Midnight in Austenland

by Shannon Hale

  In the yellow blaze of afternoon, she put on her bonnet and made the ten-minute walk to the inn beyond Pembrook’s gates. Mrs. Wattlesbrook wasn’t there, but Patience the maid knew of the arrangement and admitted Charlotte into Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s study, where she produced Charlotte’s purse from a locked cabinet and left her in privacy.

  Charlotte pulled out her cell phone and dialed James’s number. Lu answered. Oh good! Charlotte knew that Alisha’s presence at Pembrook was supposed to be a secret, but Lu didn’t know exactly where her mom was—just that she was on vacation somewhere in England—so it wouldn’t really be telling if she shared that juicy gossip. And besides, there were no rules when it came to a mother earning points with her teenage daughter.

  “Lu! I’m so happy to hear your voice. You’re never going to believe who else is here.”

  “Mom, Aunt Shelby told me you hired a private detective to follow Pete.”

  A pause.

  “Did you hire some guy with a camera to follow Pete?”

  Another pause.

  “Um …” Charlotte said cleverly.

  “Mom!”

  Aunt Shelby! Sisters-in-law were supposed to be trustworthy. Well, she no longer felt guilty for never hanging up Shelby’s rainbow-and-smiling-sun cross-stitch.

  “Honey, listen, I was worried. I just wanted to make sure he was safe … that he was worthy of—”

  “I’m done with you.”

  Sounds of the phone being passed along, then Beckett’s voice said, “Hello?”

  Charlotte cleared her throat and tried to sound unrattled. “Hi, baby. How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “What have you been doing for fun?”

  “Nothing.”

  Okay. “So, tell me the favorite thing you’ve done in the past week.”

  “Sleep.”

  Mm-hm. “Do you sleep on the pullout couch?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m having a pretty weird time. I’ll have to tell you all about it when I get home.”

  “K bye.”

  “Wait—I love you, Beck, and I miss you lots. Can you put your father on before you hang up?”

  Sound of phone switching hands.

  “Charlotte!”

  This was not James. This was Justice, a.k.a. the Other Woman. Charlotte’s stomach seemed to withdraw into her body like a snail into its shell.

  “Charlotte, I just want to tell you how darling the kids are. So cute. I thought you’d like to know. SO cute.”

  “Thanks, Justice. I think so too.”

  “No, I mean now. This week. I’m sure they’ve never been so cute as they are this week. I mean, SO cute.”

  “I’m glad it’s all going well.”

  “The best! Just the best! I could eat them up! Do you know, Beckett called me ‘Mom’?”

  Now Charlotte’s stomach dissolved into nothing. “He did?”

  “Mm-hm! Isn’t that great?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s healthy for them, right? To accept me as another mom, right? Not Mom like you, of course, but another mom, right? So, are you having a fun time playing in England?”

  “Yes, I am, thanks.”

  Justice’s voice dipped low and suggestive. “Meet any men?”

  Charlotte’s face made an expression that belonged on Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s face. “May I speak with James, please?”

  “Sure thing. Just don’t try romancing him. I’m watching you two!” She laughed pleasantly.

  Charlotte stayed silent.

  Sound of phone switching hands.

  “Hello.”

  Now that was James. His “hello” sounded more like “be concise.”

  “Hi, James. It’s Charlotte. The kids were a little nonverbal, so I just wanted to check that everything was okay.”

  “Yep, it’s all okay. Having the time of their lives.”

  “Okay then. Thanks for watching them.”

  “Sure, bye.”

  Charlotte pushed End and sat back. Deep breath and exhale those toxins, she could hear her yoga instructor say. Charlotte made herself light-headed trying to purge out the toxins. They weren’t budging. Stupid, stubborn, lead-butted toxins.

  Why had she thanked James for watching them? He was their father, not a babysitter. Get a spine, girl. And how could she just take all that from Justice? But maybe she deserved it … Stop that, Charlotte! It’d been good to hear Lu’s and Beckett’s voices at least. Would have been nicer had their words been different.

  The phone’s battery was low, so she dug through her bag, found the recharger and adapter, and plugged it into the wall. She looked around the desk for a magazine or something else to read while she waited so she wouldn’t replay the conversation in her mind again and again. She moved aside a folder.

