“Someone injured Mr. Mason,” Jane said, choosing her words carefully. “He bled profusely.”
Mr. Blackwood clenched his fists. “Rochester,” he grunted.
“He had nothing to do with it,” Jane said. “He had me tend Mr. Mason’s wounds while he went for help. Mr. Mason left with the doctor not very long ago.”
“Mr. Rochester is not who you think,” Mr. Blackwood said. “His intentions are neither noble nor honest.”
Jane stood. “You do not know him,” she said again.
“Nor do you, Miss Eyre.”
Charlotte raised her hand to Mr. Blackwood. “Please, Mr. Blackwood.” She turned to Jane and seemed to search for the right words. It was a long moment of silence. Finally, she blurted, “Jane, you’re in danger, friend.”
Jane’s brow rumpled. “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Rochester might be a nefarious villain,” Charlotte exclaimed.
“She’s right,” Mr. Blackwood said. “We still have to gather proof, but in the meantime, it would be safest if you left Thornfield Hall.”
“Tell me why you say this?”
“I am not prepared to give you the details,” Mr. Blackwood said.
Jane closed her eyes and shook her head. “What is it with men unable to give details? I am at home here. I have found my place and nothing you can say would entreat me to leave.”
“You wish Jane to leave?” The gruff voice came from the archway of the garden. Mr. Rochester had returned quite unexpectedly.
“Yes,” Alexander said, stiffening his spine. “I do not think this is a good situation for her.”
“I see,” Mr. Rochester said. “In that case, get out.”
“What?” Mr. Blackwood said.
“You may remove yourself from Thornfield at once. You obviously know nothing of our life here, and appreciate it even less. As master of the house, I kindly request you to vacate the premises. And please take your cousins with you.”
Jane stood speechless for a few moments. Her feelings for Rochester were strong, and yet she was not sure whose side she should be on.
“Jane?” Charlotte said.
Yes, it had indeed been a strange night. But Mr. Rochester had seen her. Had appreciated her. And Mr. Blackwood had no details and no proof of any wrongdoings. Her feelings were muddled, but her logic was sound. She turned her head away from Charlotte.
Mr. Blackwood bowed. “We will impose on your hospitality no longer.”
He stalked away, Charlotte following reluctantly.
And even though Jane felt justified in her actions, she couldn’t help but feel like an abandoned ship.
TWENTY-ONE
Alexander
Getting kicked out wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.
The pros were that Alexander could finally put on his mask again (at last!), and . . . well, maybe that was it.
The list of cons was a little bigger.
Firstly, he’d obviously lost Miss Eyre.
Secondly (we love to follow firstlies with secondlies), Rochester. He was the murderer, Alexander was (mostly) certain of it. But he needed more proof than just the letter, and now he’d been removed from Thornfield and all the proof that might be hiding in there.
However, there was still Mr. Mason.
(That might count as a pro of getting thrown out, but it was really hard to say at this point. Alexander was quite conflicted about the whole thing.)
Mr. Mason definitely knew something about Rochester, and if Alexander could question him, all his suspicions about Rochester would be vindicated. But they’d gone to the doctor and Mason hadn’t been there. The rumor about town (which Miss Brontë had collected in all of five minutes, of course) was that Mason was returning home to the West Indies.
So that meant Alexander and the Brontës needed to overtake Mason on the road, question him, and then they could all return to Thornfield and arrest Rochester. Surely, once it was known that Rochester was the most vile sort of villain, Miss Eyre would consider other job opportunities.
As the carriage bumped down the road—with Branwell narrating everything he saw out the window and Miss Brontë writing in her notebook—Alexander closed his eyes and turned his thoughts inward.
The letter burned a hole in his pocket. It was somewhat alarming. What did save the Society and bring this travesty to an end mean? And what about the mysterious “AW” they wanted to do something about? That could be Arthur Wellesley.
