Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I didn’t stay to see. I ran through that other door to the drawing room. I went and stood at the far end of the bay window and looked out at the beech trees. I—I guess I was waiting for her to call me back. Only—she couldn’t.”

  “Could you see the balcony and the ramp from that side of the window?”

  “No. You can’t see them from there. Only from the other side of the bay.”

  “So you didn’t see the wheelchair go down the ramp. You didn’t see your mother thrown, or who came to pick her up?”

  Adria shook her head. “I only saw part of the beech trees and reflections in the glass—something moving past like a ghost.”

  “When did your mother scream? Right away when you pushed the chair?”

  “No. She knew I couldn’t hurt her—because the brakes were on. It wasn’t until I was standing at the window that she began to scream.”

  “Come around here, darling,” I said.

  Adria came to the front of the chair where I sat, and I held her arms with my two hands, looking into her face.

  “Do you see what all this means?”

  There was a growing wonder in her eyes, a desperate hope. “Yes. Yes, I do see! Linda, I don’t need to have bad dreams any more. What I was afraid of didn’t really happen. Is that what you mean? Is that it, truly?”

  “It couldn’t have happened,” I said.

  She turned and ran to her father. “Daddy, I couldn’t have hurt Margot! So you don’t need to hate me any more. You can love me again, Daddy.”

  Julian looked utterly shaken, broken. He drew Adria inot his arms with a great tenderness and held her to him, pressing his face against her hair. I left the wheelchair and went to Shan, who had watched everything stunned.

  “Come out of here,” I said. “Let them be alone. And I think perhaps you’d better not put that cat in here any more.”

  She rose and Cinnabar sprang from her lap. She came with me like a sleepwalker. I couldn’t tell whether she was still angry with me, or whether Adria’s innocence had relieved her from a burden too. She seemed to have retired inwardly to her own private world. In the hall she left me and ran out the front door. I went upstairs and collapsed on the bed in my room. I’d gone through with it—I’d done it!—but I felt more drained than triumphant.

  I could still hear the astonishing sound of my voice telling those two who belonged here to be quiet. I could see myself standing up to Julian in his anger, and a reaction of fright and weakness swept through me. I hoped I’d succeeded, for Adria’s sake. But I didn’t know what would happen to me now. I didn’t even understand my own extreme reaction to what I had done. The threat of having Julian ask me to leave was nothing new. So why was I so upset?

  I tried to empty my mind of all thought, all emotion, as though it were a slate which could be erased. But such a slate never stayed empty for long. The endless writing always returned, and I could almost see the word being scribbled there repeatedly. The one word: “Brakes.”

  The wheelchair brakes! Why did the thought of them frighten me? They had been off when the empty chair was found tipped over against the broken guardrail. The chair had gone down that ramp brakeless. Why? When Margot felt herself going down the ramp, why hadn’t she tried to stop the chair with the brakes at least? Perhaps because she had released both brakes when she was alone, and had started herself down the ramp? Perhaps she had never been sharply pushed from above at all, and whatever had happened had occurred after the chair was down the ramp. That meant that whoever had come upon her at the foot of the ramp had flung the chair against the guardrail with such force that it cracked and threw Margot into the ravine, the broken rail only stopping the chair, leaving her body smashed upon the rocks in the ravine for Emory—or Julian?—to find.

  There was much in this picture that frightened me, and I tried again to thrust the thought of all of it from my mind. But one other image remained—a glimpse of the woman I was becoming. Someone always ready to fight for others, but never for herself. Why did I so fear to take hold with my own life? Why was I afraid of responsibility to myself—and thus quite dreadfully afraid of Julian?

  After a time the sound of voices drifted up to me from the rear of the house. The murmur came from outdoors, and I roused myself to leave the bed and look down over snowy roofs to where the kitchen garden lay buried under drifts.

