Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I don’t know. That’s the trouble. I’m only guessing. If there was another letter—the real letter to Emory—and it’s the one Shan hid and Adria found, I doubt that Stuart was mentioned in it at all.”

  “But why should you think that?”

  “I’ve seen Emory copy handwriting, and do it so effectively that most people wouldn’t recognize it as forgery. It was a sort of parlor game with him. I’ve seen him amuse Adria with mirror writing, for instance. If you copy handwriting upside down, or from a mirror, you can duplicate it quite well. Though not well enough to deceive an expert. I suggest that you call Stuart’s lawyer and get him to have that handwriting checked by an authority. If it develops that it wasn’t Margot’s, then Stuart may be home free.”

  There was something missing here. I still didn’t understand why day should have leaped to such a conclusion.

  “But why—” I began, only to have him reach across the desk and cover my hand with his.

  “Hush, Linda. Let me worry about this for a while. Don’t mention it to anyone else. There’s something I have to decide before I can tell you any more. Just give me a little time. If the prosecuting attorney should conclude that with Emory’s death he hasn’t a strong enough case against Stuart, maybe you won’t need to go into this matter of the letter at all.”

  “But I will,” I told him. “I’ve already tried to make you understand that it’s not good enough just to have Stuart go free. I want to see him cleared.”

  “Loyal big sister,” he said, faintly mocking. “You’re a nice child, Linda. Wrong-headed sometimes—but nice.”

  “I’m not a child!” I cried impatiently. “Talking like that doesn’t change anything.”

  He was grave at once, though his eyes were kind. “No, it doesn’t, does it? Why don’t you go back to the house now and let me do a bit of thinking? If I come to any useful conclusions I’ll let you know. Will that do?”

  “I suppose it will have to,” I said. “For now. Though I don’t understand in the least. Clay, if there was what you call a real letter, and Adria found it today, she’s already destroyed it. So where can you go from there?”

  “Have you thought about why she destroyed it?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  He stared at me remotely for a moment. “What if Margot wrote, not only to Emory but also to me?”

  “Clay—” I began, but he tightened his grasp on my hand, as he’d done once before, hurting me.

  “That’s enough,” he told me. “Go back to the house and let me think. But don’t count on me to save your brother. I can’t promise that.”

  I drew my arm away from his touch. “If there is another letter then Julian needs to know. Perhaps I’d better tell him about this talk of ours. Perhaps—”

  He broke in on me harshly. “If you do I’ll deny everything and make a fool of you. You’ve got to leave this to me, Linda. Stay at the house tonight. Don’t go out of it. Not for any reason.”

  “What about my job here?”

  “Forget it. I’ve realized that your getting here has become difficult, and I’ve called up a girl who used to work for me. She’s married now, but she’ll fill in for a few days. You needn’t worry.”

  I stood up and moved toward the door. “So I’ve been fired,” I said lightly.

  He came around his desk at once and put an arm about my shoulders. “Let’s talk about that another time, Linda. Just stay indoors and take care of yourself while I wrestle with this and figure out what to do.”

  There was nothing more to be said. I left him, feeling distressed and dissatisfied, and hurried back to Graystones.

  When I came through the front door Julian called to me from the library, and I went in to find out how Adria was.

  “The doctor has given her a sedative. She’ll sleep through the night, and I’ve brought in a nurse to stay with her. She seems to have developed some strange antagonism toward all of us. I can’t understand it. Can you clear it up, Linda?”

  I could do no clarifying, but I told him what had happened—about the letter Shan took from Emory’s cabin, and about the scene in the attic, and Adria’s burning something in her bedroom grate. I heeded Clay’s warning and said nothing about his suspicion that the letter held by the police might be a forgery, or that Clay himself might have still another letter. Julian seemed to make little of any of this. He was as puzzled and troubled by Adria’s hysteria as I.

