The Glass Flame

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  She reached for her crutches and began to move about the room, muttering to herself.

  “If only I could get around better I know I could do something about what’s going on! I’ve tried—God knows I’ve tried. But nothing has turned out right. Only now there’s you, Karen. Even if it’s only a foolish guilt that drives you, perhaps it will help Trevor if you try.”

  She turned toward me and I stood up. “Yes—I’m here! I’ll do anything I can, if you’ll tell me what—”

  “I’ll have to think about it. I’m holding Eric off for the time being. About Belle Isle, I mean. Eric’s fond of me, but that’s not to be counted on. There’s something there I don’t understand. I know him pretty well, and I don’t thing he’s the one we’re looking for, in spite of motive. Yet Maggie is living in some sort of fear. That’s what worries me. Of what, I don’t know because she hasn’t talked to me.

  “Run along now, Karen. Give me time to think. I’m needed out in the kitchen anyway. Dinner’s in the oven, but Lu-Ellen can’t be left on her own as yet.”

  Moved by an unexpected impulse, I kissed Nona lightly on the cheek. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for accepting me.”

  She gave me rather a strange look as I went out of the door.

  All these things I thought about later when I lay in my different bed and let the pictures flow through my mind. After all that had happened, I wasn’t going to sleep easily, and my thoughts went on like a record player, replaying my life. I must think about and face the frightening attack that had caused the change in my room. I must come to it chronologically in my mind so that I might find any clue that might have led up to it.

  Among other things, I wasn’t at all sure that Nona was right in dismissing Eric as the man who had hired the arsonist. Nona liked Eric, and she was quite capable of being devious herself. I had experienced a warming toward her, but I wasn’t sure where her efforts might take me. I must move very cautiously where she led.

  More than anything else, however, the thought of Trevor stayed with me. I could almost recapture the memory of what I’d felt toward him as a young girl. Feelings that were adoring, but not altogether admitted. The nebulous dreamings of sixteen. The restless seeking and growing, the uncertainties—all having to do with the budding of sexual awareness, yet at the same time as innocent as moonlight touching the ocean, and as turbulent as that ocean could be. Into that sentient, waiting state, David had walked. David, who was no dream, but darkly vibrant and alive, a man, strongly sexual—and completely beyond my understanding. I couldn’t have known. As Nona had said, I must forgive myself.

  Only now could I even begin to understand. The old, unsatisfied longings of youth had turned into those of a woman. If there were ashes, a spark had indeed remained, waiting to be fanned into life. Yet if my longings were adult now, and not the dreams of a young girl, they were still as futile as ever, and I could be angry with myself for harboring them.

  Dinner that night had been uneventful. Surprisingly, both Lori and Chris came to the table. Mostly Chris glowered at his plate, or at his father, or sometimes his mother. Once or twice I caught that same black look turned upon me. But he ate his dinner quietly and there was no immediate revolution.

  Lori, playing her own game, set herself to be sweet, and readily picked up the harmless subjects Nona made it her business to throw out.

  Trevor too made some effort, though his real attention was elsewhere, and now and then he seemed to be studying me oddly. Whenever I could, I backed up Nona’s efforts and we all managed to get through the meal, with only Chris completely silent unless spoken to directly. I couldn’t help wondering how many such dinners we could endure before someone broke through the polite barriers. How long could Trevor hold back his growing anger with Lori? And why did he hold it back at all?

  By the time we took our coffee out on the deck, the mountains were turning the valleys dark with green shadow, and the roads curled through the gaps like white ribbon. The evening was pleasantly cool, and I stood at the rail with my coffee cup in hand, feasting my eyes once more on the tremendous sweep of view. The solace of the mountains! Just to look at them was calming. This I would miss. I was here now and near Trevor. Yet soon it would all be gone and I would never return.