  The one beneath was labeled “Windy Nook.” It really was an appealing name. Charlotte flipped the folder open, hoping to find a photo that would match the lovely image of it that she had in her head. First she found a stack of legal papers: lists of debts, back taxes, threat of foreclosure, then a lease to a third party.

  Okay, now she was just straight-up snooping.

  Underneath the stack was a series of group photographs from the past ten years labeled “Windy Nook Cast.” Several gentlemen, servants, and an older-looking married couple (possibly the host and hostess?) posed in front of a grand house. Pembrook Park looked as happy as Cinderella’s castle by comparison. Windy Nook was decidedly Gothic—narrow windows, toothy battlements, and a tower with a single window watching over all. Mary, Charlotte’s maid, was present in the last three photos, looking her usual pale-to-transparent self. Neville apparently had been the butler there for several years. Mr. Mallery was in every single photo.

  A folder beneath, labeled “Bertram Hall,” contained similar documents—debts, taxes, and this time a sale, though the sale price barely covered the debts and taxes owed. There was a floor plan of Bertram Hall, which, though not as large as Pembrook Park, was a very grand house, and she had to believe it was worth more than the sale price, especially if it was kept up as nicely as Pembrook. Mrs. Wattlesbrook did not seem like a careless businesswoman, but apparently she’d dropped the ball on this one.

  Then Charlotte noticed the signature on the bill of sale: John Wattlesbrook.

  The cast photos showed Bertram Hall to be cheerier than Windy Nook, with a yellow stone facade and an exuberantly flowering garden. A younger Colonel Andrews made an appearance in two of the cast photos for Bertram Hall. Charlotte couldn’t find Eddie in the casts for either house, and she remembered Miss Charming’s whispering that he was new to Pembrook Park. What had he been up to before?

  The door opened. Charlotte stood up hastily, knocking the stack of folders to the floor. Mrs. Wattlesbrook was in the threshold, eyes narrowed.

  “Mrs. Wattlesbrook! Sorry, you startled me. I couldn’t find you this morning so I came alone to make my call. You remember, I’d talked to you about having to call my kids regularly. So I just did. And now the phone is recharging …”

  She felt her face heat up, and she crouched behind the desk, hurriedly stuffing the loose papers back in their folders.

  “Sorry. I startle easily, I guess, and I’ve messed up your tidy folders.”

  “I can take care of that, Mrs. Cordial,” she said, stooping over to retrieve the papers.

  Charlotte stood. “Okay. Sorry. Thanks.”

  Her heart was thumping, unused to artifice. Just how had James managed to have an affair and not show it? The hassle of furtiveness would have done her in. Maybe it had been exciting for him, in some sick way. Maybe the heart-pounding and face-flushing he’d felt whenever he’d lied to Charlotte or almost got caught made him euphoric, not sick in the stomach.

  “Sorry,” Charlotte said again before returning her phone and bag to the cabinet and leaving. She didn’t know who she was apologizing to. Maybe everyone in the whole world.

  She walked slowly back to Pembrook Park, feel
ing the threads of that phone call clinging to her like cobwebs on a wandering phantasm. Lu and Beckett were okay. They were fine. Great without her, actually. That should be good news, right? She could get back to her vacation and not worry that they were pining away for their mother, that she was doing them harm that could only be remedied by years of therapy.

  So shake it off, Charlotte. Shake it off, Mrs. Cordial. Your fantasy awaits.

  She’d just passed through the gates when the clouds scraped, tore, and dropped lower, releasing enough rain to make one want to board an ark. She played a mental game, thinking of the rain as a kind of ritual, cleansing her of all those toxins, remaking her into Mrs. Charlotte Cordial, a woman who astounds dinner guests with her wit, relaxes in a corset as if it were made of flannel, solves ancient mysteries, and doesn’t care that her eleven-year-old son called his father’s mistress-cum-wife “Mom.”

  The baptism, as it were, was quite thorough. By the time she reached the house, her bonnet hung limp on her head and her dress clung to her legs. She sloshed into the main hall, making a puddle on the marble floor while Neville rushed around her, removing her soggy bonnet, squeezing her skirts with a towel.

