The Glass Flame

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  I was well aware of the artful way in which Trevor could lull one into dismissing one of his houses as undistinguished at first glance, and then stun the senses with some new and arresting aspect. This was what I would search for now, and I knew it would lie in the direction of the mountains.

  A path led off at an angle from the garage, following the hillside into a gentle slope. I left the house and struck off through the woods, filling my lungs and salving my soul with this heady mountain air, savoring the pungent green restfulness all around. Only occasional sourwood trees offered an accent of red, and there were thickets of rhododendron and laurel along the way. Deep in the woods the trees dripped a little from the mists, but I kept on, knowing instinctively that the path must soon return to the open. Movement, action, prevented me from thinking—about anything.

  Sure enough, the trail, with its generous trim of golden-rod and Queen Anne’s lace, turned toward the open again, and crossed a driveway that led upward to another house. I passed it by, interested only in Trevor’s house for the moment. The path ended in a trodden space before a great boulder that thrust outward from the hillside, its top offering a vantage point from which to look back at the mountain.

  As I walked out upon its rough surface, the clean, soaring beauty of the house struck me with all its power. It seemed to poise on the very crest of the mountain like an eagle with its wings spread, ready to fly out into space. More than ever before I understood what had been my father’s thesis—that in the designing of a house, ceilings, floors, walls were not separate elements, but all one thing, and a part of the earth as well. In this high place where it was fitting to soar, this house was a winged entity that belonged to both sky and earth.

  Now, even though the eastern lighting was wrong, I used my camera eagerly. I wanted a good shot of the peaked rise of rooftops that thrust into the sky above cantilevered decks. This was the best possible spot for viewing the house, and I could imagine Trevor and Lori bringing their guests here for the magnificent view.

  Inevitably, however, I must turn my attention from the house to the vast spread of mountains, where the sun was already burning away the mists. These peaks didn’t line themselves up in monotonous ranges, but folded intricately in upon one another, with glimpses of streams and roads and valleys in between.

  One spot of water caught my eye—a portion of silver-blue lake, with a green island floating upon it, and reality came crashing back. I knew this was Belle Isle, and not even the beauty of the scene from this height could free my thoughts of horror.

  I sat down upon rock that was beginning to warm in the sun, and pulled my knees up to clasp my hands around them. Now nothing could stem the flooding of remembrance.

  Last night, dining with Trevor and Nona had been an uncomfortable experience. Nona seemed to like me no better than at our earlier meeting and it troubled me not to know why. Trevor had been remote, almost absent-minded, and in a way I was grateful for that. I had already steeled myself against any betraying emotions that might be dredged up from the past. The young girl who had been so sure she was in love was gone, and an eternity had intervened. Trevor and I no longer knew each other, and he was making it clear that he wanted it to stay that way.

  Nona had planned a simple casserole supper, with a salad and home-made brown bread, a custard for dessert. I was permitted to help carry things into the dining room, though even in her wheelchair she had little trouble in steering a cart that she loaded with dishes from the kitchen. She still wore her mustard-colored gown, and it seemed to suit her. When she left her chair, leaning on Trevor’s arm to make a few steps to her place at the table, its long folds fell about her slight person, giving her stature, concealing whatever was wrong with her legs.

  The dining room had been done in white and gold and green, with a wide mural of ferns painted along one wall. My attention was arrested by the mural at once. Ferns made one think of cool woods where streams might flow—but these ferns were not like that, and once we were seated I couldn’t help staring.

  The lighter greens had a tendency to be strident, while those that filled the shadows were the near black of malachite. The painting seemed alive with giant curling tendrils that wove endlessly in and out of themselves in a purposeless reaching—for what? At the heart and focus a queen fern seemed to reign—a monstrous plant, with lush fronds filling the frame, while lesser ferns waved about her like handmaidens. I felt almost revolted, my senses assaulted, and yet the whole was stunningly beautiful and had obviously been painted by someone with an original talent.

