The Glass Flame

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Eric, Maggie and Giff Caton were all there. Not one of them had liked David, but they were fond of Trevor, in spite of the disagreement over Belle Isle, and David was Trevor’s brother. Convention, I supposed, required that they stand beside him. Both Giff and Eric were stiffly correct, revealing nothing of what they might be feeling, but I sensed that Maggie had come close to the breaking point. She clung to Eric’s arm and never looked at either the coffin or the grave. Once I saw Giff watching her uneasily, though Eric seemed not to notice her state. Those rain-gray eyes that I had noted as her one beauty looked more haunted than ever, and I could only wish that we might just once have talked with complete honesty together.

  When we left the cemetery Trevor drove Nona and Chris and me to the house, with Nona in the front seat, her wheelchair folded into the trunk, and Chris beside me in the back.

  With the funeral behind me, a period had been set to the entire phase of my marriage. This was a time of beginning again, yet I could feel only a deep and enervating depression. The years that lay ahead didn’t bear thinking of, though when my plane left tomorrow they would have begun.

  Chris was silent during the drive. The defiance I had sensed in him at the funeral had fallen away, and he had retreated into his own thoughts, holding me off, so that I could find no way to reach him. We sat close together, Trevor’s son and I, and I dared not touch him. Not until we were nearly home did he rouse himself to whisper a reminder of my promise to go with him to the island on the following day. I repeated my assurance that I would be ready, and the moment Trevor pulled up before the house he got out and ran off about his own concerns.

  It was nearly lunchtime, and when I’d changed into slacks I came upstairs, to find Nona at the refrigerator in the kitchen. She took one look at my dispirited expression and nodded at me.

  “Food will help. Let’s take this potato salad out on the deck and lunch together. Lori has taken the cat back to the island. She said she had an errand in Gatlinburg and would have lunch at the Greencastle. Trevor’s gone off to talk to the police again and I don’t know when he’ll be home. Chris goes and comes as he pleases and it’s better to ease up on the rules with him for now. Lu-Ellen’s coming in late so she can stay for our dinner tonight.”

  I helped wheel the loaded cart through the house and outside, where we set a small table and I pulled up a chair for Nona. I was glad enough to have these moments alone with her. I’d had no chance to talk to her since Maggie had shown me her terrible kudzu painting yesterday. Now I told her the whole story, including my feeling that Maggie was coming close to flying apart completely.

  “I know,” Nona said, her green eyes bright, and as always a little malicious. “I noticed her too this morning. Eric may have trouble on his hands.”

  “But why would she think of David when she painted that awful picture?” I asked.

  “Who knows? I expect it’s all very symbolic and beyond understanding unless your mind works like Maggie’s. I think she’s been scared stiff ever since we had that glimpse of Joe Bruen.”

  I stared at her. “You mean on the island? You mean—”

  “No, not on the island. Maggie and I saw him in town one morning a few weeks ago. He was talking to Eric Caton.”

  Astonishment left me with nothing to say, and I waited for her to go on.

  Nona buttered a hot roll and helped herself to more potato salad, obviously enjoying my surprise. I knew by this time that she would milk every ounce of drama from any story she had to tell. When she was satisfied with the quality of my impatience, she grinned at me and went on with her story.

  “I suppose you’ve seen those mini shopping malls they’ve built in Gatlinburg? They’re filled with turns and corners, and fascinating small shops. On the morning I’m talking about, Maggie and I went into town to visit a cheese shop in one of those places. Maggie was pushing my wheelchair. We’d just stopped to look in a shop window when I noticed Eric Caton down the alley a little way. He was standing in a secluded corner talking to a big man in jeans and a green plaid shirt. He was a burly, tough-looking fellow. Not very young—his hair was a lot grayer than mine.”

