Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  My own interest began to quicken as I listened and he told me about how wild forests grew, and about the controlled growth practiced on a tree farm. The nursery was more than a commercial venture, since Julian ran a consulting center that drew inquiries from around the country.

  I followed between the snowy branches of waist-high blue spruce, and he talked to me over his shoulder.

  “Perhaps our most valuable function is our experimental lab, where we’re working on the treatment of tree diseases caused by insects and fungus. We’re trying to find new methods of treatment, and when we find something sound that gets away from insecticides, we publish our findings around the country.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said, “—I never dreamed.”

  His laugh had a cheerful ring. “The ski slopes aren’t all of my life, by any means.”

  We stamped through snow and grew cold, and Julian seemed not to feel it. In reclaiming trees he had quite evidently reclaimed himself and I felt a surge of happiness and pride in him that surprised me.

  When we had walked long enough, he took me into the low wooden building with its gracefully overhanging roof. We stepped into a pine-paneled room, furnished in beige and brown, with a log fire burning at one end, and a half moon of upholstered green bench curved before it. There was no waste of good trees in keeping a fire going, he told me as we walked toward the blaze, since the mountain was cluttered with deadwood, the better for being removed and burned.

  Corridors that led to offices and laboratory opened off the main room, and there was a receptionist behind an enclosed desk. She smiled at Julian and picked up a phone as we came in. When we were out of our coats and warming ourselves on the bench before the fire, a girl came from one of the farther rooms, bringing us a tray with a pot of coffee, sugar and cream.

  Something had changed between Julian and me. Some current of antagonism that had flowed stubbornly at times had been reversed. We sipped our coffee companionably and pushed away Graystones and all its haunting. But there were other hauntings for me, and Julian was still curious.

  “What happened to you, Linda?” he asked as I set down my cup. “What happened to mark your life? It’s evident that it’s been marked, you know. You give yourself away.”

  I looked at him uneasily. Part of the marking was because of Stuart’s present trouble, and he must not find that out.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said vaguely.

  “I think you do. You’re willing enough to live other people’s lives, but you are afraid to have one of your own.”

  “That isn’t true! It’s just that—”

  He put out a hand and covered mine where it rested on the bench beside me. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to upset you.”

  Suddenly I wanted to tell him. I wanted to talk about something I had never dared face. I looked into the flaring of the fire and saw other flames from long ago. Haltingly, I tried to make him see that other fire that roared so fiercely in the night when I had been a young girl of fourteen. I told him of my young brother—though I called him by no name. There had been a pathway down the hall, there had been time to get through to our parents’ room—and I had not taken it. I had been afraid. I had brought my brother downstairs and out of the house safely and easily—and had been praised later for my heroism. When there had been none.

  “So our parents died,” I told Julian starkly. “And it was my fault.”

  He leaned toward the fire’s warmth, still holding my hand. “So all these years you’ve tormented yourself and been afraid to take anything for you. Because you felt you deserved nothing.”

  I shivered in the warmth. “I don’t know. I tried to put it all away from me, forget it. Not think about it. I did everything I could to make my brother’s life happy—to make it up to him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s grown away from me,” I answered obliquely. “I shouldn’t have told you all this. It’s senseless to dump one’s troubles on someone else.”

  “You’ll feel better for it,” he said. “You can put it in perspective now. If you had gone through the flames to that room where your parents slept, you might not have come out, and your brother might have died too. How you felt afterward was natural, but unreasonable. It’s time you stopped holding life away.”

  I clung to his hand tightly for a moment, and then let it go.

  “Thank you,” I said. It was as though a weight was slipping away from me, ceasing to press me down. And I had Julian McCabe to thank.

  He smiled at me and drew me up from the bench. The ski slopes waited and we went back to the car. We drove along the road we’d followed until it opened into the Graystones’ drive, and we turned toward the lodge.

  Clay was out in his own rig, clearing the drive. I waved to him as we drove past and he stared in surprise. I wondered if he knew what had happened to me after I left the lodge last night. Emory, at least, was nowhere around, probably still working on the far side of Graystones. Or talking to Shan. Briefly a concern for that conferring flashed through my mind, and I thrust it aside.

  Snowplows had already been through on the roads, and traffic was stirring. Everywhere there was evidence of people digging out after the storm, and the world was glorious with its covering of clean white.

  When we reached the base lodge, there were few cars around, and we parked not far from the main door. I went with Julian while he got me a chair lift ticket.

  We had said very little on the drive, but our mood remained close, companionable, and I felt happier than I had for a long time.

  Several of the runs were closed, while the cats worked on them, packing the snow and making it usable for the average skier who didn’t care for loose powder. But there was still powder on the steepest slope and that was where Julian was taking me. Strangely, I couldn’t have cared less. I had been pulled so taut earlier that the continuing release of tension was all I cared about. If I broke my neck in the process of unwinding it no longer seemed to matter very much. I had a sense of trusting Julian as an expert skier. He would look out for me. He would ask nothing of me that I couldn’t manage.

