Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Julian—you know I have these queer moments of seeing ahead sometimes. One of them came there on the stairs just before I fell. There’s going to be another death. I know it—I know it!”

  “But not yours,” Julian told her, his voice roughening. “Come out of it, Shan! People die every day. This precognition of yours doesn’t always turn out as promised. You only remember the times when it does. If you’ll lie here quietly now, I’ll send Adria to get someone to make you a cup of tea. And I’ll go telephone Dr. Reed. I want him to have a look at you. Linda, will you stay with her while I phone? I’ll only be a moment.”

  “I’ll stay,” I said, and sat reluctantly down in a small armchair covered with sunflower print.

  When the other two had gone, Shan lay on the bed with her eyes closed, paying no attention to me. I began to speak to her quietly. There was something she had better know before Julian told her too bluntly.

  “Your brother has asked me to come and stay at the house for a little while, Miss McCabe. And I’ve agreed. He thinks I may be able to help with Adria. He says you’ve both been having a difficult time with her, and perhaps a new face, a new voice may be useful.”

  At least I had succeeded in distracting her from her thoughts of death. She looked at me across the room with unexpected composure. Quite suddenly I wondered how much of her fall had been real.

  “You’re attracted to my brother, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not thinking of your brother at all. I’m thinking of Adria,” I said with asperity.

  A smile flitted across her face and was gone. “You can’t help it, I suppose. Most women are attracted by him. He’s used to it, you know. He won’t pay you the slightest attention. He’s never stopped thinking of Margot. And he never will. Perhaps there were times when he hated her, but he loved her too. Isn’t that always what love is like—made up of love and hate?”

  Something twisted in me that I didn’t want to feel. “Was it like that with you and Clay Davidson?”

  She turned her head away from me. “I never hated Clay. But Julian loved Margot foolishly, blindly.”

  “She must have been very lovely,” I said carefully. “I’ve seen her pictures as she was before the accident.”

  Shan made a small, derisive sound. “She was an absolute devil, Miss Earle. Destructive was the word for her. Spoiled and destructive. Julian gave her anything she wanted. He adored her, and he was useful to her as long as she could live the sort of life she wanted. So she was discreet. After the car accident—which could have happened to anyone—she hated him, hated everyone. Everyone but Clay.”

  I’d been listening uncomfortably, wanting to know because I must know all I could, yet hating to listen to this distraught woman. But when she mentioned Clay, I stiffened in my chair, fully alert.

  “I suppose you’ve learned that Clay was my husband, Miss Earle?”

  I nodded, noting the past tense. Clay had used the present.

  “We were living here happily before Julian married. We were here when Julian brought Margot home as a bride. Clay was writing—working on a book he never finished. It was good. I read the early chapters. He would have had a success with it, I think—if it hadn’t been for Margot.”

  Shan propped herself on one elbow and stared at me, her gray-green eyes suddenly a little wild, unfocused.

  “Please,” I said, “you mustn’t upset yourself.”

  “Margot took him away from me. She wasn’t beautiful—hardly pretty, really. But she had something earthy about her that appealed to men. All her satisfactions came from exerting her own particular fascination over them. And she always needed someone new. In a way, I don’t blame day. It was her fault. But of course I had to dissolve our marriage. It couldn’t go on. So Clay went away for a while. He never finished his book, but he started to write for magazines to keep himself alive. I’d have given him an allowance gladly, but he wouldn’t take it. I don’t need all the money I have. Of course he’ll get some of it through my will, if I die first. As I’m very likely to do. That cat on the stairs today! She would like to see me dead.”

  “You’re making all this up,” I said. “You rather like playing the unearthly dryad, don’t you? Perhaps it attracts Clay, but it upsets Julian.”

  “And of course you don’t want to upset Julian.”

  I hated this sort of female dueling, even though Shan asked for it, and I glanced uneasily toward the door, wondering where Julian was. It shouldn’t have taken this long to call the doctor. Shan worried me more than a little. She seemed on the verge of some emotional outburst that I wouldn’t be able to handle.

