Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “You are’nt welcome here, Cinnabar,” I told him. “This is my room, and I don’t think you’re my friend.”

  His ears twitched and his yellow eyes regarded me with a sharp interest in which there was certainly no liking. I gestured toward the door, clapping my hands.

  “Come on—you don’t belong here. Out, Cinnabar—out!”

  I would never have dared to touch him, and fortunately it wasn’t necessary. He leaped to the floor and moved like a jungle cat to the door, slinking into the hall, a swift-moving orange shadow, to vanish down the stairs. I hoped Clay would find him and put him out. His presence in my room was upsetting. Whoever had let him in must have brought him here from the house. Was it Shan? That seemed possible. I wondered again about that curious exchange between Adria and her father when the child had claimed that the cat was a “she.” What had that been all about?

  But I was tired and more than anything else I wanted to get to sleep. Before I could make a move in that direction, however, someone tapped on my door and when I went to open it I found Clay standing there.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, sounding unexpectedly cool. “Mr. McCabe is downstairs and he wants to speak to you for a moment, if that’s possible.”

  My heart thumped in my throat as I thought of exposure. Julian knew who I was and I was to be sent packing. Clay watched me with the same chill that had sounded in his voice, and I knew that whatever it was, he disapproved.

  “If you don’t want to see him tonight—” he began.

  I shook my head. “Of course I’ll see him. I’ll come right down.”

  Clay started ahead of me along the hall, but before he reached the stairs I stopped him.

  “Did you find the cat?”

  “Cat?” He looked around.

  “Yes—Cinnabar. He was in my room on the bed. Someone must have let him in. I left my door closed when I came downstairs but the cat was there.”

  Clay’s manner softened a little, as though he condoned the cat’s presence. “That would be Shan’s doing, I’m afraid. She had him with her when she came. I’m sorry, but Shan’s whims are hard to reason with. The cat belonged to Margot and he’s half wild. I hope you didn’t touch him.”

  “I’ve met the animal twice before,” I said, “and I wouldn’t think of touching him, even though I like cats. I simply invited him to leave, and he went out behaving as though I really had no business in that room.”

  “I’ll look for him and put him outside,” Clay said and ran down the stairs as though he wanted to avoid any further questioning about the cat.

  I descended more slowly, and in the great movie palace mirror I could see the dying fire at the far end of the room, with Julian standing before it. Clay had not turned out the lamps as yet, so the room was still warmly lit. Our positions were reversed from earlier, when I had stood by the fire looking toward the mirror. Now Julian had his back to me and there was a certain dejection about the set of his shoulders that touched me unexpectedly. He was not a man who should ever be beaten, I thought with a flash of insight, and I went toward him with a new gentleness in me that was unasked, unwanted.

  When I stood at his elbow, I knew he sensed me there, though he did not speak or turn around.

  “You wanted to see me?” I asked.

  He continued to study the dying embers of wood as though he sought some answer in them. When he spoke, his words came hesitantly—from a man who, I suspected, was not hesitant.

  “Will you come to lunch at Graystones tomorrow, Miss Earle?”

  This was the last thing I’d expected and I was slow in responding. When I couldn’t find quick words to answer him, he turned to me with an entreaty he must have found hard to make.

  “Please come. I know you think we’re a strange lot, but we’ve been through some rather bad times. This afternoon you were kind and understanding with Adria. Nothing else matters. I haven’t known which way to turn in dealing with my daughter, and if you’re to work here, you might have enough free time to make friends with her. She’s a lonely child, and my sister—” He broke off.

  In the firelight his eyes seemed almost black and there was pain in them. Once more I knew that here was a man who suffered. Whatever the cord which had stretched briefly between us when he held my gaze in the mirror, it was gone. Here was only someone who was hurt and my heart went out to him. I forgot that he was Julian McCabe. He had lost a beloved wife, and he was truly concerned about his daughter. How could I not try to help him? Yet I moved tentatively.

  “I’m not sure how I could be useful,” I said. “I think your sister has already turned Adria against me.”

  “You must forgive her. She loves Adria rather desperately. But I think she isn’t always good for her. I’ve seen examples of this sort of overmothering, protecting and condoning before—with disastrous results. Yet I don’t want to hurt Shan.”

  “Perhaps it’s you who’s hurting Adria most,” I said quietly.

  Pain seemed to deepen in his eyes. “I’m trying to do what is right for her. It’s not easy. When I look at her—”

  He broke off but I knew what he meant. When he looked at Adria he saw Margot—dead. I ached for the child and pitied him. But I must think of Stuart too, and the truth—whatever it was—that must come out, whomever it injured.

  “Of course I’ll come,” I told him.

  He smiled gravely and I felt a twinge of guilt because he had no idea of my identity, no idea that he might be letting an enemy into his home. I no longer wanted to be his enemy, yet it couldn’t be otherwise. Stuart had to come first. I must never forget that.

  “Thank you, Linda,” he said, and held out his hand.