But Wellington would never do anything to harm the Society. He was a war hero. Why, Beethoven had composed a fifteen-minute piece in commemoration. (Called “Wellington’s Victory.” Look it up.) So what did it mean if his father wanted to do something about the leader of the Society?
Surely his father hadn’t betrayed them.
“You’re brooding,” Miss Brontë commented. She watched him, glasses raised, and tapped her pencil against her notebook. A frown turned her mouth downward.
“I don’t brood. I was just closing my eyes. I didn’t sleep last night.”
“I know brooding when I see it, Mr. Blackwood. Don’t deny it.”
“Go home, Miss Brontë.”
She snorted.
But he didn’t want her to go home. She was smart and thoughtful and truly had all the makings of a proper Society agent. (Arguably, that was the highest praise Alexander knew how to give.) He was glad for her presence and her level head.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to persuade Jane to our cause,” she said after a few moments.
“It isn’t your fault. Rochester is to blame.”
It was Rochester who was the real problem in all this. Whatever the letter had meant about problems in the Society—Rochester was probably to blame for those, too.
“I know,” Miss Brontë said, “but I promised I could do it and I haven’t. I intend to make up for the failure, however. And it’s not really a failure. It’s a temporary setback.” She scribbled something in her notebook and muttered, “Temporary setback.” Then she looked up at him again. “Attitude is everything. We can’t call it a failure, because it’s not.”
Alexander wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t have the energy to argue with her. He just wanted to catch up to Mason as quickly as possible and find out what the man knew about Rochester.
The group began only a few hours behind Mason, but a storm forced them to drive slowly the first day, so they missed him in Nottingham. A broken wheel delayed them the second day, so they missed him in Leicester. And one of the horses threw a shoe on the third day, so they missed him in Northampton. Alexander was afraid someone would come down with dysentery (wait, that’s a different story), so they took a train the rest of the way to London.
From the train station, they went straight to the West India docks, where he left the Brontë siblings near a pub with all their luggage while he inquired about ship schedules.
That was harder than Alexander anticipated, because in spite of growing up in London, he knew very little about shipping or docks or even who he might need to talk to. So his quest began with asking strange men about their superiors.
“Go see Fred over there. He’s in charge of this area,” said one man. He pointed toward a small shack.
Alexander didn’t see a man. “You mean that pigeon?”
“No, I mean—” The man looked around and shrugged. “I guess he’s gone. Try the dockmaster, though.”
“Where’s the dockmaster?”
“He could be anywhere. He has a lot of docks to master.”
Alexander nodded. “What about his office? Maybe I’ll try there first.”
“Good idea.” The man offered a few simple directions and sent Alexander off, but the docks were much more confusing and busy than he’d been prepared for, and he was soon lost. Several more times, he had to ask directions to the dockmaster’s office. The afternoon sun was punishing, and the crowds of men hollering and hauling only made the heat worse. The stench of fish and brine filled the air, suffocating, and several warehouse guards gave him
suspicious looks. Probably because of his mask.
Finally, though, he reached the office (which was actually quite close to the dock entrance, and it was possible all the dockworkers he’d gotten directions from had been having a good time watching him go in circles). He stepped inside to find a haggard-looking man sitting at a large desk with stacks and stacks of papers. Yet more papers spilled from file cabinets.
Even with the windows open, the room was stuffy. Sweat beaded behind Alexander’s mask as he approached the desk. “Good afternoon. I’m Alexander Blackwood, with the Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits.”
“I’m sure you are. And I’m King William IV.” The man looked up. “Oh. I see you are from the Society. I recognize you by your mask.”
“I get that a lot.”
“I’m Guy.”
“Guy?”
“Yes. What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for a Mr. Mason,” Alexander said.
Guy jerked a thumb at the window at his back, toward the crowded docks. “Do you see that?”
Alexander nodded.
“There are at least six hundred ships in there. That’s thousands of crewmen. Thousands of dockworkers. Hundreds of guards. I don’t know all those people by name, and I certainly don’t know your Mr. Mason.”
