A Haunted House?

Your Austen Variations authors have so much going on this month (with new releases, etc.) that there haven’t been many posts so far using this month’s theme: Fantastical Austen, where the strange and paranormal are meant to be featured. I imaging that will change, as we now drawing closer to Halloween, though.

For my contribution, I thought I would give you an excerpt from the Northanger Abbey sequel I’m working on: Murder at Northanger Abbey (which should be out next summer). Here’s the set-up:

General Tilney throws a masked ball at Northanger Abbey on All Hallow’s Eve, which features storms and shocking surprises, inside and out. Fireworks were intended to cap off the night’s festivities, but it finishes with a chilling murder instead. When her dear husband Henry is implicated, Catherine sets out to solve the mystery and clear his name.

Catherine’s heart began to race at the prospect of surreptitiously inspecting the murder scene and what she might find there. Every nerve felt suddenly alive. She recognized the feeling. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of the old thrill from when she had visited this ancient house before, when she had been determined to discover the unexplained circumstances of Mrs. Tilney’s death.

That idea gave Catherine pause. At that time, she had been caught in the act, and the result of her interference was nearly disastrous. She could have lost Henry forever if he had not been so naturally good-natured and understanding, not to mention the ugly scene that surely would have transpired if it had been the general instead who had discovered her nosing about his house and his private affairs. He would not have been so forgiving!

Had she not vowed – to Henry and to herself – to put her fascination with unnatural beings and unlikely hideous human behavior behind her? Had she not repented of her dangerous penchant for seeing crime and intrigue round every corner?

This was quite a different case, however, Catherine reasoned. This crime was not imagined; something hideous had actually occurred. And, since she knew Henry could not be responsible, the question of the murderer’s true identity still persisted. Plus, her motives now were entirely different. Before, she embarked on her mission primarily for her own amusement, being so absurd as to believe she could solve a mystery that, as it evolved, never existed. This, however, was a true mystery, and she undertook to solve it primarily for Henry’s sake, to prevent a tragic miscarriage of justice from sweeping him away forever. Surely that justified any necessary subterfuge on her part.

One final persuasive argument then weighed in. If she did not investigate further, who would? Sir Melvin Whitmore seemed perfectly satisfied he had the right man already in custody. And even though Henry had said Captain Tilney would help with hiring a good lawyer, could she really trust him to do everything possible to prove his brother’s innocence? After all, the captain would not want to encourage suspicion being thrown back in his own direction. Perhaps his supposed alibi would not withstand the glare of more intense scrutiny, and no doubt he would rather see anybody, even his brother, hung rather than himself.

Without further hesitation, Catherine added a shawl over top of her spencer and left her room, bound to find whatever secrets the rooftop might reveal.

She crept along the passageway, hoping not to awaken any creaky boards or otherwise attract unwanted attention. Fortunately, she saw no one on the way to the turret, which she knew housed the flight of steps that led to the roof.

Once there, though, the entrance to the turret was barred by a heavy, antiquated door. It looked like something leftover from a century or more ago, with large rusty hinges that were sure to screech in complaint when disturbed. Then Catherine saw the equally unpromising keyhole and her heart sank. It had not occurred to her that the door might be locked. With a quick whispered prayer (and fingers crossed for good measure), she tried the handle. She was instantly relieved when she heard the click of the latch and felt the heavy door start to give way. Luck was with her in that regard, but not with the hinges, which groaned alarmingly when the door was only six or seven inches ajar. Catherine froze, listened for any response, and then finally slipped through the narrow gap, risking more noise to close the door behind her.

Leaning back against it, she took a deep breath and waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. Like the door itself, the turret interior was from another time. No modern improvements had insinuated themselves here, no effort made to soften the chiseled gray stone on every side. The main feature was, of course, the staircase itself, which wound upward against the curved outer walls. For a moment, Catherine was tempted to believe she had somehow stepped into a medieval castle in the time of King Arthur, or at least the time of King Henry VIII. But this was no occasion for spinning romantic fantasies; she had serious work to do.

Catherine began climbing the worn stone treads on tiptoe, her heart in her throat, fully aware that she would have some very awkward explanations to make should she be discovered in this part of the house. Truly, there would be nothing at all she could say, no possible excuse to give other than the truth.

However, it was not only this horrifying idea that had her nerves strung tight as harp strings. It was that in these Gothic surroundings, other terrors – the kind of apparitions she had been accustomed to dwelling on too much in the past – more easily sprang to mind. Vampires would probably be very much at home in the low light filtering in through the narrow slits serving as the only windows. No doubt disgruntled ghosts of past occupants would find the cold, dank, deserted stairwell a perfect haunt. They could so easily appear or retreat from sight round the curved walls when anybody did come that way. But then perhaps they could fly straight through the walls in any case.

Catherine shivered, and not entirely from the chill of the air. Even if there were no vampires, she had to consider the recent evidence of some kind of an unearthly presence. What about the strange noises and occurrences they had experienced the night before? Those had been largely forgotten in the tumult that followed. General Courteney might think General Tilney himself was responsible, but there was no proof of that. Perhaps the reason no better human suspect than Henry could be found was because the murderer was not human at all. Catherine was not sure if a spirit could actually push a man from a roof, but she had certainly read tales where people had been so terrified by some horrible apparition that they ran into harm’s way or even jumped to their deaths in their desperation to flee it.

…If Catherine had not been so deep in concentration she might have received some little warning, perhaps at least the sound of a footfall behind her. As it was, the harsh voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

“What do you do there?” the man’s voice demanded…

I hope you enjoyed this little foray back into the spooky world of Northanger Abbey. In this sequel, I’m trying to retain the youthful tone and campy fun of the original as much as possible, while at the same time giving Catherine a real high-stakes mystery to solve this time!

(Read another scene from the book here at Austen Variations and a slightly steamy one here on my own site.)