  We rode the chair to the top, above a transformed world. Even the scraggly pines at the top of the mountain were frosted and beautiful, and the day was marvelously clear, the sky swept clean of clouds, and colored a beautiful winter blue. I followed Julian down the ramp at the top platform without worrying about getting off, and he smiled at me.

  “You were a bit scared when you came up here last time, but you’re not today,” he said.

  “Euphoria,” I admitted. “I suppose I had my wits about me last time. Today I’m merely reacting. Not thinking, not feeling. Perhaps I’ve nothing left to think and feel with. For now, that’s all I want—freedom.”

  He looked as though he understood. Under the brilliant light his dark hair had a shine to it, the lines of his face seemed to have lifted, and his eyes were a deeper blue than ever. He was Julian McCabe now. I sensed his full appeal, sensed danger—and didn’t care.

  We skated along the top and stopped near the beginning of Devil’s Drop. We had the mountain to ourselves. No one else had come up the lift ahead of us.

  We could see all the world up here and we stood for a few moments responding to the great view. We could see the break in the long level range of the Blue Mountain that was the Delaware Water Gap, with the river snaking between precipitous cliffs. The countryside stretched out below us with its hills and dark masses of forest growth, its lakes and villages and highways. We could even glimpse a stretch of Route 80 with cars whipping past before the hills swallowed them.

  Immediately below lay that fresh powder—and the way down. No one had taken this slope today and the course lay unmarked, awaiting our skis. It was an intoxicating feeling to be the first ones down. I looked at the steep white trail winding broadly between hummocks of pine as if it were perfectly in my power to go skiing down it with the best of them. My euphoria had lasted.

  �
��It’s easier to ski a steep slope than a gentle one,” Julian told me. “You’ll go faster and it will be easier to turn your skis. You won’t need to edge as much in powder. Don’t look all the way down, and don’t lean into the mountain or your feet will go off without you. Though you can lean back a little more with powder. I’ll go first and all you need to do is follow me and do what I do. I’ve seen you ski and you’re perfectly competent. All you need is to develop some confidence.”

  At the moment I seemed to have all the confidence in the world, and I could even relax my muscles—which is the skier’s answer to everything. When you’re relaxed the knees and ankles absorb the bumps and stress. Julian pushed off ahead of me, and I followed without hesitation. I’d never gone so fast, but I was in control. Blown snow packs unevenly and the trail had a different feel—but I could sense it as I went down. The moguls were my friends and they helped me to turn. Julian’s tall green figure flew ahead, his skis smoking, taking the course with utter grace, and I imitated him, giddily confident. It was easy. It was lovely. I’d never skied like this with Stuart. Everything clicked, just as they told me it would back in school. In moments we were schussing out upon the level near the base lodge and I was laughing in triumph.

  “I did it! I did it! It was wonderful! Oh, do let’s go up again.”

  He smiled at me and I knew we had both relaxed and thrust everything except the ski trails out of our minds.

  “So now you’re hooked,” he said. “You’ll never recover, you know. You’ve been a skeptic, but now the slopes have got you for good.”

  I didn’t care. Someday I’d ski with Stuart like this. I’d show my brother what I could do. Of course Stuart would be freed. There would never be any trial. Ugliness couldn’t exist in this beautiful clear world.

  So we went up again and up again. And when I’d tired a little, we went inside to warm up and sat at our same table next to the window, where the red carpet glowed under our feet, and we could watch the slopes and drink glühwein. I was a little fearful at first that all the haunting would return the moment we were off the slopes, but it did not. There was a comradeship between us, born of the snow and the slopes—and of that earlier time before the fire—and we were warm friends. I liked him a great deal, and I had the feeling that he liked me, and that we enjoyed being together away from Graystones. There was something more than liking. I knew that as well—but it must be given time. I was glad I’d left Margot’s Ullr safely hidden away beneath lingerie in a drawer. There must be a time of reckoning, a time when I would tell him the truth, but I wanted nothing to distract Julian now from this new, lovely feeling that grew between us.

  The morning had to come to an end, however. We were expected at Graystones for lunch, and there was nothing to do but go back. Back to where tensions awaited us and could not be escaped. Nevertheless, I continued to feel happy all the way home, and luncheon in the apple-green dining room was not as gloom-invaded as I’d feared. Adria was cheerful, and so was I—a little of my euphoria lasting.

  It grew partly from my introduction to the trees that were the other side of Julian’s life, and the exhilarating experience on the slopes. Partly from the time I’d spent afterward with Julian, when there’d been a new liking and respect between us. Perhaps even a tenuous something more. Once during lunch I caught his gaze upon me almost tenderly, and I warmed in response. All the warnings I’d heard about Julian McCabe’s appeal for women were lost on me—most happily lost. There was a fragile beginning between us, and I wanted nothing to break the spell.

  Julian too seemed relaxed, and much less hag-ridden, and we carried off the meal with cheerful conversation. Only Shan was scarcely there. She seemed to have retreated into her other world where she was hardly conscious of what went on in the real world around her. Whatever her conference with Emory had been about, she had retreated from that too, never mentioning it. Only once did she emerge from her distant place and speak directly to me.

  “There’s going to be a beautiful sunset tonight, Linda. You must be sure and watch it from the top of the tower.”