“He’s not my Mr. Mason.” Wait, that was off topic. Alexander searched his memory for everything he’d learned about Mr. Mason during his stay in Thornfield. “Mason owns a business, and at least twenty ships. He might be on one of the vessels leaving soon.”
“Oh,” said Guy. “That Mr. Mason. I know him!”
“Really?”
“No.” Guy dropped his face to one of the piles of papers and began flipping through. “But I do know of him, now that you mention it. His ships come through here with sugar, molasses, other goods like that. He’s a popular fellow. Always kind, I hear. He has a charming nephew. A hard worker, that boy. He—”
“Ahem.” That was great, but Alexander didn’t need gossip now. He needed to find the man himself.
After a few minutes, Guy jabbed his finger at one of the pages. “Ah! Yes, he’s on the PurlAnn. He was added to the passenger manifest just today, and the ship departs in”—he squinted at the page—“thirty minutes.”
Alexander exhaled in relief. He hadn’t missed him after all. But thirty minutes wasn’t a great deal of time. He’d have to go after Mason immediately. “I don’t suppose you can show me which ship the PurlAnn is?”
Guy heaved himself up off the desk and limped toward the door. His peg leg thunked on the floor.
“That one.” Guy pointed toward a four-masted galleon. Blue and green sails snapped in the wind. “Good luck.” Guy thumped back into his office.
“Thanks!”
Alexander started toward the PurlAnn, but instinct—an intuition that had never led him astray—told him to check on the Brontës. He glanced toward the dockyard exit and waited for a break in the crowd on the street.
There was Miss Brontë, writing in her notebook, as usual. Every now and then, she lifted her glasses and gazed around the street, as though just the right words would appear before her. And when she caught him looking, she smiled and waved.
Then there was Branwell, bent down and offering something to a homeless child.
A . . . teacup?
The teacup.
And he wasn’t wearing gloves.
“No!” The shout broke from Alexander and he took off at a mad sprint. “Branwell, no!”
His cry drew eyes as he barreled through the crowded docks and pushed his way through the busy street. But it was too late. Branwell straightened, his shoulders thrown back.
He was possessed. By Brocklehurst.
Why wasn’t that fool boy wearing his gloves? Hadn’t Alexander told him that the cup (and pocket watch and the cane) was dangerous?
Alexander pushed his way through the crowd, shouting, “Miss Brontë, watch out!” but it turned out she didn’t need instructions or help.
He did.
Branwell/Brocklehurst spun toward Alexander just as the crowd broke and backed off, probably realizing something terrible was about to happen, and the possessed Society agent lifted the teacup into the air.
“Which teacup is it?” Branwell/Brocklehurst screamed, and charged toward Alexander.
The action started something of a stampede. People ran in every which way, trying to escape the madman with the teacup. Miss Brontë moved to intercept her brother.
The teacup landed with a thump on Alexander’s head.
“Which teacup is it?” Brocklehurst shrieked from Branwell’s body. “How do you like it?”
All around them, people screamed and tried to get away, but there were just enough people who wanted to watch a Society agent be assaulted with a teacup that true exodus was difficult.
Alexander grappled with Brocklehurst, trying to take the teacup, but the ghost pulled back and started yelling at people in the crowd: “Don’t let him near your tea!”
Upstanding British men and women gasped, some holding paper bags to their chests. The crest of the local tea shop was emblazoned across the front.
“Don’t let him near your china!” Brocklehurst shouted.
And this time, house servants with boxes pulled back in alarm.
“He’ll trap you in teacups!”
Alexander tackled Brocklehurst and grabbed for the teacup, but the china bashed against his temple and made him blink back stars. It was a shockingly sturdy teacup.
“Give me the teacup!” Alexander’s fingers scraped against the ceramic—not enough to take it, but enough that the handle slipped from Brocklehurst/Branwell’s fingers and the teacup dropped to the ground.