  He had, however, a suggestion to make. “Let’s put all this aside for now. It will be a good thing for all of us to get out of this house tonight. The evening is supposed to be clear, and there’s to be a moonlight spectacle over at the ski area. You ought to see it. Adria won’t need us at present, so you and Shan and I can go over together. Stuart too, if he wants to come. Suppose we leave right after dinner.”

  I remembered Clay’s words about not leaving the house tonight, but of course he hadn’t known about this. He’d probably thought of me wandering about the grounds alone. As long as I was with Julian, I was safe.

  “I don’t know that I feel cheerful enough for watching spectacles,” I said. “But I’ll go, if you wish.”

  There was that unexpected tenderness in his eyes again, and I turned away from it. Not because I wanted to, but because too much was nagging at me, disturbing me. If ever I answered that look I wanted to be free of worry about Stuart. I still could not be sure Julian would help as I wanted him to.

  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. Stuart came back from the slopes early, a bit tired after his lack of exercise—but quite ready to go out again that night. Adria slept soundly, with the nurse beside her bed, and Shan stayed in her own room, though she’d told Julian she’d join us tonight. We had an early dinner, then hurried to dress for the slopes. The four of us got into Julian’s big car to drive off, with our skis clattering on the car roof, and this time there was no Clay to see us go. I wondered if he would be looking for me at the house tonight. I’d told Julian that I was free at the lodge because Clay had another girl coming in.

  On the drive to the ski area Shan was subdued. She had put on a cheerful green and yellow skiing outfit, but she was anything but cheerful. Adria’s behavior had left her brooding, and not even Julian could get her to snap out of it. Stuart was himself again, with his special gay exuberance, and it warmed my heart to see the characteristic shine about him. All his optimism had returned and he was sure there would be no trial, no further trouble. Julian lacked any real exhilaration tonight, but Stuart made up for any lack in the rest of us.

  When we’d parked near the base lodge, Julian and Stuart got our skis down from the rack and we went around to the other side of the lodge where there were low benches and put them on. The evening had cleared of clouds and a nearly full moon was rising over the countryside. The ski area was alive with lights and music and the voices of people, the sounds of skis. Snow bunnies were out for the fun, and more than once some incautious skier ran across my skis as we made our way to the chair lift. That was definitely a no-no. Skiers must be constantly aware of others on the slopes. All the lifts were busy, but there was no long line, and we took our turn at the chair without too much of a wait. Shan and Stuart went up together and Julian and I followed.

  There were lights everywhere, making the snow trails sparkle, and the black patches of trees seemed darker than ever. Our chairs swayed over the dusky lake, and climbed toward the sky, our shadows following us below. The music and voices grew fainter as we mounted, and the bite of cold air from the mountain struck us. Now there was exhilaration for us too. I could sense it in Julian, feel it in myself.

  At the top of the lift was another world—a bright moonlit world with intensely black shadows. Daytime shadows might be gray, but at night they were jet. We lost Shan and Stuart, and Julian led me in a herringbone up to the very top of the mountain, where the moonlit countryside lay spread out on every hand. The lights of villages and highways were scattered across the land, and overhead glittering wint
er stars seemed myriad and very far away. It was breathlessly quiet, with hardly any wind, the scrubby pines around us standing very still in their own deep shadow.

  We snowplowed along the top of the mountain where the state park began, and Julian found a great snow-covered rock, where we could stand with our skis edged into the snow for stability, the tips pointing out over the abyss. I could feel Julian’s hand at the back of my jacket, and for an instant—with that plunge down the cliff before us, I felt the imminence of danger. There was just the slightest pressure to his hand, and if it increased I would go plummeting down upon snowy rocks that looked deceptively soft far below, and would shatter anything that fell upon them. Then his hand tightened, grasping a fold of my parka, pulling me back to safety, so that I fell against him and we tumbled in the snow, laughing together, our skis in a tangle. How could I ever have feared the pressure of his hand at my back? His eyes were bright with starlight when he leaned over and kissed me. And this time his kiss was not gentle. There was a demand behind it, a dominating of my will. And I didn’t care. Our faces were cold until they touched and then they burned like fire.