  “Who is the artist?” I asked Nona.

  Apparently the woman was local, and Nona warmed for the first time and began to tell me about the painters and craftsmen who had come from all over America to live in this beautiful area.

  “That’s what Belle Isle is all about,” she said earnestly. “Trevor is building interesting, distinguished houses that artists and other creative people will find satisfying to live in, yet which won’t be priced out of their reach. There are always places for the very poor and the very rich, but hardly anyone thinks of creative artists, poets, writers, sculptors—they’re a neglected minority. It’s all due to Trevor that old Vinnie Fromberg decided to turn Belle Isle over to this purpose.”

  I knew nothing about this and I looked inquiringly at Trevor. “Who is Vinnie Fromberg?”

  “Money. Money that Vinnie made himself,” Nona said before he could answer, her eyes widening so that their green sparkled with its own rather eerie light, reflecting the ferns. “Scads and scads of money! Vinnie’s dead now, but he was pretty smart. He owned most everything in sight. Building companies, hotels—the Greencastle in Gatlinburg—oil wells, aircraft—name it and he was into it. But Belle Isle was his favorite spot in the world. You tell her, Trevor.”

  Trevor smiled at her vehemence and came back from whatever distant reaches he had lost himself in. “He was my wife’s great-grandfather—in his late nineties when he died, though his brain was still sharp and he was active to the end. He’d made his first fortune before he was thirty, and he turned it into more and more wealth. He built a house on the island when he was thirty, and brought his first wife there to live. She was an actress—only seventeen—but she gave up the stage when she married Vinnie. He wouldn’t have been one to stand for her having a career in those days. I expect he’d have liked to lock her in a tower and keep her there.”

  “There are surprises on the island,” Nona put in. “Not only that weird octagonal contraption he built, but that other—folly. Where his wife died. His first wife. His second wife hated the island and wouldn’t live there. No towers for her. But she died too, though more quietly. And then all these years later Trevor came along and sold his ideas to Vinnie in his old age. Tell her, Trevor. Karen is part of Belle Isle too. Because of David Hallam.”

  It seemed to me that she spoke David’s name with a surprising venom, and I knew his relationship must be the source of her disliking for me.

  Trevor glanced at me remotely. “I think not, Nona. Karen will be leaving soon. There’s nothing to keep her here. So let’s not go into all that meaningless ancient history.”

  I didn’t tell him that there might very well be something to keep me here. “Do go on,” I said.

  After a moment he shrugged and gave in. “Oh, all right then. I got the idea of building some interesting housing in a beautiful place that might be afforded by the creative people who come here. Not on the island, but on the land along the lake. I went to Vinnie with my ideas and he listened. I warned him that there wasn’t much money to be made in the project, but that it might be turned into something distinctive that would make a name for itself. Eventually it might even grow and be productive. He already had enough money, and he liked the idea of prestige, so he gave me four years in which to prove I could make it work.”

  “Against plenty of opposition,” Nona added. “Eric Caton! I get so mad at him, even though he’s an old friend. Sometimes I think you should never hav
e built him a house up here on the mountain, Trevor. I know he watches you and waits for you to fail. Sometimes I feel mighty sorry for Maggie.” Nona turned to me. “Maggie is Eric’s wife. She’s the artist you asked about—the one who painted that mess of ferns up there on the wall. Sometimes I think I’d like to take them down and cook them. But I expect she needs the therapy of painting, being married to Eric.”

  Again I looked at Trevor for enlightenment and he smiled ruefully. “Maggie’s all right. She’s just been under Eric’s thumb for too long. Eric is Lori’s uncle. Maybe he’s a bit like his grandfather Vinnie at times. Certainly he’s been against my plans for Belle Isle from the beginning. He always served his grandfather well and he wanted that property for a project of his own. So he never forgave Vinnie—or me—for what I’m doing there. But the old man was pleased, and everything was going well. The first fire came just before his death. That was a year ago—and you know the rest.”