  Julian looked skeptical. “How can you tell this early? Unless some clouds blow up there’ll be nothing to catch the colors at sunset.”

  “There will be clouds,” said Shan serenely. “Go up to the tower at sunset, Linda.”

  Julian refrained from snorting, but I knew he disliked these conceits of Shan’s. While we were eating our dessert, he threw his own bombshell into our quiet.

  “I’m going out for a while this afternoon,” he said. “I’m going to drive into town and arrange to see Stuart Parrish.”

  Even Shan heard him, and I must have gasped, for she glanced at me before she spoke to her brother.

  “Are you finally going to do something about Stuart?”

  “I’m going to talk to him. I’m going to give him a chance to tell me what happened as he sees it.”

  I felt relieved and wonderfully hopeful. It was I who had managed this for Stuart. All my sniping at Julian had finally taken effect. But I did not dare betray my sense of relief. I concentrated on caramel custard and made no comment. But that was wrong too.

  “I thought you’d be pleased,” Julian said to me. “You’ve been accusing me of unfairness.”

  “I’m glad you’re giving Stuart Parrish a chance,” I told him. “After all, you were his sponsor and it seems rather strange that you’ve never interested yourself in him. Perhaps he deserves more consideration.”

  Shan looked as though she were about to say something, then changed her mind. An odd restraint lay suddenly upon us, and I knew that Julian felt it. After lunch he went off alone without speaking to any of us, and I heard him start his car and drive away. I think I said a small prayer then for Stuart and for Julian.

  When he’d gone, I asked Adria to bring her schoolbooks to the drawing room, where we’d spend some time on lessons. She was slightly rebellious, since by now she knew I’d gone skiing with her father, leaving her behind. But it was not an open rebellion, and I went upstairs to my room for my own notebook and pen.

  While I was there something prompted me to lift the pile of lingerie in the dresser drawer and look beneath it. The silver Ullr was gone. I searched rapidly and in some dismay. Whatever happened, I didn’t want it to fall into other hands. But it was clearly not in the drawer. I picked up my things and went downstairs to join Adria in the drawing room.

  XIII

  The first part of the afternoon went by uneventfully. Adria applied herself more willingly to lessons than I’d expected, and I knew she felt a growing affection toward me, and an over-all relief that was having its effect. For the first time, she wanted to please me.

  It was I who had difficulty concentrating, because my thoughts were forever wandering toward the scene that was being enacted between Julian and Stuart. If only something of their old rapport could be re-established between Julian and my brother.

  More than once I thought fearfully of the chance that Stuart might tell Julian who I was. I didn’t want that to happen yet. Not when this tenuous feeling was beginning between Julian and me. Not when this new sensitivity I felt toward him, and suspected that he felt toward me, was in its early, wary stage, where the slightest alarm might dissipate it like mist. It needed time to grow, to put down roots, to develop into something strong and sure. Something strong enough to stand the truth which I must eventually tell him. I couldn’t quite believe in it, even now, and it frightened me a little because I was sure that if Julian learned my identity too soon, it would be over before it had begun. Perhaps I was farther into it than he—dangerously far.

  “You’re not paying attention, Linda,” Adria said plaintively.

  I brought my thoughts back to her and apologized. I asked her then if she knew what had happened to the silver Ullr on a chain that I had put away in a drawer.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Is it gone? I told Shan about it before—before we tried Margot’s chair. Perhaps she took it.”

&n
bsp; The thought was disquieting, but I let it go for now, and this time I paid attention to Adria’s reciting—even though part of me was alert and listening—for Julian’s return. When I heard his car on the drive, I set Adria some sums to do, told her I’d return soon, and went out to the front hall. I was there, waiting, when Julian came in the door.

  Strain showed in his face, but I couldn’t tell what it meant. He saw me waiting and smiled a bit ruefully.

  “Nothing’s simple,” he said. “I think I believe everything that Stuart’s told me. It was painful to see him in that place. When he gets out on bail I’m going to bring him here for a time and give him my support, if he’ll accept it. He’s been hurt by my neglect and he put up barriers against me at first.”

  I tried to keep my elation from showing—and my worry. It was wonderful that they were at least partly reconciled, and that Stuart was coming here. But this also meant that the truth about me must be told before he came. Obviously, Stuart had said nothing to Julian as yet.

  “The difficulty now will be to pull Emory off the course he’s chosen,” Julian said.

  “And to find but why he chose it,” I said softly.

  Julian nodded reluctant agreement. “I’ll go out and have a talk with him now. If Stuart is innocent, then the whole question must be thrown open again.” He closed his eyes for a moment, looking a little sick, and I knew he was thinking of the possibilities which remained—perhaps rejecting them all.

  “Think about Emory,” I said. “Stop seeing him as the old family retainer, or whatever, and really look at what he’s been doing, the lies he’s told—all that fabrication. About Stuart. About me.”

  I could sense his stiffening against me. He went up the stairs, leaving me to realize how very tenuous those moments in the ski area had been. Perhaps the mist had already carried them away as far as Julian was concerned. I felt sore and unhappy when I went back to Adria in the drawing room.