A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,62

companion of limited abilities, it would hardly have been noticed, had her mind become unbalanced.

The same, she supposed, could be said of Magdalene.

Still, Catherine could have stumbled, causing her own death. Dying, though, she had spoken as if she were sure. Had she been pushed after all? Who could have done it? Not Lem, of course—and no one would imagine he'd had a motive. Even if Old Cat had baited him, as she'd enjoyed teasing Alexander Godwin. Even if Lem had taken offense and lost his temper, and then—?

Could Magdalene have been capable of such a thing? It was true she'd had a long and difficult servitude. Might she have been overcome, in the end, by an urge to give one savage thrust? Had she the ability to plan? What if she'd somehow come back into the house quietly, meaning to blame someone else for the old woman's death once she'd accomplished it herself? Could Magdalene be clever? No—a woman able to plan would have left Boar Island long before this! Today, she'd not found it difficult to walk to the village.

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

Alex Godwin was dead. What other boy was there but Lem? Catherine had not been off the island for years. Who else, Charlotte wondered, might have gone there lately, and especially this morning?

Once again she considered the spoon, and the canvas bag taken up by Constable Dudley, after Lem had put it down by the fire. Might Dudley have carried it off for a reason? As soon as he returned home, the spoons were discovered in their usual place in Rachel Dudley's locked cupboard. If, as Charlotte already suspected, Dudley had first taken the spoons himself, and then lost the one she'd found, he must have decided the best thing to do would be to retrieve the rest. Had someone near the bonfire slipped them into the bag, then, with a nod to alert him?

But it wasn't only the spoons—a good deal of silver, and some pewter too, had gone missing in the last several weeks, in Bracebridge and beyond. What had become of it all? Had it been taken to Boston? If so, why had she found a piece of it on Boar Island?

Lem had told her he'd once been to the island, but he'd discouraged her from returning—as had Ned and Jonah. Hadn't he withheld something else from her lately? For one thing, there was the fact that he was fond of visiting the Bigelows.

Lem had also said there was a house in a hidden part of the island. Hannah had mentioned fires in the night, and phantom torches bobbing along the shoreline. Recently, these occurrences seemed to have increased.

What else might happen to a set of spoons, once they were sold? A caudle bowl, part of a silver tea set, a box full of shillings? Melt them down, add some pewter from an old porringer, a dented mug or two, and what would you have then? Something less than silver. And yet, perhaps something more?

Was this what some men in Bracebridge had been doing lately, keeping it to themselves? Hadn't their wives seen something unusual going on, without being able to put a finger on it? Could Longfellow know? Was that why he'd been avoiding her? And what if Lem and Ned, too—? Did they sometimes meet on Boar Island, a place Alex Godwin visited regularly? She'd supposed he only went up the path to the stone house, and back down again. But what if Alex had begun to suspect something else was happening on another part of the island? Might he have told Catherine Knowles of his suspicions? Or had someone decided to prevent him from doing so?

Her head reeling, Charlotte looked to Magdalene. She had taken daily walks about the place. Might she have known what went on? She must have! But had she the sense to realize it was not only unusual, but against the law? It seemed she'd told Catherine Knowles nothing about it. Did she enjoy keeping secrets?

Magdalene raised her eyes from the fire, sensing something new in the air. And Charlotte began to pose a new series of questions.

“Magdalene, do you recall seeing men on your island?”

“Once, many came. They sang… danced… fought. They came to kill the boars. Then they went away.”

“But recently?”

“There was one…”

“Within the past year?”

“One who came for me. He promised to return.”

For years, according to Catherine Knowles, Magdalene had waited patiently at the cliff's