  Emory was there beside his tractor, one foot resting on the snowplow’s blade. Near to him stood Shan, her hands in her pockets as she faced him. They were talking together earnestly, and though I couldn’t see Shan’s face, I could see Emory’s. His great head was bent toward her in a listening attitude, and the expression he wore was one I’d never seen before on that remote and reticent face. He looked almost benign—affectionate. Apparently there was someone else to whom Emory gave his loyalty besides Julian.

  I couldn’t hear their words, but I had the feeling that they were talking about me and about what had just happened in the library. The fact was not reassuring.

  XII

  I was still at the window watching those two in the yard when Adria tapped at my door. I called to her to come in, and she ran to fling her arms about me with a touching appeal she had never shown before. I held her to me, warmed and delighted. Perhaps in this house I’d done something worth-while, after all.

  In a moment she stepped back so she could look at me. “My father wants to see you in the library, please. Will you go down to him right away, Linda?”

  I played for time, immediately apprehensive, and she watched as I sat at the dressing table to brush my hair and repair my lipstick.

  “Do you know what he wants?” I asked her.

  “I—I think he’s upset. But I won’t let him send you away, Linda. I promise I won’t.”

  That was hardly encouraging, but I managed a bright smile before I went out of the room.

  He waited for me sitting in his big armchair before the library fire. When I came into the room he looked up at me somberly and gestured to the opposite chair, his gaze returning to the flames in the grate. I studied that carved profile, the touch of silver at his temple, the straight, unyielding mouth, and I was further disturbed. Beyond, I could see the closed door to Margot’s room.

  When he spoke, his voice was low and a little harsh—as though there was an echo of Emory in it. “I’m not sure how to put the things I must say to you.”

  “You brought me here to this house to help Adria,” I reminded him. “But you don’t seem pleased with what has happened.”

  “You have helped her. Perhaps you’ve helped her in a major way by releasing her from this feeling of guilt that has ridden her ever since her mother’s death.”

  “I hope it’s true that I’ve succeeded. Whether it is or not, remains to be seen.”

  There was silence again, and I felt a growing gentleness toward him, a new willingness to do whatever he wanted me to. A log fell into the fire, sending sparks aloft, and I was reminded of that other fire I’d watched in Emory’s cabin.

  “You didn’t believe me last night when you accused me of running away from Emory,” I said. “Will you believe me now? Will you believe that it was he who ran away from me, and left me lost in the storm?

  He raised his head to look directly at me. “How can I possibly believe anything so fantastic as that? I’ve known Emory all my life. He’s part of our family. Why should he try to harm someone I’ve invited to stay in this house? You might have died in that storm. Are you telling me Emory is capable of murder?”

  For an instant I considered blurting out the truth—that Stuart Parrish was my brother. But there was still everything to be learned by staying in this house. Some of its occupants were beginning to crack and I mustn’t be sent away now. Besides, I didn’t want to leave Julian. I was almost ready to ask for some few crumbs for myself.

  “I suppose only Emory can answer that,” I said. “But you didn’t call me here to talk about him.”

  “No. I want to apologize to you for the
times I’ve been angry and rude. Perhaps you can understand that I’ve been under an unbearable strain. You’ve done a great deal for Adria. You’ve given her an affection that she seems to return.” He still sounded somber, not altogether pleased.

  “I understand,” I said, though I did not, really. He was a man with scarcely suppressed fires that sometimes threatened and alarmed me. Sometimes he seemed carved of ice, but there was always fire too, just beneath—and I didn’t know which I feared the most—the fire or the ice. Yet somehow, unreasonably, I wanted to ease his terrible self-reproach which I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “I’m afraid you can’t possibly know all the ramifications,” he went on stiffly. “But thank you for trying. Will you accept my apology?”

  The words were flung down, almost like a bitter challenge between us.

  “Are you sorry to see your daughter proved innocent?” I asked, my moment of softness toward him vanishing.

  Ice was predominant in those cold blue eyes as he looked directly at me. “I don’t think you believe that.”

