to have none of your own.”
“I've wished it were otherwise.”
“Oh, of course. You and Aaron could never—”
Charlotte reconsidered Diana's new compassion, before she replied.
“We had little time. Life, like death, seems to come only when nature agrees—”
“Unless it is a case of murder, like what happened to this Godwin boy. His death was not ‘natural.’ Nor was it ‘the will of God’—something we must expect, and prepare for—not our fault, for there was nothing we could have done about it! But was Charlie's death so very different?
I'm not sure when I will be able to forgive whoever, or whatever, took him from us!”
Tears sprang into Diana's eyes while Charlotte sat quietly, startled by the rage that had finally flashed out. Diana's anger, it seemed, had been set against Heaven itself.
She recalled the young woman as she'd once been: last summer, on the evening of Signor Lahte's recital, regal and confident at the side of a dashing husband in her brother's Boston home—before that, fighting bravely against the smallpox, while Edmund watched—even earlier, playful but determined, setting her sights on the mysterious King's man she now missed, one suspected, more than she would say. Despite her bravery, she'd been deeply wounded.
“Was it all for nothing?” Diana asked, her lips trembling. “At least in the case of this Godwin boy, he must have died for something! But our child harmed no one. He was a boy we cherished, and spent weeks praying for…”
She sank back, her eyes blazing defiantly. Charlotte asked herself if she should try to soothe, or if Richard's approach wasn't a better one, after all.
“Was it for nothing?” she returned. “You will have to take that up with God or the Devil, when you happen to see one or the other. But are you saying Alex Godwin may have deserved to die? That is unfair, Diana—he was little more than a child himself.”
Diana seemed startled. She forced herself to reconsider.
“You're right, of course. Well, it does seem divine justice is rather limited, these days. Perhaps you will let me help you discover a more worldly sort. You do plan to solve this murder?”
“I don't really know how, or if—”
“Bracebridge has need of a Nemesis,” Diana concluded darkly, recalling one of her brother's stories. “We must both do what we can. This time, at least, we'll have the advice of an attorney. Charlotte—you don't suppose Lem could possibly have done this thing, do you?”
“I see no reason why he would have.”
“Not for love? Or jealousy?”
“I don't think so. Nor, I suppose, do you.”
“He is nearly a man.”
“One with a good deal of sense, and a strong conscience. I've never known him to hurt anyone. At least, not intentionally.”
Had Diana, too, begun to see men as likely to bring trouble, before anything else? If so—poor Edmund!
“We'll forget about Lem, then,” Diana decided charitably. “Who else is capable of it?”
“Of murder?” This was something Charlotte felt it would be better not to ask, for she supposed she knew the answer. “We might ask, instead, who had the opportunity. That might narrow things down a little.”
“But nearly everyone in the village was there by the ice yesterday! And since you found the boy this morning, we can't know when, exactly, it was done. It's a shame no one missed him. Was he usually by himself?”
“It seems so. The only thing he did regularly, that I know of, was visit Boar Island.”
“Tell me again who lives there.”
Charlotte began to explain, and found herself repeating the story of her adventure two days before. Diana gave a scream when she heard of Charlotte's fall into the icy marsh—yet there was a new respect in her eyes while she listened to the rest.
“And you found them entirely alone?” she asked at the end, unable to believe something so different from her own experience in Boston.
“They'll remain that way until someone can be found to work for them again. That's why we sent Lem off this morning. I'd hoped he'd be back by now,” she added uneasily, looking out to see snow building up in the barnyard. She thought, too, of the cows. One way or another, they'd have to be milked soon. Perhaps she and Diana?… That gave her a welcome moment of amusement.
“Here's something else I find curious,” she said at length. She described the return of the spoon to Rachel Dudley, and the message she'd received from the children only an hour before, saying that the rest of the missing silver had now been found.