  Julian managed to get to his feet first, and he pulled me up. We untangled our skis and started back toward the slopes. That moment when I’d felt his hand pressing was already in the past, forgotten. Later on I would remember it, but not now.

  It was a night of snow and fire.

  When we reached the top of the trails we saw that skiers were going down the slopes carrying lighted flares that flamed in the night. They did christie turns, traversing back and forth across the fall line, while the flares marked their movements in streaks of light against the mountain.

  We stood together and watched, and Julian’s arm was about me. There was snow all around us, and there was that newly lighted fire within. I couldn’t be cold now. I knew my cheeks were glowing in the wind, and when Julian started down Devil’s Drop, and I followed him, I felt warm under the cold moonlight. I took the turns around moguls in Julian’s wake, feeling strong and sure and utterly exhilarated. When we schussed out upon the level, we found Shan waiting for us.

  “Have you seen Stuart?” I asked.

  She answered me shortly. “Where do you suppose he’d be? Up there somewhere. Among the stars, probably. Once he’s near the slopes, he doesn’t touch ground. And he’s not exactly gregarious when he’s on skis. Julian, I’ve a frightful headache. Will you take me inside, please?”

  “Would you like to go home?” he asked, quickly concerned for his sister.

  “No. Just get me a table inside, and order me some coffee. When I’ve taken some aspirin I’ll be all right. I don’t want to spoil your fun.”

  “Would you like to come inside?” Julian asked me as he bent to take off his skis.

  I shook my head. I wanted to stay outside and watch the slopes, mingle with the crowd, feel the ski excitement enter my blood. And sense this other, new excitement that almost made me forget about Stuart. When they’d gone, I began to move about, thrusting myself along with ski poles—tasting the night. I’d never been able to do this until I’d met Julian. Now I belonged to this world too. I wanted to be a better skier than I was. I could savor the feeling of being a little better each time out, the satisfaction of learning, growing, until all this became second nature and part of my developing control.

  When Clay pounced on me, I was startled. He grasped my arm to keep me from passing him.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Shan has a headache. Perhaps Julian will stay with her for a little while, but he’ll be back soon, looking for me.”

  “Maybe not so soon. I asked Shan to get him away so I could talk to you. Get out of your skis. I know a place where we can go.”

  I loosened the bindings and stepped out of my skis. Clay picked them up and I followed him, carrying my ski poles. He led me to a small redwood building with a peaked roof and when he opened the door for me I realized that this was the chapel. On Sundays it would be used interdenominationally by whatever group wanted to hold a service. The rest of the time it was open for meditation and rest—for whoever wished to come here.

  The redwood sides peaked into a roof overhead, with racks along the slanted walls for skis. Bales of straw were set in rows to serve as benches on each side of an aisle. The floor was covered with bluestone pebbles, and there was a cast-iron heating unit at the far end, forming a small open fireplace where wood could be burned. It was cold at the moment, and there was no one here.

  When Clay closed the door behind us, I clumped over stones in my ski boots and sat down on a straw bench to stare at an overhead candelabra made of skis, with peaked roof timbers rising above. Clay had touched a switch at the door so that the lights came on, and I sat for a moment savoring the peace of this place. No sense of alarm had filled me as yet.

  When Clay had rested my skis and poles against the wall, he dropped onto a straw bale beside me.

  “I warned you not to go out tonight,” he said. “I told you to stay in the house—go nowhere.”

  I shrugged lightly. Exhilaration had not faded, and there was only peace between these walls.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m with Julian and my brother and Shan. What can happen to me?”

  He didn’t answer that, but reached into his jacket pocket and took out an envelope. “I’ve decided to show you the letter that Margot wrote to me three days before she died.”

  He held out the paper toward me, and I stared at it blindly.

