Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  I changed the subject abruptly, bringing it back to the one thing I must never forget.

  “What about this young man in jail? Why aren’t you taking an interest in his case? I’ve read that he claims to be innocent of the charge that’s been made.”

  The slight smile vanished, and the deep blue of his eyes darkened as ice closed in again.

  “You’re still curious, aren’t you? I might ask why you’re so interested in this case.”

  “I’ve read about it.” I repeated the old, lame excuse. “Stuart Parrish seems an attractive young man—quite open and honest. It appears that he’s going to need help. Yet though you’ve been his sponsor, you don’t mean to help him. Not even if you believe that your daughter pushed that chair.”

  Julian drank the last of his wine and put the glass down with a jar that set it reverberating. “If you’ve finished your wine we can go and look for Adria.”

  He considered me a meddling outsider and I deserved his evident displeasure. There was a swallow left in my glass and I swirled the red liquid thoughtfully, unable to stay silent, no matter how he felt.

  “I suppose I hate injustice more than anything else. How can you know what the truth is until you talk with this young man?”

  He pushed back his chair, and I set the wine down unfinished and rose to join him. Once more I’d gone too far. But I had no other choice. If he found me out, I’d at least have tried.

  There was another bad moment when he helped me into my parka, and the silver medallion swung against my breast. For an instant Julian’s hand moved toward it, and I stepped away, fumbling with the parka zipper, covering the shine of silver. His hand dropped, and he said nothing.

  We clumped down the stairs in our ski boots and went through halls where muddy footprints had dried, showing the constant passing of ski boots. Outside we walked toward the ice palace and found Adria waiting near one of the tunnel entrances. She came running to meet us.

  “Can we go up the slopes again, Daddy? Just one more time?”

  Her father shook his head, his face dark and remote, so that he quenched her eagerness. She flung me a half-frightened look and her young face took on that closed and guarded expression that was so like her father’s. I wanted to fling words at him. I wanted to cry out the accusation that he was bad for his daughter, that he took out his own dark haunting upon her. But this was not the time. I walked beside Adria back to the car, coaxing her to tell me about the ice tunnels, though her response lacked her earlier enthusiasm.

  Once more we changed our boots and got into the car’s front seat. I felt both helpless and discouraged. I’d had my moment alone with Julian, and I had not used it to tell him about those thrown stones. Instead, I’d angered him and turned him against me, with a result that was proving harmful to Adria as well.

  When they dropped me off at the lodge, I gathered up my equipment and headed blindly out to store the ski things in my own car. My thanks to Julian had been met coolly, and nothing had been said about our ever skiing together again. With my equipment put away, I went into the lodge. The afternoon was nearly gone, and I would have to hurry in order to be on duty by four-thirty.

  Clay was behind the desk when I walked in, and he regarded me almost as coolly as Julian had.

  “I’ve been checking around, Linda,” he said. “Is it possible that you made up this stone-throwing bit? Is it possible that you’re trying to create a troubled atmosphere in which you think someone will give something away?”

  “Nobody’d be likely to admit it, would they?” I cried.

  He merely stared at me, and I felt that I’d had enough of both Graystones and the lodge. I’d had enough of Julian and Clay. I told him stiffly that if this was what he chose to think, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Then I went upstairs to my room, feeling torn and angry and hurt. But more than anything else, frightened for Stuart—and more than a little frightened for myself. The atmosphere was certainly troubled, and hostility was being created against me.

  On the bed Cinnabar lazily washed his face. I unzipped my parka and flung it across a chair. Then I confronted the great orange cat, my exasperation rising.

  “If no one else will talk to me, maybe you will!” I cried. “Hello, Margot! Perhaps it was you who threw stones at me?”

  Cinnabar yawned widely, rose and stretched. Then, liking me as little as ever, he leaped from the bed and went to the door. I opened it for him and he sped down the hall without another glance in my direction.

  More disturbed than ever, I changed into my after-ski clothes, brushed my hair, put on lipstick, I left the silver medallion in a pocket of my tote bag when I went downstairs to start the fondue.

  VII

  It was morning, and once more I had not slept well, though there had been no further incidents since I’d come home yesterday and found the cat on my bed. The after-ski hours had gone well enough, and I’d given myself conscientiously to my duties. A few new people had arrived, others had gone, but the routine was the same. I’d made the fondue with no help from Clay, and for the most part he’d left me to my own devices. When I went into the dining room for dinner I found he had eaten earlier, so I sat alone.

  Julian did not appear during the evening, and neither did Shan, but a young nun who had come along with her skiing family borrowed a guitar from Clay and played her own songs for group singing. She was a cheerful, lively young woman, with red cheeks and a happy air that was contagious. Her songs were modern—a few things of the Beatles, some Simon and Garfunkel tunes, some Rod McKuen. She was very with it, and I liked her. It was this sort of unexpected “happening” that gave the evenings a varied and interesting flavor. Next weekend a Connecticut editor who had made up his own small combo was bringing two members of it for skiing and to entertain in the evening. But I hardly expected to be here by then. Too much was closing in on me, hostile, inimical. There would be an explosion of one sort or another before long. It couldn’t be avoided. I’d begun to feel almost fatalistic about whatever was to come. Perhaps I must even take some action to bring the hostility that surrounded me into the open. To expose it might be to point an accusing finger.