  She paused thinking back, forgetting to eat, as though evoking the memory of that meeting disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing much, really. I don’t think the conversation between the two of them was altogether friendly, and a minute or so after Maggie and I saw them, the man in the green shirt went off by himself. Maggie waved and called to Eric and he came to join us. Of course Maggie asked who the man was. Eric told us his name was Bruen—Joe Bruen—and he was an unsavory character from New York. A man with whom Eric had had a run-in once before. Unsavory because he’d done a prison term for arson, and Eric wondered what he was up to around here. Bruen claimed that he was on vacation with his wife—merely visiting—and how could he help it if there had been some fires in the area? Fires happened anywhere. Eric said he told him it would be a good idea to get out of town and stay away.”

  “And did he leave?”

  “At least he disappeared. Maggie said Eric looked into the matter and found that he really was staying at a motel with his wife, Gwen. Which doesn’t mean that Chris isn’t right about glimpsing him on the island. Of course we don’t know how much of this was fabrication on Eric’s part.”

  “It sounds as though he was telling the truth.”

  “Of course. That’s the way he meant it to sound. I’ve known Eric for a long time and I’m fond of him. But when there’s something at stake he can put on a masterful performance that may have very little to do with basic truth. He was useful to old Vinnie that way—more useful than Trevor could ever be.”

  “Did Eric tell David and Trevor about this?”

  “Maggie said he did—so he was open enough on that score. But when they tried to find Bruen, the man was already gone, checked out with his wife. Either out of the state, or underground.”

  “And Maggie still thinks there’s something behind this?”

  “I don’t believe she’s thinking, really. She’s reacting with all those strung-out emotions of hers. Eric is more important than anything else in her life, and she’d never injure him in any way. But I wonder sometimes if she’s bottling up so much that she’s injuring herself. Or do those weird paintings keep her sane?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I had an awful feeling while I was looking at the kudzu painting that it was insane. Those eyes staring out of the vines in such dreadful torment—because the man in the picture knew he was being killed by them. Why did Maggie think of David while she painted that?”

  “I suppose because David is dead. Don’t take on so, Karen.” Nona pushed the bowl of salad toward me. “You’re not eating enough lately.”

  I didn’t want to eat. “But then why didn’t Maggie paint a fire devouring David? Why kudzu?”

  “Green fire, perhaps, and more indirect? Anyway, I’m glad to know about this before our dinner tonight.”

  I looked at her sharply. “Just why are you having this dinner, Nona? It seems an inappropriate time, and—”

  “It couldn’t be more appropriate! Remember, Karen, I said I’d try to think up a way to help you. To help all of us and bring the truth out where we can stop this damage to Trevor. That’s why the dinner, and that’s why you must come. I know it’s painful for you now, but that makes no difference. I’ll be lighting a small fuse and if things go as I expect, perhaps there will be a useful explosion.”

  “Tell me what you’re planning.”

  “And spoil the effect? Never! Lu-Ellen’s going to stay on tonight and help me, and she’ll serve in the dining room. Her first effort at a company dinner, so it may be interesting.”

  After that, no matter how I prodded her, Nona would talk about nothing serious. I tried to eat, and before we had entirely finished Trevor came into the house and joined us out on the deck. Nona filled a plate for him and I brought more hot rolls from the
oven.

  He looked weary and not at all satisfied with the results of his visits with the police. The sheriff’s office had agreed to call in the state police and open a further investigation. After the latest fire this seemed even more justified. But no further searches of the island—another one had been made an hour ago—had turned up anything except Lori sitting on the steps of the octagonal house with Commodore in her lap. They had even gone through the entire house again, and it was not a structure built with concealed rooms or hidden walls. The house plans were perfectly simple and clear, and the construction matched in every detail. Only one room had shown any sign of being used, and Giff Caton had already admitted to sleeping there on occasion—though his efforts to discover an answer had been futile. Nor did the theater or the moldering dressing rooms, open and obvious, offer hiding places that couldn’t be immediately betraying. The island wasn’t all that big, and such places didn’t exist.

  As Trevor talked, I remembered the pictures in my handbag and brought them out, singling out the one of the theater, which I handed him silently.

