Midnight in Austenland

The scream lasted as she went down the spiral stairs, down the main staircase, and zipped into the drawing room, though by then it was breathy and restless, a scream that wouldn’t stay put in her throat but kept slipping down into her middle or floating out harmlessly on an exhale.

The candlelight was a bronze haze hanging in the room, earthy and solid-seeming. The five others were staring at her. Colonel Andrews and Mr. Mallery seemed a little winded, as if they’d only just run into the room themselves.

“I didn’t hear anyone shout ‘bloody murder,’ ” said Miss Gardenside.

“Who found you?” asked Colonel Andrews. “Did you touch someone?”

“I … no,” said Charlotte. Except a dead hand. But she felt supremely silly now that she was back among living people in the security of candlelight. Sure, she thought she’d found a dead body on the second floor, but why couldn’t she be clinical about it? Simply shout, “Hello everyone! There’s a dead body here. Come take a look, please, and someone perhaps should ring the coroner.” But no. Thanks to her brother in a mask, she was a quivering ball of feminine terror.

“You know you were screaming?” Eddie came up to her, holding the candle. “You do look a bit mad. I suppose that is the point of this game though, eh, Andrews?”

“There was something, I touched something …” Charlotte looked at Mr. Mallery as she spoke. His eyes were hooded in the dim light, strong arms ill at ease in this setting. They were arms fit for doing, not playing children’s games. The danger of him made her trust him now. A dead body on the second floor was something Mr. Mallery could handle.

“You are frightened,” he said.

She nodded. “I think there was a body …”

Miss Charming gasped. Miss Gardenside tittered nervously.

Mr. Mallery didn’t respond for a few moments. Then he offered his arm and said, “Mrs. Cordial, if you would, show us what you found.”

She took his arm and immediately felt safe. Whatever might lurk upstairs, it couldn’t be more dangerous than the man on her arm.

I’d like Mr. Mallery to rescue me, Charlotte suddenly thought.

That’s a weird thought, said her Inner Thoughts. You’d never catch me thinking stupid thoughts like that.

Charlotte didn’t lash back, because it was, frankly, a stupid thought. She didn’t need saving. And why would a woman fantasize about being rescued at all?

With Mr. Mallery beside her and a lit candle in her hand, Charlotte led the way up the main staircase, down the hall to the spiral stairs, and up to the mysterious second floor. She took the candle from Colonel Andrews and examined the hall.

“There was a door here. I remember going past the table …” She shoved her shoulder against the wall. Nothing.

A door across the hallway opened. Mary peered out, her pallid skin and hair absorbing the tint of the dark, making her seem a ghostly blue.

“Mary, is this your bedchamber?” asked Mr. Mallery.

Mary nodded. Her large, unblinking eyes didn’t leave his face.

“Good. Mrs. Cordial is a bit upset. Can you tell us if there is a room on this floor that is …”

He looked to Charlotte for more information.

“It’s filled with furniture,” said Charlotte. “And boxes and stuff.”

Mary pointed to the other doors. “That’s Kitty’s and Tillie’s room, there’s Edgar’s and Hamilton’s—”

“Not a bedroom,” said Charlotte. “Like a storage room.”

Mary shook her head. She still hadn’t looked away from Mr. Mallery.

“Thank you, Mary,” he said.

She offered him a brief, hopeful smile then slowly shut her door.

Colonel Andrews yawned. “Well, good jest, Mrs. Cordial. I think our game has beat me. I am off for some shut-eye. You all go on without me.”

“No!” said Charlotte too loudly. She checked herself. “I mean, I’m tired too.”

“As am I,” said Mr. Mallery.

They all agreed and made their way downstairs, Charlotte and Mr. Mallery going a bit slower than the rest.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was … I don’t know.”

“Mrs. Cordial, I do not care to hear an apology from you. You are the one coerced into running blind through an unfamiliar house. In the dining room, I should have realized that you were genuinely agitated. I should have put a stop to this before it went too far.”

He thinks I’m crazy, she thought. He thinks I was so terrified of the game that I imagined a dead body in a disappearing room.

And perhaps, in fact, she had.

Mr. Mallery stopped on the landing and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I feel like an idiot, but I’m fine.”

“Get some sleep. And I promise you a more peaceful day tomorrow.”

He took her arm, walked her to her chamber door, bowed, and left.

Colonel Andrews lingered at Miss Charming’s door, whispering. He kissed her hand before departing to his room. Miss Charming placed a hand on her bosom and sighed.

“ ’Night, Mrs. Cordial.”

“Goodnight.” Charlotte stayed where she was. Outside her circle of candlelight, the house was excessively dark, and in the wind it creaked like a ship. Charlotte pictured the night as an ocean, and imagined that she alone was floating in that vastness. Lost at sea in the midst of a storm.

Miss Charming popped her head back out her door. “Hey, Charlotte?”

“Hm?” Charlotte took a few steps closer, only too glad to stall in the presence of another human.

“Do I look pale to you? Kind of sickly, like I’ve been half-choked or something?”

“No … why?”

“Because you do, and I wondered if everyone looks like that in candlelight.”

Charlotte laughed. “I really, really spooked myself tonight.”

Miss Charming gestured for Charlotte to follow. “Come on, honey lamb. There’s room for two in my bed. Nothing hokey—I don’t swing, thanks. You just look like a sad little puppy tonight.”

“You don’t mind?” Charlotte ran back to her room, shivering as she entered the darkness, as if she’d passed through a cold, wet veil. She grabbed her nightgown from a hook in her bathroom and was back in Miss Charming’s room in a flash.