And it shattered.
Not so sturdy after all.
At once, Brocklehurst shouted in triumph as a thousand pieces of ceramic scattered across the street. “Die, you evil teacup!”
Miss Brontë appeared in the periphery of Alexander’s vision, a huge plank of wood drawn back, ready to swing.
Brocklehurst evacuated Branwell’s body.
Before Alexander could raise a warning, the plank hit Branwell square in the head, and his assistant dropped to the cobblestones with a thud.
“Free at last!” shouted the ghost of Brocklehurst as he skipped down the street, invisible to most everyone now.
“Take that!” Miss Brontë shouted.
“Miss Brontë, Brocklehurst is gone.” Alexander climbed to his feet and dusted ceramic shards off his trousers.
“So I got him?”
“You got your brother.”
She lifted her glasses. “Not Brocklehurst?”
“As I said, he’s gone.”
“You’re under arrest.” A gloved hand clapped down on Alexander’s shoulder.
Alexander groaned. Could this day get any worse?
He turned and straightened his mask. “Good afternoon, Officer. My name is Alexander Blackwood. I’m with the Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits.”
The officer frowned. “The Society . . .”
“I work for the Duke of Wellington. I’m happy to put you in touch with him if you have questions.”
The officer frowned harder, like he wanted to inform Alexander of the Society’s decline, but they both knew he couldn’t arrest anyone here. Ghost business was still Society business.
“And what about this fellow?” The officer motioned at Branwell, who was just now rousing himself. A lump already grew on his head.
“He’s my assistant,” Alexander admitted.
“And this lady?” The officer glanced at Miss Brontë.
“My assistant’s assistant.” Alexander glanced over the officer’s shoulder, toward the docks and the PurlAnn. Was the ship in the same place as before? It was hard to tell. “Now, I really do need to go—”
“Very well.” The officer started away. “Have a good evening.”
Just then, Alexander caught sight of the PurlAnn, her blue a
nd green sails full of wind as she vanished toward the Thames.
Mr. Mason was gone.
TWENTY-TWO
Charlotte
“So this is it,” Mr. Blackwood muttered as the downtrodden group shuffled into the third-floor flat on Baker Street. “Home, sweet home. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Charlotte lifted her spectacles to her face. Mr. Blackwood’s flat was neat and meticulously maintained, much like Mr. Blackwood himself. But there was not much in the way of furniture. She spotted a pair of small chairs in the corner of the sitting room and perched herself upon one carefully, folding her hands into her lap. Bran stood near the door as if he half expected to be asked to leave, still utterly remorseful at what had transpired with the teacup and the ghost of Mr. Brocklehurst. Neither of the Brontës looked remotely comfortable.
“Well then,” said Mr. Blackwood. “Can I offer you some tea?”
Bran groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “I don’t think I will ever have tea again. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Bran, dear, no need to be so extreme.” Charlotte tried a sympathetic smile. “It was a mistake. We all make mistakes.”
“But I make mistakes more than anybody else.”
That was true.
“That is true,” Mr. Blackwood said, not unkindly. “But you’re a new initiate. And you’re learning.”
Bran glanced at him hopefully. “Did you ever handle a talisman mistakenly and end up possessed by the spirit within?”
Mr. Blackwood cleared his throat. “I’ll see about that tea.”
He strode off into another room. Charlotte went to Bran and put her arm around him. “Chin up,” she instructed. “All is not lost, dear brother.” Although as she said this, she thought about how, with Mason gone, they couldn’t definitively prove that Rochester was of shady character, or gather any substantial evidence in the case of the murder of Mr. Blackwood’s father. Plus, they had returned to London without Jane Eyre. And now Jane was apparently in love with a nefarious villain.
It did, indeed, feel as though pretty much all was lost.
“I have ruined everything,” sighed Bran.
“We’ll put things right somehow.”
“How?”