  He found the face above the stacked chairs at the top of the theater at once, and when Nona held out her hand, he passed it along to her.

  “I suppose it could have been anyone, any straggler on the island watching us,” I said. “We ourselves were nearly all accounted for at the time I took that picture. Except perhaps Eric Caton, and he would have been in his office. So Chris’s island ghost may be perfectly real, and he could be Joe Bruen still up to his old profession.”

  Trevor had finished what food he cared to eat and he pushed back from the table. “There’s nothing to be done for now. Would you like to go for a drive, Karen? You’ll be gone tomorrow, and you may not have another chance to see our mountains.”

  Nona made some small movement, but when I glanced at her she was still, not looking at either Trevor or me. I understood Trevor’s need to put Belle Isle out of his life for a little while. Perhaps a change would give his tired mind and body some respite. I would help if I could—and because I wanted to.

  “I’d like that,” I told him. “I hate to leave without having seen anything but Belle Isle.”

  “Bring a sweater,” he instructed. “It will be cool up there.”

  Nona waved aside my offer to carry dishes to the kitchen and said everything could stay right there and await Lu-Ellen. When she rolled her chair to the door and watched us on our way, her manner didn’t seem altogether friendly, but I couldn’t tell what was going on in her mind. If she was worried about anything developing between Trevor and me, she really needn’t, I thought a bit grimly.

  The mountains seemed more beautiful than ever as our road wound and began to climb above fields of goldenrod, winding into the great park. The sun of early afternoon had burned away the mists, and the crests above us stood clear. The stream that tumbled beside our road frothed white over wet black stones, carving its way between banks where wild grapevines grew to enormous size, thicker than a man’s fist. Everywhere the ubiquitous rhododendron and laurel crowded down the hills and clustered along the streams.

  “The mountain people call rhododendron laurel, and laurel, ivy,” Trevor said. “They always have. And they call them ‘hells’ too, because you can’t find your way out if you get lost in them.”

  As we began to climb we passed huge exposed rocks that Trevor said the highlanders called graybacks. Moss and lichen grew on every surface, and sometimes little pine trees sprouted out of seemingly barren rock. An occasional jagged black stump stood up alone, left where a tree had been struck by lightning. Still higher grew the spruce, the fir, the giant hemlocks, and the air was fragrant with the spicy scent of the trees. Sometimes on far hillsides we could see bare slashes of red earth, where rocks and trees had gone down in slides after a storm.

  I loved it all, and once when Trevor glanced at my face, he reached out to touch my hand. “It’s good for us to do this. For this little while we needn’t think of Belle Isle. There’s only the present moment, Karen.”

  I smiled with a feeling of contentment that had little to do with reality, and Trevor began to whistle as the road curved back and forth in its winding climb. Words hummed through my mind—“On top of Old Smokey …”

  “There isn’t any one mountain called Old Smokey,” he said, “but the song fits. So we’ll take our mountain sentiments with us. I want you to remember.”

  I would remember.

  The parking place for Clingman’s Dome was nearly empty, for all its size. Later, when the trees put on their autumn colors, visitors would pour in, but now we had the place almost to ourselves. We left the car and stood where we could look out over range upon range of mountains folding in steeply upon one another, with the road to Cherokee threading between them. In the past, before the Scotch-Irish, the English and a few German and Huguenot settlers had come in the early 1800s, all this had been Cherokee land.

  “Come,” Trevor said. “Let’s make the climb to the top. The road is steep, but there are benches along the way.”

  We used the benches once or twice on the way up because I was a city girl and more used to elevators than to mountain trails. The air was clear and thin in this high place and I found myself breathing more rapidly.

  The “top” was like some huge modern sculpture set down in the midst of fir and spruce, the white column of the observation tower rising above a circular foot ramp that looped under and over itself until it reached the high point of the platform. I was puffing a bit by that time, but I climbed the ramp eagerly at Trevor’s side.