  I put my own hand into his, trying to remember his identity. Telling myself that this was the man who had been at one time a world idol. This was the man who might destroy—or save—my brother. His charm and attraction must not touch me. I must be immune. But as he held my hand in warm pleading he could not put into words, I wondered if I was.

  When he released me, I went toward the stairs. Clay was nowhere about and I did not glance in the mirror as I climbed to the second floor. In my room I went uneasily about getting ready for bed, my uneasiness compounded by many things—not all of which were evident to me then. When I was comfortable in nightgown and robe, I unpacked the rest of the things in my suitcase—among them the small carving of a skier that Stuart had made for me. I set it on the dresser and studied it thoughtfully. This figure had not been carved with the later skill Stuart had brought to the one he had made for Adria. My skier stood upright on his skis on level ground, ski poles thrusting to either side. He wore a peaked stocking cap, and his features were crudely delineated, yet one had a feeling that the carver had known the joy of skiing down a mountainside and had put something of the feeling into the tiny figure he had created.

  I was about to leave the carving on the dresser, as Adria’s sat on hers. Then I had a second thought and put it back in my suitcase. The carvings were too similar. Someone who had seen Adria’s skier might guess that the same person had created both.

  Before I got into bed I opened a window and let the cold night air come in. It was blindingly dark out there beneath the hemlocks back of the house. The cottages were not visible from this rear window, and the woods were too thick for the lights of Graystones to shine through. I was not used to such blackness, and I was glad to get beneath warm blankets and close my eyes.

  My thoughts were all for Stuart as I lay there, but there was a quivering darkness beneath them that I knew and dreaded. I did not want to think of that now. I turned on my side, then on my back again. I tried vainly to bring in other thoughts, to stop the rising tide of memory. But when this fiery thing came upon me, there was never any fighting it. At last I closed my eyes and lay still. I let it come.

  I could smell the smoke again. Hear the crackling of fire. It was wintertime and the windows were all closed. Something pulled me from my sleep. I rolled out of bed and ran in cold ba
re feet into the hall. At the far end flames bloomed in frightful beauty. My mother’s room was down there—the room she shared with my stepfather. Stuart’s father. I knew I must run down there and pound on their door. They had been out late night and they were undoubtedly sleeping heavily. I must wake them quickly.

  But I was afraid, and I turned toward my brother’s room instead. I ran through the door and found him sleeping soundly with moonlight on his face. In a moment I’d shaken him awake, pulled him from the bed and into the hall. He would have run toward his father’s room in spite of the flames, but I held him back, and we screamed our warnings together. I don’t know whether they heard us or not, but I was pulling Stuart toward the stairs and out the safe front door. We ran through the cold to our neighbor’s house and the fire alarm was turned in. After that everything blurred and I could never remember the full details of what happened.

  I know there were questions and speculations, but no one could be sure what had really happened. Our parents were found near their bedroom door overcome by smoke. The flames had cut across the hall between them and safety. If I had gone there first I might have saved them, but I never told this to anyone. On all sides I was praised for saving my young brother, and Stuart clung to me, broken-hearted, terrified. All that was safe and sure in his life had been wiped out by the flames. I was all he had left. And now he was mine—son, brother, friend. I had to make it up to him for the fear and doubt in my own mind. Doubt of myself. From then on, any who threatened him had to reckon with me. He had no need to fight his own battles, because I was always there to fight them for him. I had been a naturally gentle girl, but I changed where he was concerned. I was the lioness with her cub, and no one tried to thwart me. Now Stuart, was in the gravest danger ever, and only I could help him.

  I tossed in my bed. But the waking nightmare had taken its course and at last I slept.

  When I wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, I sensed the utter blanketing stillness all around, and I lay for a moment with an unexplainable chill striking through me. I was intensely aware that my bedroom isolated me from the rest of the house. Those guests who were staying overnight at the lodge had been placed in rooms at the front. Mine was at the rear, and the rooms next to mine were unoccupied. But nothing happened and gradually the thudding of my heart lessened. Still I was very cold, and sleep receded as I lay there shivering. Finally I reached for the bed lamp switch, and when the room brightened I got out of bed and rummaged in the dresser for another blanket. Luckily I found one in a bottom drawer, and carried it back to spread on my bed.

  Then I remembered something else. Something I had not taken out of my suitcase, but had left in a pocket in the lid, locking the case and setting it in the room’s closet. Now I brought out the case and opened it to take the magazine from the pocket. I huddled under my blankets with the light on, so I could read.

  This issue was dated some months before, and the magazine was a popular one, given to newsworthy articles, and commanding a large circulation. Its cover bore the title “The Griefs of Graystones,” and above the words was a color picture of Julian McCabe in his great days as a skier. This was no racing picture, and he was without goggles or helmet—bareheaded as he skied for the pleasure of it. He looked rather like Adria’s carved figure, his knees turned and bent, exhilaration on his face, his gaze fixed ahead, watching for danger.

