Hitchman’s expression derided him; but the conviction in T’ing-nan’s manner made me wonder if he wasn’t just baiting his father. I saw Kuan narrow his eyes as the same thought struck him. “Why do you say that?” Kuan asked T’ing-nan.
The young man’s eyes glinted with mischief. “You trust her,” he said, pointing at me. “You think she help you. But she no good. She trick you.”
Hitchman and Kuan turned on me. The suspicion I had often seen in Hitchman’s eyes was now reflected in Kuan’s. Dismayed, I looked at T’ing-nan, who grinned. We both knew he’d spoken the truth, but how had he found me out?
“Explain,” Kuan ordered his son.
“The night I run away,” T’ing-nan said, “I hide outside house. I see her come out while you and Nick and Hitchman looking for me. She run off. I follow her.”
Now I remembered my feeling of being watched by someone. It had been T’ing-nan, spying on me. Horror crept into my bones.
“She go to house in village. There she meet man. She tell him all about you.” T’ing-nan regarded his father with triumph. “She not work for you-she work for him. She try help him catch you, punish you.”
He’d seen me with Mr. Slade and overheard us through the open window. Now T’ing-nan’s triumphant smile included me. He had said he would make me pay for refusing to hide him from Kuan. Now he’d fulfilled his threat.
“Is this true, Miss Bronte?” demanded Kuan.
“No!” I cried with all the conviction I could feign. “I don’t know what T’ing-nan is talking about.”
But I instinctively backed away from him, and I could no longer hide my terror. Kuan’s gaze pierced straight through it to the truth. A storm of rage gathered in his eyes. “Who is this man?” His voice was a quiet, menacing hiss.
“There was no man,” I faltered. “I never-”
Hitchman seized me by my shoulders. “Who is he?”
His fingers dug painfully into my flesh. His face was so close to mine that I could see the sharp edges of his teeth and smell his sulfurous breath. I shrank from him.
“Answer me!” Hitchman struck my cheek a hard slap.
My head snapped backward. Pain reverberated through my skull. My ears rang; the lights on the deck shattered into bright fragments. I had never been struck with such deliberate, calculated violence. The blow was as shocking and intimate as it was hurtful. It diminished me to a puny, hapless creature. How I wish I could have insisted on my innocence and persuaded Kuan that his son was lying! But my cowardly impulse was to obey Hitchman and avoid another blow.
“His name is John Slade,” I said even as shame filled me. “He’s an agent with the Foreign Office.”
“A spy for the Crown.” Hitchman spoke to Kuan in a tone of revelation and disgust while tightening his hold on me. “I warned you against taking Miss Bronte on. I never quite trusted her myself. But I never suspected that she had such dangerous connections.” He regarded me with amazement. “Well, well-the demure little governess has turned out to be a spy for a spy.”
The rage in Kuan’s eyes turned murderous. His mouth thinned; his nostrils flared. Behind him the Chinese crew was watching, avid to see how he would punish me. T’ing-nan was grinning with childlike joy at my plight. So spiteful was he that he didn’t care that he had jeopardized his own hope of returning to China by not telling his father about me sooner.
“When did you and this agent Slade join forces against me, Miss Bronte?” Kuan asked.
I hesitated, but Hitchman raised his fist to strike me again. Cringing, I blurted, “It was after your henchman stole Isabel White’s book from my home and almost killed my brother.”
“A man purporting to be your cousin accompanied you to Belgium,” Kuan said. “Was he in fact Mr. Slade?”
“Yes,” I said. Hitchman’s fist remained poised above me.
“Did he also accompany you to Balmoral Castle?” Kuan asked. “Did you tell him of my plan to kidnap the children?”
Weak with terror and shame, I nodded. Kuan suddenly reached towards me. Panic exploded in my heart, for I thought he meant to rip it out of my chest. My back was pressed against the railing; Hitchman’s grasp imprisoned me. But Kuan’s fingers merely grazed my cheek in a caress almost tender.
“Miss Bronte, I am most disappointed in you,” he said. His voice was reproving yet gentle, his gaze almost affectionate. “Your deceit is unforgivable. I regret that you will not enjoy the good fortune that I offered you. Instead, you will reap your punishment for betraying my cause as well as myself. So will your family suffer on your account. I will send my men to execute them rather than set them free.”
“Please don’t hurt them!” I knew not what I was babbling. So eager was I to save my family, myself, and the children that I would have said anything. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’ve learned my lesson. I promise I’ll be loyal to you from now on. Have mercy!” I pleaded.
“No more lies, Miss Bronte,” Hitchman said scornfully.
He closed his hands around my throat. I clawed at them, trying in vain to tear them away. “Help!” I screamed.
My voice drifted across empty ocean. T’ing-nan giggled. The crew waited, immobile. In my mind arose an image of the stone tablets inside Haworth Church that bore the names of my mother and my sisters Maria and Elizabeth. Never would I rest beside them. Never would Papa, Emily, Anne, Branwell, or Mr. Slade know my fate. After Hitchman strangled me, I would simply vanish beneath the waves.
Then Kuan said, “No. Wait.”
Hitchman paused, although his hands still encircled my throat. “We can’t let her live,” he said. “She could have destroyed you. She’ll try again.”
“She is no danger to me here,” Kuan said. “She cannot get away. Nor can she communicate with her confederates.”
The reprieve gave me hope. I held my breath and silently prayed for deliverance.
“We’ve no use for her,” Hitchman said.
All along I had feared Hitchman; now he was eroding Kuan’s favor towards me, and my chances of survival.
“I do indeed have further use for Miss Bronte,” Kuan said. “I need her to care for my hostages.”
I started to expel my breath in a sob of relief. Then Kuan said, “We shall wait until we’re far from England, near some foreign port where we can engage a nursemaid to tend the children.” He smiled at me-a dreadful smile that anticipated revenge. “Then we’ll dispatch Miss Bronte to the hell reserved for traitors.”
41
That night i did my best to hide our grave predicament from the children and keep them quiet, but they were restless. Vicky asked me time after time what was going to happen to us. I didn’t know what to tell her. Bertie sulked and roamed the cabin like a caged animal. I tried the door and discovered that although the lock was strong iron, the door itself was loose in its frame. I searched the room for any instrument I could use as a lever to pry it open. The bunks were built of wooden rails, and after considerable effort, I managed to wrest one free-but even if I could force the door, how would I get the children off the ship and across the ocean to safety?
I hid the rail under my mattress in the vain hope of later making use of it. The motion of the ship made me so ill that I lay on my bunk while the children fretted and I wondered what was happening at Balmoral. I imagined Mr. Slade and the Queen’s soldiers riding the roads, searching the forests and villages, and finding no trace of us. Later, I learned that that was indeed how Slade had spent the hours after our disappearance. I worried that his agents wouldn’t reach Haworth in time to free my family before Kuan’s henchmen arrived to kill them. What I never imagined were the events taking place at the parsonage. Here shall Branwell’s letter to Francis Grundy continue and explain:
The hours that I passed in the cellar were the worst I’d ever known. Nausea, tremors, fever, and chills