  “It’s hard to know what to believe.”

  “What you did may have succeeded. It might have proved disastrous.”

  “No more disastrous than what was already happening to Adria! Perhaps you thought you were trying to help her, but you were only making her think that because you had loved Margot, you could no longer love your daughter.”

  “That’s not true!” The edge of fire bit into his voice.

  I went on heedlessly. “You showed it whenever you looked at the child! I’ve seen it myself in your face. And Adria has been aware of it. Probably from the first, when it came out that she thought she’d sent her mother to her death.”

  “I was reacting to my own guilt.” He regarded me with stony remoteness. “How could I behave naturally with her when I felt that the main fault was mine? Mine because Margot died.”

  I watched him in sudden dismay, remembering the things Emory had said and Clay too. Things even Julian himself had told me. That it was he who had reached Margot first, that he had every reason to believe that she’d been unfaithful to him, that she’d been making a play for Stuart.

  He went on almost as if to himself—as if he searched aloud for answers. “For years she had filled me with nothing but disgust. Long before the accident everything was over between us. I knew she had lovers, that she was insatiable, ruthless. But she was also wary and cunning. She gave me nothing I could use against her. And she held Adria.”

  I heard him in dread. There was a depth of passionate anger in his voice that frightened me. A man like that might very well—

  He broke in on my thoughts. “After the accident everything became worse. She wasn’t merely tired of me then—she hated me, blamed me beyond reason for everything that had happened. Yet now I couldn’t act against her. I couldn’t try to free myself. Because she was helpless. Because I owed her care, if not love. But I’m not blameless. I showed my disgust, my discontent. I could hardly endure living the same house with her.”

  His voice died away on that note of self-reproach and I sat listening to him in dread. I didn’t want to hear the terrible thing that he might tell me. Not even if it saved my brother.

  “I might have given her more during these last years,” he said. “My open distaste must have damaged her further. Yet she sought more love affairs, almost under my eyes. She used Adria when she could. She was a constant source of—evil.”

  And so he had killed her—was that what he meant?

  “I can see now that much of the fault was mine. After the accident, I mean. My loathing for her showed when I should have stifled it. So the fault was in me. If Adria had pushed that chair, then that fault would have been mine too. I could see that every time I looked at my daughter.”

  I relaxed almost imperceptibly. He had not meant that it had been his hand on the chair. Here was a torment such as I’d never imagined. There was a yearning in me to touch him, to offer comfort and belief. I spoke out of my own shock at his words.

  “You can’t go on feeling like that! You’re punishing the wrong person. I don’t know anything about you and Margot, but you can’t torture yourself like this. Margot must have been more to blame than you. But the real question, the one clear answer you need to search out now is who caused Margot’s death. Adria didn’t. So who do you think did? Stuart Parrish?”

  He moved his head despairingly. “I’m not sure. How can I be? Stuart was like a younger brother to me. I loved him. But I don’t know whether he could be trusted.”

  “I should think he could be trusted not to injure you,” I said.

  I couldn’t bear to watch him any longer, and I jumped up and went to a window where I could look out at the clean, snow-covered world. Behind me Julian was silent. I knew I must not press him further. Yet I spoke without turning around.

  “Who took the brakes off Margot’s chair? Someone who came into her room from the house? Or did she take them off herself before she went down the ramp and met whoever waited for her below in the yard?”

  He stared at me, his face dark, ominous. “Is this your business?”

  “I’m part of it now! Because of Emory and what he tried to do last night. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see that he’s hiding something? Perhaps he’s afraid that I’ve come upon the true answer. Perhaps that’s why he wanted to lose me in the storm last night. Shan’s outside now, telling him what happened here in the library with Adria. He’s fond of Shan, isn’t he?”

  He answered only my last question. “He’s fond of us all. He’s been here all our lives. We were children when we first knew him.”

  “He had the chance. He was there in the yard. And he was careful not to reach her first down in the ravine.”