  Trevor came to stand beside me. “If there’s time I’ll drive you up there before you leave: Into the mountains. Perhaps to the Dome, where we can climb the footpath to the top. And there are longer hikes and drives. The National Park out there opened the. Smokies to the world less than forty years ago, and some of it is still virgin country.”

  Wishful thinking, I told myself—that everything was normal and I was here on a vacation trip, to be taken sight-seeing. It seemed unlikely that I would ever get farther away than Belle Isle.

  “Some of the mountains used to have appropriate Indian names,” he went on. “Others bear the names of early explorers like Mount LeConte.”

  “Isn’t that Belle Isle we can see from here?” I asked.

  “Yes. Out there where the water is still catching light from the sky. When the houses are finished and being lived in, the lights will look like wreaths of fireflies from here.”

  “There’s a light there now,” I said. “Is that the watchman’s hut?”

  Trevor seemed to freeze beside me. Then Lori came running to stand at the rail.

  “It looks like fire!” she cried.

  “It is!” He was rushing into the house even as he spoke the words.

  The others were at the rail with me now—Nona in her chair, Lori with Chris at her side. Far down in the dusky reaches of the valley a crimson light glowed and grew stronger, and in a moment flames were rising above the roof of the house, cutting the dusk with spears of fire.

  Inside, Trevor had finished phoning and we heard his car start, heard the screeching of tires as he turned to go down the mountain. Moments later came the sound of a fire truck in the valley, speeding toward Belle Isle.

  I glanced at Lori. Western light shone full on her face, catching the bright excitement in her eyes. When I looked at Nona I saw an angry grimace twist her mouth.

  “Oh, no!” she cried. “Not again! Not when we all thought it was over.”

  “It will never be over,” Lori said softly. “Not as long as there’s a house to be burned down there. He ought to know that. He ought to give up.”

  Without warning, Chris flung himself upon her and began to beat at her with his fists. She was a little thing and he was a strong boy. Nona could do nothing, and I had to help by pulling him off.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t, Chris. Your father wouldn’t want you to behave like this.”

  He had torn the neck of his mother’s dress and when she could pull away from him she slapped him hard across one cheek and then ran inside. Chris leaned against the rail, his face white, his lips trembling, and I dared not touch him, however much I wanted to.

  “It will be all right,” I said. “They’ll stop it in time.”

  “At least there’s been no explosion,” Nona said from behind us. “There’ll be no one dead in the ruins this time.”

  Chris whirled to stare at her. For a moment I thought he meant to answer furiously, but instead he turned his back and fixed his attention on flickering red light that stained the waters of the lake.

  As flames rose higher I fancied I could hear the distant crackle. Who had started this fire? And who was to find the arsonist, now that David was gone?

  But the boy beside me needed distracting. “At least no one can blame you this time,” I said. “You’ve been up here since before dinner.”

  He threw me a look of scorn. “You know better than that. Anybody could set it to start—with a cigarette in a matchbox, or a candle, if it was to take longer. There are lots of ways. Then whoever it was could be far away by the time it really got started.”

  As I knew very well, he was right, and I tried another direction. “Chris, I’d like to show you something, ask you something. Will you come down
to my room with me?”

  But of course it was futile to talk about anything but fire just then. Chris didn’t move, and I doubt if he heard me, all his attention focused upon the burning house. Not until we knew that the engines were there, not until smoke rose, smothering the flames so they began to die down, did he seem to hear an echo of my words.

  “What?” he said. “What do you want to show me?”

  “It’s in my room,” I told him. “Will you come there with me now? The fire seems to be under control. They’ve got it stopped, but your father won’t be back for a while, I think.”

  After a moment of indecision he gave in. “Okay. I’ll come.”

  Nona watched us leave, but she said nothing. Together we started downstairs, brought together in a strange collaboration.

  Seven

  Chris stared at the twisted bit of metal I held out to him. “What’s that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, “but I think it’s a pencil. Perhaps a pencil from your father’s desk? Will you tell me why you hid it in the Japanese lantern near the fishpond?”

