A Mischief in the Snow (4 page)

What was a spoon doing here?
And it was no ordinary pewter spoon, but one of silver, perfectly cast. It also had a flower, quite possibly a tulip, chased into its bowl. Stranger still, it was untarnished. Someone must have dropped it recently, she decided. Yet why here, in the dead of winter? Surely no one had come this way looking for a place to picnic! Although perhaps poor Magdalene?…

Charlotte smiled uncomfortably, recalling her earlier embarrassment for both women, and her pain at the treatment of the younger. She'd pitied Mrs. Knowles, hearing of her youthful difficulties. But then she'd seen her lead a merry dance at the expense of a silent partner.

The thought of dancing caused her skin to prickle, for it reminded her of the uncanny mirror, with its strange lights and colors.

Just then, she heard a rustling behind several fallen rocks only a few yards away. It sounded as if something large moved there. A deer? Or one of the boars, like the painted sign that hung over the door of the village tavern? That colorful representation included a pair of gruesome tusks, curling about a face whose intentions seemed plainly evil.

Even if she hurried, she would barely be home before twilight turned to darkness. Nothing would be wrong with bringing the spoon back some other time, with the
borrowed cloak. Perhaps with Lem, too, and a pair of good, long sticks. Had she not been encouraged to return? Charlotte placed the spoon in the bottom of her muff, then quickly attached her second skate. With this accomplished, she sank her bare hands into the circle of spotted fur, and set off on the long journey home.

O
NE OF THE
most worthless things I've ever read,” Richard Longfellow declared, holding the floor in his candlelit study. “Claptrap, written to gain the applause of idiots,” he went on, clarifying his position. With a wry smile he raised high the volume in his hand, then gave it to Mrs. Willett for her own evaluation.

Moments earlier Charlotte had taken off her cloak. Now she sat in an armchair and began to examine
The Castle of Otranto
, a lovely book whose title was pressed in gold onto an ochre calf-skin cover.

“If that is true, then I wonder why you bought it,” she answered.

“Bought it? Hah! The thing was sent to me from London, by an acquaintance whose character I've begun to reconsider. I suppose he may have hoped to gain some satisfaction by passing it on as an annoyance.”

In a few healthy strides, Longfellow crossed over a Turkey carpet to examine the portrait John Copley had
painted not long before; this showed his sister Diana during happier days.

“What can be so wrong with it, I wonder?” Charlotte asked herself softly.

“What is right, you may as well ask,” he replied as he gazed, his features set. “Mr. Walpole, it seems, has lost what little sense he once enjoyed. Unless he seeks to influence others of doubtful mental abilities. Possibly, to extend his own political influence?…” he mused.

“I'm afraid that I don't see—”

“Hmm?”

“Which Walpole is it?”

“Certainly not the former prime minister, who's been dead for twenty years, Carlotta.” Her neighbor turned back, his handsome features softening in a tolerant smile. “But since you sensibly refuse to follow the latest fashions, allow me to explain. The novel you hold was written by Horace, the son—a Parliamentary representative of the Whig party. Their claim to him proves how little that collection of traders and adventurers has left to recommend it—though lately they've managed to outwit the old Tories, that stubborn horde of country squires, who it seems have become impotent as a working body.”

“Oh.”

“Well. At any rate, Society knows Walpole as a scribbler, and something of a fop. An elder brother has inherited the old earl's title. But here's a detail you'll find interesting. Horace is a friend of a favorite of yours, the poet Thomas Gray. It was Walpole who first arranged to have his works published.”

“That, at least, shows some wisdom,” Charlotte answered, looking across the room to see if Diana might agree. Young Mrs. Montagu, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, reclined on an upholstered couch. For many minutes,
she'd been staring into the starry night through a cleft in a pair of curtains—not unlike another woman she'd encountered that day, Charlotte thought uneasily.

“They were at Eton together,” Richard continued, “where, incidentally, Walpole was a friend to a pair of Montagus. Edmund told me their early alliance then deteriorated into a feud.”

