A Mischief in the Snow (29 page)

And yet she'd barely moved it, she recalled, while trying to see into the hidden passage—

Soon Longfellow, too, arched his neck to stare at what she'd uncovered. A haze of light still beckoned from beyond, while an eddy brought air from the outside.

“You saw no one else here?” he asked suddenly.

“My head was down,” she admitted. “But I… I don't think so.”

“I'm glad it was no worse. You gave me the devil of a fright. Do you suppose you can stand, Carlotta? I'll support you. Or I'll carry you, if you like.”

Her attempt to rise gave her a new thrill of pain, but it passed quickly. She tried putting one foot in front of the other, testing her weight. It seemed nothing else had been damaged.

“I'll recover soon. But where do you suppose this leads?”

“It looks to be no more than a few yards long. Shall we see?”

Longfellow picked up her candle and shielded it carefully, for they had no other. Holding her arm, he began to walk slowly into the mouth of the tunnel. In a few feet, it narrowed. It seemed they would have to walk one behind the other.

“Can you manage alone?” he asked.

“Yes. No one's been here before us; the floor is sandy, but there are no footprints.”

“It would seem so. This slight rippling must have been caused by the wind.”

They walked on, along the walls of a cleft filled from above by roots that clutched at fallen stone, while they fed on sifting soil. At the tunnel's end they met a high boulder. Rounding this, they found themselves on an airy platform, now in cold shadow. Both looked down. Far below were snow and dark branches the wind had freed.

Looking above, they discovered a slope that could be climbed with no great difficulty. There were even clumps of vegetation one might use for hand holds. But a more striking sight was a little to the right. There, Magdalene Knowles stood at the edge of a precipice. Charlotte knew this to be at the end of a small yard, just beyond the room with the tall portrait, and the mirror.

“See, here,” said Longfellow, drawing her attention to a spot a few feet above them. A branch had been torn from a stunted pine rooted among the rocks. Resin, still fresh, had oozed from the white wound. “It's been torn away, and could have helped someone to climb down, to enter the tunnel the other day,” Longfellow said with a frown. “It might also have been used as a broom, I suppose, to cover his steps as he left.”

Charlotte peered back at Magdalene—and saw that Moses Reed had come for her. He held out a hand and took a step back, inviting her toward the house.

“Hey there, Reed!” Longfellow called out. The lawyer gave a start. Advancing to look over the cliff's edge, he saw the movement of a waving arm.

“Are you nearly ready?” the lawyer called down. “I believe we really should go.”

“We'll meet on the front path.”

“So,” Longfellow mused as they walked back through
the great kitchen, “someone
may
have come into the house unnoticed, while Lem worked on the opposite side.” Charlotte nodded, keeping a new worry to herself. At the moment, she had little wish to pursue anything further—at least until they were all away from the island, and safe at home.

I
N THE MORNING
, Charlotte lay again in her own bed, watching a dagger of ice slowly drip its brief life away.

Touching the receding egg at the back of her head, she reconsidered her visit to Boar Island. She'd seen places where Ned and Magdalene spent many hours. She hoped some of them had been happy. What the future held for each might be less so.

Climbing down from the cheerless house on top of its perilous crag, she'd imagined Magdalene leaving earlier— then circling back, entering through the underground passage, and doing what she wished to Catherine Knowles. Ned, too, might have done such a thing, if he'd discovered the passage… or if Magdalene had told him of it. Each possibly had a motive. Yet what had happened need not have been planned, after all. What if one of them had only gone to persuade Catherine to change her mind? But if that was so… why not go in through the front door?

Outside the window, a cardinal seemed to strike a
pose on a nearby branch, pulling her thoughts back to something else she'd seen. For yesterday, she'd finally met one of the island's fabled inhabitants.

They'd nearly reached the bottom of the trail when they heard a snort. Then they saw him, lit by the low sun, standing upon a flat rock. The boar was a yard high at the shoulders, and appeared neither cruel nor demonic, as she'd guessed it would. He did have impressive tusks, but they seemed given for protection. Most creatures, after all, had enemies. Though his body was substantial, he had small legs and hoofs. Particularly surprising were large ears, soft and supple, standing in peaks. His tiny eyes stared, as if they did him little good, but his nose twitched busily while he considered their unknown scent.

It suddenly seemed a shame this was an animal most often encountered as a head on a platter, or a body turning over a slow fire. Charlotte decided that in future she would imagine these creatures doing no more than living their own simple lives, away from harm.

