The Books: The Mystery of Lonesome Manor (Harriet Evatt)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA books:

Next book on the shelf is another childhood favorite: The Mystery of Lonesome Manor by Harriet Evatt. And again – I think it was discarded from our local library back home because that’s the copy I have. A hardcover, with a beautiful old-fashioned sticker (not the right word – dad??) on the front page – with a beautiful little drawing of the front-door of our local library (in existence since colonial times. George Washington actually freakin’ hung out in that building during his peripatetic war travels … They would have freakin’ revolutionary meetings in that building. hahaha) Anyway, I LOVED this book.

It’s about a little French-Canadian girl named Alouette. She has 11 brothers and sisters. She lived in a world very different from my own – a world of sleighs, and fur muffs, and the casualness of wearing snowshoes all the time, and being multi-lingual. I LOVED her. There was one moment where she woke up on the morning of her birthday and it was so cold that there was ice in the wash basin in her room and she had to crack it in order to wash her face. It was all so vivid, and different, and I just loved it.

So there’s an old deserted manor in Alouette’s town – no one has lived there as long as anyone can remember. There’s some mystery about it. Alouette senses that, but no one will talk about it. It’s not a story for children. But then one night, in the middle of a snowstorm – Alouette is basically confronted by an Indian on snowshoes, and he calls himself the Northern Traveler. He gives her a beautiful emerald ring sent by some mysterious person in the far-off mystical land of Manitoba. The ring will bring Alouette good fortune apparently.

Right after Alouette receives the mysterious ring, suddenly lights are seen in the windows of the lonesome manor. Who is there? What is going on?

Alouette becomes determined to solve the mystery – it is a beautiful woman with pure white hair who comes and goes from the manor in a gold sleigh drawn by a silver horse – who is she? Why is her face so sad??

It’s a beautiful story. Hauntingly well-written, and one of my beloved childhood books. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter called “A Gift from a Stranger”.


From The Mystery of Lonesome Manor by Harriet Evatt.

Meanwhile, Alouette, unaware that she was being watched and discussed by the village gossip, rode happily down the road, whistling in tune withi the brass bell on Herbert’s harness.

But as she neared the gate to the lane that led to the Robinette farmhouse, a figure seemed to appear from nowhere out of the snowstorm, and to loom up beside the sledge.

“How!” A man was standing with right hand held high in an Indian’s peaceful greeting.

“How … how!” quavered Alouette. “I … I didn’t see you coming, it’s snowing so hard.”

Alouette brushed the snow from her eyes and peered at the stranger. She thought, “It is an Indian, and he is on snowshoes.”

The man stood and waited as Alouette looked at him. His long black hair was partially covered by a wide-brimmed hat with a round crown. His clothing was made of deerskin.

She knew all the friendly Hurons who came from the Indian village of Lorette by sight, but this man was a stranger.

At last the Indian spoke: “Where you think you go so fast?”

“I don’t think, I know. I’m going home to supper.”

“Nice warm supper, eh?”

“Of course. Doesn’t everyone go home to a warm supper in the wintertime?”

“Not all. Some wander on face of earth. Sometimes warm supper, sometimes no.

You live near?” he asked suddenly, changing the subject.

“Yes, up there.” Alouette pointed toward the lane.

Herbert moved restlessly and pawed the snow. It was his suppertime, too, and he was growing impatient. Still the stranger seemed reluctant to let her go.

Alouette began to be frightened. “Look here,” she said. “If you are hungry and will follow me up the lane to the house, Maman and Grandmere will give you supper. No one has ever left the Robinette kitchen hungry.”

“Ahha … that is Robinette farm!” the man said, ignoring her invitation.

“Certainly. Everyone knows that.”

“No. You be Alouette Robinette? And is Christmas tree grove back your house?”

Alouette nodded. “Yes, I am Alouette, and Grandpere raises Christmas trees to sell in Quebec at the Christmas market.”

“You are called Little Featherhead.”

“Yes. Who knows that better than I do?”

“This your birthday but one sun. Tomorrow you be eleven years. Is true?”

“Yes.”

“What you think this?” The stranger reached into his pocket and dangled something before her startled eyes.

“Oh, what a beautiful ring!” The Indian was holding up a ring on a golden chain … a ring unlike anything she had ever seen. Set in a wreath of flashing green stones was a milky gray stone. As she looked at it closely she discovered that a light streak ran through the center of the stone, for all the world like the pupil in the eye of a cat.

“Why, it is beautiful … it … it looks like a cat’s eye!” she gasped.

“That name of stone. It cat’s eye, and emeralds around,” the Indian said, placing it in the palm of her hand. “This rare and old ring. Is but one other …” He broke off, then said, “It is for you, the ring, if you do two things.”

Alouette nodded, her fascinated eyes held by some mystic spell the beautiful ring seemed to work on her.

“First thing is you tell no one about the ring, not show to any, not even family,” the man explained.

“I promise. And what then?”

“You know tune ‘Alouette’? If yes, whistle for me.”

“Oh yes. My uncle, Jacques Robinette, taught me to whistle that tune.” And once again Alouette’s clear, birdlike whistle broke the winter silence.

The Indian nodded. “Now whistle ‘Frere Jacques’.”

Alouette did as he asked her.

“Why are you asking me to whistle these old French songs?”

“Because Alouette and Jacques belong together,” was the mysterious response.

“Now here keepsake for you from way-off Manitoba,” he said, “because I know you one I seek.” And he closed the fingers of her mittened hand over the beautiful ring on its golden chain.

“But who are you then?”

“Call me Northern Traveler.”

Alouette looked up then and said, “Thank you. Oh, thank you! The ring is so beautiful. Thank you, Northern Traveler.”

But there was no one there to hear her. The stranger had disappeared as silently as he had come, vanishing into the snowstorm. Even the tracks of his snowshoes were disappearing. There was nothing to do but slip the ring and the chain into her pocket. She turned Herbert up the lane toward the warm barn and the twinkling lights of the friendly old farmhouse.

It was growing bitterly cold as the wind blew in from the St. Lawrence River, but Alouette did not notice the cold. She was turning the Northern Traveler’s words over and over in her mind. “A keepsake for you, from way-off Manitoba,” the stranger had said.

“But who, then?”

The little farm girl, born on the island of Orleans, did not know a living soul in faraway Manitoba.

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3 Responses to The Books: The Mystery of Lonesome Manor (Harriet Evatt)

  1. jean says:

    Oh Good Lord – do you have the copy from the library booksale? If you don’t, it’s somewhere on Linden drive. Literally, one of the most enchanting books. It hurt – I wanted to live where she lived and be her – throw a fur blanket over my lap and take the sleigh out for a ride? Manitoba? Cat’s Eye? Alouette and Jacques? oh my god

  2. red says:

    Yes – that’s my copy! It has the Kingston Free stamp thingie in the front – really old-fashioned.

    I know – I so wanted to live in that book, too.

    Wash basin, Christmas trees, mysterious Indians, a huge castle with a secret … COME ON!!!

  3. jean says:

    Oh and Sheil, the Kingston Free Library was actually the temporary state house during the revolution, I believe. And Kingston got the nickname “Little Rest” because of Washington’s stay there… (Dad, correct me if I’m wrong here…)

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