Midnight in Austenland

by Shannon Hale

  “What shall we do, Eddie my love,” said Charlotte. “Kiss or speak?”

  “I’m finding both options delightful. You decide.”

  Before decisions could be made, a shrill voice shouted for Mr. Grey, and they both jumped away from each other and hurried into the open, trying to look as casual as possible and therefore seeming extremely suspicious.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook glared at them. “It is high past time for dinner.”

  “But where are the police?” asked Charlotte.

  “They will be here soon enough. And in the meantime, we go forward. All this … this nonsense is not reason to behave uncivilized. We will dine at once.” Mrs. Wattlesbrook looked daggers, but her hands, gripped together at her waist, shook. And Charlotte considered that what the proprietress of Pembrook Park, who had just discovered that her husband had been murdered, needed right then was a formal dinner in a grand dining room with people in Regency attire, as if everything were crazily normal.

  “Here we come,” Eddie said.

  She turned and went into the house. Eddie made to follow then turned back suddenly, put an arm around Charlotte’s waist, and pulled her to him. He gave her one long, slow kiss.

  “I couldn’t leave the matter hanging like that,” he said quietly, their faces still touching.

  “Of course not,” she said. “You’re a gentleman.”

  He nodded, offered his arm, and escorted her inside.

  The night was darker in than out, the hallway candles dimmer than stars. Charlotte felt the weight of the old house like a coffin lid. She knew, in the way a rheumatic can feel oncoming rain, that she was going to struggle to sleep tonight.

  Dinner was a quiet affair. It was impossible to talk about the murder in front of the victim’s widow, especially as no one was certain if said widow was heart-stricken or relieved. Little was consumed and conversation was a round of this sort:

  “Is that … are those potatoes there?”

  “I am not certain. Would you like them?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Is there bread down at your end?”

  “Yes, here it is.”

  “I wonder if it will rain tonight.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Do you think it will be sunny tomorrow?”

  “Hm.”

  Charlotte kept looking out the window. Where on earth were the police?

  When everyone returned to the drawing room, Charlotte followed the proprietress into the nearly dark morning room.

  “I’m surprised the police haven’t come yet,” Charlotte said.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook sat at the desk with a groan. She placed her candle carefully in the center of the desk and folded her hands together.

  “I would have thought—considering the gravity of the crime and the fact that the suspect is hog-tied upstairs—I would have thought they’d have put the pedal to the metal …” Charlotte squinted at Mrs. Wattlesbrook. “You didn’t call them, did you?”

  The woman kept looking down.

  “Mrs. Wattlesbrook, you have to call the police.”

  “If I do, they will be here for a long time, running all over the place, marching in and out of rooms. Just the idea makes the house feel dirty.”

  “Dirtier than murder? He killed your husband.”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook pursed her lips. “You make it sound more dramatic than it actually is.”

  Charlotte gaped.

  “Not the murder part,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook said, shuffling papers around on the desk. “The husband part. He was not … dear to me. I suppose you think I should have divorced him. To my mind, divorce is vulgar, common, modern in the worst way. Besides, Pembrook Park was his family home. I used to be proprietress of three estates. Now, because of him, this is all I have.”

  “If your husband had forced you into a divorce, he would have kept Pembrook Park and then sold it.”

  “The bank took Bertram Hall and would have claimed Windy Nook as well, if we had not found a renter. Though this estate was my husband’s before our marriage, Miss Charlotte, my inheritance fixed it up, my savvy created a business with enough income to maintain it. He would have let wild animals roost in the sofas and damp rot the wood. He never cared for this place, but he insisted on playing a part in the cast, most likely so he could ogle the women. Well, some time ago he went too far, was aggressive with one of my guests, and I finally put my foot down. So he wanted to divorce, sell the Park, and split the profit. And I would lose the only thing I love.”

  “And Mallery knew this.”

