The Austen Escape

by Katherine Reay

  I found my way to the Day Room. The dying fire threw off a weak warm light, and I dropped into my same blue-and-green armchair to watch the embers glow.

  Soft treble notes captured me. G-sharp. B-flat. The tune changed, and a Debussy song drifted to me through a cracked door I hadn’t noted earlier. I cracked it further, but at the squeak the piano silenced.

  Gertrude spotted me before I saw her. “Did I wake you? Or are you not tired?”

  I stepped into the room. It was about the same size as the Day Room, but painted a soft salmon. There was a tiny fireplace, almost a miniature one, with a lit gas fire; a baby grand piano; and two chairs, only two chairs.

  “This is lovely.”

  “It was the Music Room.” Gertrude looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “Still is, I suppose. There used to be a harp sitting where the chairs are and a cello propped in that corner, but both were of little value. I think the Stanleys disposed of them.” She nodded to one of the chairs. It was plush, floral, and of a larger scale than the set in the Day Room. “Please join me.”

  “I’m not disturbing you?”

  “Not at all.” Gertrude resumed her song. “This is your home for the next two weeks.”

  “‘Clair de Lune.’” In reply to her quick glance, I said, “I started playing the piano when I was ten. That was one of the earliest I learned.”

  Gertrude looked comfortable seated at the piano bench in a cardigan sweater and soft shoes. Her pants flowed around her legs like wide yoga pants. She finished the last stanza, stood, and gestured to the stool.

  “I don’t play anymore. I haven’t touched a piano in years.”

  “If you played ‘Clair de Lune’ at ten, then you were talented. Jane Austen would call you ‘accomplished.’” She tossed me a wry smile.

  We’d met only hours before, but there was something about Gertrude I understood. It was almost as if I were looking at my mom, or at myself. She stepped back. I could not step forward.

  “It’s a piano.” The unspoken only floated between us.

  I stepped forward and sat down. I didn’t even need to adjust the bench. We were the same height.

  I laid my hands on the keyboard. Fists tight. Knuckles white and strong. I had to force each finger to spread wide. I hadn’t seen them this open in years. It surprised me how far they stretched. My breath felt shallow, like it did when I stood on the high dive at the pool. Isabel always came up the ladder after me. Without her behind me, I would retreat.

  Close your eyes and jump.

  I tested the tone. It was rich and true, and the keys held a perfect strike. I warmed my fingers and my memory with a series of slow, heavy scales, and then “Brahms’ Lullaby” emerged without summoning. It was light. It danced.

  My past swept through me on the notes—lessons from Mrs. Danvers next door; playing for Mom; recitals with Mom and Dad sitting in the front row bursting with pride; more playing for Mom when she was weak, and listening was better than talking, better than sleeping, and the only thing that brought a smile.

  Another memory struck, and I heard the discordant note that accompanied it. I’d planned to audition for the piano part in our high school’s spring musical. Voice auditions came first, though, and Isabel won the lead role. When it came time for instrumentals, piano had been scratched from the sign-up sheet. Word was that Isabel had insisted that the music teacher, Mr. Lennox, play. Anyone else would make me too nervous, she had said. We were close then, but that’s when I noticed the few sharp notes in our friendship that never vanished.

  I pressed on, letting that memory and others wash over me. Isabel and I had pushed and pulled for years. Iron sharpening iron? We were safe in each other, but never quite. Maybe that’s what held us together. Neither of us would have trusted the other had it come too easy.

  The song ended and so did the memories.

  “You’re very good. Why did you stop playing?”

  I rested my hands in my lap. “Music is memory.”

  Gertrude’s eyes flickered from mine to the fireplace. “I play to remember.”

  “And I stopped to forget.” I ran my hand over the mahogany top. “It’s a beautiful instrument.”

  “I’ve always thought so.” She returned her attention to me. “If you choose to remember more, please feel welcome to practice anytime. There is also a grand piano in the ballroom. You must try it. The acoustics are powerful in there. When the house isn’t occupied, I practice there. This is more the equivalent of the housekeeper’s room.”

