A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,61

entered and stood to one side.

“You have a visitor, madam,” he said, extending a hand. What she saw next frightened her, for it was more a bundle than a man, covered by a cracking layer of snow. He flung his cloak open, and threw off his hat.

“Edmund!” she cried, running into her husband's quivering arms.

“My love,” he said with something that sounded like a sob, though Longfellow assumed the captain's voice had merely been muffled by his wife's neck, onto which his lips had fallen.

“Now it is my turn to go,” said Richard Longfellow, relieved to do so. Quietly, he shut the door on their renewed happiness, and went to see how affairs progressed in the kitchen.

Chapter 21

THE FIRE IN the farmhouse kitchen had fallen to a comfortable glow, as occasional tongues of flame rose above the red remains of logs. Together for several hours, the two women at the hearth enjoyed a companionable silence.

Earlier, they had spoken while Charlotte prepared a supper of eggs and cod, to be followed by a pudding of apples and currants. Magdalene Knowles had walked along the walls, softly touching the china teapot on the sideboard, a polished silver tray, the glazed crock containing dried beans. At last she'd seated herself to stare at the long hunting gun that hung above the fire. Occasionally, she reached a hand to Orpheus, who kept one eye open.

Now Charlotte sat as well. She recalled Diana's warning, then Magdalene's responses to her own brief questions. These had been answered with the directness of a child. Seeking to establish the extent of the woman's understanding, she'd learned that her guest was anything but stupid, whenever her attention could be captured and held. However, it soon seemed to return to a place within her—something Charlotte supposed was not surprising, when one considered Magdalene's life had been more solitary than if she'd lived within a convent's walls.

“Do you have a favorite kind of work?” she asked, after speaking of her own delight in her plantings.

“I ply my needle, to keep our clothes. We have no garden.”

Of course, thought Charlotte, for where would they have put one? Magdalene had said, though, that she enjoyed walking about the island, so she must have watched many things grow. Did she also know the place had an odd reputation? Surely, she must have seen the boars. Had she no fear of them? Later, perhaps, she might ask.

“Would you like to help me in my garden one day?” she tried. Magdalene seemed unable to imagine such a thing. It would be a pleasure, in a few months’ time, to show her Longfellow's roses.

Charlotte next decided that she must inquire, after all, about that morning.

Magdalene showed no reluctance. She described Lem as he'd appeared at the front door. She had taken him to Catherine, as she'd recently taken Charlotte in. He told them Alexander was dead. Catherine then put him to work. Magdalene went out for a walk as she did each day. She knew nothing more of what went on in the house until she approached it again, and heard Lem calling her. By then he had wrapped Catherine in blankets, and told her to gather a few things of her own, which might serve as the old lady's pillow. He told her they would walk over the ice to the village. It was something she'd often longed to do, but could not.

When asked why that was, her guest became evasive for the first time. Was it, Charlotte asked, because Mrs.

Knowles would not allow it? Magdalene nodded, and added something more.

“How could I go? I had to wait for him.” This she would not clarify. Charlotte decided to ask nothing else until she could make more sense of what she already knew.

Only Lem and Magdalene had been on the island when Catherine fell into the fire. If it had been no more than that, there would be nothing else to do about it. But the woman had accused someone of pushing her. Such an action would have amounted to murder. Who could have wished her dead?

Catherine surely possessed a heightened sense of her own importance in the world; no doubt she'd also formed strong opinions about a number of things. Her outward manner had not been pleasant—yet her description of her marriage gave some indication of why she had become embittered. Perhaps it had done more than that? Had Catherine been entirely sane before she died? Since she'd lived with no restraints, and with only one