  Now that I had confronted him, he didn’t try to deny his actions, but made a fierce counterattack. “Why did you take it? You had no business spying on me! Sneaking around and taking my things!”

  “I know. And under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t have done it. But another fire has just been set at Belle Isle. And the last one killed your Uncle David. I think this pencil came through one of those other fires. Will you tell me what it means, Chris?”

  His mouth twisted, almost as Nona’s had done, and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. If he had cried it might have been better because then I might have held him and offered comfort. But his look told me I was an enemy. He snatched the bit of metal from my hand and rushed out of the room.

  The exchange left me feeling limp, and I dropped into a chair. Over my head the skylight was darkening, and soon I would be able to see the stars through the glass. They held no consolation for me tonight, no sense of peace, and I couldn’t know then that I would not spend another full night beneath that window to the sky.

  I thought of Chris again. That he knew something—or thought he knew something, and it was tearing him apart. So far, I was sure, he had confided in no one, and perhaps that made it all the worse. I wondered if I should tell Nona about the pencil, since she was the most likely one for him to go to. And yet—somehow I didn’t want to tell her, though I wasn’t sure why.

  Or was I? How much was I fooling myself?

  All of Chris’s actions pointed to the protection of someone, and who else would he want to protect but his father? Had he any reason to think that Trevor had been in the house where David had died, and had dropped the pencil there? But the pencil could have come there at any earlier time. Chris, poking through the ashes later, could have found it, made a misinterpretation and held back from telling anyone. Yet it was hard to believe that such very slight “evidence” would be tearing him up to this degree. So there must be something else. Some other “proof” against his father.

  Perhaps I had made a mistake in letting him know that I had taken the pencil from the lantern. Now, more than ever, he would place me on the side of the enemy. He couldn’t know that I, less than almost anyone, would want to hurt Trevor. If only Chris and I could talk it might be possible to dispel his doubts. Of facts I had very few, but of faith and trust—of love!—I had a great deal.

  Now, at least, I could admit that truth to myself.

  First love ought always to take its course. It should be allowed to develop or die of its own accord. First love, suppressed, cut off, could go underground and hide behind other guises, only to surface when least expected. The heart didn’t forget.

  How still the house seemed, how quiet this lower wing. Perhaps Nona and Lori were on the higher deck watching what remained of the fire, waiting for Trevor to come home. This was an utterly dreadful time for him. All his new hopes that the burning was over were now dashed. I supposed I should go upstairs, but I had no heart for anyone’s company. Grief over Trevor’s defeat held me away.

  Against the wall behind my chair the wrapped picture rested—the one Maggie had given me. For lack of anything else to take my attention, I drew it out and tore off the paper.

  The great painted rose seemed to burn against the gray background, softly pink at the heart where it had opened fully, but flaring into flame at the outer edges, the petals curling as though almost ready to fall from flame to blackened ash. Now that I looked closely, I could even see a thin wisp of smoke drifting away from the tip of one glowing petal. For all those who had any connection with Belle Isle there was an obsession with fire, I thought, and Maggie had given pictorial life to it in her painting.

  Was this a catharsis for her—these strange paintings of giant vegetation? But if so, were they really working? I’d sensed the tension that lay beneath her easy manner. Like Chris, she was afraid of something. They all knew more than they were willing to tell me, including Nona.

  I set the painting with its face to the wall. Perhaps the day would come when I could appreciate its rather dreadful beauty, but that time wasn’t now. I only hoped it wouldn’t cause a conflagration where it stood. For a long while I sat where I was, with a single lamp burning, waiting for some sound from outside.

  The intense, driving purpose that had begun to move me earlier toward the answer I had to find had dissolved into a state of hopelessness. There was nothing I could do. It might very well be better to give up and go home, begin a new life, for which at the moment I had little taste. Nona had helped me to feel less guilty, at least. What could I do for David by staying here? Everything lay in other, stronger hands than mine.

