The Winter People

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “I’ve always admired your work,” I said. “But you aren’t important to me as an artist right now. You’re only important as Glen’s father. And I hope you can see me as the girl who has married him—not just as a possible model.”

  In her turquoise chair Nomi turned to look at us and made a slight sound that applauded me.

  Glynis was less pleased. “I’m afraid you’re fooling yourself, Dina. The Coltons are a painting, sculpting clan. That’s all we know and care about. Now that you’ve married us, you’d better learn to accept that.”

  I wanted to announce that I had married no one but Glen, but I had made my bid as a person in my own right, and I could only wait for Colton’s answer.

  He was more impressively built than either of the twins and his manner was one of confident authority. He flicked his fingers in Glynis’s direction, silencing her without speaking a word, dismissing her. She stood with her brown booted feet apart, her hands clasped behind her back, the camel’s hair coat hanging open over a brown wool dress. She looked rather like a sulking, well-dressed child who had received a sudden slap. She was like a child, I thought wonderingly. She was filled with audacity and bluff, but quickly reduced to a state of pouting by a flick of her father’s fingers.

  Colton had taken the hand I held out to him, and he bent to kiss it, very courtly and European. “You make us all ashamed,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve married my son, Dina. I hope you’ll be able to accept us as his family. We want very much to accept you.”

  It was a formal little speech, and yet I felt that as far as he could make it, it was sincere. He would not be an easy man to know and understand, but at least he had given me the beginnings of respect.

  Nomi knew at once that this was the sort of speech almost impossible to answer gracefully. She stood up and moved toward the door.

  “Tea will be ready soon,” she said to us all. “If you’d like to prepare, hurry along to your rooms and come right down.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Glynis said, still the pouting child. She flung herself past Nomi and ran out of the room.

  Colton regarded his daughter’s departure calmly. “There’s a nose gone out of joint,” he said to Glen. “But you did the right thing this time. There’s been enough of broken engagements because your sister couldn’t approve of your choice.”

  Glen pulled me impatiently toward the door. “Dina doesn’t know about all my conquests and unhappy love affairs,” he mocked. “Let’s break it to her gently.”

  I found myself laughing a little as I went out of the room with him. Perhaps it was the laughter of nervous reaction because I had come through a difficult confrontation not altogether without honor. I could still hold up my head and cling to being myself.

  “So I’m not the first love of your life,” I said lightly as we climbed the stairs. “Not that I ever thought I was.”

  He said nothing until we reached our room and he had pushed the door shut behind us. Then he pulled me into his arms.

  “Oh, yes, you are my first love!” he told me. “My first and only love. Don’t ever forget it. You’re the one I’ve dreamed of, the one I’ve waited to find. I knew you right away. So don’t believe what anyone else tells you. There’ve been others, but this time there is something special about the girl.”

  When he was done kissing me, I held him off. “But broken engagements! What about those?”

  “Girls I chose in order to tantalize Glynis,” he said. “What else? Twins can grow too close. Sometimes one can grow too close. Sometimes one can grow too possessive—to the point of, well—cannibalizing, you might call it. When Glynis married Trent McIntyre she didn’t ask me first. She ran away with him. Perhaps to escape me.”

  “And now you’ve paid her off?”

  He stopped my pondering with fingers thrust into my tangled hair, pressed my face into his shoulder to silence me. “Don’t think and puzzle and take things apart. Let it be. You’re mine now. And this afternoon we’ll get back to work.”

  You’re mine—and we’ll get back to work: I wished he had not put it like that. Yet I knew an artist must be his work and that if I had become a part of what he wanted to create, then I had a powerful place in his life. So I must not question too much, must not stir things around inside my head until I could no longer cope with them. Keep it simple, I told myself. Let it be. Because probably it really was simple.

  Unfortunately, nothing about Glynis was simple, or ever would be. She joined us for tea, after all—no longer either a child or a jealous sister. She could be completely charming when she chose, and she charmed her father, charmed her brother—charmed me. Only Naomi remained aloof, and though the twins’ aunt did not wear her feelings openly, or give them full rein, there was never a moment when I did not sense her dislike of Glynis. Dislike and distrust.