  She nodded. “He has been a part of our repertory cast for years. True, he sometimes exhibited irritation with the clients, but only when they did not adopt proper respect for the house and their own characters. Nevertheless, he was visually pleasing to the ladies. Three years ago he suffered some personal loss—a dead mother or a sister or such. After that, he wanted to stay on as a permanent cast member, without breaks. During winter holidays he lives here as caretaker. He loves this house.”

  She spoke with pride.

  “You felt a kinship with Mallery,” said Charlotte.

  “He was the one person who wanted to live in this bygone time as much as I.”

  “And he was so determined to stay that he killed your husband.”

  Finally the woman showed some emotion, her forehead agitating. But she reasserted her calm.

  “Perhaps. Now, if you will excuse me.” She turned back to her papers.

  “He was your husband for a long time,” Charlotte said. “It’s okay to grieve a little.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they’re gone and yet still mourn the good parts. Were there good parts?”

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook started to cry. She cried like someone who didn’t know how it was done. Her face contorted at the unfamiliar sensations, and she smeared the tears aggressively with the heel of her hand.

  “Is that what you do?” Mrs. Wattlesbrook asked in a wet, strained voice. “You admit you are glad your husband is gone and yet still hold in your heart the few memories that are precious? Is that how you maintain your queenly poise?”

  This caught Charlotte off guard, and her chin started quivering.

  “No. I’m a wreck,” she said in the squeaky high voice of one who is determined not to cry.

  “You do not seem like it,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook squeaked back.

  “Thanks,” Charlotte chirped. “I do yoga. Ninety percent of confidence is posture.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook cheeped. “How fascinating.”

  And with gazes averted and voices strained and high as mice, they talked about yoga some more, as well as the pros and cons of corsets, the most comfortable sorts of chairs, and the weather, just for good measure.

  Charlotte made certain that eddie accompanied Mrs. Wattlesbrook directly to the inn to phone the police, and the drawing room gabbers broke up for the night. There were only so many times anyone could exclaim, “I can’t believe Mr. Mallery killed Mr. Wattlesbrook, what-what!”

  Charlotte was dead tired. Was this really the same day she dove into the pond and spied Mr. Wattlesbrook’s German-engineered coffin? That seemed weeks ago, but her corset still hung over the radiator, its dampness proof.

  She considered knocking at Miss Charming’s door to ask for a sleepover, but she was too beat. Besides, Mallery was well tied and guarded by Justin, and the police would be there any moment.

  She took off her dress, laid it on a chair, and went to the bathroom, flicking on the electric light.

  “Mary!” she said.

  Mary startled, dropping Charlotte’s toiletries bag onto the floor. Eye shadow and lipsticks rolled, and loose powder escaped in a puff. The runaway maid was still in her serving garb, though it looked dirty, as if she’d been crawling through unswept places.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” Mary said guiltily.

  “What are you doing here?”

>   “I …” Mary looked around, as if unsure. “I had something. I was going to do something.”

  This girl was missing a few cards. Or a few dozen. Charlotte backed out of the bathroom.

  “No one could find you earlier.”

  “Yes, I was hiding.” Mary looked at the ground, fidgeting with her skirt. “I never should have left him alone with you. I should have protected him.”

  “Mallery is not what he seems, Mary.”

  Mary tilted her head, contemplating Charlotte as if she were an alien, and said matter-of-factly, “He’s the most perfect man who ever lived.”

  “He killed Mr. Wattlesbrook.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, her eyes unfocused. “I saw him take the old man into that room and come out alone, only I didn’t snoop because I’m a good girl. I fetched him some gloves from the kitchen when he asked. He trusted me to wash the pond mud out of his clothes. And I trust him. If he had to kill someone, then I’m sure he had a good reason.”

  “He also tried to kill me.”

  “Obviously because he couldn’t trust you. It’s your own fault.”

  “That’s for the police to decide,” Charlotte said.

  Mary’s crazy eyes burned a little crazier.

  “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to think of him locked up. He’ll be so unhappy. He’s like a dog that needs to get out and run.”