  He was silent, lost in his gloomy thoughts, and I tried to find a lighter subject.

  “A little while ago in my room I heard someone playing an instrument I couldn’t recognize. Something sweeter than a guitar.”

  “Nona’s dulcimer,” Trevor said. “They used to be played a lot around here in our mountains. But there aren’t too many these days who can play a dulcimer.”

  “I learned as a child,” Nona said. “For me it’s comforting music.”

  We were busy for a time with Nona’s good food, and I found myself staring again at those compelling, rather frightening ferns that Maggie Caton had created. Her queen fern seemed to exude an enormous and mysterious power, so that I wondered about the woman who could create such a concept.

  It was Nona who spoke first. “In a way, I can understand a firebug. Look at these candles here on the table. The flames hold your eyes, don’t they? It’s such a mysterious thing—fire. People always run to watch a building that’s burning. If someone around here were crazy enough in that direction … if someone …”

  “I don’t think there’s anything crazy about this,” Trevor broke in impatiently. “Someone wants to make sure I don’t succeed. It’s as simple as that.”

  “He thinks Eric might be behind what has happened,” Nona said. “I don’t mean that he would set a fire, but if Trevor falls on his face, Eric will inherit Belle Isle—and he’ll put up God-knows-what in the way of a cheap development. That’s valuable land.”

  “I don’t think it was Eric, and neither do you,” Trevor contradicted. “I don’t suspect anyone. That’s why I brought David down here. To find out.”

  “He sure enough suspected somebody!” Nona was growing excited. “But he wouldn’t tell us anything. So he died. He was killed because he got too close, became too dangerous.”

  “Nona!” Trevor said sharply. “David’s death was an accident. No one could have known that he would go into that house.”

  She gave him a surprisingly sweet smile and went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “The first fire was started by kids, you know. But after that what happened was too sophisticated for any child to have planned.”

  Trevor looked unhappy and said nothing. I had begun to hate all this—the talk about fires, the heat and crackle of real logs burning on the flagstone hearth behind my chair, the hypnotic flickering of the candles. Especially the candles. Opposite my place at the table a wide mirror gave back the room, pinpointing living flames in the glass, and seeming to link motion to the writhing ferns. My eyes followed their eerie movement until I tore my gaze away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m very tired.”

  Trevor was at once courteous and considerate in his remote way. He came with me down to my room and stood for a moment in the doorway, his eyes even darker than I remembered them. A look to get lost in—as alive and hypnotic as a candle flame. I blinked hard and turned away.

  “Don’t pay any attention to the things Nona says,” he warned. “She’s really a very capable and sensible person. You mustn’t let any of this get to you, Karen. I know it’s painful for you now. But in a few days the worst will be over, and you can go back to your own life.” His very tone told me how much he wanted me gone.

  I nodded and said good night. When the door was closed I stood with my back against it and looked up at the slanting ceiling and the patch of dark sky over my bed. No comfort came to me now from the stars. Nona had said that my husband had died because someone had planned his death. I believed her more than I did Trevor.

  My handbag lay on the dressing table where I’d left it and I went to open it, and took out David’s letter. Then I sat in one of the armchairs beside a lamp and spread it upon my knees. I had opened and folded the letter so many times that the pages were ready to tear, and I handled it carefully.

  Rejecting the early paragraphs of vituperation against me, I found the passage I must remember:

  If something happens to me here, Karen, you can be certain it won’t be an accident. I’m close to discovery and I’m not sure anymore which one of us is the hunter, or which the hunted. Our arsonist is getting nervous and I think he’ll try to act soon. I will try to be ready for him.

  One thing I’m sure of—there’s a torch involved in this. That means these are all professional jobs, except maybe the first one. Professional, hired jobs. Usually a torch will skip in, do his thing and get out—fast. But this time there’s been a series of fires, and I think he’s staying on, well concealed, to set more. That means he has help of some sort. If I can identify him I’ll find out who pays him. Then I’ll know who is really responsible for what’s been happening.

