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.”
14
The warder led me out of the building. I was blinded by sunlight and assailed by noise in the yard where the prisoners took their daily exercise. The women strolled and chattered together. Although it had seemed that I’d spent an eternity in the dark cell, the sun was still high in the sky; the time was not long past noon. The warder led me to a long, narrow cage that spanned the yard. A man stood waiting inside. The cage was the place where people came to visit the inmates; the bars protected them and kept the prisoners from escaping. George Smith had finally come! I ran to him, then stopped short.
The man wasn’t my publisher. He was Lord Eastbourne.
His air of affluence and elegant suit bespoke the sane, comfortable, normal world outside the prison. His blunt, strong face looked even ruddier in the sunlight than it had at the Foreign Office. He seemed as at ease within the cage as he had in his own chamber.
“Good day, Miss Bronte,” he said.
I was so surprised that I forgot my manners. “What are you doing here?”
“I just heard you’d been arrested.” Lord Eastbourne’s shrewd brown eyes regarded me with concern and sympathy. “I came to help you.”
“Thank you, my lord,” I said, tearful with gratitude.
Lord Eastbourne nodded, then said, “You must tell me everything that happened.”
I told him how I’d gone to see Katerina and found her tied up, wounded, and dying. “I didn’t kill her!” I finished, desperate for him to believe me.
“Of course you didn’t,” he said, so adamant that I wept with relief. “But unfortunately the police think otherwise. I’ve spoken to them. They doubt that you just happened to arrive on the scene at the same moment that someone else was torturing Katerina.”
“But it’s the truth!”
“Perhaps the police would be more likely to believe your story if you could explain why you were there.” He clearly thought that a lady of my class, alone at that hour of the night in that neighborhood, must have looked extremely suspicious.
I knew he wouldn’t like the reason, and I had an instinct to keep my business to myself because I didn’t know whether to trust Lord Eastbourne; but if I held anything back from him, he might realize it and change his mind about helping me. “Katerina was with John Slade at the Royal Pavilion Theater the night before last. I saw them together. I went to her house to ask her where Mr. Slade is.”
Lord Eastbourne frowned. “I told you yesterday that John Slade is dead.”
“Yes, but I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t stop trying to find him. Katerina was my last hope.” Now my hunt for Slade had reached a dead end, and my liberty and life were at stake. I felt a spark of anger toward Slade. Although I still loved him, I realized that if not for him, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Lord Eastbourne didn’t move except to stroke his chin; but he seemed to withdraw from me. He contemplated the other visitors who’d entered the cage, and the prisoners who flocked to see their families and friends. Hands were pressed together and kisses were exchanged through the fence. I feared that my obstinacy had angered Lord Eastbourne and he’d turned against me. The warm day seemed suddenly chilly.
“Did you tell the police why you went to see Katerina?” Even though Lord Eastbourne met my gaze, the distance between us remained.
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s unfortunate. Most certainly they think you were in love with Slade, you found out that Katerina was