  Right after tea Glen took me upstairs to the attic. He posed me again and worked almost feverishly at the clay head. For an hour he worked with the door locked against Glynis. It did no good. The spell that had held him this morning was marred by outside elements, by new presences in the house. When Glen’s effort grew desperate, and I could see how strained and tense he had become, I spoke to him from the low platform upon which he had posed me.

  “Why don’t we leave High Towers? Why not go where you can work without anyone around except me?”

  He answered me shortly. “Here is where I can work. Here or nowhere. Don’t worry, Dina. The thing is still with me. It’s just that I must hurry how. I must have something to show before they come up here to look at what I’m doing.”

  Only once did someone come to turn the knob of the attic door, find it locked, and go away without remonstrance. But eventually steps mounted the stairs more firmly and the door was rattled.

  “Here, here!” Colton’s ringing voice called out. “We can’t have this. The studios are for all of us, and I don’t mean to be shut out of mine.”

  Glen flung down his tools and went impatiently to unlock the door. Colton and Glynis surged in past him, his sister mischievously eager. There was no chance for him to cover his work, to prevent the intrusion he had wanted to avoid. Glynis ran at once to his workstand, and Colton came with her. I sat on my dais stiffly, feeling self-conscious, artificial—as if all this was playacting which would never mean anything.

  “If we may?” Colton said formally, and Glen stepped back from the clay maquette. Colton and Glynis stood staring fixedly at the head. Then they glanced at each other with meaning. Colton shrugged, Glynis shook her head, and without a word each went off to his respective section of the attic, leaving Glen and me alone.

  Glen returned to his stand and with one blow of his hand he knocked over the clay head, smashed it with his fingers. Then he strode out of the attic and down the stairs, leaving me behind. I ran after him, but he moved too quickly for me. I heard the front door slam before I reached the stairs to the lower floor.

  Nomi stood at their foot, looking after him. I went down to her slowly, miserably.

  “What am I to do?” I said. “It seemed to be going well, until they came home. I’m sure it was. But after they looked at his work, looked at each other and walked away, he destroyed it and ran out of the house.”

  Nomi’s thin, bony hand caught mine and she led me back to the dying fire in her sitting room, thrust me down on a shabby, comfortable sofa. Moving efficiently she poked up the fire, added fresh wood to the embers. When new flames licked upward, she sat opposite me and folded her hands in her lap. The cat, Jezebel, uncurled herself from the heartrug and stretched her paws, yawning widely.

  “Listen to me, Dina,” Nomi said. “When Glen was very young he had a spectacular talent. And so had Glynis. They were prodigies, really, and they supported each other. The talent of one was part of the other’s talent. They gave each other all the encouragement and belief and inspiration either one needed. Outside themselves, only what Colton said mattered because he was their tutor and critic. Together they had an outstanding gallery sh
ow in New York—before they were eighteen. Everyone said, ‘Fresh, original, great promise.’ But Colton was concerned. He had an instinct that Glen leaned too heavily on his sister, imitated her. This proved to be true. When Glynis married Trent McIntyre and moved to New York where her husband worked for a newspaper, Glen went to pieces. He never did anything that was out of the ordinary after that, no matter what medium he chose. He perfected his technique as a sculptor, choosing it deliberately because Glynis paints, but there’s more to art than capability. She could fire him with enthusiasm, and the fire was gone. There’s a mystique. I believe in it thoroughly because I’ve lived in this house with a very great artist, a genuine professional—Colton Chandler.”

  “What happened to Glynis’s work after her marriage?” I asked.

  “Oddly enough, she proved not to be so dependent on her twin as Glen was on her. She moved on to greater success and Glen never blamed her for leaving him behind, though I know he suffered. After her marriage broke up and Glynis left Trent, the twins were very close again. But Glen never recovered, as an artist.”

  I tried to understand what she was telling me, tried to understand these undercurrents as they applied to my husband now.

