Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë (33 page)

“No,” Sir William said.

I detected no hesitation or falseness in his reply.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Slade asked.

“Three, four years ago,” Sir William said. “He's our black sheep.”

I heard a soft sound from Lady Kathleen. When I looked at her, she averted her gaze.

“What's he done?” Sir William repeated. “It must be serious if you came all the way from London.”

Slade glanced at the patients in the beds; those awake were listening avidly. “We should discuss this elsewhere.”

It was obvious that although Sir William knew about Niall's bad character, blood was blood and he saw Slade as a threat to his family. But he said, “All right.” He stalked toward the French doors, beckoning Slade. I went, too. Lady Kathleen started after us, but Sir William told her, “Stay here, I'll handle this.”

Outside on the terrace, Sir William bade us sit in wrought-iron chairs at a table under a striped umbrella, but he remained standing. His unfriendly gaze commanded Slade to state his business.

Slade spoke gently, and I remembered that he'd been ordained as a clergyman before he'd become a spy. He must have been schooled on how best to deliver upsetting news, but his manner couldn't lessen the horror of what he said: Niall Kavanagh had formulated the theory that diseases are caused by animalcules, then tested his theory on women of the streets and killed and dissected them; he'd been hired by Lord Eastbourne to build a weapon based on his theory; and his work had come to the attention of Wilhelm Stieber, the Tsar's chief spy. After Slade reported that Niall had disappeared and Stieber was hunting him, Sir William shook his head violently.

“I won't listen to any more of this!” The ruddy color had drained from his face. “Niall's always been a troublemaker, to be sure, but he's not the monster you've made him out to be!”

I heard a strangled cry, from Lady Kathleen. She stood partially hidden by a potted shrub, her hand clapped over her mouth, appalled by what she'd overheard.

“Damn you for coming here and telling awful lies about my son to his mother!” Sir Kavanagh burst out at Slade.

Lady Kathleen stumbled blindly down the steps to the lawn. I followed her. The lawn was uncut and weed-choked, probably due to the servants fleeing the famine. The rose garden into which Lady Kathleen hurried was similarly ill-maintained, the bushes overgrown, the dead blossoms left shriveled alongside the new blooms, the odor funereal. Lady Kathleen wandered aimlessly, wringing her hands. I pitied her, but I couldn't pass up a chance to further Slade's and my investigation.

“I'm sorry,” I said, ashamed of my readiness to take advantage of her. “I wish you hadn't had to hear that.”

“It's all right.” Lady Kathleen's voice was quiet, with a melodious Irish lilt. “I've been dreading this day. Now that it's come, it's a relief.”

“You knew what Niall has done?”

“Not the specifics. Nor how bad they were. But Niall is my son.” Lady Kathleen stopped wandering and turned to me. “Do you have children, Mrs. Slade?”

This was the first time anyone had addressed me by my fraudulent name and title. Disconcerted, I said, “No.”

“Maybe you will someday,” Lady Kathleen said kindly. “Then you'll understand. I carried Niall, I gave birth to him. I know him better than anyone else can. And I knew, from the start, that he was . . . different.”

I resisted the urge to force the issue of Niall's whereabouts. “Different in what way?”

“I have five children. None of the others were as curious about the world as Niall was. As soon as he could walk, he would go into the fields and dig holes to find out what was under the ground, and rip plants up by their roots to look at them. One day he tore open all the rosebuds in this garden to see how the flowers looked before they bloomed. He would climb trees, take baby birds out of their nests, and handle them so much they died.” Her face showed alarm at his ignorant destruction of beauty and life. “When he was seven, he killed a cat that was expecting kittens, and he cut open her stomach to see what was inside!”

I felt the horror that I heard in her voice. I began to understand how his curiosity had compelled Niall Kavanagh to do the terrible things he'd done.

“Niall was just as careless with people,” Lady Kathleen said. “He drowned a shepherd's little girl because he wanted to see how long she could stay under water.” Lady Kavanagh shook her head, unable to fathom how her child could have behaved so cruelly. “He held her head down until she stopped breathing.”

Curiosity must be an essential trait for a scientist, but Niall Kavanagh had clearly been over-endowed with it, and lacking in conscience and compassion.

“Sir William told the girl's family that it was an accident,” Lady Kathleen said. “He gave them money. He talked to the authorities, and they excused Niall because he was just a child.”

He'd used his wealth and influence to protect a murderer. “Wasn't Niall ever punished?” I asked. “Wasn't he ever taught that it's wrong to hurt people?”

“Of course.” Lady Kathleen's tone sharpened at my implication that her negligence was to blame. “I talked to him again and again. But he never seemed to understand that what he'd done was wrong. I made him stay in his room and go without supper; I took away his toys; I spanked him. But it only made him angry because
I
didn't understand
him
.” Baffled, she said, “He was so excited whenever he discovered something new. He thought he should be praised for whatever he did.”

I wondered if he'd later thought he deserved praise for stealing his mentor's work, for his affairs with his colleagues' wives, for airing his controversial views, and then taken offense because he'd been criticized and cast out instead.

“He was the same way at school,” Lady Kathleen said. “Instead of doing the homework that was assigned, he would read books and write reports on subjects he'd chosen himself. When he was punished, he would fly into a rage. He was expelled from several schools because he attacked his teachers. We had to bring him home and hire a tutor for him. But he would go into the village and drink, and start brawls. And he got several girls with child.”

“Did Sir William know about all this?”

“I tried to tell him,” Lady Kathleen said, “but he didn't really listen.”