  I didn’t rouse myself from this new lethargy until I heard the sound of a car and knew it must be Trevor coming home. At least I could learn what had happened at Belle Isle. I ran out of the room and up the stairs in time to meet Trevor in the hallway.

  There was soot on his clothes, and his face and hands were streaked. He looked weary to the bone. When he saw me he stopped and shook his head.

  “It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Only one corner of the roof went. We can rebuild. But what’s the use? If this is to go on and on, with never a clue to our phantom arsonist, there can be no fighting it. As usual, the guard saw nothing, for all that he had patrolled the area a half hour earlier.”

  I might give up myself, but I couldn’t bear to see this in Trevor. Yet there was nothing I could say, no comfort I could offer.

  “We can’t go through the ashes until tomorrow,” he went on, “but I don’t think they’ll tell us anymore than they have in the past. David moved farthest along when he was investigating, but it was like him to want the credit of handling the final exposure. Karen, will you show me that letter he wrote you? I know you’ve told me what it says, but I’d like to read it for myself, in case there’s something you might have overlooked.”

  “I’ll bring it to you,” I said.

  “I’ll be in my office. First, I want to tell Nona and Lori what little I know. And Chris, if I can find him.”

  Perhaps my notion of a debt to David had lessened, but now something new was beginning to take its place. Not a debt. Just the knowledge that a terrible crime had been committed, and that whoever was guilty could not be allowed to go on injuring the living. In any small way I could, I must help toward that end. David’s letter, perhaps useless, was at least a step in that direction, no matter how I felt about showing it to Trevor.

  I hurried down to my room and took the letter from its place in my suitcase. When I climbed the stairs I could hear Trevor’s voice from the living room, so I went past the door and into his darkened office. I found my way to his desk and turned on the lamp.

  Chris sat curled in his father’s big chair, his head on his arms, worn out and sound asleep. His face was half hidden in the crook of one arm and on the rounded, exposed cheek tear traces shone wet in the lamplight. Long lashes hid the blue
of his eyes and his fair bangs were damp and flyaway. A wounding I had no guard against struck through me—forgotten pain like the thrust of a knife. The old need to hold a child hadn’t died after all, in spite of my suppression.

  As I smoothed errant bangs and felt the dewy skin beneath them, Chris opened his eyes to look up at me.

  “The fire is out,” I told him gently. “Your father has just come home.”

  He was still a little dazed, his lids heavy with sleep. I bent toward him across the desk, not daring to touch him, now that he was awake.

  “Chris, you know your father had nothing to do with your Uncle David’s death. If that’s what is worrying you, it needn’t. As I’ve told you, I knew your father long ago when I was very young, and I knew even then how good he was and how honest. He’d never hurt anyone.”

  “Have you ever seen him mad?”

  I was silent. I never had, but I had seen David angry a great many times, and David was Trevor’s brother.

  “They had a terrible fight,” Chris told me. “The day of the fire. Uncle David and Dad. Dad told him to get out. He told him to go away and never see my mother again. They were shouting at each other right here in this room. Nobody knew I was on the deck outside that door where I could hear. Uncle David just laughed at him, and my father said he’d kill him if he didn’t go away. So he laughed again and went straight out of the house. And after a while my father went out too.”

  I ached with pity for the needless burden he was too young to carry.

  “Oh, Chris! Those were only words shouted in anger. That quarrel must have been hours before David died. Your father would never have—”

  “What would I never have?” Trevor asked from the doorway.

  I flung out my hands, entreating him. “Please talk to your son. Talk to him now and make him understand. I’ll leave you together. Here’s the letter you wanted.”

  I dropped it on the desk and almost ran from the room, shaken by this new and unexpected emotion that had seized me. It was difficult enough to love the father, but to be stricken so suddenly with this new-old need and have it focus on Chris left me unable to face either of them. At least now they might be able to work this out together.