  Charlotte was close to the bedroom door. She moved slowly so she wouldn’t alarm Mary, but she also felt no hurry. Mary was slight. If it came to a fight, Charlotte thought she could handle this girl.

  “Locked up forever, no sunshine, no country air, no chance he will ever touch me again …” Mary touched her own neck, and a shudder ran visibly through her body.

  “Mary, trust me, that’s a good thing.”

  “I’ll die for him!” Mary stood in the threshold of the bathroom, the light behind her lining her pale hair in bright yellow.

  “No one wants to kill you, Mary. There’s really no call for—”

  “I’ll die for Mr. Darcy.”

  “Um … did you just say ‘Mr. Darcy’?”

  “No.”

  Mary’s face seemed to cool, the red splotches of emotion fading. She reached around the far side of the bathroom door, picked up a rifle that she had placed just out of sight, put it against her shoulder, and pointed it at Charlotte.

  “Holy crap!” Charlotte said, as Beckett might. “I thought England was all famous for not having guns!”

  “The gentlemen go hunting.”

  “Is that a prop gun?”

  Mary cocked the rifle. The click sounded ominously real.

  The door to the hall was just a step away. Charlotte glanced at it. Did she dare run? Would Mary get spooked and shoot?

  “You did it,” Mary said, her hands shaking dramatically, the tip of the rifle aimed at Charlotte’s head, at her neck, at her feet, now at the wall. “You’re responsible for Thomas’s capture. No one would have cared if the old man had just disappeared. But you spoilt everything. And Thomas loves me! He practically said so!”

  “Then I’m very happy for you two,” Charlotte said shakily.

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t like how he’d look at you. Perhaps he was pretending to love you. I don’t know, I don’t know …”

  That swaying rifle was pointing in the region of Charlotte’s head way too often. She decided fleeing was worth the risk.

  Mary adjusted her stance, the bathroom light falling over her face, and Charlotte could see that the girl had put on makeup, apparently from Charlotte’s own stash. Her cheeks were well blushed, her lips pink, and one eye sported brown shadow all the way up to her eyebrow.

  “Mary, you look pretty,” she said.

  Mary hesitated; the rifle lowered. And that’s when Charlotte ran.

  A gunshot rang in her ears as she threw open the door and fled into the hall.

  “Mary’s got a gun!” she yelled, racing for the stairs. Miss Charming and Colonel Andrews poked their heads out of their bedrooms then quickly ducked back in again. Charlotte couldn’t blame them. She took the stairs two at a time.

  Oh, come on already, police, she thought. Come on with your vicious billy clubs and beat the love crazies out of this psychopath!

  Charlotte had no plan except to get out of the house. Maybe the house wasn’t a sentient, ancient beast that swallowed corpses whole, but it sure lodged a lot of nutjobs.

  Another shot splattered plaster in the wall above her head. She screamed, nearly tumbled down the rest of the stairs, and knocked into the front door. Someone opened it from the outside.

  “Charlotte,” said Eddie, “what’s—”

  She pushed him out and ran for the gravel drive. “Mary. She’s back. With a gun.”

  The front door opened and Mary came out, rifle on her shoulder.

  “You should have left him alone!” she yelled.

  A shot fired into the night. Eddie pulled Charlotte down flat then sprang back up, tackling Mary to the front stairs. He ripped the rifle from her hands, flung it away, and grabbed her fast. Mary struggled weakly for a few moments then started to weep. Her cry was high-pitched and rhythmic, reminding Charlotte of a wounded bird. Eddie didn’t let go, but after a moment, he did began to mutter, “There, there.”

  Charlotte almost said, Hey, she just tried to shoot me in the head! Don’t there, there her!

  But she couldn’t really blame him. Her cry was pathetic.

  Mrs. Wattlesbrook stood over them, arms folded. “Really, Mary, you cannot expect to work here while engaging in such behavior. And your hair is a sight.”

