are full of surprises,” he answered oddly, causing her to wonder if the suspicion he'd lately shown had been renewed. “Well, if Lem goes off quietly, as you did the other day, I doubt he'll come to any harm.”
“If I stay away from thin ice,” said Lem, looking to Charlotte.
“I'll give you directions before you go,” she assured him.
“It is now, what—?” Longfellow consulted the mantel clock. “Nine-thirty. What would you guess it will take, Mrs. Willett, on skates? An hour each way? Fill their wood box, then, and take care of whatever else they need, Lem. Tell them we'll soon arrange for more regular assistance.”
“You could also return Magdalene's cloak, and take some provisions with you, on the flat sled in the barn,” Charlotte suggested.
“I will.”
“Get Hannah to choose some things from the cellar. She'll know.”
“Aren't you going home?” There was a pause. Then he answered his own question. “Oh. Of course. The body.”
Longfellow wondered if young love, or several weeks in Boston, might be blamed for this lapse. Though he himself wished Charlotte safely at home, he had little hope that she would go there now.
Cicero had finished making the coffee. He poured it into four cups, near a bowl of crushed sugar. He brought a small pitcher of cream from the fireside, where he'd set it earlier to remove the pantry's chill. And while the others fortified themselves for the unpleasantness that surely lay ahead, he reminded them of something they'd forgotten.
“What,” he asked, “of Mrs. Montagu?”
Longfellow's first reply was a sigh. He added, “Keep her in, and others out.”
The old man nodded, and sipped the rich, sweet brew he'd made.
When he sat alone a few minutes later, Cicero tried to recall some good of the puffy lad he'd barely known but had disliked, he supposed, no less than others. It was not an easy task. Nor would his next be, he imagined, when a certain young lady arose and found her way downstairs, seeking something to distract her.
THE WALK TO the pond was normally a brief one. Today, it seemed longer to Charlotte than ever before. Cold, raw, and duller than yesterday, this Wednesday appeared unkind to all the world.
She and Longfellow trudged side by side, dark figures against the land's lighter mantle of ice and snow, the taller of the two pulling a sled he'd stopped earlier to take from his stone barn. The sled carried a tarpaulin that would be needed later.
Though it was not the first time they had gone off together to view a body, this time it felt as if something new had come between them. Was it simply a continuing sense of distrust? Or was it the fact that Lem's safety, even his life, might be in jeopardy? As a selectman, it would be Richard's duty to find the truth, as best he could. But what would be the result of that?
Charlotte missed having Orpheus beside her. He'd not been keen to leave her hearth, and small wonder. Though she believed he possessed a curiosity to match her own, what he'd found that morning hadn't pleased him, she was sure. A part of her wished she were seated beside him now, waiting for the storm in comfort while her stout walls, banked by bundled straw, kept out the cold.
As they approached the ice pond, they saw previous activity written all around. But there were no snorting horses, no shouting men, no laughing children, no couples enticing one another, no women offering this or that for the comfort of the rest. Instead there was an emptiness, marked by the wind in the conifers.
Where the day before they'd left open water, the pond was now a solid stretch of black ice. This they avoided, making their way instead to the circle of trees beside the stained snow. Had Alex Godwin gone there for the same reason as the others, during the long afternoon? If so, thought Charlotte, someone might very easily have come up behind him.
Leaving the sled, Longfellow led her into the firs. Once inside she was comforted by the calm, and the smell of resin. Bathed in soft light, the place gave her the impression of having entered a chapel. They'd even disturbed a choir, chickadees gleaning what they could from the scales among the branches. The little birds slid away, and she forced herself to focus on what she'd come for.
There, lying on his chest, was Alexander Godwin. Charlotte recognized the ornate piping on his old coat, and the