  Now it was morning, and I had breakfasted alone, with the feeling that Clay was avoiding me. I had not even been able to tell him about Cinnabar appearing in my room again. During the waking hours of the night I’d made plans, however, and shortly after breakfast I’d put them into operation.

  I could not feel easy about walking through the woods to reach Graystones, but it had to be done. The morning had turned gray, as though there might be snow, and it was decidedly colder. Clouds lay on top of the mountain, but there was still no wind, and the trees stood utterly motionless, with not a whisper running through their branches. Somehow I’d have felt better if they’d thrashed their limbs and shown a little life. At least no stones came hurtling at me from some enemy hidden behind an evergreen. There was no slightest sound anywhere. That was why it was all the more alarming when I rounded a turn in the path and found the man waiting for me. I’d heard no step on the path, no brushing of shrubbery, yet he was there, as though he’d been aware of my coming and had waited silently.

  Again he wore the sheepskin jacket and corduroy trousers, the neat green alpine hat with its red feather. Again I sensed that he was a man of confidence and dignity. He might have been master of an estate, instead of its caretaker. His weathered face bore me no liking, and I thrust my hands into the pockets of my coat to hide their trembling as I came to a halt on the path. I knew I must plunge in before I lost my courage entirely.

  “Was it you who threw those stones at me yesterday?” I demanded.

  Shaggy gray brows drew down in a scowl and I heard again the hard, rough sound of his voice. “You’d better go away as quickly as you can, Miss Earle. No one wants you at Graystones. If you mean any harm it will be the worse for you. I know who you are—I saw you one time over at the jail. But I don’t know why you’ve come here.”

  “I only want to
help my brother,” I said. “I think you know that.”

  “He’s beyond help and he’ll get what’s coming to him. I’ll see to that.”

  “How can you—when he’s innocent? Perhaps you’re using him as a scapegoat—to protect the person who really pushed that chair?” I wanted to say, “To protect yourself?”—but I did not dare.

  He took a step toward me and I saw violence in his eyes. He was a dangerous man, as Clay had pointed out.

  “I don’t know who pushed Margot’s wheelchair,” I told him. “But I think you do. And I think you know it was never my brother.”

  He took his hands out of his pockets, and they were bare, gloveless—the gnarled hands of a man who had worked hard physically all his life. This time I stepped back from him sensing danger, yet needing to prod him to some betrayal, some explosion. I could see Graystones’ tower and roof beyond him, and if he tried anything rough, and I called out, surely someone would hear and come to my rescue.

  “Throwing stones won’t frighten me away,” I warned him. “And if you come any closer I’ll scream for help. Mr. McCabe won’t be pleased if he knows you’ve threatened me.”

  He stopped a few feet away, and let his hands fall to his sides.

  “Why are you so set against my brother?” I persisted. “Why are you trying to send him to prison?”

  He answered me then. “You know as well as I do. He’s got it coming. I heard what he said when he ran out the front door after Mrs. McCabe went down that ramp. I was the one who caught him. He said, ‘I didn’t mean to do it—I didn’t mean to do it!’”

  I believed not a word of this, but I couldn’t tell why he was lying. “You didn’t tell the police that in the beginning.”

  “I told Mr. McCabe. He said to keep still. So I held my tongue at first, even though I turned Parrish over to the police. But I’ve been thinking about it all this time, and I couldn’t keep still forever. While Julian was away, I went to the sheriff again and told him some things I’d held back. Showed him something I had.”

  I felt a little sick, and my face must have shown it. Emory Ault stood in silence, watching me, the threat of violence slowly fading from his eyes.

  “Look here, Miss Earle,” he said, “I haven’t anything against you, and if you’ll just go away from Graystones and the lodge, nothing will happen to you.”

  “Is that a threat?” I asked. “What do you suppose Mr. McCabe will think when I tell him what you’ve done?”

  “He’ll thank me for turning you away.”

  “Then why haven’t you gone to him? Why haven’t you told him who I am?”

  “I’ll tell him when the right time comes. Don’t worry about that.”

  “And when is the right time?”

  He shook his gray head. “I’ll decide that. When I make up my mind. It’s better if you go away of your own accord. Safer.” Again there seemed a not so subtle threat in his words.

  “What else have you told the police?” I persisted. “What other lies?”

  Again he shook his massive head, rather like a bull who feels the prick of the dart. He had the dignity and the massive quality of a bull, I recognized, and when he decided to attack it would be better not to be in his way.

  “How did you feel about Mrs. McCabe?” I asked, pricking him again. “Did you like her or despise her?”

  This time I thought he would charge. He snorted angrily, his breath rising in a mist on the chill air. “Go back to the lodge! Stay away from the house, if you know what’s good for you!”