  “Is it possible that Glen doesn’t have the talent his sister has?” I asked.

  Nomi gave me an indignant look. “They’re so closely twins—their bents are the same. Of course he has it! I remember his early work. And you’ve seen that remarkable black marble head he did of Glynis. This is a psychological block, and it’s his sister who holds him back in every way. She was always about when Glen grew interested in a girl, and it never took her long to expose what was weak, or silly, or undistinguished in any woman he looked at. Glen broke up his own love affairs as soon as he started to see the girl through his twin’s eyes. This is what she’ll try to do to you now. So you must be on guard. He needs you desperately. It’s up to you to keep Glynis from destroying him again—this time completely. It’s your responsibility.”

  “But why should she want to destroy him? Why shouldn’t she take satisfaction in his accomplishment?”

  “That’s an answer I can’t give you.” Nomi was in deadly earnest, leaning toward me, reaching out to me with her own intensity and quiet strength. “You’ll have to find the answer yourself. But there is one thing we must accept. If the look you mentioned which passed between Colton and Glynis means that Glen’s work was going badly, then it was. Neither one would pretend otherwise. If it had been good, they’d have the artist’s integrity to admit it. That’s why this has hit Glen so hard. He respects their judgment. Perhaps this first effort should be destroyed. But now he must start again. And that’s up to you.”

  Nomi rose and went to sit before her loom, where patterned wool cloth was in the making.

  There was no assurance I could give her, nothing I could say. My lovely dream of inspiring Glen, providing for him the escape from his sister’s domination, was already evaporating. The ugly reality I could not deal with. Glynis was a more formidable foe than I could have imagined—so how was I to find in myself sufficient cleverness and strength to help Glen?

  Nomi’s words went with me through the rest of the afternoon. They were with me when Glen came home. He did not come near me, but got into his car and drove away from the house just before dinner.

  Glynis, Norm, Colton, and I dined without him, the candlelight falling upon Glen’s empty place, reproaching me, warning me that I was clever at dealing with dreams, but not very clever in reality.

  Nomi wore her gray housecoat again, and had combed her hair into its evening convolutions. We were served by the housekeeper, Mrs. Dixon, who had come out from town. Nomi watched over everything—watched Glynis most of all. Glen’s work and my posing were not mentioned by any of us.

  Toward the end of the meal Nomi turned the conversation to the McIntyres’ plan for building houses across the lake, and Glynis spoke against it heatedly. Her father heard her out calmly. He looked very distinguished as he sat at the end of the table, the candlelight catching silver gleams in his gray hair, his silvery eyes bright—and somehow watchful. Of me. Whether pleasantly so, or not, I wasn’t sure. When Glynis finished her tirade about the lake, he spoke without rancor. So far I had never seen him lose his temper, or even give evidence of being ruffled.

  “I’ve been thinking about all this since I’ve been away, and I have about come to a decision. I believe I shall sell Pandora the land she wants. I’m not home enough to have it matter to me what happens across the lake. And I’m sure Nomi doesn’t care. You and Glen, my dear Glynis, belong to city life. High Towers is only a refuge for you at holiday times. The land lies idle—it should be used. Nor am I adverse to having the money instead of the land at this particular time.”

  Glynis put down her fork and stared at him. She looked very beautiful tonight in brown lace that set off the reddish glints in her hair and made her skin glow like rich cream in the candlelight.

  “Glen and I won’t let you sell,” she said. With her left thumb she began to stroke her left eyebrow in a gesture I had seen her make before when something disturbed her.

  Colton stared at her. “You are going to stop me?”

  She was not afraid of him, and she answered with spirit. “You can’t spoil the lake, Colton! That dreadful box Pandora has built as an inn is bad enough. The trees would be cut down over there. We’d have noise and clutter and ugly little houses cropping up beside the water. All the wild things would be driven out.”

  “I suppose you mean those wild things you haven’t managed to kill already,” Colton said dryly.

  There was sudden tension between them. The testing of wills was like a current crackling down the table.