  XVI

  I had no desire to take the envelope from him, and he had to urge it on me.

  “You’d better read it, Linda. This one’s genuine. I haven’t shown it to anyone else because I don’t know what it means, or what it might open up.”

  The envelope was unsealed, and as I slipped the single folded sheet from it, I recognized Margot’s buff stationery. I had seen pieces of it about the house in Adria’s possession. I had only to open the single sheet and read what was written there. Strangely, I did not want to.

  “Read it,” Clay said.

  “I wonder if I should. Perhaps if I read it something will be terribly changed and there’ll be a road I can never go down again.”

  Clay leaned forward, his eyes searching mine. “Are you sure you want that road, Linda?”

  He leaped too quickly to a conclusion I was growing afraid to admit to myself. I sat in silence, with the buff sheet between my fingers, and all exhilaration seeped away.

  “You want to save your brother,” he reminded me. “So read.”

  The mention of Stuart settled the matter. I opened the folded sheet and held it up to the light. Black handwriting slanted boldly across the page. The wording was almost the same as it had been in that other letter. As though she had composed this carefully, and chose not to change very much. Emory’s and Stuart’s names were missing from this version.

  Dear Clay:

  Thanks for your help. Julian has been threatening again to kill me. He’s jealous of my every move, and he watches me constantly. I’ll have nothing to do with him, and he can’t bear it. If anything happens, Clay, the police should be told where to look.

  Yours,

  Margot

  I read it twice and then raised my eyes to Clay’s in question, not wanting to believe—refusing to believe.

  “This was why she didn’t go to Julian for help,” Clay said. “It was Julian she was afraid of all along.”

  I shook my head as if to refute the evidence of the letter. “But then why did she use Stuart’s name in her note to Emory?”

  “I’ve already told you that. She didn’t. I think she wrote ‘Julian’ just as she did in mine. Only Emory saw his chance to protect Julian and blame Stuart, whom he’d convicted in his own mind anyway, and he made a copy, a forgery, using your brother’s name. Probably he was ready to perjure himself with lies in order to save Julian and convict your brother. Why do you think Emory killed himself, Linda?”

 
“But did he, really?”

  “Of course. A skier like Emory wouldn’t have had such an accident. Ask Shan—she knows. We both saw him go over. It was deliberate. Because the time would come when his tangle of lies would be exposed and he would have to condemn Julian. He couldn’t bear that. What he planned for Stuart just wasn’t going to come off. In good part thanks to you. Of course one reason he kept still about your identity was because he didn’t want all this coming out. But he’d have liked to get rid of you when you began to seem dangerous.”

  “But why should he hate Stuart like that?”

  “Because he believed he was having an affair with Margot, betraying Julian. There was a time when he felt the same about me.”

  “But I know Stuart wasn’t having an affair with her!” I cried. “I know he wasn’t! Perhaps I can’t always tell when Stuart lies to me. But when he tells the truth with conviction, I know it. And he was speaking the truth then. He told Julian the same thing—that she had made a play for him, and he was trying to avoid her. But I don’t believe this version either.”

  Clay nodded. “That’s one reason why I’ve held it all this time and have shown it to no one. Because Margot was capable of vicious spite, and might simply have been trying to stir up trouble. She tried to stir it up with me once. She taunted me, mocked me, because I wouldn’t take up our affair again. Just a day or so before she wrote me that letter, she threw all sorts of things in my face, raging at me. If she did that to Julian he could well have exploded in anger and killed her. Which is another reason why I’ve held back this letter. It could be full of falsehood. You notice she thanks me for helping her. What help? I gave her none. If she was telling the truth and Julian stood in the yard and pushed her chair through that guardrail—then I didn’t want to see him punished for it. I know what a demon Margot could be. However she ended, she deserved what happened. I’m on Emory’s side there.”

  That was a harsh judgment, and I winced away from his words. There was something called justice that couldn’t be taken into private hands.