A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,104
Carlotta?”
“Richard, do you think Magdalene will go back to Boston with Moses Reed?”
“He told me he would discuss the question with her today; that is what I imagine they're doing upstairs. She can hardly return to the island by herself. And since it will go, now, to the Knowles family, it might soon be sold. I wonder if they will auction or keep the furnishings?”
“She could live here with Jonah. Each of them will need someone. And as they both care for Ned…”
“You forget Catherine's death hasn't entirely been explained. He might not have her, if he suspects…”
“You and Reed did discuss the manner of Catherine's death?”
“And decided to say no more. We can't prove what she claimed was anything but a dying woman's imagination.”
“Magdalene will suffer greatly, when she's told her son has been forced to leave her.”
“She may also warm to Reed—even marry and bear him another son, I suppose.”
“Do you think so?” Charlotte doubted it. During the night of storm, soon after she'd found Moses Reed once more, Magdalene had said she would not see her lost love again. It was almost as if she could barely recall the man who'd stood before her, though for years she'd pined for him. But was that really true?
“Richard,” she said suddenly, “suppose Magdalene realized, long ago—”
Before she was able to voice her new thought, they heard a tapping at the window. A youthful face reflected their candlelight—they were doubly surprised to see that it belonged to Ned Bigelow.
Longfellow leaped to his feet and went out into the hall, then through the small dining room to a door leading to the piazza. He returned in a few moments with the young man they'd supposed was far away.
“I couldn't leave my grandfather alone, sir, after all,”
Ned began. “His illness, you see, has worsened, and he depends on me. I don't care what I have to pay for the shillings. I planned to find a ship at Providence, but once I got half way to Framingham, I decided I'd better turn around and come home. I'll stay—though Mr. Reed told me I shouldn't.”
“The shillings?” Longfellow asked, amazed. “What about the murder of Alex Godwin?”
“What about it?”
“But—do you now say?—”
“Wait,” said Charlotte.
“Yes, Carlotta?”
“I think we all may have overlooked something important. Do you remember, Richard, that Moses Reed told us he would fight for Ned in court?”
“He did say that, when he thought the boy was innocent.”
“But what changed his mind?”
“Well… Ned?”
“He said you'd confessed,” Charlotte told him gently.
“That's not true!” Ned exclaimed.
“Could he have feared his defense might have been insufficient to save the boy?” Longfellow asked his neighbor in bewilderment.
“I would imagine Moses Reed is a man who fears very little—even the anger of those he's wronged. And I begin to suspect he's a talented actor, now that I recall the scene. But Magdalene knew. Richard, why do you think Alex Godwin returned to Bracebridge last year?”
“To find employment.”
“Here, and not in Worcester, which is a far busier place? Catherine said Alex came to her with references. And yet, Hannah later told me Alex had been in some sort of trouble, before he was sent away. If that is true, who might have helped him out of it?”
“For serious trouble, I presume he would have consulted a lawyer—”
“And who is the one man Catherine Knowles appears to have trusted?”
“You suspect Reed sent Godwin there a year ago? But why?”
“What if—oh, how could he? But what if Reed himself wrote Catherine's final will?”
“If that's so, how was it we found a copy on the island?”
“Alex might have taken it there… or couldn't Reed have brought it with him, when he came to Bracebridge? He might have ‘discovered’ it in Catherine's bedroom—”
“While I was out looking for something spectral in the blasted hall! That could be. But wait a moment, Carlotta—do you suppose Reed is a murderer, as well?”
She stared back at him, hardly able to believe it herself.
“If he did plan for Alex to inherit Catherine's estate,” Longfellow reasoned, “why would he then kill him, before she died?”
“A necessary change of plans?”
“Remember, too, that her fortune had been reduced to nearly nothing. And I saw the final will. Reed stood to gain control of no more than thirty pounds a year, for Magdalene—the rest, what little there was, will now go back to Philadelphia. Including, of course, the recent widow's portion.”
“But what if he saw this added inheritance not as a blessing, but a curse? Better to allow the Knowles family the