The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë by Laura Joh Rowland Read Free Book Online

in my aching head. Flattered by his attention, yet feeling fainter by the moment, I agreed to everything he suggested. At last he ushered us outside, summoned a hackney coach, helped Anne and me climb inside, and paid the driver. As we rode away, he called, “I look forward to seeing you tonight!”

    The coach left us at the entrance to Paternoster Row, a narrow, flagged street. Paternoster Row had once contained shops where pilgrims and clergymen could buy rosaries and drink coffee, but now the street harbored the dingy warehouses and offices of printers, binders, and stationers. Above the roofs, the sun illuminated the vast dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, but the street lay in shadow. As Anne and I walked along the hot, deserted lane, our footsteps sounded loud against the muted roar of the city outside. The distant bellows of livestock emanated from the slaughterhouses at Newgate Street, and I could smell the odor of rotting flesh.
    “I am very glad that events transpired as happily as they did,” I said, “but oh, so glad they are past!”
    “I, too, am glad,” Anne said.
    “Thank you for coming with me,” I said belatedly, again regretting how I’d coerced Anne. Our felicitous reception at Smith, Elder & Company mattered much less to her than to me, and the event had been an unpleasant ordeal for her. “Tonight’s visit from Mr. Smith and his family should be far less unsettling than what we’ve already endured; and fortunately, we have time to refresh ourselves, because my head aches as if hammers are beating inside my skull.”
    We were on the verge of entering the Chapter Coffee House, an ancient inn, when a shriek rang out. “What was that?” I said, startled.
    More screams followed, alternating with cries of “Help! Help!”
    “Someone is in trouble,” I said. I started down the row, seeking to discern the source of the cries.
    “No, dear Charlotte!” Anne held me back. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know what may happen.”
    However, I was a parson’s eldest daughter, accustomed to serving when someone was in need. “Go inside the Chapter Coffee House and fetch help,” I ordered Anne, ere I hurried away.
    The cries, now incoherent and desperate, issued from an alley between two warehouses. Halting at its entrance, I peered inside. There, in the dimness that exuded a loathsome stench of sewers, two figures struggled. Alarmed, I squinted at them, but they appeared mere shadows to me. One was a woman clad in a bonnet and full skirt; the other, a man in a brimmed hat. The man slammed the woman against a wall, muttering to her in low, angry tones. Her hands beat at him, and he grappled with her. She sobbed.
    “Let her go!” I cried.
    The man thrust himself hard against the woman. A scream of agony burst from her; then she was silent. He glanced towards me, and I glimpsed his face, pale and indistinct above his dark garments. He sprang away from the woman. As she crumpled to the ground, he dashed to the alley’s opposite end, where he vanished into a blur of sunshine.
    I hurried into the alley. The brick walls gave off a dank coolness; my shoes splashed in filthy puddles between the rough cobblestones. I bent over the woman. “Are you all right, madam?” I said, breathless from excitement and fear.
    She lay immobile. Blood in great, wet, crimson quantity stained the bodice of her grey frock, and a wooden-handled knife protruded from between her ribs. Gasping, I recoiled; I clasped my hand over my mouth and retched. My heart’s thudding reverberated inside my aching head as my horrified gaze traveled to the woman’s face. Framed by a bonnet and tousled blond hair, it was white as paper, the mouth open, the eyes staring sightlessly. The chill mask of death had fixed its terrified expression. Fresh shock assailed me as I recognized those features.
    The dead woman was Isabel White.

5

    I STUMBLED OUT OF THE ALLEY AND INTO ANNE’S EMBRACE. SHE HAD brought servants from the Chapter Coffee