  The curl of her lips indicated a joke, but she didn’t explain it. She pointed to the ceiling. “The servants’ quarters on the third floor were converted into three full-living suites during the renovation. I live in one, but I couldn’t bring myself to go up tonight. Not yet.”

  I looked up as if, like Superman, I could see through the walls and peer into her home, and suddenly I knew.

  “This was your family’s home, wasn’t it? Two hundred forty-four years in your family?” I cringed as I sank into the chair next to her. I hadn’t needed to calculate the years and throw them at her.

  “Hard to believe we held it that long.” She slipped off her shoe, tucked a foot underneath her, and curled tighter into the chair, displacing any lingering formality between us. “The house never thrived after World War I. Few of the old homes did. Some families adapted, but Grandfather couldn’t and Father didn’t try. My eldest brother, Geoffrey, inherited in 2004. As I told you, the Stanleys bought it in 2009.” She surveyed the room, but I suspected she couldn’t see it through the past.

  She dropped her gaze level with mine. “He was right to sell; he couldn’t support it. But I had this crazy idea I could keep it up, pay the taxes, and even renovate it . . . I never checked my dream against reality.”

  “It’d be hard to do. I’ve never been to a place like this. I can imagine paying almost any price to stay.” This room alone was worth staying for, with its soft light, rich walls, and ceiling moldings so pronounced they cast shadows.

  “My brothers say I’ve paid too much.” We sat silent for a moment before she continued. “Geoffrey thinks I’m stubborn, or crazy, but I find it hard to let go. If I go, who will remember?” Her spine stiffened just enough to roll her shoulders back. “The new owners have been very generous.”

  “But?” The word popped out before discretion could catch it.

  “There are certain things they’d rather I not do, and I understand. It’s their home now, and they must manage it as they see fit. And they have saved it. I am so grateful to see it restored. But not using my last name sits hard at times.”

  “Braithwaite House. Gertrude Braithwaite.”

  She raised her hand as if answering a roll call in elementary school. “The home is too old. Registered. A name change would’ve been needlessly consuming and confusing, so the house kept its name and I lost mine. The Stanleys would prefer that I not call out my connection to it.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I’m glad you did.” She studied me, and I got the impression that for her, as for me, the fact that we’d just met was irrelevant. “You’re the first guest who has.”

  Chapter 12

  In the hinterland between asleep and awake, music, books, and a world with swirling texture and color wove through me. Austen’s books. Picnics and walks to town. Hymns, singing, and the feel of my old piano’s sticky foot pedal. The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Alice in Wonderland . . . The Little Princess. Beloved books full of whimsy, giving, mystery, fantasy, and magic. Colors and ideas I hadn’t touched in years. The tree bent, offering another branch . . .

  I opened one eye. The room was too bright for how tired I felt. I closed it, rolled over, and dug for a comfy spot under the pillow. Then it hit me. It was too bright, and too quiet. There was a hard quality to the silence. Something was wrong.

  I sat up and scanned the room. The curtains were pulled back to reveal a cloudless sky. Abundant sunlight illuminated the me
ss. There were clothes strewn everywhere—not a dress or two, twenty. Isabel had pulled dresses from both wardrobes.

  I sorted them by length and rehung them. I then threw Isabel’s clothes into a few empty drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe closest to her bed and tossed the rest of her mess into her suitcase on the stand. I did the same with my clutter.

  Once I could see the gray-green carpet again, and knew Sonia would be none the wiser, I grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater and went in search of Isabel.

  The gallery was empty. I stood and absorbed the complete stillness. Here the silence felt right. I wondered if I’d ever truly heard it before. The realization of how much noise filled my world only became apparent in its absence. Work and my small apartment always emitted the low-level hum of computers, AC units, and cars on the street. And at work there was always Moira’s soft jazz, and at home the upstairs guy’s Macklemore.

  I sat on a cushioned chair outside the Blue Room and let the stillness sink in.

