“Fine! Fine. Looks great,” she said, dishing herself some kind of salad. “I keep thinking about your mystery, Colonel Andrews. Maybe you could give us more clues tonight?”
He banged on the table happily. “Yes indeed, Mrs. Cordial, yes indeed. I knew you for a confederate, I did, and I have new entries to add to the story that will tickle your spine and make you cry out in terror for your mummy.”
“Or at least for Mr. Mallery,” Eddie said into his drink.
Charlotte gave him a subtle kick under the table, but he just smiled.
See, even Eddie noticed, said her Inner Thoughts.
After dinner in the drawing room, Colonel Andrews didn’t wait for another invitation. He pulled out his book and began to read more of the housekeeper’s account.
Mary and I were shelling peas this morning in the garden. She has been here now three months and still does not seem to settle down. It does make one uneasy. I asked her just as prim as you please about the deaths at the abbey. She shook her head. You best tell me what you know so you can get it out, says I. And Mary says there are things a body can talk about and things no one should. And that is all she will say. Her silence does not help her much. She has made one friend here, the girl Greta, who is German and perhaps does not understand much anyhow. But most do not take to Mary. I see how the kitchen hands stare her down, knock her with a shoulder as they pass by. They are getting rougher. Mary does not answer back. And on Sundays she is on her knees, looking heavenward, praying mightily. I guess maybe for her own soul, I do not know. I guess maybe she did something right horrible. A body has to wonder.
“Did she do it?” Miss Gardenside asked. “Did Mary Francis kill those poor nuns?”
“Would you know the ending before it is time?” asked Colonel Andrews, shutting the book.
“If I can. I always read the last page of a book first.”
“You do?” Charlotte said. “How can you stand it?”
“How can you stand the suspense?” said Miss Gardenside. “You know me of old, Charlotte dear. I am not a girl of much patience. Sad endings simply throw me into agonies, and if the story will not end well, then why should I waste my time?”
“But how do you know if the ending is truly good for the characters unless you’ve traveled with them through every page?”
“Oh, it is simple enough—happiness, marriage, prosperity,” said Miss Gardenside. “That is how all stories should end. Otherwise, I have no use for them.”
“What about you, Eddie?” Charlotte asked. “Do you take a peek at the last page?”
“Never. I cover the right page while I read the left, lest I accidentally read ahead. I am a slave to a story. So long as a book is not trying to be useful or pontificate at me tirelessly, I am its willing servant.”
“And you, Mr. Mallery?”
“I do not spare time for novels, I am afraid,” he said.
“I didn’t used to,” said Charlotte. “Not much. But recently I discovered a new author and now I find books … wonderfully, I don’t know, rejuvenating.”
“All stories?” asked Miss Gardenside. “Or just the happy ones?”
“The happier the better. I’ll be curious to see how Mary Francis’s story ends.”
“We shall uncover it together!” said the colonel. “While Miss Gardenside hopes for happiness, let me be the devil’s advocate and hope for horror most hair-raising.”
“Miss Gardenside, play a song for us,” said Eddie. “You revealed yourself as a pianist the other day, so do not deign to profess shyness nor inexperience.”
“I am not comfortable performing for others,” she said.
Charlotte believed Lydia Gardenside. But surely Alisha loved a stage. Which was the real girl?
“Come now,” said Eddie. “I will not have you go to your room this evening and write in your journal, ‘Alas, none appreciate the depth of my talent. I am a light under a bushel.’ ”
Miss Charming choked on her glass of sherry. She leaned over to Charlotte. “What on earth is a bushel? Sounds naughty.”
“I think it’s a big basket used for fruit and stuff,” Charlotte whispered.
“Oh, okay,” Miss Charming whispered back. “That makes sense. I guess.”
“Mr. Grey, you are meddlesome!” Miss Gardenside was saying. “You know I would rather sit quietly and observe, but you provoke me out of my shell.”
“What does ‘shell’ mean?” Miss Charming whispered.
“Just … like a shell, like what a hermit crab crawls into,” Charlotte whispered back.
“That’s what I thought, but sometimes I think I’m missing something.”
Miss Gardenside sat at the piano and began a tune that was pleasant and compatible in that setting. After a few moments, she sang.
Miss Gardenside didn’t have a grand performing voice—it was less opera and more boutique, but agile and perfectly pitched. She sounded a little raw, perhaps from her illness, but that only added to its character. Charlotte doubted the girl had ever given a better performance.
Charlotte rarely sat anywhere just to listen, to appreciate a moment. The mood was otherworldly. She folded her hands in her lap and bade them be content not doing anything. In its idleness, her mind started spinning, searching for a productive occupation. First it worried about her kids.
Stop that, they’re fine, she told herself.
So the wheels spun in the direction of the mystery.
Not now, let it lie, she admonished her thoughts.
She felt Mr. Mallery’s gaze on her, and she turned and met his eyes, contemplating him in return. It wasn’t a staring contest or a smoldering flirtation. The music just buffered the usual social awkwardness of gazing at another adult. It was easy for the moment, just as it was easy to stare at a small child or a dog. Not that Mr. Mallery was a dog. Quite the opposite.
Goodness, that corset felt tight.
After a time, Miss Gardenside stopped singing and just played, smoothing over the roughness in the room, making everything feel all soft and cozy.
Charlotte drifted by the piano and whispered to Miss Gardenside, “I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a performance so much. You are wonderful.”
Miss Gardenside blushed.
The guests and actors didn’t bother with card games but instead spoke in small relaxed groups. Soon enough, Charlotte found herself with Colonel Andrews on a settee. Charlotte had never used that word before—“settee.” But in Austenland, settees were prolific. There seemed to be a virtual herd of them in the house, reproducing like bunnies.