A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,54

sir,” he added, as if begging a favor.

“Of course,” Longfellow assented. “The rest of us will go, then. We still have much to discuss. Now, perhaps, more than before.”

“You come with me, young man,” the constable said gruffly, taking Lem's arm and pulling him out before the others.

“I'm glad that's over,” said Diana as she went to shut the door. “These two ladies will benefit from quiet as much as anything else,” she added significantly to Reed, who bowed his head and waited.

Taking a cup from the tray Charlotte had carried up with her, Diana seemed about to offer its contents to her patient. Then her green eyes widened, and she herself took on an ill appearance.

“Her lips!” she whispered desperately. “They're blue, the way it was with Charlie!”

Her friend reached to take her trembling hand. The color of life had begun to ebb from Catherine's face, and Charlotte doubted it would rise again. Magdalene moved forward to stand over the person she knew best in the world. It seemed she meant to speak. Instead, she bent to kiss the brow of the woman so long her mistress, her caretaker, perhaps even her friend.

When she turned away at last, the younger of the island's women looked directly into the face of Moses Reed, for he'd come to stand quietly beside her. Magdalene seemed to feel some new confusion. Charlotte supposed her reaction was quite different from their earlier awareness of one another, in the corner downstairs. Were they, in fact, acquainted, as she'd first assumed? Magdalene's expression dimmed, and she went to sit in one of the room's two chairs, choosing the one most distant from the rest.

“It cannot be long,” said the lawyer. “Mrs. Knowles? Is there anything you wish to tell us? Anything of importance?” They saw a flutter of her eyelids, a slight roll of her head. “It may make a great difference.”

The old woman's eyes focused, one of her arms moved, and then Charlotte imagined the claw beneath fresh bandages would have pointed to her, had it been free. Carefully, she sat on the edge of the bed and leaned closer. On his own side, Moses Reed did the same.

Catherine's mouth began to move. “Pushed!” she finally expelled in a gasp. Charlotte sat back, struck as much by the thought as by the fetid breath that had delivered it. “Pushed,” Mrs. Knowles insisted once more.

“No!” Reed exclaimed. It seemed he'd not received the information he'd hoped for. And yet, was it entirely unexpected? Charlotte considered a new suspicion, while they waited to hear more.

“Who?” Reed finally asked, after many seconds had gone by. During that time Catherine seemed to have retreated into dreams. Then, marshaling the last of her strength, she attempted to speak again.

“You, madam, you… find out if the boy was…”

It was nearly too much; she clenched her body in a final attempt.

“If… the boy…” A bubble of red came to her lips, then another, and another, until they appeared to be a rosy cluster of honeycomb.

“What does it mean?” asked Charlotte. “Find out what? And which boy?” It was no use asking further.

Moses Reed regarded her soberly. “A dying wish, Mrs. Willett. Did you know her well?”

“I saw Mrs. Knowles two days ago, for the first time in many years. For the third time, I think, in all my life!”

“You must have made an impression,” he replied.

“Do you suppose she could have been pushed, as she said?”

“Many things could have happened. That, I think, is only one possibility. She could as easily have been in a delirium at the end, due to the opium. Perhaps she only stumbled at the side of her hearth. Her eyes were clouded, and perhaps she could not see something at her feet. The fire could have taken her with no further help. I've observed the results of such a thing before.”

It was, Charlotte agreed silently, an all too common occurrence.

“However,” the attorney went on, “as Mrs. Knowles believed she was pushed, she may have supposed Lem was behind her, though she could not be sure. I find his involvement difficult to imagine. Do you know of any reason he might have done such a thing?”

“None! She must have been mistaken!”

“Or, she could have meant someone else. But who?” he asked, looking away suddenly.

“No one else was there, that we know of. Except, of course—”

She, too, then looked to Magdalene, who sat quietly. Diana stood at her side, staring from a window. Neither seemed aware of what had