“A feud, between Edmund and Mr. Walpole?” Charlotte immediately suspected the trouble had something to do with the captain's quiet work for the Crown, for whom he gathered information, one way or another. That, she knew, would be unlikely to please anyone with Whiggish sentiments in London or in Boston—or even in Brace-bridge. Such men resented the King's increasing power over Parliament at their party's expense—especially while he gave his particular friends opportunities to enrich themselves. Little of this, she thought, had much to do with common people on either side of the ocean. But men would take a stand, though it appeared to do little good.

“No, no—” Longfellow corrected her shortly, “two other Montagus. The captain was well removed from the fireworks, since he belongs to a different branch of the family. But it was for his sake that I read this idiot tale of Walpole's to its conclusion, thinking that one day, as new brothers, Edmund and I might discuss it.”

“The feud,” she returned, marginally interested as she read a few lines. “What was it about?”

“Well—it appears that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu offended quite a few gentlemen in her time, including Walpole, with her literary prowess. And, I would imagine, the frequent tartness of her observations. Walpole once visited her abroad, then claimed she had become a slattern, or worse. Malicious gossip, no doubt, something
she herself was known to enjoy. But it does seem the lady was rather reckless in allowing herself to be hoodwinked and swindled by certain Italian gentlemen she befriended, during long years of solitary travel.”

Charlotte looked up suddenly to find Longfellow's hazel eyes appraising her.

“I'm sorry to hear it,” she replied, setting the book onto a nearby table.

“What else could be expected of a woman who chooses to ignore convention, and lives alone in a foreign country? Though she may have had one good reason to leave England.”

“Oh?”

“She was outshone at last by her own daughter, the woman who married Bute, before he became prime minister.”

“Lord Bute,” asked Charlotte, “who was seen with the Devil in Boston last summer?” She followed his gaze to the windows. “Hanging in a tree?”

“Our Liberty Boys do such admirable work in papier mâché,” he returned, “that all of Boston may soon demand to be copied in the stuff, and painted up for posterity. The ladies, at least. What do you think, Mrs. Willett?”

Despite the bantering tone of Richard's remark, Charlotte saw that Diana was unmoved. Perhaps she still admired the moonlit snow beyond the frosted panes. But it was more likely that her thoughts had drifted back to her lost child. At least there was a marked contrast to her usual impatience with her brother's teasing pronouncements. Until very recently, Diana had been a rising force among the unyielding ladies of Boston, known for her clever tongue and courageous spirit, if her words were sometimes said to have a little too much bite. But now, she seemed a statue of quiet grief.

Charlotte rose and went forward, looking down on loosely curled auburn locks. When these moved, she met a pair of brimming emerald eyes. She pulled a lavender-scented handkerchief from her sleeve. It was taken gladly, and did help to stem a flow of tears that glistened, for a few moments, in the candlelight. Yet Diana's smile of thanks was more pitiful than what had come before.

Charlotte sighed and returned to the fire, where she was surprised to find a bold admiration in her neighbor's steady expression. In a manner she hoped was careless, she settled herself onto the arm of one of his stuffed chairs. Had he finally begun to soften toward her? She felt emboldened by the idea. Then again, she remembered her recent glimpse of Eternity. In recalling the black water that had nearly claimed her, she felt her knees begin to quiver. Should she tell them both what had nearly happened? She decided not.

“Has Edmund described to you, Diana, the visit he made to Walpole's
castellino
?” Longfellow asked a short time later. His sister nodded, and went to pour herself a small glass of sherry from a tea table near the hearth.

“Then I will tell the story to Mrs. Willett. It seems Horace Walpole has been nurturing a monstrosity at Twickenham, near London. Pope is buried there, but may regret it; people regularly come out, not to pay their respects to him, but to see the progress of the ‘little castle.’ The captain was asked to join one such party arranged by his friend Mr. Goldsmith. Edmund says Walpole adds a tower here, a cloister there—he's caused stained glass windows to be put up, depicting the lives of tormented saints. He's inserted numerous niches into the walls to display ancient weapons, and suits of mail and armor, removed from someone's attic or cellar. If he craves
something fanciful that can't be supported by the underlying structure of his old farmhouse—a battlement, for instance—he simply orders it to be created out of cardboard! Wallpaper, too, is used to imitate groined vaults, and stone stairways…”

As the description went on, Charlotte grew astonished at the remarkable coincidence. Hadn't she seen something similar that very afternoon, not ten miles away?

