Midnight in Austenland
Page 20

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.
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.
Miss Gardenside seemed perkier than usual, sitting up straight and even rising to walk about. She sat at the piano and began to play, drawing a liquid song from the keys, but stopped abruptly and moved to the window. Lightning turned the night briefly silver, throbbing in and out before going dark again, and thunder groaned not far behind.
“Read some of the book, please, Colonel Andrews,” said Charlotte.
“Quite right, Mrs. Cordial,” he said, pulling the book from his breast pocket. “Excellent suggestion. There is much to learn of Mary Francis, I believe, and this weather creates the perfect ambience. Now, let’s see, where were we?
I hear sounds in the girl Mary’s room at nights, my own chamber beside hers. Pacing or scraping. It is unnerving, but whenever I mean to ask her about it come morning, she looks so sad and tired I hold my tongue. The girl Betsy what used to board with her ran off one night and never come back to collect her wages. Cook tells me she feels a cold wind around the girl Mary and to get rid of her. Even if—
Colonel Andrews stopped reading as the electric lights in the room crackled and flashed, then went dark. Only the glow from the candles and a few kerosene lamps remained, their trembling flares making pockets of uncertain light. Charlotte stood from the couch and instinctively went closer to Eddie. He put a hand on her back.
“Lights out, Mallery?” he asked.
Mr. Mallery checked the electric lamps, clicking them on and off without effect. He stepped out and was gone a few minutes. Probably checking a breaker, Charlotte thought with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. He returned, a candle in hand, and shook his head. At least he hadn’t donned a gorilla mask.
“Quite a storm,” he said. “It has stripped us of all but firelight tonight, I think.”
Charlotte took several steps closer to Mr. Mallery and his candle. The rain clawed at the window as if looking for a way in. The night storm seemed much closer now that the electric lights didn’t blaze it back. No one spoke for a few moments. It seemed unlikely that anyone was ready for sleep. Charlotte’s own mood was zigging and zapping her pulse.
“Now what on earth can we do in the dark to pass the time?” Colonel Andrews said, his voice velvety.
Miss Charming giggled.
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Wattlesbrook with an offended sniff.
“I have it!” The colonel’s voice brightened. “Let us play Bloody Murder.”
“Ooh, the name alone gives one the shivers,” said Miss Gardenside.
“Bloody Murder,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook said. “That is most certainly not my cup of tea.”
“Now, Missus—” Colonel Andrews began.