“Never fear,” said the colonel. “It is now Pembrook Park policy to take each new actor aside and ask, most sternly, Are you or do you plan to be a murderer? And if he answers yes—”
“Or if his eyes shift suspiciously,” Eddie added.
“… then he shall be turned out on his heels!”
“Quite,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook said with a sniff.
Neville echoed her sniff.
“I don’t know if I remember the dances,” said Alisha.
There was a slight pause, and Eddie, pulling his hand away from Charlotte’s, arose.
“In that case,” he said, “shall we hold our own ball rehearsal tonight?”
“And pajama party,” said the colonel. “There will be time for corsets and cravats tomorrow. I am rather fancying the ladies in their robes.”
He waggled his eyebrows at Miss Charming. She made a kissy face back, as if at a favorite dog, and took another bite of her hamburger.
By dinner hour the house was scrubbed of strangers. The police had cordoned off Mr. Mallery’s room, Mary’s room, and the hidden chamber on the second floor, the blue-and-white tape a visual reminder that all was not normal in Austenland.
They ate a casual meal in the drawing room. Miss Gardenside played jaunty dance tunes on the piano until Eddie wound up the music box so she could dance as well. Charlotte entreated Mrs. Wattlesbrook to stand up with Neville, and they both complied more readily than Charlotte would have guessed. Neville danced like he ran, skinny limbs akimbo. His grin was uncontrollably huge.
Charlotte nodded in satisfaction and turned to watch Eddie and Miss Gardenside dance. They were all grace and perfection. She stopped watching.
“We should get some rest,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook pronounced after a few dances. “The ball is tomorrow, and despite our recent setbacks, I promise it will be up to Pembrook’s usual standards.”
Eddie followed Charlotte upstairs. It had been lovely, so lovely, to talk with him, to kiss him behind the house, to wake up and see him sleeping. Being with Eddie made sense, here and now, around midnight in Austenland, but she had a nagging fear that when she departed for home, the fantasy would dissolve into mist like Brigadoon. Sure she could stay a few extra days, but then what? She tried her best to ignore her pessimistic thoughts, especially her Inner ones, as they kept observing how often Eddie had danced with Miss Gardenside.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” said Eddie.
“I’ll be fine. Mary is in jail, and Mallery is probably in outer Liechtenstein by now.”
Perhaps she would have invited him in her room anyway, but Mrs. Wattlesbrook was in the corridor too, so Charlotte just said goodnight.
She slid into bed, reminded herself that she had no reason to be afraid, and blew out the candle. The darkness in her room came alive with movement. How normal it had all seemed in the light, but now the dark swirled and swelled, shifting like the water of the pond. She imagined seeing the car before her, the rubber glove floating behind the window. The darkness formed faces that vaporized when she tried to focus on them. One face-shape didn’t disappear, an oval lightness at about the right height as a standing man. Charlotte shuddered. What was it really—her pink bonnet hanging on a hook, perhaps?
She thought, Perhaps it’s Mallery come back to haunt me.
The thought stuck. She sat upright, as if suddenly fitted in a full iron corset, and whispered to the dark, “Mallery isn’t in outer Liechtenstein. He’s still here.”
Home, before
The first few nights after James left, Charlotte was okay. Stunned, sure. But as soon as the kids went to bed, she would close her bedroom door, watch TV, and not think. She didn’t miss James next to her—not that much. He’d been gone a lot lately anyway. (Doing what? Don’t think about it, Charlotte. Don’t think!)
About a month later, James was set up in a larger apartment, and he invited Lu and Beckett to sleep over. And Charlotte was alone in her house overnight for the first time.
It was different than being alone in a hotel room on a business trip. Here she was solo with vastness. So many windows. Why didn’t she get all of them covered? James had thought that putting blinds on the windows facing the fenced-in backyard was pointless, but really, people can climb a fence. Peeping Toms, burglars, serial killers—all excellent fence climbers. She went to the kitchen to rustle up some dinner and worried about how best to peel the carrot and drain the tuna fish. Would a watcher judge her for not rinsing the carrot, for the ragged way she cut open the can? Would a serial killer think badly of her if she used too much mayo?
Alone at home for the first time, she felt anything but at home.
Austenland, day 12, night
Charlotte grabbed her robe and slippers and ran out of her room. No candles burned in the hallway. The night filled it with dark blue, as if it were a submerged hold in a sunken ship, and she found herself holding her breath, just in case she were in fact underwater. She prayed as she ran that she was alone. That no one watched her. That no one chased. Eddie’s room, just four doors down, seemed freakishly far away.
His room was dimly lit by a single lamp, but she could see he was wearing pajama pants (Regency appropriate?) and had just removed his shirt. As she barged in, he looked up and grabbed the practice foil leaning against his bed.
“Do you really expect to do something with that?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Perhaps. Is something chasing you?”
“I don’t think so. I just realized, Mallery is still here.”
“Where?” Eddie pulled her behind him, brandishing the foil like Errol Flynn.
“I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to figure Mallery out, and if he killed Wattlesbrook to preserve Pembrook Park, if this place meant that much to him … well, he’ll stay as long as he possibly can.”
“The police searched—”
“Mrs. Wattlesbrook said he was the caretaker during holidays. We know there’s one hidden room. What if he discovered others? He could be anywhere. He could be here.”
They looked at the walls, the wardrobe. Eddie shook his foil at the fireplace.
“Come out, come out, big bad wolf.”
“He will. He’ll have to. Mary dropped a bag of food in my room. I think they were hiding together and she came out to get supplies. But she made a pit stop to put on my makeup. Isn’t that tragic? She just wanted to be pretty for him.”