lesson,” she said.
They got down to their lessons right away, Miss Channing opening the notebook Sarah had brought along, peering at the writing inside, evaluating it closely before commenting. “Good,” she said warmly. “Very good, Sarah.”
After that they went to work in the usual way, Miss Channing writing short, simple sentences which Sarah then read back to her. From my place in a chair not far away, I could see how well they got along, how much Sarah admired Miss Channing, perhaps even dreamed of being like her, “a fine lady,” as she’d always said.
I suppose it was something in that “fineness” that made me take out my sketchbook that morning and begin to draw Miss Channing, concentrating on the way she leaned forward, her head cocked slightly, her hair falling in a dark wave across her shoulders. I found that I could capture her general appearance, but that there was something else I couldn’t get, the way her eyes sometimes darkened, as if a small light had gone off behind them, and which Mr. Parsons later described as “sinister,” the very word he used at her trial.
She was still working with Sarah when I heard a car coming down Plymouth Road, its engine rattling chaotically as it slid to a halt in the driveway of the cottage.
Miss Channing rose, walked to the window, and looked out.
“We have a guest,” she said. There was a hint of excitement in her voice, something Sarah must have heard too, for her eyes swept over to me with a quizzical expression in them.
By then Miss Channing had walked to the door and opened it, a gust of wind sweeping her black hair across her face.
“Well, good morning,” she called, waving her arm. She turned toward Sarah and me. “It’s Mr. Reed,” she said.
I walked to the window. At the edge of the yard I could see Mr. Reed as he got out of his car. He was wearing a heavy wool coat, brown boots, and a gray hat he’d pulled somewhat raffishly to the left. He waved to Miss Channing, then came tramping down the walkway, the snow nearly an inch deep by then.
“You’re just in time for fruitcake,” Miss Channing told him as he neared the door.
“Fruitcake,” Mr. Reed said. “Well, it’s certainly the right weather for it.” For a moment he stood on the threshold of the cottage, facing Miss Channing from the bottom of the stairs, his eyes lifted toward her, gazing at her. “I wanted to—” he began, then stopped when he saw Sarah and me inside the cottage. “Oh, I see you have company,” he said, his manner now stiffening slightly.
“Yes, I do,” Miss Channing said. “Sarah’s here for her reading lesson. She made the fruitcake I mentioned.”
Mr. Reed appeared at a loss as to what he should do next, whether he should come into the cottage or leave immediately. “Well, I wouldn’t want to disturb Sarah’s lesson,” he said.
“No, no. We’ve just finished it,” Miss Channing told him. She stepped back into the room. “Please, come in.”
Mr. Reed hesitated a moment, but then came into the cottage and took a seat by the window as Sarah and Miss Channing disappeared into the kitchen to serve the cake.
For a time Mr. Reed said nothing. I could tell that my presence disturbed him. Perhaps at that time he thought me an informer, certain that I’d rush back to Chatham, tell my father about his visit to Miss Channing’s cottage. Then he glanced at me with a certain apprehensiveness I’d never seen in him before. “Well, Henry, are you enjoying your classes this year?”
“I guess so,” I answered.
He smiled thinly and returned his attention to the window.
He was still staring out of it a few seconds later, when Miss Channing and Sarah came back into the room. Miss Channing placed the cake on the table in front of him and began to cut. The first piece went to Sarah, the second to Mr. Reed. Then, turning to me, she said, “Would you like a large piece?”
I shook my head, trying to be polite.
She smiled, no doubt sensing my hunger, then spoke a line that life forever proves to be a lie. “Take as much as you want, Henry. There is plenty.”
A few minutes later the four of us walked out of Miss Channing’s cottage, swung to the left, and followed Mr. Reed as he led us down Plymouth Road, then up a gentle slope to a clearing at the top of a nearby hill.
Once there, we sat down on a fallen tree, the four of us in a single line, facing back down the hill toward Black Pond. The snow had thickened by then; a layer of white gathered on the leafless trees and settled onto the brim of Mr. Reed’s hat.
“A snow like this,” Miss Channing said. “The flakes so small, but so many of them. Like confetti.”
Mr. Reed smiled at her. “Is that how you’d paint it, Elizabeth? As confetti?”
She smiled, but didn’t answer him. Instead, she walked a few paces farther on, while Mr. Reed remained in place, watching her as she reached the crest of the hill, then stood, peering out over the pond. For a moment she remained very still, as if lost in thought. Then she lifted her arms and drew them around her shoulders. It was a gesture made against the cold, quite unselfconsciously, I think, but one Mr. Reed must have experienced as a vision so beautiful and so brief that it remained with him forever after that, set the mark against which everything else would ultimately be measured.
We stood in a ragged line at the crest of the hill, facing east, across Black Pond, to where a curl of chimney smoke could be seen rising from the trees along its most distant bank.
“That smoke must be coming from your house, Mr. Reed,” Sarah said, pointing to it.
Mr. Reed nodded, his manner now strangely somber. “I should be getting back home,” he said, glancing toward Miss Channing. “Abigail is waiting.”
“It looks just like a Christmas card, if you ask me,” Sarah said happily. “The house by the pond. The snow. Just like a Christmas card, don’t you think so?”