  Once more I folded the pages and put them away, this time in a pocket of my suitcase. I didn’t want to carry the letter around with me. David’s conjectures were all too clear. In the vernacular of arson a “torch” was a skilled professional who set fires for pay. Often this was so the owner of a failing business could recoup through insurance claims. The Belle Isle fires, however, had another motive, if, as Trevor thought, they were intended to stop him from succeeding in his project.

  That David had indeed identified the “torch” or gotten too close to him for comfort, seemed clear. And that he had in turn been trapped himself. Whatever anyone might say, his letter hinted at murder. And as was indicated by the use of an explosive, murder by an expert in arson. But I needn’t search for him directly, as David must have done. What I needed to discover was who had hired him. In that direction lay the greater guilt.

  This was the debt I owed to David. This was the reason why I must stay, no matter how much Trevor and others wanted me gone. I felt cool enough now. Cool and able to meet whatever I must.

  When I finally went to bed, it was a long while before I feel asleep.

  But the night had passed, as it always does, and in the morning I had come out here to sit on a rock in the sun and take my pictures. Morning at least was a more hopeful time, no matter what difficult problems lay ahead. I knew what the immediate one would be. First a trip to the funeral parlor, where David’s remains were being held. Then when the arrangements were made, there would still be the quiet funeral. By that time perhaps I would know what my next steps must be.

  “Good morning,” said a voice behind me. “I’m Maggie Caton.” I turned about, as startled as I’d been yesterday by the watchman at Belle Isle. I hadn’t known another soul was anywhere near.

  The woman who stood at the foot of the rock was probably in her early forties and clearly made no effort to look any younger. Her straight hair hung in a shaggy mass to her shoulders and was an odd salt-and-pepper red, as though she had grown confused about her rinses. Her eyes were large and rather beautiful, reminding me of the color of rain on a gray day, and her chin had a solid, capable look. She wore jeans pulled tight over plumpish hips, with a worn place at one knee, and there was a middle button missing on her green-checked blouse. I was to learn that Maggie Caton often seemed to be put together with pins and clips and bits of string. Only when Eric took a hand and put down his foot di
d she fling herself into something that gave her a deceptive air of elegance and fashion. Somehow she didn’t seem at all like my conception of the artist who had painted those splendid and terrifying ferns that decorated Trevor’s dining room.

  “You must be David Hallam’s wife,” she said into my startled silence. “Eric and I are the Andrews’ neighbors—the only ones this high on the mountain. Trevor designed our house too.” She nodded toward the driveway I had seen.

  I packed my camera away, scrambled down from the rock and held out my hand. “Yes, I’m Karen Hallam. I’m staying with the Andrews for a little while.”

  “I know.” She gave my hand an oddly nervous grip and dropped it. “Your husband didn’t make himself all that popular around here, but I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “He had an unpleasant job to do,” I said shortly, remembering that Eric Caton had set himself in strong opposition to Belle Isle.

  “Right. Maybe he did it too well—that job. You’re up early—like me. Can I give you some coffee? There’s nobody else at the house right now, and I’d enjoy company.”

  Coffee was probably what I needed, and I also needed to know anyone whose life had touched David’s in any way.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “I’d like that. No one seemed to be up at Trevor’s, so I came out for a walk.”

  We went together along the path to the Caton drive, which rose on an incline to a carport under the house. Maggie chose a shortcut of stone steps and went nimbly up them ahead of me. I paused before I reached the top to look up at the second house that Trevor had built on the mountain. This structure had no intention of flying. It was a low two stories, the upper main floor apparently built on a huge platform that overhung the utility area below and extended toward the view in a wide deck. This entire face of the house seemed to be glassed in with doors and windows, and I knew that Trevor would have used the opposite side against the mountain to offer a blank face. There was less grace in this house, but it presented a confident strength that perhaps spoke for the man who’d had it built.