  I had his full attention now, though he did not answer that.

  “Clay told me that Emory lied about finding her,” I went on. “That it was you who reached her first. But now it’s Emory who’s concocted some sort of story that’s supposed to convict Stuart Parrish. Are you going to stand by and let it happen?”

  He seemed too lost in his own torment to notice my partisanship. He turned his head from side to side as if to escape some intolerable pain.

  “Stuart was like the young brother I never had. Yet all the time—with Margot—”

  “Do you really believe that? A wild claim by Emory?”

  “Emory would give his life for me. If I can’t trust him I can trust no one.”

  “So you let him lie for you? About finding her!” The moment the words were out I was shocked by them. This time I had gone too far—too recklessly far. I had not meant to hurt him.

  He had no interest in the flames now. He was staring straight at me, and for an instant I expected a violent outburst. Then, strangely, astonishingly, he began to laugh. The sound was not altogether happy, but it seemed to offer some release. There was unexpected relief for me too. Whoever was to blame for Margot’s death, I knew it couldn’t be Julian. That he found my accusation so outrageous that he laughed at me was reassuring.

  After a moment he rose from his chair. The hand he put on my arm was scarcely gentle, yet he did not hurt me, as Clay had done. He simply marched me to the nearest window where we stood together staring out at snow-laden trees. Not far from the house was a grove of birches, their slender trunks weighted into an arch, with their heads frozen to the ground.

  “Ever since the storm stopped during the night,” Julian said, “the grooming crews have been out in the ski area. But there may still be some powder left. Not deep powder. Not the eighteen inches you can find in the West after a storm, where your tips disappear as you go down and all you have is your own skill and knowledge. It’s a little like flying then, and the snow seems bottomless. Here there won’t be more than three or four inches—but it’s something. Clean, fresh powder.”

  His mood had changed completely. He seemed to have put aside his torment, and I wondered where all this was leading.

  He tig
htened his hand on my arm. “Go put on your ski things, Linda. We’ve had enough of Graystones and insoluble problems. You’re coming with me. Leave Adria behind this time.”

  I suppose I gaped at him, for he gave me a small, impatient shove. “Hurry up!”

  This time I responded. He could be wildly mercurial, but his very changes were infectious. I found myself running up those whirling stairs, hurrying as I dressed. Excitement was rising in me, and an eagerness to thrust ugly questions behind me. Perhaps the mountain slopes would clear my mind.

  When I went downstairs I found Julian in the hall working on my skis with wax and a cork.

  “You haven’t been taking care of these,” he said severely. “The edges need sharpening, and there are a few nicks that need attention.”

  “I haven’t really got into skiing this winter,” I said apologetically. Usually it had been Stuart who looked after my skis. I didn’t care enough to bother myself. In this house, apparently, I would have to reform.

  Julian left word with one of the maids that we were going out, but we managed to leave without either Adria or Shan seeing us. The driveway had been plowed, but we did not turn down it. Instead, Julian drove off along another newly cleared road that led away from the back of the property, which I’d never followed before.

  We drove between banks of white left by a snow blower and wound our way between snow-crested evergreens to a place where a long rustic building was the center of the tree farm. Other work buildings and sheds for tractors and jeeps spread out from the main building.

  “I wanted to show you this,” Julian said.

  Trees in every stage of growth stretched away in acres along the valley. In a few places they even edged up the side of the mountain. There were evergreens and deciduous trees and ornamental shrubbery.

  We got out of the car and Julian led the way, stamping through deep snow among rows of small evergreens, pointing out the various varieties. As he talked, he came to life as I had never seen him do before, and at first I was more interested in the change in the man who walked beside me than I was in the trees. I had been wrong to think that Julian McCabe had lost touch with life. Here was a Julian fully alive and absorbed in what he talked about. The growth of trees, the reclaiming of forests meant as much to him now as had his skiing in the past.