I could hear the murmur of Slade's voice telling Sir William about the evidence against Niall. Sir William's voice replied, loud and angry: “Scribbles in notebooks. Scientific paraphernalia. That doesn't prove my son is guilty of murder. You're twisting everything around to make him a criminal!”

A spasm of pain tightened Lady Kathleen's delicate features. “He's never wanted to believe there was anything wrong with Niall.”

“So he did nothing?”

“Not until Niall was sixteen. There was a riot in Dublin, when some Catholic students protested against the English government. Niall marched with them even though we aren't Catholic.”

“You aren't?” I was surprised; I'd assumed the Kavanaghs were Catholic, like most Irish.

“No. Our family is Protestant.”

I now recalled that many Irish nobles were. “But I understood that when Niall went to England, he was a devout Roman. He agitated for Catholic rights and even joined a branch of Young Ireland during the revolutions of 1848.”

“He converted to Catholicism,” Lady Kathleen said. “His father was furious.”

Maybe he'd done it to infuriate his father. Maybe he had an inherent need to set himself in opposition to authority; maybe he perversely craved the punishment that angered him so. By styling himself an Irish Catholic in England, he'd certainly courted disapproval. “What happened to him during the riot?”

“He stabbed a constable,” Lady Kathleen said. “The police arrested him and put him in jail. Sir William blamed Niall's friends, and the troubles in Ireland, and everybody but Niall.”

In the background, Slade's voice continued, low and relentless. Sir William declared, “Someone must have planted the evidence.”

“Who?” Slade asked.

“Maybe your government,” Sir William said. “There are plenty of folks in it who'd like to silence anyone who agitates for Irish rights.”

“Sir William thought Niall just needed a change of scene,” Lady Kathleen said. “He used his influence to get the charges dismissed, and to get Niall admitted to Oxford. We thought Niall could get a proper education and put his mind to better use. But while he was there . . .”

“I know,” I said, sparing her the pain of describing her son's career in England.

“I prayed that he would see the error of his ways and mend them,” Lady Kathleen said sadly. “But I knew in my heart that something was missing in him from the start. A moral sense, the ability to care about other people. When I saw him this last time, I gave up hope.”

“When was that?” I spoke quietly, controlling my eagerness.

“In early May. He hadn't been home in three years, and he'd changed so much I barely recognized him. He was skin and bones. His hair was long, and he'd grown a shaggy beard. He looked and smelled as if he hadn't washed or slept in days. And his eyes were wild, like a madman's. He said he was in trouble. When we asked him what kind, he wouldn't explain. He just begged us to protect him. Sir William said he could stay here. We thought that was what he wanted. He'd brought his trunks, and some packages.”

An internal thunder reverberated through me. Niall apparently hadn't left everything behind in his house in Whitechapel or his secret laboratory. Did he have with him the makings of his weapon?

“But Niall said that people were after him, dangerous people, and he couldn't stay here because they would find him.” Lady Kathleen sounded as perplexed and frightened as she must have been that day. “So Sir William sent Niall . . .”

“Where?” I asked urgently.

Lady Kathleen compressed her lips. We listened to Slade say, “Your son is a danger to himself as well as to others. I'll ask you again: Where is he?”

“If he's a problem, I'll deal with him myself,” Sir William said.

Lady Kathleen's face twitched, responding to the tug of the conflict inside her. “Sir William doesn't want me to tell.”

“There really are people after Niall,” I said. “Your best hope of keeping him safe is to help Mr. Slade find him first.”

“I've never gone against Sir William's wishes.”

I could see that she longed to place the heavy weight of her son's troubles in other hands. “This time you must. For Niall's own good.”

She exhaled a tremulous, forlorn sigh. “I can't.”

“Then you must help Mr. Slade persuade Sir William to change his mind. Come.”

When I brought her to the terrace, I was shocked by the transformation that Sir William had undergone. He looked older and shrunken, his confidence diminished. In his heart he knew the worst about Niall despite his lifelong effort not to believe it, but he raised his fist to Slade and said, “Get off my property, or I'll have you shot!”

Lady Kathleen hastened to him. “Mr. and Mrs. Slade are right. You must tell them where Niall is.”

He turned his anger on her. “Don't tell me what to do!”

She persisted bravely. “We can't protect Niall anymore. We need help.”

“You're no match for Wilhelm Stieber,” Slade interjected. The force of his personality held Sir William captive as if he had the man by the throat. “Let me save Niall.” Compassion mellowed his clear, hard gaze as he glanced at Lady Kathleen. “For his mother's sake.”

Sir William stared at us in wounded fury, as though we'd all conspired against him. Then he lowered himself into a chair and spoke to his wife in a quavering voice. “Our son is a criminal. He's gone mad. He killed those women. I'm to blame because I didn't help him when I could have.”

The sight of a strong, proud man breaking is terrible. I could hardly bear to watch.

Lady Kathleen laid her hand on her husband's. “Help him now,” she urged softly.

Sir William turned to Slade. “I lied when I said I hadn't seen Niall in years. He came home a few weeks ago.”

“In early May.” Lady Kathleen repeated the words she'd spoken to me.

“I sent Niall to France the next day. A distant cousin of mine owns a château in Normandy. Niall is there—as far as I know.”

I
HAVE NOTICED AN INTERESTING PHENOMENON IN FICTION: WHENEVER the author tells the reader what his characters are planning to do, it does not happen. Something else occurs to render their careful forethought useless, to foil their hopes and the reader's anticipations. Whether or not this is always true in books, it is in the case of the story that I am now telling.