The Duchess made an impatient sound. “That is not your business, Miss Bronte.”
Whatever hold Kuan had upon her was a strong one. I felt a desperate wish to live, and a duty to protect the children. I had to cooperate with the Duchess and hope that some opportunity to save them and myself would later arise.
“Very well,” I said.
She kept the gun aimed at me as I quickly dressed. When I had finished, she hurried me through the door that led from my room to the nursery. Two royal guardsmen were standing near the beds in which Bertie, Vicky, and Alfred slept.
“Wrap them up,” the Duchess whispered to the guards, “and let us be gone.”
These guards were also in Kuan’s employ! How many other accomplices might there be in the royal household? I asked the Duchess, “Why don’t you and the guardsmen kidnap the children yourself ? Why not spare me?”
“We all have roles to play for Mr. Kuan,” she said. “Yours is to take the children. Ours is to stay behind.”
I now understood that Kuan intended that his minions remain inside the royal household, in the event he should need them again. Such foresight he had! I watched helplessly as the guards drew back the covers from Vicky and Bertie. The children neither stirred nor made a noise.
“I slipped laudanum into their cocoa,” the Duchess said. “They’ll not waken for quite some time.”
The sight of the men bundling the two frail, pliable children into blankets pained my heart. I forgave Bertie his mischief. When the men reached for little Alfred, protest rose in me. “Please don’t take him!” I cried. “He’s just a baby.”
“Be quiet!” The Duchess eyed the door as if fearing someone would burst in upon us.
Heedless of her gun, I tried to pull Alfred away from the guards. As we tussled, the boy mewled.
“Leave him,” the Duchess said urgently to the guards. “We can’t take the risk that he’ll make more noise and wake people. The others will have to suffice.”
I had at least saved one child. The Duchess opened the nursery door. The guardsmen slipped through, one carrying Vicky, the other Bertie. The Duchess pushed me after them. We filed along the dark corridor and descended the stairs. The castle was as silent and deserted as a crypt. The guards who’d once patrolled Balmoral had vanished; the Queen and her retinue slept peacefully in the mistaken belief that the children were safe. Our furtive procession continued outdoors, through the forest that had sheltered Mr. Slade and me last night but now seemed a godforsaken wilderness. Predatory birds shrieked above trees whose branches groaned and creaked. My heart ran a race with fear. I was so weak from it that I could not have walked except for the gun at my back. At last we emerged onto a moonlit road. There we met a carriage. Two men jumped down from the box. One helped the guards stow the sleeping children inside the carriage. The other man approached me.
“We meet again, Miss Bronte,” he said.
I recognized his gallant, mocking voice; the moon shone on his blond hair. It was Mr. Hitchman. “Good evening,” I stammered while my fear scaled new heights. The man had never quite trusted me. I recalled his threatening to kill me if I should betray his partner.
“Please get in the carriage,” Hitchman said.
While I reluctantly obeyed, I cast an anxious glance towards the Duchess, who knew I had turned in Kuan’s other accomplice and tried to prevent the kidnapping. If she should tell Hitchman… But she was gone. She and the guards had slipped away into the forest. They probably hated Kuan as much as they feared him, and they cared not if they sent an enemy into his camp.
Hitchman proffered me a vial. “If you would be so kind as to drink this laudanum, Miss Bronte? It will relax you and spare me the trouble of worrying about you during our trip.”
I was reluctant to lull the wits that I needed to plot my escape; nor did I wish to leave the children alone at Hitchman’s mercy. But I feared Hitchman as much as ever. I must give the appearance that I was a willing ally to him and Kuan. I therefore accepted the vial and downed the bitter draught.
“Excellent,” Hitchman said.
He closed the carriage door on me. The bolt clanged into place. I heard him jump up on the box beside the driver; I heard the whip crack. The carriage sped down the road in a storm of rattling wheels and hooves. I hugged the sleeping, blanket-swathed Vicky and Bertie, whose innocent lives depended on me. I could not fail them.
As the carriage sped onward, I fought down my rising hysteria. I told myself that Mr. Slade would soon find me gone from Balmoral and rescue me and the children. My last thought, as I drifted into black oblivion, was a disturbing question: Once Kuan had Vicky and Bertie in his hands, what further use would he have for me?
39
Drugged and asleep while I rode towards an unknown destination, I was unaware of the other events associated with Kuan’s scheme. I cannot describe with precision the scene the next morning when the Queen discovered that her children were gone, for she and I never spoke of it. But in my mind’s eye I see the Queen opening the nursery door and her puzzlement at the sight of the two vacant beds in which she had tucked Vicky and Bertie the previous night. Little Alfred sits up in his crib and calls to her. As she takes him in her arms, she asks where his brother and sister are. She enters my room, sees that it is empty, and rushes to her husband, crying, “Bertie, Vicky, and the governess are gone!”
The Prince Consort summons their attendants and mounts a search of the castle and grounds, but we are nowhere to be found. The Queen inspects my room, where she discovers my outdoor clothes missing. There is but one terrible conclusion for her to draw.
I do know what happened next, because Mr. Slade later told me. He and Lord Unwin came riding up to the castle in a carriage intended to take Mr. Slade and me to the train station. Lord Unwin meant to go along and ensure that we departed. The Queen and Prince Consort rushed outside to meet them.
“Miss Bronte has kidnapped Bertie and Vicky!” the Queen announced in distraught rage.
“That cannot be!” Mr. Slade said.
“She and the children are gone,” said the Prince Consort. “What else are we to believe?”
“This is all your doing,” the Queen fumed at Mr. Slade and Lord Unwin. “Had you not convinced me to go along with your outrageous scheme and bring Miss Bronte here, this would never have occurred!”
As she burst into hysterical tears and the Prince Consort tried to calm her, Lord Unwin hastened to say, “It was Mr. Slade’s idea.”
“Miss Bronte is a woman of good moral character,” Mr. Slade said. “She would never harm the children.”
I know Mr. Slade was sorely vexed by Lord Unwin’s attempt to put all the blame on him, and even more upset on my account. Did he wonder if Kuan had suborned me into carrying out the kidnapping after all?
“I never trusted Miss Bronte,” said Lord Unwin. “Now she’s proven herself a criminal.”
“Well, I don’t give a damn which of you is at fault!” the Queen shouted. “I order you to get my children back. And find Miss Bronte, that I may have her hanged for treason!”
Lord Unwin turned to Mr. Slade. “You’d best hurry up.”
“You discharged me yesterday,” Mr. Slade reminded him.
“You’re reinstated,” Lord Unwin said grudgingly.
As to events that transpired farther afield, I learned them from another source. Into my tale I insert pages from a letter written by Branwell to Francis Grundy, an engineer he had met while working for the Leeds and Manchester Railway, a letter he never sent. My dear Francis, Since we last met, I have had a most astounding, incredible experience. I hesitate to write of it, for fear that you will not believe me. As you know, I have been in quite a bad state. Daily I grow weaker and more wretched. I must drink liquor and laudanum or suffer the worst, blackest despair. When their blessed sedative effects wear off, then come the chills, the trembling, the nauseous stomach, the pounding headache, the intolerable bodily misery. Worst of all, I am plagued by regrets for what I might have been-a great artist, writer, and hero in my own life story. That was my condition on what I believe was 10 September, when I found myself without a drop of either remedy at hand. Nearly insane with desire for relief, I ransacked the room and oh! Good fortune smiled upon me, villain that I was! I found money in Father’s drawer! I hastened to the village and bought a vial of laudanum, which I tucked in my pocket; I then stumbled into the Black
