Midnight in Austenland
Page 51“Tell me something true about you.”
“Okay …” She mentally rifled through birthplace (Portland, Oregon), college major (sociology), astrological sign (Virgo), favorite movie (The Apple Dumpling Gang—don’t judge), until she hit a fact that wasn’t completely mundane. “One of my favorite things in the world are those charity events where everyone buys a rubber ducky with a number and the first person’s duck to get down the river wins.”
“Why?”
“I like seeing the river teeming with all those outrageously yellow and orange ducks. It’s so friendly. And I love the hope of it. Even though it doesn’t matter if you win, because all that wonderful, candy-colored money is going to something really important like a free clinic downtown or cleft palate operations for children in India, you still have that playful hope that you will win. You run alongside the stream, not knowing which is your duck but imagining the lead one is yours.”
“And this is the essence of your soul—the ducky race?”
“Well, you didn’t ask for the essence of my soul. You asked for something true about me, and so I went for something slightly embarrassing and secret but true nonetheless. Next time you want the essence of my soul, I’ll oblige you with sunsets and baby’s laughter and greeting cards with watercolor flowers.”
He squinted at her thoughtfully. “No, so far as I’m concerned, the yellow duckies are the essence of your soul.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “And you—Julia is real, isn’t she?”
“I’m an alcoholic. Her mother isn’t actually deceased. We weren’t married,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve been sober for thirteen years, but I botched things badly in the beginning, and Julia’s mother doesn’t care to have me around. I only see Julia a few times a year. But that will change.”
“Yes, it should.”
“It will. I promised her so in the letter. She may not be as excited about that prospect as I am—yet—but I’m terrifically fond of the girl. Let’s see, what else … I have a 1955 Jaguar XK140 that I inherited from my father, as well as the compulsion to keep it mint. When I’m not here, I read the paper from cover to cover every day. I’ve also read every Terry Pratchett novel at least three times over.”
“I’m not familiar with Terry Pratchett.”
“You will be.”
Eddie moaned sadly.
“You sound unhappy,” said Charlotte, surprised.
“I’m in a quandary. I’m riveted by your every word, and yet when you speak, your lips move, you see.”
“They do? How shocking!”
“Isn’t it? More than shocking—it’s obscene. I look at them, and looking makes me want to taste them again, and yet I wouldn’t interrupt the conversation …”
He leaned closer, but stopped a breath from her mouth and pulled back and moaned sadly.
“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.
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.”
“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.”