  “Sorry,” she said. It seemed to be the word of the day.

  It rained all day, then it rained all night. By morning, the world seemed resigned to rain. The spongy grass soaked it in, the trees held bucketsful teetering on thin leaves. The windows streaked and ran like those on a submarine just surfacing.

  After breakfast Colonel Andrews organized games of charades and taught a new card game that involved shouting and running around the room. But after lunch the men absconded. Charlotte wondered if they were in their rooms napping or if there was a secret actors’ lounge tucked in the back of the house where they played video games.

  The ladies sat in the morning room, sewing samplers in the halfhearted gray light trickling through the windows.

  Neville hustled in for Mrs. Wattlesbrook. She didn’t ask questions and followed him out.

  “I wonder what that was about,” said Charlotte.

  “Yeah.” Miss Charming yawned. “I haven’t seen Neville book it like that since Mr. Wattlesbrook showed up three sheets to the wind.”

  “That’s true.” Charlotte frowned at the door.

  Miss Gardenside began a violent coughing fit and excused herself to her room, leaving Charlotte and Miss Charming alone with their samplers.

  A few minutes later, Miss Charming gasped. But then, Miss Charming gasped a lot. She gasped when someone shut a door too loudly; she gasped when there were sausages for breakfast. She sometimes gasped and then coughed, as if she’d meant to cough from the beginning and gotten the two confused.

  Charlotte enjoyed cataloging the provocateurs of Miss Charming’s gasps, so she followed her shocked gaze to the door of the morning room.

  “Hullo, what’s here?” Mr. Wattlesbrook leaned against the threshold, wearing brown pants and a plain T-shirt. His smile showed an unlikely series of yellow, twisted teeth. “I know one of you. Or two, rather.”

  He smiled at Miss Charming’s chest. She made a small whimpering sound.

  “But you’re new.” He looked now at Charlotte.

  “We met before,” said Charlotte, “though at the time you were wearing a fire brigade blanket and coughing up smoke.”

  That seemed a little rude, so she finished it off by offering a small curtsy.

  “None of the bobbing for me, thanks,” he said. “I’m way past that. And so are all of you, soon as I’m finished. Things burn too easily. Best to sell them while you can.”

  He ambled in, his hands in his trouser pockets, and looked about, appraising the room. “Fit out quite well, isn’t it? Looks nice, looks presentable.” He tripped on a corner of a rug and took two sloppy steps to the side before regaining his balance. “First thing that goes,” he said, glaring at the rug.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook poked her head in and groaned when she saw her husband. “John, come with me.”

  “That rug is your fault,” he said, then turned his smile back at Miss Charming.

  Miss Gardenside reentered, her eyes feverish. She hesitated when she noticed Mr. Wattlesbrook.

  “Wait a minute …” He peered at Miss Gardenside. She turned away, her cheeks dark, her lips pressed together, and sat on a sofa with her back to him.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook pulled on his arm, but he shrugged her off and went closer. Suddenly he laughed.

  “So that’s who this is! What a joke. I know all about you, miss,” he said, jabbing a finger into Miss Gardenside’s shoulder. “Oh yes, all about it.”

  Miss Gardenside sat straight, her face impassive, but after a moment her hand rose to her forehead and a visible chill passed through her body.

  She looked in genuine pain. Charlotte hadn’t expected Alisha to react so strongly to being recognized. She hadn’t squirmed when Charlotte had been so stupid with her that first day. Why now? Still, no need to make her unhappy.

  “Sir,” said Charlotte, “Miss Gardenside isn’t well. Consumption, you know.”

  “Ha!” he said, and poured himself a drink from the crystal decanter in the corner.

  “John, I insist you come with me,” his wife tried again, hands on her hips.

  He ignored her, turning to Charlotte as he drank. She was pretty sure that sip of alcohol would encounter an ocean of friends in his bloodstream.

  “This is my house,” he said. “You are my guests. I decide what I’ll do with you.”

  The gentlemen arrived and stood behind Mrs. Wattlesbrook. Mr. Mallery wore no jacket, and Eddie’s shirt was untucked, as if they had indeed been lounging somewhere. Colonel Andrews looked as immaculate as ever, and it was he who stepped forward.

