The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë by Laura Joh Rowland Page A

windows. The room was hot and stuffy. The Chapter Coffee House had once been a haunt of booksellers, publishers, writers, and critics. Later it became an inn frequented by university men and country clerics who were up in London. My father, who had stayed there during his days as a divinity student, had brought Emily and me here when he took us to school in Belgium. But that morning, upon our arrival, the proprietor had informed us that the Chapter Coffee House seldom accommodated overnight guests at present. Seeing our distress, he had graciously allowed us to stay and given us this dingy room upstairs. The inn was an empty, desolate place.
    “My suffering is nothing compared to that of Isabel White,” I said, tossing feverishly. “That such a beautiful creature should be cut down in the prime of her life!”
    “She is now at peace with God,” Anne said.
    Faith had sustained our family through many troubles, but I drew meager solace from it now. “Isabel White came to Paternoster Row to see me!”
    When I returned to the inn after speaking to the constable, the proprietor told me that Isabel had called for me a short time earlier. She had seemed upset to learn that I was out, he said, and had hurried away. Her killer must have attacked her immediately afterward.
    “I knew she was in trouble, and I told her where to find me if she needed my help.” I winced at the agony of my headache. “It’s my fault that she met her death here.”
    “Oh, Charlotte, you mustn’t blame yourself,” Anne said, bathing my face with cool water. “You were trying to do good. The blame belongs to the evil person who killed Miss White.”
    Although I recognized the wisdom of my sister’s words, she could not dispel my guilt. “I’m certain that the police will do nothing to find the killer. Most probably, they consider it not worth their effort.”
    “Perhaps the killer was a swell mobsman, as the constable suggested,” Anne said. “Perhaps he’ll be caught by the police in the course of his subsequent crimes, and punished then.”
    “I cannot believe that the murder was but an accident of fate, and I cannot bear to simply wait and hope that another accident of fate will bring justice,” I cried with a passion. “No! I must try to discover who killed Isabel White.”
    “You?” Anne was astonished. “My dear Charlotte!”
    “It’s the least I can do for Miss White.”
    “But it is police business, not yours. You’ve neither the right nor the means to investigate murder. What could you possibly do?”
    “I don’t know,” I confessed. “But I must know the real story of what happened to Isabel. If I weren’t so ill, perhaps I could devise a plan.”
    With uncharacteristic acerbity Anne said, “I begin to think that your illness has affected your mind.”
    “My mind is perfectly sound.” I sat up, nettled by her suggestion.
    “What other than mental aberration could explain these peculiar notions?” Rising, Anne twisted her hands in anxiety, but a rare defiant spark lit her eyes.
    “You may be content to wait passively for matters to arrange themselves, but I am not,” I snapped. While I knew that my wish to find Isabel White’s killer sounded unreasonable, I resented my younger sister’s challenging me. “Why, if I hadn’t decided upon selling our writing, and persuaded you and Emily to join me in sending our work to publishers, we would have published nothing.”
    “Too much initiative is as bad as too little.” Anne’s voice was breathless; she grasped the chair for support, but her gaze held mine. “I daresay that the murder isn’t the only thing that has impaired your judgment. Perhaps your literary success has rendered you foolishly bold.”
    Sputtering in astonished indignation, I said, “Perhaps you envy my success and wish me to do nothing more than spend my life in idle, dull obscurity; but remember this: If not for my foolish boldness, we wouldn’t be where we are now!”
    Tears shimmered