  His very size was some reassurance, and the fact that he was lame. I was young and quick and I could surely move faster than he could. Leaving him to paw the ground, I took off into snowy woods and lost myself among spruce and hemlock. As I wound my way toward the house at a run, I doubt that he tried to follow me. When I came into the open on the Graystones’ drive, I couldn’t see him behind or ahead. I ran up the steps and touched the bell.

  Adria let me in, and she looked not at all like the lively child I’d seen on the slopes yesterday. Her face was pale, her eyes had a lost look, with dark shadows under them, and her shoulders drooped. She greeted me without pleasure, without interest.

  “Hello, Adria,” I said. “Is your father home?”

  She stepped back from the doorway. “He’s in the library,” she said indifferently, and walked away, leaving me to announce myself. I couldn’t let her go like that, and I stopped her before she reached the door to the stairs.

  “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

  She turned deliberately and gave me a long somber look that reminded me of her father. “You didn’t come last night. I wanted you and you didn’t come.” With an air of haughty dismissal that might have been amusing if it hadn’t been tragic, she went through the door and up the stairs, leaving me astonished.

  Feeling more disturbed than I liked, I went to the library and looked into the room. Julian sat at a desk with his back to me, working on some papers.

  “Good morning,” I said hesitantly.

  He swung about and stared at me. Then his face lighted and he rose to come toward me across the room and take both my hands in his in a warm greeting that astonished me further and left me wordless.

  “Come in, Linda. Let me take your coat. I’ve just been writing you a note. Partly of apology, partly of entreaty. But I’d much rather talk to you, if you’re still speaking to me.”

  I let him help me out of my coat, more at a loss than if he had greeted me coldly. “Why wouldn’t I be speaking to you?”

  He carried my coat into the hall and hung it up, then returned and pulled a chair close to the front windows and waved me into it. I had the feeling that for some reason he was marking time before he answered me. As though I’d taken him by surprise and he must marshal his forces. I didn’t in the least understand this sudden change in him, and I wasn’t sure what it augured for me.

  “The apology first,” he said. “I was rude to you yesterday because you touched on sensitive matters you couldn’t possibly understand. You couldn’t even know how sensitive they are. But I’ve been thinking about all this since then, and I know I must allow you your interest in what the papers call the Graystones affair. Obviously, you’re generous and sympathetic, and you’re imagining a young man who is perhaps being persecuted. Whether you’re right or not, I want to avoid talking about this case.” He broke off, moving about the room restlessly, as though something drove him today—some emotion he found it hard to suppress. If there was anger here, I sensed it was not directed at me.

  But while I understood nothing of this change to a gentler attitude on the part of Julian McCabe, I wasn’t sure I liked it. Something lay behind the words. Whether angry or kind, he’d never seemed a devious man, yet now I had the feeling that he was being devious. I even wondered if he had discovered who I was. But that wasn’t likely, because if he knew I was Stuart’s sister, that I was the devious one, he would explode in furious indignation against me. This must be something else. Something out of character for him, and I didn’t like it.

  “There’s no reason for apology,” I said stiffly. “It’s true that there’s a lot I don’t understand.”

  He came toward me across the room. “Then we can agree that certain matters are taboo?”

  “Why do we need to agree to anything? I belong to the lodge. I’m not likely to have much to do with the McCabes.”

  He smiled faintly. “We spent the afternoon together yesterday. You’re here now. I think you’re likely to have quite a lot to do with the McCabes. Because of Adria. You’ve shown an interest in my daughter, Linda. You’ve seemed fond of her, anxious to help her. Isn’t that true?”

  “Of course. This morning she looks almost ill.” I didn’t know where this was going, but I could at least express my sympathy for a tragedy-haunted child.

  “Adria had one of her nightmares last night,” Julian said. “She woke up screaming and trembling and it was a long time before Shan and I could quiet h
er. She dreams herself back to the day Margot died and she sees herself pushing that chair. The whole thing is there deep in her consciousness, and I don’t know what to do.”

  I felt wrenched with pity for Adria—and even for Adria’s father. I too had dreams of self-blame—though mine had to do with fire.

  “There must be doctors—” I began.

  “As a last resort,” he said roughly. “I don’t want to send her away to some hospital or sanatorium for treatment. She needs love around her. Yet there’s not one near here who can help her. Shan’s love is unhealthy, and mine—” He broke off, unable to finish.

  I remained silent, as helpless as he.

  “She called for you last night. She called your name repeatedly. I almost came down to the lodge to wake you up and bring you here.”

  So that was what Adria had meant.

  “I’d have come, of course. But I don’t know whether it would have done any good.”

  “You’ve made a deep impression on her, Linda. I don’t think she understands it, or that I understand it, since your meetings with her have been so few. But you seem to have reached her as no one else has.”

  Perhaps Adria was only trying to flee to neutral ground from two people she loved who tore her apart. But I couldn’t say this to Julian. I simply waited.

  He stood before me like a supplicant, and there was a strangeness about him. Perhaps because he was a man who did not know how to plead. He was an autocrat in his way, accustomed to ruling, to doing as he wished, to commanding those who followed him. Now he was beseeching me, and this was a role he did not wear gracefully. I tried to help him.