“Your presence does me an honor,” he said. “A thousand thanks for accepting my invitation.”
His voice emanated from behind a lattice screen at the far end of the table. He could see me through the lattice, but I could not see him.
“Who are you?” I said in a quavering voice. “Why did you bring me here?”
He laughed-a hushed, silvery sound that prickled my skin. “All in good time, my dear Miss Bronte. First you must please eat.”
Fear clenched my stomach into a knot that spurned food. None was set before him: He intended to remain hidden while watching me. I fought an urge to run. If Mr. Slade and the police were near, I must wait for them to capture my host and rescue me. If they had lost track of me during that wild ride, then I was on my own, I knew not where, at the mercy of a criminal. I lifted my spoon, dipped it into the soup, and pretended to sip the steaming liquid.
“The philosophers of my kingdom believe that one’s fortune can be read in the face,” said my invisible host. “Will you allow me to tell you what I see in yours, Miss Bronte?”
His voice possessed a strange quality that calmed me as though I’d drunk a soporific, and it inclined me to let him lead the talk where he wished. I nodded.
“I see intelligence, courage, and honesty,” he said. “I see kindness, loyalty, faith, and a struggle between fear and will, desire and caution, in your beautiful eyes. The ravages of suffering accompany the strength of spirit. The future promises you danger, adventure, sorrow, and happiness.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been susceptible to flattery at such a time, but the power of the fortuneteller strengthened his hold over me. However, I was not yet so beguiled that I forgot my own purposes. “Now that you have appraised me, might I see you and read your character and fortune?” Now that I was almost face to face with evil, I wanted to look it in the eye.
Again he laughed, as though pleased by my wits even while he mocked me. “Ah, Miss Bronte, you must earn the privilege.”
“How?” I set down my spoon, abandoning any pretense of eating.
“You must describe for me the events in your life that shaped you into the woman who has traveled across land and ocean in search of me,” he said. “Where shall we begin?” There was a suspenseful, anticipatory pause. “Tell me about the death of your mother.”
My mother’s death was a wound that still caused pain. My defenses bristled that this arrogant stranger would dare to probe that wound. “I would rather not,” I said coldly.
His shadow stirred behind his screen; I heard the silken rustle of his garments. “Come now, Miss Bronte. Your honorable mother deserves a better tribute than your silence.” His tone was reproachful. “And I wish to hear the story.”
I realized that if Mr. Slade were able to save me, he would have by now. I was alone, and I must obey my host or risk provoking his wrath. And strangely, I felt a need to talk: It was as if he had unlocked some door inside me. I recalled a passage from Isabel White’s book: His voice was like velvet and steel, probing the recesses of my mind. Many questions did He ask me, and many secrets did He elicit.
“She took ill when I was five,” I said, halting and nervous. “She went to her bed and was unable to get up. Papa insisted that my sisters and brother and I play outside because she couldn’t bear our noise.”
Memory showed me Papa’s careworn face, the closed door behind which Mama lay wasting, and Maria, Elizabeth, Emily, Anne, Branwell, and myself walking the moors together. My childhood feelings of woe and confusion now returned “When we went home in the evening, we could hear her moaning. Papa sat and prayed by her all night.” I remembered his prayers rising above the terrible sounds of Mama’s anguish, and experienced anew the fear I had felt. “She grew weaker, until one day Papa called us into her room.”
The image of my mother, so thin, pale, and still, rose up before me. Papa sat beside her while we children stood at the foot of the bed. “We stayed with her until she died.”
As Mama drew her last breath, Branwell slipped his hand into mine. I had forgotten that, and telling the story had restored this lost detail of Mama’s passing. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“How sad that the untimely death of your mother was not your only childhood misfortune,” said my host. “Did you not also lose your two elder sisters?”
Though his voice exuded sympathy, his words compounded my pain. I could not bear to think of Maria and Elizabeth now, let alone submit to interrogation about them.
“Did you stand by their deathbeds?” my host pressed. “Did you pray for their spirits as they departed this world?”
“I did for Elizabeth,” I said, compelled to answer in spite of myself. From Him I could hide nothing, Isabel had written. “But I didn’t know Maria was dying until it was too late. She and Elizabeth took ill at our boarding school. They were sent home, while I stayed at school. Papa brought me home in time to see Elizabeth again.” The candle flames quivered and reflected in my tears. “But I never got to say goodbye to Maria.”
“Your story causes me sorrow beyond words,” my host said. Indeed, he sounded sincerely grieved. As I wept, his compassion soothed me, and I quite forgot that it was he who had dredged up my worst memories. After my tears subsided, he said, “We shall dwell no longer upon tragedy. Let us next discuss your experiences in the noble profession of teaching. How admirable that you once attempted to found your own school.”
Alas, the school was another painful episode of my life that his spies had uncovered. “I obtained a Continental education so that I could offer lessons in French,” I said. “I sent prospectuses to everyone I knew, but not a single pupil could I get. Haworth is too remote and dreary a location.”
“The school was doomed despite all your effort,” said my host. “It is not your fault that you were unable to assure independent means for your sisters and yourself.”
This I believed; but there persisted a nagging suspicion that my dislike of teaching, and a secret wish to fail, had undone my best efforts. And though my host’s voice conveyed no criticism, I thought I deserved the blame. I felt like a pathetic wretch, despite my literary success, which he seemed unaware of; at the time, even I could almost believe it had never happened.
“A woman in your position can secure her future by marrying,” my host said. “Why did you not?”
He seemed to know my every sensitive spot, and now he had touched the sorest. “I didn’t want to marry either of the two men who wanted to marry me,” I answered, driven to justify myself. “They were as ill suited to me as I to them.”
“Perhaps your unique character has destined you for solitude.”
He spoke this as a compliment, yet with a ring of prophecy that discouraged my lingering hope that I would find love. That Mr. Slade did not come to my rescue seemed incontrovertible proof that he was not meant for me.
“But do not despair, Miss Bronte,” my host said. His voice breathed comfort through his screen towards me. “I appreciate you as other men cannot. You have in me a friend who values the rare qualities that everyone else overlooks. I shall reward you for your many hardships and failures.”
I felt so lost, hopeless, and alone that I could almost believe him to be the only person in the world who cared for me. I dimly realized that he had worked this same spell on Isabel White. He seemed the one person in the world who knew me and accepted me with all my faults. Every piece of myself that I gave Him purchased His favor in some inexplicable way, and I desired His favor above all else. He must have shown her the futility of her life, then drawn her to into his treacherous web.