“All of this falls, of course, under a term that is well known,” Longfellow said at last.

“Gothic?” she suggested, recalling the title page of the book she'd recently put down. She received a smile of approval.

“An architectural style,” he went on to explain, “involving pointed arches, spires, buttresses, gargoyles—things found in the cathedrals of Europe. Lately, people of elevated taste have begun to use the term for a sensibility they link to the romantic temperament; their aim, it seems, is to be thrilled by the fantastic and the grotesque. In fact, a growing number of ladies and gentlemen use ‘gothic’ as a word of praise, shivering at the supernatural worlds they imagine. Yet these fantasies prove they are no better than untutored children, easily frightened, unable to accept or enjoy the world around them.”

Diana sent a query from across the room.

“And what of your own view of the world, Richard? We know you are the opposite, for you would root out all emotion from life, if you could. I wonder what in this novel you most object to. Do the characters speak honestly of their fears and sorrows? Do they explore hopes and desires, rather than morality, and your precious Science? Do they even dare, I wonder, to speak passionately of love?”

Gladdened by this flash of Diana's old irascibility, Longfellow smiled once more, and fell into an easy chair. Taking up the book from the table, he turned to an early page.

“Since you ask, Mrs. Montagu, one thing to which I object is a hotchpotch of foolish characters, weaker and even more absurd than some of the gentlemen I've seen you bring home to tea. And the so-called
miraculous
happenings of Walpole's plot are unlikely to inspire or improve the reader—which is the whole point of literature. In the beginning, for instance, we're told of a giant statue of black marble, sporting a helmet topped with black plumes—like those one sees on heroes at the opera, I suppose. We hear of this head only because it has fallen into the castle's courtyard and crushed the life out of the young heir, whose existence was first mentioned only a moment earlier. An explanation of how this dreadful thing was accomplished is never attempted. What, I wonder, are we to make of that?”

“It could be a dream,” Charlotte said softly, recalling her own waking illusions that day. She also asked herself if the mention of a lost heir might send Diana's mind back to her own pain. Could Richard be completely unaware of his sister's feelings? Or did he only try to provoke Diana's mettle?

“A dream resulting, possibly, from too much goose and cherry sauce,” Longfellow returned, remembering an unpleasant evening of his own. “Unfortunately, Mr. Walpole neglects to mention how he came to have his visions, or hallucinations, or whatever they were. The book's first printing even pretended the manuscript had been composed by someone who lived centuries ago! Now that the thing has gained a certain amount of success, he admits he is the author—even puffs that he's unleashed a
new Gothic School for our novelists. ‘A new species of romance’ he says in the preface. He imagines he has only to wish for something to have it so—though we all should know that nothing can exist beyond the laws of Nature.”

Charlotte leaned forward to stir the fire. “How does he describe Otranto's castle?” she asked cautiously.

“Where to start, Mrs. Willett! Perhaps at the bottom. It seems Walpole's castle has deep vaults and subterranean passages—one leads conveniently to a convent. Above ground there are massive halls and a long picture gallery. There, from time to time, a man in a portrait climbs down to stroll about. Another ghostly appearance is made by a disembodied leg, clad in armor. When this inexplicably grows huge, it is said to fill one of the private chambers—yet that is less terrifying, apparently, than a giant armored hand which grimly clutches the rail of a staircase.”

“Who lives in this castle?” asked Diana, intrigued despite her brother's scoffing.

“An evil usurper, with a wife cruelly ignored; a pair of pathetic princesses, one or two young men. There is also a poor priest nearby with an unspeakable secret. I recall a hermit in a cave, and a few distant Algerian pirates. And there is a prophecy. All that goes on, Mr. Walpole assures us, demands what he calls ‘a dreadful obedience’ from his characters. His world, I believe, has little room for rational choice. Instead, he presumes some fearful influence guides Fate's hand, as it moves steadfastly against us. Walpole seems to consider this story heroic. I do not. But I think many
will
find guilty pleasure in riding their passions through his pointless hell… those who do not rise to their feet after a quarter of an hour, and wisely throw the thing into the fire.”