She had been shocked to see Moses Reed reach into his great coat to one below, and pull out a pistol. This he cocked, and it seemed he aimed to shoot. But the slight click of the mechanism had been enough to alert the animal above them. He turned abruptly, showed them a tufted tail, and leaped from the ledge to the brush below. They heard him crash about a while longer, as he scrambled away.

Slowly Reed lowered the weapon, to find Longfellow regarding him. Magdalene had backed away, her eyes grave. She must have known what firearms could do, Charlotte imagined, from the time she'd lived with hunters. But according to Hannah, the attorney beside her was no stranger to the ways of the forest—and, presumably, of wild boars.

“No need, I think,” said Longfellow. “He's no threat to us now.”

Reed assented, uncocked the pistol, and put it back into his clothing. “Better safe…” he remarked.

“Do you often use that thing?” Longfellow asked.

“No. But I might, sir. Some would rob a man who travels regularly, as a lawyer must. In fact a circuit judge suggested to me the idea of carrying one, as he does.”

“Yes, of course,” Longfellow replied. But Charlotte wondered if his look implied a greater concern. Had Reed feared for his safety when he came to Bracebridge? Or onto the island? Did he perhaps think someone else might join them there, uninvited?

After their return to the village, the rest of the afternoon had given Charlotte a chance to stay home alone, while Lem visited Hannah and Martha, telling them the news. With Orpheus at her side, she'd gone into the blue study and built a fire.

What, she'd wondered, had their visit proved, after all? That there were still some things that could hardly be considered natural, even by Science? She had not told Longfellow of her initial sensation that something was in the house with them, something other than the comforting spirit she'd encountered. But what did it matter? She'd seen the tunnel, and its newly brushed floor. Had someone used it on the day of Catherine's death? And if so, had that same person killed Alex Godwin?

There was yet another possibility to consider. Yesterday, she'd felt that Aaron had given her a friendly warning at the top of the cellar stairs. But had she been given another, far less friendly, below? Again she touched her head, glad that her pinned hair had cushioned what could have been intended as a deadly blow. Had Moses Reed been right, after all? Was there cause to worry, still?

Charlotte continued to watch the icicle beyond the window, realizing that today many other questions, at least, might be answered. For it was Saturday, and Christian Rowe had invited the village to the meeting house, to discuss what was known of the events that took place on the day of the ice harvest.

Since she herself had earlier made certain suggestions to Hannah, and because wives had ways of finding things out, she expected that some progress had already been made. All in all, she decided as she rose to wash and dress, it promised to be a most interesting day.

THE MINISTER'S MEETING
had been set to begin at eleven. But by ten-thirty, the space between the long, whitewashed walls of the meeting house, lit by several plain and tall windows, had begun to fill. Certain of the boxes in the front waited for tenants who paid extra for them each year. Behind these, villagers with smaller savings, or a lesser sense of responsibility, sat in knots on pews, and on chairs added to the side aisles. Men and women together were strangely quiet, while groups of a single sex talked quickly, if softly, raising their eyes to see who else might join them. In a rear loft, youths and maidens mingled with more animation, occasionally admonishing younger children for complaining.

Thus far, thought Charlotte, it was what she'd expected. With Lem at her side, she'd come in before those of Longfellow's household. She was glad they'd arrived early, for as she'd guessed, the village saw no reason to wait for the appointed hour to discuss what had happened to Godwin, where the base shillings had come from, and who might be to blame for either, or both.

As she and Lem sat down one voice rose above all others, catching the attention of the room.

“Where is John Dudley?” Sarah Proctor asked loudly, causing a good many who nodded and grumbled to look about.

“He's not here,” called one of her neighbors. “He's not been seen in the village since yesterday morning! His family's not here, either. Maybe they felt it best to stay away—”

“Dudley's whereabouts are known to some of us,” a farmer retorted. Today, like several others, he wore his grandfather's long white wig for warmth, and perhaps in honor of the special occasion. “Even if he didn't see fit to inform the women!” he finished from under his fall of curls.

“Where is he, then?” Mrs. Proctor demanded.

“Well, Sarah, it happens he went off to Worcester!
Somebody
had to tell Godwin's family what happened to him. And he is, after all, the constable. Said he'd be staying at the Three Ravens, if you care to go after him— looking for the young man's murderer!”

“He'll be back, as soon as Thankful Marlowe decides he's drunk more than the selectmen will likely pay for,” predicted a wise man.

