woman of the village following Mrs. Willett's lonely example that afternoon—if conditions did seem perfect for her plan.
“You'll take care?” he finally asked, as the dappled dog at his feet raised his head to watch.
“I will,” she replied with good cheer. She clomped across the sanded pine floorboards, to find mittens in a woven basket full of winter apparel.
“How far do you mean to go?”
“Well—I don't know.”
“You'll be back before dark?”
Now it was Charlotte's turn to worry, for she'd again heard a note that had lately begun to grate. Lem's new inquiries into her actions seemed to have started in August when he'd returned from Boston, where he'd been tutored for a first term at Harvard College. For a number of reasons he'd abandoned his plans to attend. Instead, he'd come home.
She knew she could hardly expect him to speak to her as he had at the age of twelve—it was then that his parents, whose house on the road to Concord was still full of children, had sent him to help in her dairy. Today her small herd and barn were largely Lem's responsibility, an arrangement that freed Charlotte to follow other pursuits. But if that gave him a new privilege to question her plans, why was it that her growing curiosity about his affairs so often went unsatisfied? Still, young men deserved an additional degree of privacy, she'd decided, and this, she was determined to give.
“Sunset must be three hours away,” she said now, after taking a peek through to the large room with south-facing windows. “I suppose,” she continued, moving toward the back door, “that by then I'll have had enough. If I haven't quite managed to freeze my toes and fingers.” She bent briefly to pat Orpheus, giving him soft instructions to return to the hearth, for he could not come with her.
Lem seemed about to give a further warning, but seeing one of her strange new looks, he reconsidered and retreated into his storybook.
Charlotte tied a linen cap over her head and ears. She drew on a hooded cloak, and picked up a long muff of spotted lynx, something her mother had been given years before by her new husband, and had cherished. It was still as useful as it was beautiful. Yet how sad, Charlotte reflected, that none saw such beauty alive today, roaming the remaining acres of transparent winter wood near the village. It was often remarked that old ways disappeared with the trees. Yet others insisted new ideas so improved their lives that the future was bound to be a great deal better than the past. She doubted either statement was entirely true. But the world did revolve swiftly, and with that thought in mind, she set the muff over one mittened hand. With the other she took up two joined objects made of wood, leather, and steel.
Minutes later, Charlotte accepted a ride on a neighbor's passing sleigh. It then continued on along hard-packed snow, down the hill that led to the village. They first passed between Richard Longfellow's impressive house and the Bracebridge Inn across the way. After a few hundred yards of open fields, the sleigh reached tree-lined lanes, and came to the closely huddled dwellings of the village proper.
At the stone bridge over the Musketaquid River, Charlotte gave the driver her thanks, and hopped down. For a moment she stood gazing at the milky surface below. What current still flowed was covered, she supposed, by several inches of ice, and two would be sufficient. For weeks she'd missed her usual walks, and was not about to spend the entire winter inside. Ice, bare and beautiful, gave her a rare chance to glide like a swallow into a part of the countryside that was usually inaccessible, to see what she could see.
By the river's edge she sat and attached two wooden plates filleted with leather straps to her boot soles—plates set with curl-fronted, sharp-backed blades. Rising, she tested her work, maneuvering away from the shore. Soon leaving the houses behind, she flew through the bright winter sunlight, under an azure sky. Nothing in the bleached stalks on either side of the ice distracted her; no reflection but her own came from a sparkling surface. Though numerous avenues branched off into barely glimpsed pockets, she avoided them, keeping to the good sense of the broadest path. Lulled by the singing of her skates, she let her mind, instead, wander.
She had come out hoping to relieve a sadness that had settled within