Upon reaching Brussels, I rode with Mr. Slade in a carriage through the avenues. Medieval houses still sheltered in cobbled lanes near boulevards lined with stately mansions. Colorful open-air cafes and markets still bustled; the air still smelled of the foul River Senne. Burghers clad in dark coats and hats abounded, as did peasants in rustic garb. Voices babbled in French and Flemish. I couldn’t help searching the crowds for M. Heger. We entered the Grand Place, the main square in the lower city. The bell in the tower of the Gothic town hall tolled seven o’clock. Gas lamps illuminated the scrolled gables, fanciful statuary, and elaborate gold ornamentation that graced the merchant guild houses. In the east, the towers of the Church of St. Michel and Ste. Gudule rose majestically on the hillside. I gazed beyond it, towards the aristocratic upper city, where the Pensionnat Heger stood.
Mr. Slade secured us lodgings in the Rue du Marche aux Herbes, at the Hotel Central. Such palatial elegance! Such glittering mirrors and chandeliers! Such a smart clientele! My spacious room was furnished with brocade chairs, fluted lamps, and luxurious Flemish carpets and tapestries. I spent my first evening there, and much of the following day, while Mr. Slade went out to recruit his friends among the Brussels police on a hunt for the exiled French radical LeDuc.
He returned the next day at dusk. We sat together in the hotel’s candlelit dining room, where ornate silver and fine crystal sparkled on tables laid with white linen. Suave waiters served us wine, mussels in garlic and cream, and rabbit stew. The rich food overwhelmed my palate. I felt drab among the fashionable diners. Mr. Slade looked handsome in his evening dress, but weary and discouraged.
“We found LeDuc,” he said. “ An odd, repulsive fellow he is-not above four feet high, with a bald head, pale, blazing eyes, and an arrogant manner. He lives in a dirty attic room, and he was conveniently at home.”
“What happened?” I asked, wondering why he didn’t act happier to have located our quarry.
“At first he denied any connection with the Birmingham Chartists, but after the police roughed him up a bit, he changed his mind. He claims to take orders from a man who is immensely wealthy and extremely secretive. This man told LeDuc to instruct the Birmingham Chartists to take guns from Joseph Lock and murder Isabel White. He paid well for these services, and his money also went towards financing the recent insurrection in France. However, LeDuc doesn’t know the man’s name. They are in frequent contact, and they meet in person, yet LeDuc has never set eyes on him.”
“How can that be?” I said in puzzlement.
“Whenever the man wants LeDuc, he sends a carriage. The driver blindfolds LeDuc and drives him to a house. When he arrives, he and his master talk together. His blindfold stays on the entire time, so he doesn’t know where the house is or what it looks like. Nor can he describe his host. Afterward, the carriage takes him home. LeDuc stuck to his story even when the police threatened him with prison.” Mr. Slade drank his wine, as if to swallow his exasperation. “I’m forced to believe Leduc is telling the truth, and the criminal we seek isn’t him, but his nameless master.”
We had come all the way to Brussels to discover that we had misidentified our quarry and the chase was at a dead end. “LeDuc must have noticed something about the man that might identify him, or something about the house that will help us locate it,” I said.
“He furnished two observations,” said Slade. “The house has a peculiar, sweet smell. And the man speaks French with an odd foreign accent that LeDuc didn’t recognize.”
These seemed meager clues to me. As Slade and I sat in mutual discouragement, a waiter approached me. “ Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle, mais vous avez un visiteur.”
“A visitor? For me?” I said, so startled that I forgot my French and spoke in English.
The waiter said, “ C’est un gentilhomme, qui vous attende au jardin,” then departed.
Mr. Slade regarded me with alarm. “What gentleman knows you’re in Brussels?”
“I cannot imagine,” I said.
“He must have traced you here.” Excitement animated Mr. Slade, and I knew he referred to the criminal we sought. “He has come to you, or sent one of his henchmen, as we hoped he would.”
We hurried to the glass doors and peered out at the garden, but trees concealed my visitor. “I cannot go out there,” I said, shrinking back in terror.
“You must. This may be our only hope of capturing the criminal.” Mr. Slade took hold of my shoulders, gazed intently into my eyes, and spoke with adamant insistence: “You’ve nothing to fear. You won’t be alone. I’ll be watching every moment.”
His determination overcame my resistance; I nodded. “Wait a few minutes while I steal into the garden from the back,” he said, then rushed from the room.
I stood quaking with fright, unwilling to leave the safety of the hotel. But I could not throw away what might be our mission’s only hope of success. Nor could I waste the work for which my sisters had risked their safety. I opened the door and stepped outside.
The setting sun gilded the garden. The day’s lingering heat engulfed me as I crept down the flagstone path. I heard crickets chirping, birds singing, carriages in the streets, and the pounding of my own heart. Rosebushes bordered the path, and each ragged breath I drew filled my lungs with the sweetness of the blossoms. Ahead stood a gazebo. I perceived a man standing inside at the same instant I smelled pungent smoke from the cigar he held. Memories too potent to articulate halted my progress. I stared in astonishment as the man stepped out of the gazebo and walked towards me.
“So, Miss Charlotte,” he said in the brusque, heavily accented English that I’d not heard for almost five years, other than in my dreams. “We meet again.”
He doffed his hat to me. His black hair and beard were streaked with grey, and time had etched new wrinkles around the eyes behind his spectacles; but otherwise his stern visage was the same as that which lived in my memory.
It was M. Heger.
25
I stood transfixed while my lips formed soundless words. I felt faint and dizzy; a violent trembling seized me.
“Is this how you greet your old teacher?” M. Heger snapped. His face took on the same fierce scowl as when he’d discovered mistakes in my essays long ago. “Shameful! Deplorable!”
Composure failed me: I burst into hysterical weeping. M. Heger’s expression softened, the way it always had after his savage criticism wounded me. He tenderly dried my tears with his handkerchief.
“Ah, petite cherie, do not cry,” he said. “The shock, it was too much for you. I should not have arrived without warning. My sincerest apologies.”
While M. Heger patted my shoulder and murmured endearments, I cried for anguish remembered; I cried for joy. And when it ended, I was calm as the sea after a storm.
“How did you know to find me here?” I asked. “Why have you come?”
“It is a strange story,” he said with a characteristic shrug. “This morning I received a letter from someone who did not sign his name. This letter said that my old pupil Charlotte Bronte was at the Hotel Central, and would I kindly deliver to her the enclosed message.”
M. Heger gave me a small white envelope. So dazed I was that I didn’t think to wonder at the meaning of this happenstance. I simply put the envelope in my pocket.
“I must admit that this errand for a mysterious stranger was just a-how do you say it?-a pretext for coming,” M. Heger said. “I wished to see Miss Charlotte, to know how the years have treated her.”