  “If you will come with us, sir,” he said. “No need to distress the ladies.”

  “I’ll do as I please!” Mr. Wattlesbrook shouted, throwing his glass on the rug. Red port bled out into the yellow fibers.

  “All right, gents,” Colonel Andrews said.

  They grabbed Mr. Wattlesbrook and hauled him out of the room, while he hollered and kicked. Mrs. Wattlesbrook shut the door against the noise and turned to the ladies, dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief.

  “I—” She looked at the ceiling. She seemed to have no words. “My husband …”

  Miss Gardenside patted the woman’s arm. “The drink is the devil, Mrs. Wattlesbrook. And that is all we need to say.”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook nodded. She dabbed at her forehead again and left the room.

  “Wow,” Miss Charming said under her breath. “Haven’t seen that plot twist before.”

  Charlotte stood by the door but couldn’t hear any more noise. Perhaps it was a plot twist. Perhaps Mr. Wattlesbrook was playing a part, creating a conflict that would need to be resolved by the end of the two weeks.

  A maid rushed in with a cloth and began to soak up the spilled port.

  But Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s story world wouldn’t be this messy, thought Charlotte.

  Outside, the wind picked up behind the rain, lashing it against the windows. Clouds thickened and sunk low, and it seemed to be evening in the morning room.

  “Anyone for tennis?” Charlotte asked.

  Home, twenty-nine years before

  Charlotte’s birthday party. Six little girls in pajamas were lying atop their sleeping bags in the basement. A neat circle, faces in the center.

  Her eleven-year-old brother emerged from the stairway, hands in pockets. The presence of the Boy elicited muted gasps and a general clambering for the cover of sleeping bags.

  “Wanna play hide-and-go-seek?” he asked with a disquieting grin on his face. “I’ll be It.”

  Charlotte’s friends squealed happily at the idea. Because Tommy proposed it. And Tommy was cute and older and a boy, and therefore, cool. Charlotte didn’t argue, even though he was hijacking her party. Her friends wanted to, and so, as a good friend and hostess, she should comply.

  Everyone hid.

&nb
sp; Then the lights went out and the screaming began.

  What Charlotte found out later was that Tommy had waited to propose the game until their mother had run next door for a moment and no parent was supervising the house. While he counted, his friend Sam snuck into the basement and turned off the breakers. Then they both donned gorilla masks and went hunting.

  Charlotte was the one doing most of the screaming. The pantry had been a very, very bad place to hide. A being with a gorilla face pounced on her from the darkness, and there was no exit—just endless boxes of macaroni and cheese knocked by her flailing arms, hitting the tile with sounds like shotgun blasts. When she finally got free, there was a second creepy-faced psycho blocking the hall. Hello therapy.

  Charlotte’s mother heard the screams from next door. She unmasked the villains, turned the lights back on, and sent Sam home and Tommy to his room. Tommy laughed all the way there.

  At school on Monday, her friends summed up the event as “So fun. I was so scared. Tommy is so cool!” The terror forgotten, the girls swooned into the arms of sublime crush.

  And Charlotte thought, Why are girls stupid?

  Charlotte didn’t answer herself, and she didn’t forget. She’ll never forget.

  Austenland, day 5, cont.

  Dinner entertained the usual suspects, with no Mr. Wattlesbrook to be seen. Mrs. Wattlesbrook gripped her knife and fork a bit too tightly and startled at sounds like the clatter of cutlery or distant thunder.

  She expects him to return any moment, Charlotte thought.

  But he didn’t, and the gentlemen covered up the bleak mood with plenty of conversation.

  As per after-dinner custom, the women retired to the drawing room while the men stayed in the dining room, ostensibly to drink and smoke out of sight of the ladies. Tonight they stayed away a little longer than normal, and when they joined the ladies—first Colonel Andrews, then Mr. Mallery, followed a few minutes later by Eddie—only the colonel smelled of smoke, and none of them wafted alcohol breath, though Mr. Mallery and Colonel Andrews usually partook of a postprandial port. Eddie, she realized, always passed up the alcohol, as did Miss Gardenside.