  Glynis looked down at her own strong, long-fingered hands—hands that were like her brother’s. “A balance has to be kept in nature,” she said more mildly. “But that’s not the point.”

  “There are any number of points,” her father agreed. “And I haven’t come to an irrevocable decision. What do you think, Nomi?”

  “What does it matter?” Nomi said. “Providing you leave your own land on this side and you don’t tear High Towers down over my head, or send me to live elsewhere.”

  “This house will always be your home, Naomi, as you very well know.” Colton made his small, courtly bow in her direction. “But what of our bride? What is your feeling about this, Dina?”

  I did not want to be drawn into the argument between them. “Gray Rocks seems a lovely, wild place, but I’ll have to let Glen speak for me. I’ve heard him say that if he can work here, we might stay. I think he’s grown tired of city living.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Glynis said. “Obviously he can’t work here. We’ve seen that before. He will only break his heart again if he forces himself to try. But whether he stays here or not, he will want to see those houses kept away from the lake.”

  I played with the stem of my wine glass, wishing my fingers would be still, trying not to raise my voice.

  “I don’t think you’ve given him a chance in his work yet,” I said. “Today was only a beginning. He will find his way. I’m sure of it!”

  Colton’s look told me that he was genuinely sorry and sad because I must be disillusioned.

  Glynis laughed unpleasantly. “Do you think I don’t know my brother?”

  I met her eyes across the table, and I managed not to flinch in spite of the scorn in hers. “I think in this case you may not know him fully,” I said. “Perhaps he has even changed a little.”

  “Through marrying you!” Glynis’s words whipped out at me.

  I had been placed on Colton’s right hand, and he reached out and covered my fingers with his own, smiling his approval. “Good for you, young Dina! There’s a bit of Viking in you after all, in spite of that Dresden complexion. But if you’re going to oppose Glen’s sister, you must watch out. My beautiful leopard has claws.”

  Abruptly Glynis turned sullen, though not in the childish way in which s
he had sulked earlier. This seemed a more threatening mood. Through the remainder of the meal I was aware of her covert glances, aware that some plan was hatching behind those lovely, sullen dark eyes. I did not care. It was only Glen who mattered.

  After dinner, when everyone sat before the drawing-room fire drinking coffee from delicate demitasse cups, I left them, to wander about the house. I’d had enough of Chandler company for the moment. Perhaps a book would help. I needed to distract myself.

  Colton’s den was also the library. I found the light switch and stepped into a small book-lined room. There was little furniture here—only a massive mahogany desk with a red leather chair behind it, a big lounger, and a table with a carafe and glasses upon it. There were hundreds of books, many of them handsome art books and volumes useful for research.

  I studied titles and authors, finding that a true library order reigned. Curiously, I searched for the “Mc’s”—and found Trent McIntyre’s name. Colton had several of Trent’s books. There was the one on Henry Brooks Adams that had launched Trent from his job as a crack reporter into the literary field, and had won him considerable acclaim. The volume on Bret Harte was here too. I remembered it particularly because he was working on the research for it when he came to see my father in California. It was this visit which had given him the idea for a book of short pieces on great American teachers—a collection which would include John Blake. Thus his visit with us had stretched into a month while he listened to Father’s lively talk and made quiet notes for later use.

  The book came readily to my hand, as though it belonged to me. I took it down and turned to the chapter I wanted. I knew well enough where to find the pages on Dr. John Blake.

  The big lounge chair swallowed me. I put my feet up and began to read. This was the best piece in the book—and with good reason. Trent McIntyre had been in my father’s classes as a young man. He knew him both as teacher and as friend. It had been John Blake who had encouraged Trent to write, and Trent had come to visit us in California to catch up on all that had happened since he had left school. He had loved my father. And I had loved Trent. That he had a wife back in the East, that he had a son—these things did not matter to a sixteen-year-old who asked nothing for herself. I did not expect him to notice me, take me seriously. I merely wanted to worship from a distance, and this I did for the month before my father died so unexpectedly.