  She paid no attention to my uneasiness, however. It was as though she felt driven to get all these words out before anyone stopped her.

  “Clay didn’t come back until after the accident. When Julian gave up skiing and opened the lodge. He needed someone to run it, and I persuaded him to give the job to Clay. I knew his writing wasn’t going well, and he needed some way to bring in an income that would still give him time to write. There was no longer any danger when it came to Margot. Or that’s what I thought. So he took the job and he’s done well with it He’s even writing again, and I’m glad of that. But Margot wouldn’t leave him alone. She thought she was still madly attractive and that he would come back to her if she flicked her fingers. She didn’t have the sense to know that Clay had turned thoroughly against her. When she began to realize that, she hated him and started threatening him. She said she would tell Julian the truth—the truth that he’s never known, because even I had never told him about Margot and Clay. Oh, it’s a lucky thing that she died when she did. I’ve never felt any regret over that. But I’m afraid of her now as I wasn’t before. She’s come back to Graystones, Miss Earle. Oh, you can laugh at that, if you like, but she still means trouble.”

  Shan lay back on the bed, spent by her own outburst.

  I spoke to her softly. “Who do you think pushed Margot’s chair?”

  She lay with her eyes closed. “Not that poor young man who’s been put into jail. I always rather liked him, you know, though we never had much in common. He felt about mountains and snow what I feel about woods and rain. How I hate snow, snow, snow!”

  “Then who—?” I persisted.

  “Why, Adria, of course. She was angry. She flung out at her mother as a child will. She mustn’t be blamed. She never will be blamed. Julian will see to that.”

  I speculated aloud. “If Julian becomes convinced that Adria did this, then perhaps someone else goes free,” I said. “Is that what you’d like? I don’t mean Stuart Parrish. I mean the person who really pushed that chair.”

  Her eyes flew open—more green than gray in the swimming green of her room.

  “Graystones isn’t a safe place for you, Miss Earle. You’ve come here to make trouble. I’ve sensed that from the first. I sense a great deal, you know. Often I know things that are hidden from other people. I should hate to see anything unfortunate happen to you here.”

  “Are you threatening me?” I asked.

  A flush came over her pale skin. “Go away, Linda Earle. Just go away and leave us all alone. If you won’t go now, I’ll try to see that you don’t stay for long. And I’m not going to let you take Adria away from me.”

  While I hesitated, wondering how to meet her antagonism, Julian came back to the room.

  “I’ve been talking to Adria about your coming here, Linda, and she seems to like the idea. Have you told my sister?”

  It was Shan who answered. “She’s told me and I think you’re being foolish, Julian. There’s an aura about this girl that means trouble. She means difficulty—and danger.”

  Julian was unimpressed. “I’m afraid you color these auras you see to suit yourself,” he told his sister.

  A maid came into the room bearing a tray, with a teapot and cup. Julian left her to minister to Shan and beckoned me into the hall. There he drew me toward the stairs, out of Shan’s hearing.

  “Don’t mind the things
my sister says. I’ll persuade her that your coming here is for Adria’s good. Shan’s been a mother to my daughter since Margot died, and perhaps before. She’s jealous of her prerogatives.”

  A picture of what Margot had been like was beginning to form in my mind, making me feel a little sorry for Julian, who had apparently been a loving husband. Though I didn’t want to feel sympathetic toward him when he had behaved so badly toward Stuart. Always there was this twisting in me toward him, away from him. I’d have little rest in this house.

  “You will come, won’t you, Linda?” He pressed me.

  I had no choice. This was what I must do.

  “I’ll go back to the lodge and pack my things,” I told him. “But I won’t let Clay down when it comes to my chores this evening. In fact, it will probably be better if I’m away from Adria some of the time. She mustn’t take me for granted.”

  Julian came with me to the front door and when he opened it, Emory Ault was waiting near the steps.