  This deep quiet felt as if it had been growing and solidifying for years rather than moments or hours. I better understood Gertrude’s love for the house, all it represented and why she couldn’t let it go. I felt myself expand, breathe deep. I felt myself listening.

  After returning to my room last night, I’d thought about the similarities and differences between Gertrude and me. My brothers say I’ve paid too much. I smiled at the thought that she, too, at least thirty years older than me, had brothers chirping in on her life and decisions. I’d adopted the mantra “easy come, easy go” from one of mine, though they’d say I took it to an extreme. They would never say I paid too much or held too tight.

  I dropped against the chair’s wood back and bounced up again as if it had burned me. That sensation struck again—the vacuum and absolute stillness before the charge, the precursor that signaled something was different, and unbalanced.

  I loped down the stairs, checked the two front parlors, and made my way through the hall that ran past the dining room; the only noise was the soft tread of my ballet flats.

  I pushed a swinging door at the end of another short, narrow hall, expecting to find the side door Gertrude mentioned—the one leading to the stables and fishing stream. Instead I landed in a long, exquisite kitchen. It was tiled from floor to ceiling in cream-colored subway tiles, with two porcelain farmhouse sinks, stainless steel counters, and a huge bright-red cooking range that lined almost one full wall. The room was dry and warm as if self-heated.

  Sonia emerged from a side pantry dressed in a simple long black dress with a white apron laid over the front. “Good morning. Everyone’s left breakfast already, but I can make you eggs or—”

  “Please, no. I’m not hungry.” I pointed to her dress. “It’s begun then? I need to put on a dress?”

  Sonia smiled. “It only feels awkward at first. You’d have felt better if you’d made breakfast. Helene is wearing a bright-yellow dress and is already in full character. She tried to tease poor ‘Margaret Dashwood’ about Duncan, who was serving sausages. Clara was too young to understand, but poor Duncan turned bright red and dropped a sausage. He was so embarrassed he refuses to serve table again. Helene also insisted we arrange a ball for tomorrow night.”

  “Wasn’t there going to be dancing anyway?”

  Sonia poured me a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter. “Yes, but part of the fun is letting a Mrs. Jennings direct the household.”

  “Okay then . . . To Mrs. Jennings.” I raised my cup and took a sip. “I’ll go find a dress. Save this for me?” I set down my coffee. A waver in the air above the stove caught my eye. “Did you know that’s on?”

  “An Aga is always on.”

  “What do you mean?” I stepped toward it. I could feel the heat hit me a full two feet from its bright-red doors. I crouched down and touched one of them.

  Sonia laughed and crouched next to me. “It’s made of enameled cast iron. Each chamber is calibrated to a different heat, so you move your dishes between them, adjusting how you cook rather than adjusting the oven to your cooking. There are no dials, no on and off switches. Gertrude sent me to a class a couple years ago, but Penelope is the cook. I just help out when needed. Water and boiled eggs, that sort of thing.”

  I tapped a finger to each bright-red door. I could feel differences in temperature. “How do you know they stay true?”

  “Every now and then Gertrude puts in a thermometer to check them, but it’s never needed. You’d have to ask her how it works. But I do know that because it never turns off, she has the heat set low in this end of the house. The Aga warms the kitchen and you can even feel the drier heat in the Gold and Blue Rooms above.”

  “It would be drier. Radiant heat keeps wood 11 percent drier than forced air, and in drywall, the percentage is higher. I can’t quite remember . . .” I caught her look. “In my work, ambient moisture and temperature are important.” I stood and leaned against the counter, adoring the stove and lamenting its impracticability in Texas. “Is it too hot in here in the summer?”

  “It can get toasty.”

  “So what are the BTUs for the burners? Is it all—” I stopped at the small smile playing on her lips and felt my face flame. You’re not the resident electrician. “I should go dress.” I looked around the kitchen again. “I don’t want to embarrass Isabel. Am I not supposed to be in here?”