  We’d met only a few people coming down, smugly cheerful, since they were going the easy way, and the circular platform was empty when we reached it. We could stand alone at the rail and look out over the tallest treetops, well above any mists that drifted in the valleys, the mountains themselves reaching up into sunlight and bright sky—blue-green, gentle mountains, lacking the high ruggedness of the west. A light breeze stirred my hair and the sun warmed my upraised face.

  “I’d like to bring you here at moonrise,” Trevor said. “Though it’s always different, whatever the hour.”

  His arm was around me and I was intensely aware of the moment. This was here and now. This was happening to me. Trevor was beside me, his arm around me as it would never be again. In only a little while this lovely, precious moment would be gone forever. Never had I wanted so desperately to make time stand still. All the worry and pain and threat out there in the valleys was nothing while we stood together in the clean, clear air of the heights. This was bliss, perfection, and I tried to hold it close to me with all my consciousness.

  Trevor bent his head and kissed me. It was not a gentle, loving kiss, but hard and a little despairing. It took me by surprise and there was no time to return the pressure of his mouth. He took his arm from about me at once, and I saw his hands fasten tightly on the rail before him.

  “I can’t even tell you how I feel,” he said. “I can’t ask how you feel, because in the present there’s no way out. Do you understand, Karen?”

  “I love you,” I said. “And I’m trying to understand.”

  “Chris needs me right now more than he may ever need me again. I can neither leave him in Lori’s hands nor take him away from her.”

  “David has damaged everyone.”

  “Lori especially. David—” He broke off, since I knew David as well as he did.

  The moment of “now” was already gone.

  “We’d better go back,” I said.

  But when we had left the ramp and were walking down the steep trail that dropped between the firs, he paused and drew me more gently into his arms. There were no words, just closeness. Our longing went unspoken, but I knew how real it was. If I stayed … But Trevor would never be happy with his loyalties split and we would both be hurt.

  There was one more thing I had to arrange. As we walked down the steep trail I told Trevor of my promise to go with Chris to Belle Isle tomorrow morning. His first reaction was to
forbid the trip entirely, but I had to resist that.

  “I must go,” I insisted. “He mustn’t be let down on this. There’s something tormenting him that must come into the open. He won’t tell you and he must tell someone. Since he’s chosen me, I have to do as he asks. If you follow us, keeping out of sight, nothing can happen. Trevor, it must be done.”

  In the end he had to agree, and we made our plans.

  At least I was not wholly unhappy as we drove back to the house. I had cared about Trevor for so long that to have something of that feeling returned healed me just a little. I knew the loneliness that lay ahead, but I could face that with more courage for having had this little time between us.

  Let it go now. Let it fade and be forgotten.

  That afternoon I packed my bags and stayed in my room. Already I was beginning to cut the strands that held me here. I didn’t want to think about David’s death or the fires. I didn’t want to think about Chris’s fears. Or about Maggie and her possible tormenting. I wanted to wipe from my mind the memory of eyes staring out at me from smothering green leaves. When it came to Maggie’s picture of the flaming rose, I decided that it was better to leave it behind. I would ask Nona to dispose of it in some way that wouldn’t hurt Maggie’s feelings. No need to let her know that it was something I could never bear to have in my apartment.

  To some extent I was successful in cutting myself free. It would have been better, I knew, if I could leave at once and avoid the dinner tonight—no matter what Nona was planning. I no longer wanted to pursue the road on which I’d first set my feet. I knew now that freedom lay in another direction and I no longer owed David anything. Whatever had happened was something he had brought upon himself, and the truth might be so unsavory that perhaps it was better not to know.

  Only the trip I must make with Chris to the island the following morning held me here. This was a promise I couldn’t escape. I vowed to myself that I would have it over as soon as possible. There was nothing Chris could show me that would make any real difference now. Though perhaps it was something his father should know about. All in due course. One step at a time, until I could be aboard that plane, with Tennessee left behind me.