  I flicked the pages to the article, knowing exactly where it was. The first pictures were of Graystones, taken from an angle that emphasized the tower. Though it was a summer picture, the house still looked bleak and harsh against the rise of mountain behind. There were more pictures of Julian, and two of Margot—one obviously a Studio portrait, the other a candid shot taken at Loveland a year or so before her accident. In the latter she was laughing up at some man whose back was turned to the camera. I did not think it was Julian. I could study her face better in the portrait.

  Short fair hair curled softly about her cheeks and she had the rounded forehead and chin of a rather touching child. Her blue eyes looked trustingly out from the page, and while she was no beauty, she seemed utterly feminine and appealing. It was hard to imagine so soft and gentle a creature turning hard and unforgiving because of the accident for which she blamed her husband. I could see why he must have loved her deeply, and suffered over her crippling, why he must suffer now because of her loss, suffer pain when he looked at Adria, who might have caused this loss.

  There was a single picture of Adria, also on skis, though not very clear, but no picture at all of Shan. Probably a dryad would be camera shy. There was also, of course, a candid shot of Stuart, taken at the time when Emory had first accused him, and one last picture of Emory Ault angrily waving off a photographer. The lodge was given only scant mention in the article, and Clay Davidson was neither named nor pictured.

  Now, however, it was the article which interested me more than the pictures. I had read it several times after its publication, but now I read it again, with a new feeling of awareness because I had met the people portrayed—all except Margot. And I read it with a new suspicion. There was nothing very scandalous or startling in the treatment, though it made interesting reading. The writer had not played up the sensational, though he had not avoided facts. Julian was the hero of the piece, but only because that was the natural circumstance. Some space was given to the value of his tree farming operation, which took place on the far boundaries of the property. His interest in professional skiing was also mentioned.

  Stuart was not the villain, however. Not even “allegedly.” Shan was presented as a shadowy figure that gave little of her elusive essence, and she came in only briefly. All appeared to be factual and objective, except for one subtle aspect that I had not been aware of until now. Margot McCabe did not come off at all well. Nothing was stated bluntly, yet one sensed a woman who had been spoiled and protected as a young girl, who had craved admiration and attention, and had turned bitter when her severe accident chained her to a wheelchair.

  When I finished reading I looked once more at the name of the writer. It meant nothing to me, and now I knew it was not his real name. I had the growing conviction that I knew very well who had written this article about Graystones, and that only Clay Davidson could have done it. Somehow, I disliked the fact that this should be so. It seemed less than admirable that, working for Julian as he did, he should use Graystones as the basis for a commercial article and sign a pen name to it.

  I wondered at the bitterness that seeped through when it came to Margot, and the way he had kept Shan almost entirely out of the piece. I remembered his eyes upon her earlier this evening, though what all this added up to, I didn’t know. I wondered further if Julian had seen the article, and if he knew who must have written it—and how he felt about that.

  Clay was now an enigma. I mustn’t trust him again with full accounts of what went on at the house. I must find out as quickly as I could where he stood in relationship to the family—and to my brother, Stuart. But I had thought about this enough for tonight. My watch told me it was three-thirty in the morning and I had better get some sleep. But as I reached out my hand toward the bed lamp I heard a faint, light tapping on my door.

  For a moment I froze in uncertainty. Surely no one who meant me well would come tapping on my door at this time of night. Still, even though the rooms adjacent to mine were empty, there were sleeping guests farther down the hall who could be awakened and summoned if there was any need. The faint tapping came again.

  I got out of bed and into my slippers, drew on my warm robe and went to the door. “Who is it?” I whispered.

  “It’s Clay,” the answer came.

  I unlocked the door I had cautiously bolted earlier, and opened it a crack. Clay stood well back across the hall and he was fully dressed.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “I seldom sleep well, and I was out walking about in the snow when I saw your light. I wondered if you might be ill. Or if—” He broke off, as though he did not want to
finish that “if.”

  Suddenly I had to talk to him, and we couldn’t keep whispering here in the hall. I opened the door further.

  “Come in for a moment,” I said. “There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

  His hesitation was slight, but he did hesitate. I picked up the magazine from the bed and held it out to him. At once he came into the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Where did you find that?”

  “I brought it with me. I told you I’ve been interested in Graystones for a long time. Tonight you said you were a writer, and this piece seems to have been done by someone who knew the facts intimately. I’m sure none of the McCabes would have told these things to a reporter.”

  He crossed the room, walking as lightly as Cinnabar, and stepped to the window. “I ought to have a night light put out here at the rear of the house. There’s one among the cottages, but we need one here as well.”

  “You mean you aren’t going to tell me?” I asked. “Has Julian seen this? Does he know you wrote it?”

  He turned from the window, making up his mind. “Of course he’s seen it. He asked me to write it. He knew there was going to be an article and he thought I could put the whole thing in perspective more honestly and with less emphasis on the sensational than the average reporter. I’ll admit that I didn’t want to write it. It wasn’t easy to do.”

  Somehow I felt enormously relieved to know that Clay had not been guilty of going behind Julian’s back.

  “I’m glad Julian knows,” I told him.

  Clay’s look was thoughtful. “What did you think of the article?”