Midnight in Austenland

“Ha,” she said.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing, just thinking about you.”

It was an odd exercise. While she worked, he was free to gaze upon her, but she could only observe his shadow. She supposed that was always true—he saw her, the real Charlotte, while all she knew of him was the shadow of himself, this character he played. The thought gave her a shiver.

She traced his jaw and neck and thought, He’s not an easy person. He seems to cherish his own opinions better than anyone else’s, and sometimes he plain isn’t nice. Remember the tourists with the camera?

But then, maybe nice was overrated. Besides, she wasn’t really dating Mr. Mallery. She was just playing, and of course she expected nothing real would come of it. Right? So why be so afraid?

After filling in the outline with solid black, she displayed it to the room.

“I say, Mallery,” said Eddie, “you are not a bad-looking fellow when you are sitting still like that and not pounding one with your glare.”

Charlotte dusted off her hands and looked over her work. Mr. Mallery’s shadow certainly looked the most lifelike of all those she’d drawn. Did that say more about him or about her? She taped it to the wall beside the others—six profiles displayed like Wanted posters.

That’s a weird comparison to make, accused her Inner Thoughts.

Charlotte didn’t sleep well that night. It may have been the dry thunderstorm that crackled outside and the periodic booming of unproductive thunder. Or it may have been the electric storm in her brain, her buzzing synapses using nighttime to piece together the colonel’s mystery.

It did seem odd that Colonel Andrews would lead her to a body then provide no other clues, except perhaps that kitchen glove, which really told her nothing. And honestly, how could a recent murder tie into his ancient tale of dead nuns? What if … (stop it, Charlotte) … but what if it really … (you’ll make a fool of yourself) … really was … (oh, go ahead—it’s safe to think it in the darkness, where we’re free to explore our most foolish imaginations) … What if it really was real? What if she’d discovered a genuine murder victim, and the murderer had returned in the night and hidden away the body? Then the murderer was someone at Pembrook Park, most likely someone who had been up playing Bloody Murder and who would know that Charlotte discovered the crime scene: one of the lady guests, gentleman actors, or perhaps Mary. Everyone else had been in bed. But then who was the victim? Should she go to the police with a half-baked suspicion? Here, after midnight in her room, she couldn’t believe her discovered corpse had been nothing more than a rubber glove. But without a body, how could she prove it?

It turns out that it’s not always safe to think things alone to oneself, even at midnight.

After forming that needling dread into a thought, Charlotte had to get up a few (or twelve) times to peek outside her door and make sure there wasn’t a murderer lurking in the hallway, preparing to come in and kill her in her sleep. No murderer would find her sleeping, by golly! If a murderer wanted her dead, he/she would have to face her like a man/woman and just go ahead and kill her to her face! Because that’s a much nicer way to die. Awake and aware, so you can really experience the whole nauseating horror of it.

Oh, go back to bed, Charlotte.

Home, before

More than anything, Charlotte wanted not to take up space. She longed to sit in a corner of the world, inconspicuous, being harmless and pleasant. Cheery. People could come to her when they needed a hand or a friend or a loan, but otherwise not trip over her in passing. Nice Charlotte. Clever Charlotte. Out-of-the-way Charlotte.

Austenland, days 8–9

Charlotte pushed her breakfast around on her plate, thinking of the many poisons Agatha Christie’s murderers employed. There might be arsenic in her eggs, strychnine in her sausages, or cyanide in her cider. (Her glass actually held orange juice, but “cider” was alliterative.) Why couldn’t she let this go? Did she want there to be a murder? Didn’t her brain have anything better to do, like, say, contemplate Mr. Mallery’s lower lip again?

She looked around the table. Who’s a murderer? Who drew the short stick?

After breakfast she paced the gallery upstairs, thinking about rubber gloves and real bodies, British police and the fears that crawled over her through the night.

That’s when she saw it. A painting of a girl in a dark hallway holding a candle, opening a door, her eyes wide with fear. The title plate on the frame read, “Catherine Morland.”

It took her a moment to place the name—Catherine Morland is the heroine of Austen’s Northanger Abbey, who is so carried away in the horrific pleasures of Gothic novels that she imagines murder where there is none.

“I am Catherine Morland,” Charlotte whispered.

Charlotte looked at herself in the corridor window and laughed. When the laugh faded, she didn’t look away. Her reflection was that of a stranger. This was not the woman who had discovered a brow wrinkle in the bathroom mirror at home. This was a woman of stature. Her height, which at times in her life had proved awkward, now seemed designed for these long gowns. Wearing her hair up changed her face—her blue eyes seemed brighter, her lips fuller. She felt descended from Amazons, from Greek goddesses. Why, she was practically formidable.

Beyond the pane, one spot in the sky had cleared to a misty blue. Mr. Mallery crossed the lawn alone toward the stables. Charlotte put on a riding frock and boots and ran to meet him. She was breathing hard when she caught up.

“I’d like to take that ride with you now, if you don’t mind.”

Mr. Mallery smiled.

She was not going to be the haunted waif in this story. She was going to take pretend romance by the horns and wrestle it into submission. She was going to be noticed.

“You have been absent of late,” Mr. Mallery said, ducking under a wet branch as they rode their horses into the trees. “Even when you are here, you are not completely here.”

“You’re right. I was getting caught up in what wasn’t real to escape what was real—or wasn’t technically really real but was more real. That makes no sense. Anyway, I’m determined to live the story. Now I’m undead. Or alive. Or back, anyway.”

Why couldn’t she speak like a human being with this man? It was easier when she wasn’t looking at him. His gaze made her feel naked.