  Charlotte was lying on the gravel, her ears still ringing with the sound of rifle fire, and she wondered how many people had twice been the object of attempted murder on the very same day. She was special, that was sure, part of an elite club of other unknown almost-victims. Maybe she’d get a special citation from the queen. Maybe Lu would think she was cool.

  “Are you going to faint again?” Eddie asked, kneeling beside her as the police cars rolled in.

  “No … I think I’m getting used to it all,” she said, her voice sounding hollow and far away. “Attempted murder is becoming so mundane.”

  He pulled her up into his arms. She closed her eyes.

  “Oh no, Eddie,” she said, alert with a new thought. “You know what Mary would do first, before coming to kill me?”

  Eddie groaned. “Let Mallery go.”

  When the police went upstairs to the locked room, it was empty. Cut rope lay on the floor. Justin the guard was sound asleep in the hall beside a cup of tea, likely drugged and brought to him by Mary.

  “At least it wasn’t yew tea,” said Eddie.

  Charlotte had to push through half an hour of questions with the detective sergeant and wait outside with everyone else while the police conducted a thorough house search. There was no sign of Mallery. By the time the detective agreed that the rest of the questions could wait till morning, Charlotte felt more than half dead—at least two-thirds dead. The police were pretty well occupied with questioning their rifle-shooting prisoner, setting up a perimeter to catch an escaped murderer, and dredging a car out of a pond.

  “I’m so sleepy,” Charlotte said, leaning into Eddie as they walked upstairs. Her speech was getting slurred and slushy. “I guess too much adrenaline in the system has some side effects, huh?”

  Her eyes were closed when he picked her up and carried her into her room. She was going to accuse him of carrying her just so he could show off his manly strength, but speaking required so much effort. She’d removed her dress before the Mary incident, and handily she’d gone sans corset ever since her swim, so he slid her dressed as she was beneath the sheets. He lay down beside her.

  “What are you doing?” she said, though it was barely intelligible.

  “Staying beside you, making sure you aren’t attacked again tonight. If I don’t have that privilege, then no one should.”

  “Okay,” she said. She turn
ed on her side and looked at him once more before closing her eyes for good.

  “You’re safe,” she mumbled. “I love that. I love that so much.”

  Home, before

  Another universal truth is that endings trump beginnings. Charlotte’s memories of James began to warp and darken, like photographs held too close to heat, till all his past kindnesses were tainted by how he’d ultimately hurt her. James had been sweet at first only to make her ache all the more when he wasn’t.

  Now that she thought about it, his name should have been a red flag: “James.” What kind of a person is so fussy he can’t dress down to a decent “Jim”? She didn’t need a “Jimmy” necessarily—though she wasn’t opposed to it. And there was always the “Jamie” option. But no, it was James all the time. His name, his betrayal: all cold, calculating, and self-important.

  At least one memory remained vivid: once or twice each night, James would turn over in his sleep, his back to her, and play a long note on the buttocks bassoon. Hey, Justice, enjoy that adorable quirk.

  Austenland, day 12

  Charlotte woke before Eddie. The light from the windows tasted of late morning, and Charlotte guessed he’d stayed on guard for much of the night. She adjusted her pillow and looked over his face. Watching someone sleeping was an intimate act, something reserved for longtime lovers and parents of small children. She thought she should feel guilty, but she didn’t.

  She found herself smiling as she noticed his abdomen lift with each breath, his fingers twitch as if caught in the net of a dream. He wasn’t hers to keep. She knew that. This was a two-week vacation, nothing more, and it didn’t matter if waking next to Eddie made her feel more content than anything she could remember.

  He woke slowly and said, “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  “It’s morning? I’m glad you’re still alive.”

  “Me too.”

  He reached out to take her hand. “Have you been awake long? You must be famished.”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said. Then her stomach interrupted her with a loud, hungry squelch.

  He left her to get dressed. She opened her wardrobe, stared at it for a few beats, then shut it again. Reality was leaning over Pembrook Park, breathing into its windows, and she could not take herself seriously in a corset and gown. She put on a robe over her chemise and went into the bathroom.