  I turned to Julian quickly. “Will you tell Mr. Ault that I’m coming to stay in the house?” I said. “He doesn’t approve of my trespassing in your woods.”

  “It’s all right, Emory,” Julian told the old man. “Miss Earle is to look after Adria for a while. She’ll be staying here.”

  I braced myself for the inevitable. Sooner or later Emory was going to speak out about my identity. But still he did not. He only nodded to Julian, gave me a dark look and disappeared, limping around the end of the house. At least I could set off through the woods knowing that for once I wouldn’t be followed.

  Back at the lodge I sought out Clay. Shan had told me a great deal. I could understand a little better now Clay’s distaste for Margot McCabe. I wondered how strong that distaste had been, how much he had come to dislike and perhaps even fear her. Enough to have taken some action after Stuart left him in the library next to Margot’s room? How true was his story of a locked door? I liked Clay and I didn’t want to distrust him, but for Stuart’s sake I must trust no one.

  Clay was in the kitchen conferring with the cook over tonight’s menu. When I asked if I could speak to him, he finished up and came into the lounge with me. We sat on a couch before last night’s burned-out embers. The room was dark with shadows in the daytime, and a little cold—not warmed by fire and candlelight as it had been the night before. To dispel the gloom, Clay lit two stubby candles on the coffee table and shadows danced.

  I told him about Julian’s plans for me, and Clay listened soberly, now and then stroking his neat, square beard as he did when thinking seriously about something.

  “So you’re really getting close to home in your efforts, Linda.”

  “Adria likes me. Perhaps she needs me. And I’ve become fond of her. If I can help her in any way I want to try.”

  Clay picked up the poker and thrust it into burned-out logs. They fell with a crash and gray ashes spilled through the grate onto the hearth.

  “I believe you’re sincere when it comes to Adria,” he said. “But what will happen when Julian learns the truth about who you are, as he must eventually? He won’t put up with you then. And won’t that be harder than ever on Adria?”

  “I have to try,” I said doggedly.

  “Then perhaps I’d better tell him first. Perhaps I’d better stop this before it goes too far.”

  I put my hand on his arm, entreating. “Don’t, Clay—please don’t. Give me this chance. For Stuart’s sake.”

  His smile was slow and a little wry, but he covered my hand lightly with his own. “You’re an appealing child. It’s too bad that you’ve been caught up in Graystones’ intrigues, through no fault of your own. However, I don’t suppose you can do much harm at this late date.”

  “I suppose you mean that whatever evidence might have existed in the beginning has been obscured by this time?”

  “Perhaps,” he said lightly. “But what interests me is what I’m to do for a hostess tonight.”

  “Julian doesn’t mind if I keep on with my work here. I’ll be with Adria most of the day. I’ll do a bit of tutoring, perhaps. In the evening her father can take over.”

  “Poor Shan,” he said softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We should have had a child. She needs one of her own desperately. But I never thought she’d make the right sort of mother. An ability to smother another human being with love isn’t exactly a virtue.”

  Julian’s words about Stuart flashed into my mind. “Clay, do you think Stuart was spoiled?”

  “Of course. Didn’t you always hand him everything on a platter?” But he was smiling at me not unkindly, taking the sting out of his words.

  I moved away from something I didn’t want to think about. “Sometimes Julian believes that Stuart pushed Margot’s chair. That’s what he wants to believe.”

  “Good. It’s safer for him to believe that.”

  “How can you say such a thing when you don’t believe it yourself?”

  He seemed to shy away from me. He stood up and dropped the poker back in place. “I don’t always know what I believe. But never mind about that. Have you any feeling, Linda, that you may be entering dangerous territory by moving up to the house?”

  “The only danger I’ve felt has come from Emory Ault. And Julian has spoken to him.”

  “What about the cat in your room? Do you think Emory did that?”

  “Hardly. I’ve told Julian, and he thinks it was Shan, as you do. But I’m not afraid of Shan.”

  “Then you’re braver than I am,” he said cryptically, and started toward his office. “Do you need any help in getting yourself moved up to Graystones?”

