The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë by Laura Joh Rowland

desire to save myself and my sister, I lunged towards the window. My collar tore. I beat my hands against the glass and fumbled open the window. Rain blasted into the coach.
    “Help!” I shouted. “Someone, please help us!”
    The noise of the locomotive and storm drowned my voice. The train sped on. My attacker scrambled into the seat after me. I sobbed in terror as he hauled me backwards into the aisle; I kicked and thrashed. I saw the dark man wrestling with Anne, whose cries and attempts to free herself weakened as he forced her to the floor.
    “Anne!” I screamed. “No!”
    My attacker clamped a rough cloth that reeked of chemicals over my nose and mouth. The cloth smothered me, and I felt a cold, burning sensation across my skin. Sickly sweet fumes invaded my lungs as I gasped and choked. My vision blurred, and a dizzying faintness quelled my struggles. Thunder boomed, then, darkness claimed me.

    Distant voices and hurried footsteps merged in the darkness with a great rattling, rushing din. The smell of smoke accompanied the sound of water spattering as I gradually returned to consciousness. I lay on a firm surface; my head throbbed painfully, and my mouth was dry. Alarm, inspired by terrifying memory, jarred my groggy mental faculties alert.
    My eyelids flew open. Light glared across my vision. I tried to sit up, but vertigo assailed me. Coarse, heavy fabric covered me up to my chin, and I thrashed under it, crying, “Anne!”
    Her hazy image bent over me. “Dear Charlotte!” Her face was pale and drawn. “Thank God you’re all right!”
    “Those men. Where are they?” Breathless with anxiety, I clutched my sister’s hands.
    Anne said with a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry, Charlotte; we are safe now.”
    I relaxed, though I remained bewildered. “Where are we?”
    “At Leeds Station, in the stationmaster’s room.”
    “My spectacles—”
    Anne positioned the spectacles over my eyes, and my surroundings came into focus. On the walls were colorful railway maps of Britain. I was in a room furnished with a desk, bookcases, a sofa upon which I lay beneath a blanket, and several chairs.
    “How did we get here?” Now I recognized the sounds of trains entering the station and people hurrying about. Rain was falling outside the window. “What happened to us?”
    The door opened. Anne called over her shoulder, “Come in—my sister is awake at last.”
    Gilbert White entered the room. What indescribable astonishment was mine!
    “Hello again, Miss Brontë,” he said, gazing down at me with concern. His dark hair was wet; his black suit clung damply to him. “How do you feel?”
    “Extremely unwell, but alive.” I pushed myself upright, fighting dizziness. “What are you doing here?”
    “Mr. White saved us,” Anne said, giving him a thankful look.
    “I don’t understand.” Overwhelmed by the events of the past moments, I shook my aching head. “What happened?”
    Gilbert White perched on a nearby chair. Bruises discolored his cheeks, and his white collar was torn, but he appeared vigorously alive, his masculine looks enhanced by his injuries. “I was riding on the same train as you. When I got off at this station, I saw two men climb out of the carriage ahead of mine, supporting a woman who seemed unable to walk.”
    “It was you, Charlotte,” Anne said. “The men who attacked us put you to sleep somehow.”
    “It must have been the chemical on the cloth over my face.” My dry throat rasped, and Anne handed me a glass of water, which I gladly drank. “What could it have been?”
    “Probably ether—the new drug used by surgeons to render patients unconscious during operations,” Gilbert White explained. “At first I didn’t know the woman was you, because I couldn’t see your face. Then I heard cries coming from the carriage that the two men had just left. I hurried over, looked inside, and found your sister lying on the floor, bound and gagged.”
    “Oh, Anne,” I said,