a paper that lay in front of him and passed it to Mr. Slade. “This letter came for you while you were in Belgium. I took the liberty of reading it.”

As Mr. Slade scanned the letter, a frown darkened his brow. He silently handed the paper to me. On it I read the words written in a hasty black scrawl: “No luck yet identifying the owner of the ship used by Isaiah Fearon to smuggle weapons out of Britain. No further contact with the person responsible.” There was no signature, but I deduced that the author must be the prime minister. My heart sank; our hopes of learning anything from him had been dashed.

“It seems that your other inquiries have also proved fruitless,” Lord Unwin said, clearly gratified at the second blow he’d delivered Mr. Slade. “You will go back to France and resume spying on the secret societies. Other agents will be dispatched to Belgium to trace the villain’s movements from there, and to Haworth to guard Miss Bronte. After she places the advertisement, they will report to me any communication she receives from the villain.”

Mr. Slade and I looked at each other in extreme dismay. I knew he didn’t want to return to the place where he had lost his wife. I also knew how loath he was to quit our mission after we had come this far.

“You’ll not disrupt the pursuit of a killer and traitor because of your personal grievances with me!” Mr. Slade rose so abruptly that his chair crashed to the floor.

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 Bronte, 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 Bronte 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 Bronte’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 Bronte’s cooperation more than ever.” He shot me an ireful glance. “Miss Bronte 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 Bronte, 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:

My dear Miss Bronte,

How pleased I am that you have accepted my offer. Please take the train to Cornwall that I have marked in the timetable. You will receive further instructions at the station in Penzance. I wish you a safe journey.