  I shook my head and went upstairs to pack. At least there was no Cinnabar in my room this time, since Shan was in bed and waiting for the doctor. Clay’s last words about her haunted me. What could he have to fear from Shan? Even though she no longer wanted to live with him as his wife, she had seemed interested in his welfare, his success as a writer. If there had been anything between Clay and Margot, Shan had seemed to blame Julian’s wife, not her husband. But his words left me uneasy, nevertheless.

  It was true that I could not face Graystones without trepidation. More and more I’d begun to feel that something menaced me there. Some secret thing that thrived on darkness and conspired against me and wore a mask behind which I couldn’t penetrate. When I thought openly of each one in turn—of Shan, of Emory, of Clay—there seemed to be no mask, and I could imagine none of them as the source which frightened me. There was nothing hidden about Emory’s menace. But perhaps that was only because the mask was so concealing that I couldn’t see past it to that hidden, frightening thing.

  My suitcase was packed and closed, and before I zipped my tote bag I reached into the inner pocket and felt the cool surface of the silver Ullr in my fingers. The touch of it confirmed the next move I must make. I hadn’t told Julian when I would come to Graystones, and once there my freedom might be curtailed. Before I closed that door upon myself, I had to see Stuart again. Quickly I took the medallion from the bag and slipped its chain over my head. Then I buttoned my coat over its silver gleam.

  When I started for the stairs with my bags, Clay was waiting for me in the room below, and he came to carry them down. I had the feeling at once that he wanted to say something more to me, and when we reached the door I paused questioningly. His words surprised me.

  “More than anything else, I admire courage,” he said. “Julian has it. I’m not sure I have. I’m not at all sure, Linda, that I’d do the right thing rather than the expedient thing if my own safety was involved. Will you remember that?”

  What was he trying to tell me? What was he warning me of? I felt a sudden sense of relief that I would not have to spend any more nights at the lodge.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “You’re not supposed to. But keep it in mind, nevertheless. You do have courage, Linda. Perhaps of a particularly foolish and vulnerable kind. I do
n’t want to see you hurt. If the time comes when you take to hating me, try to remember that.”

  He surprised me further by bending to kiss my cheek—lightly, affectionately. Then he gave me a little shove out the door and came with me to place my bags in the back of the car and helped me secure my skis on top. When I was behind the wheel I thanked him and told him I was going to drive to town to see Stuart. He said nothing at all, but as I turned into the road, I could see him in the rear-view mirror standing there looking after my car. He was a strange person, Clay Davidson. I did not understand him at all, but I had warmed toward him considerably.

  It began to snow as I drove toward the interchange to Route 80, but it was a light fall, and nothing to worry about, the flakes melting as they reached the pavement. I was glad, nevertheless, not to have a long drive ahead. I could see the big hump of mountain most of the way, its long back lost in the swirling snow.

  When I pushed the bell that would bring admittance to the small brick building that was the jail, I found there were other visitors today, and I had to wait my turn in the hall. When I was called, the other stools in the narrow room were occupied, and when I faced Stuart through the now familiar mesh screen, I had a greater sense of his imprisonment than ever.

  I spoke in a low voice, aware of other voices in the room. I had a great deal to tell him, and I hurried. First I had to let him know that Julian was unlikely to come to his aid, but that he was willing to hold a neutral position and let matters take their course.

  Stuart looked at me in disbelief. “That’s not like Julian. I don’t understand what’s come over him.”

  “Sometimes he thinks you pushed that chair,” I said. “But he’s not sure.”

  A little of the shine had gone out of Stuart since I’d seen him yesterday. His honey-colored hair looked dull and the brightness in his eyes had been quenched. What had happened was beginning to get through to him, and Lucifer no longer lighted his surroundings. I had wanted him to face reality, but I hated to see that facing change him like this. At my words he stared at me for a moment longer with that same disbelief, and then he bowed his head beyond the wire mesh.