  “Don’t think that at all. Gertrude was serious when she said there are no rules. And I figure even in Austen’s day, an Emma had to come see the cook or Lizzy the housemaid. In one of those movies, they even got Elinor Dashwood outside Norland Park beating the rugs with the maid. You can dig around in any pantry you want and take all the lightbulbs you wish.”

  My jaw dropped. Sonia grinned again. The back door slammed shut and startled us both.

  Gertrude crossed half the kitchen before she noticed us. “Good. You are awake.”

  Sonia and I stiffened. Gertrude stopped short. “That was abrupt. I simply meant . . . We have a problem.”

  “We do?”

  “Breakfast with Miss Dwyer was . . . unusual.” She glanced to Sonia, who gave a tiny commiserating nod. “I have just left her at the stables, and I think you should come with me. She appeared to not know anyone this morning, and her mannerisms, her speech . . . She concerns me.”

  “She’s been styling herself as an Austen escapee for years. It’s her thing, and finishing her dissertation is important. She calls this the ‘ultimate escapist experience for the modern literate woman.’ She’s role-playing and she’s really good at it. Trust me.”

  Gertrude’s expression didn’t change.

  “Was it awkward? Do you want me to talk to her?” I pointed back toward the hallway. “I should change first.”

  “Could you do that after?”

  I glanced to Sonia. She, too, held a tight, anxious expression.

  “This is more than role-playing. Please?” Gertrude gestured to the back door.

  She was dressed in dark blue, an apron tied at her waist and a small mobcap attached to her silver hair. Oddly, she looked like she fit the kitchen, the house, everything. I was the one out of place.

  She led me across the gravel drive toward the path marked by a small black sign with gold lettering. Stables, Spa, and Stream. I shifted my gaze from her back to the sky. The day was glorious. Rain through the night had cleared all the gray and clouds away. The sky was bright blue—not a washed-out, bleached, Texas-sky blue, but the color I used to mark cool currents on my drafting charts, the one just lighter than Sharpie’s royal blue. And the air was crisp. It felt like drinking a cold glass of milk after a long run. You could feel it moving through you, cooling and calming you from the inside.

  “Is it always this gorgeous?”

  Gertrude’s shoes crunched at a faster cadence beside me. She was taking two steps to my one. I got the impression I was holding her back, so I picked up my pace.

  “October is usually full of rain. Yet summer was dry this year and
predictions for winter are much the same. So while these days are rare, my hope is that you will have a few of them.”

  At the path’s first bend she spoke again. “I feel I’ve tattled on your friend. It wasn’t that I was insulted that she didn’t appear to remember me or the interviews when I mentioned them. If this were a real nineteenth-century house party, she would have no reason to talk with the staff outside her own maid. But it was the sense she didn’t remember she’d met anyone at breakfast before. The Muellers loved it. Helene commented on the authenticity of her character, but that only seemed to upset her. Then Clara’s questions almost frightened her. You could see it in her eyes. There is something very worrying about them.”

  At the path’s next turn, the gravel crunch morphed to a mulch squish. It was beautifully maintained, not a wood chip falling beyond the low stone border, and it was well positioned, with manicured areas allowing glimpses through the trees into the gardens and fields along its edge. We rounded a corner, and the sight as we passed out of the trees brought us to a halt.

  There Isabel stood dressed in a soft blue dress—the thin wool one with the white trim she’d tried on the day before. Her black hair was piled high, spilling in curls down her neck. Her hair was the same color as the horse with whom she was conversing.

  “Hey, Isabel . . . Have you been riding?”

  Isabel looked up. She scanned me from head to toe and stepped away.

  “I’m sorry. I know I should have dressed. I will.” I closed the distance between us. “But Gertrude was worried. Are you okay?” A memory pricked me. “Isabel? You remember me, right?”

  Her eyes morphed from blankness to confusion, then through surprise and recognition, and settled on delight. Delight like I hadn’t seen since we discovered we both liked salsa on our eggs and s’mores with the marshmallow burned almost to disintegration—second-grade, new-best-friend delight.