“Here comes Mr. Rowe,” Lem told Charlotte, for he'd been turned about in his seat, waiting for Hannah's family to arrive. Christian Rowe indeed hurried to the front of the room, to the stand where he usually delivered his sermons.

“We must have order,”
he insisted loudly. “Let us wait until the hour. There's no need for hurry, with the boy dead some days—”

“Fine,” said a large woman from under a pink quilted
bonnet, “but what about these shillings? And what about our housewares?”

“I've heard Ned Bigelow was the one,” called another, over an infant's wail.

“But he never decided to do it on his own,” insisted the first. “No, he had to be led by someone!”

“It will be the same men who've left maids lying down in the meadow sweet, I suspect, after they've had what they were after,” said Mrs. Proctor dourly.

“Or those who keep secrets from wives,
and
their poor mothers—” Jemima Hurd added.

“And who make everything we own liable to seizure, under the King's law!” cried Esther Pennywort. This last observation was a truly frightening one, and it started fiercer rumbling.

“Ladies, ladies!” the minister called bravely, holding up his hands. “There has been, I agree, a terrible breach of trust—one committed against myself as much as any other! Yet a charge of murder is even more worthy of our careful—”

“But what if Godwin was killed
because
of these shillings?” Sarah Proctor interrupted. “What if he was about to tell what he knew? He did threaten Lem Wainwright with something, and said he would tell Mr. Longfellow what some were up to—though why he supposed any of the selectmen would care is a mystery.”

Charlotte saw Lem squirm in his place, and look to the minister to defend him.

“If,” said Rowe, “there is blame—and I am sure there is!—then, we must ask ourselves who had the most to lose by the discovery of this moneymaking scheme. Can that be young Wainwright, when so many older men are obviously involved?” He gave an oily smile in Charlotte's
direction, before returning to the fray. “And, we must ask ourselves this: what might happen if Crown officials, rather than our own, begin to ask the questions here? As we all know, Boston cares little enough for
us…
”

“You should be asking, as we've asked ourselves, who else
could
have killed Alex Godwin that afternoon,” said Sarah Proctor. A hush fell.

“Constable Dudley,” Dick Craft replied, representing the thoughts of the Blue Boar, “claims it may well have been some stranger off the road, coming by to look for trouble.”

“John Dudley!” cried a woman who lived on the north road, and felt she knew her neighbor. “The sot could barely see his feet that afternoon. And he never picked the boy up and took him into those trees. He probably pissed in his own boot that day, to avoid lifting so much as a finger—”

Charlotte blushed and looked away, glad that Rachel Dudley and her children had not come, after all.

“But if some of you men,” said Rowe uneasily, “can give us ideas as to who was in a position to do such a thing—?”

“There is no need, sir,” said Emily Bowers, rising from a collection of her own nodding supporters. “The women of the village have already counted heads, and we can't see that any of our own men would have been able to get away with such a thing, even if they had good enough reason. It may be, for once, that John Dudley is right.”

“Except for the boy,” Sarah Proctor intoned. “Ned Bigelow has neither wife nor mother to look after him, or to wonder where he's got to. Jonah surely can't follow him far! And he may have wished to stop Alex from
talking about what we now know of the shillings—he may even know more about other goings-on, up there on that island…”

This new suggestion, reminding them of the sad fate of Catherine Knowles, quieted the crowd.

“Well, where is he, then?” asked Rowe. “And where is Jonah? It is still a little early—but some of you men, go and fetch them; we'll ask for their explanation.”

“There's no need for us to pull Ned into this,” Phineas Wise objected. “We all know the lad, and he's got as good a heart as any man here.”

“Better that than let someone else examine him, Phineas,” came an answer from near the back doors.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Samuel Sloan, though Hannah tried to pull him toward their usual seats, “that it would be a shame, as Reverend Rowe says, if the sheriff in Cambridge got the idea to come here and listen to what's being said about murder, and then began to ask about the other thing. Still, he'll find no proof of that, I think.”

“No proof?” objected Reverend Rowe. “No proof!
We all know—
”

“You may think you know, Reverend. But where is this mold? And is there a forge on the island? I wouldn't be surprised if there was nothing there at all.”

“There isn't,” said Richard Longfellow as he walked briskly up the center aisle. “I was there yesterday and saw no sign of recent activity, though I was told where to look. But there still remain the coins, gentlemen. And the body.”

Again somber tones grew among them, until a further cry arose.

“I say bring back old Bigelow and his grandson. Let's get this over with,
now!”