Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  For just a second he held me against him, his face in my hair. “I was so furious with you. Because you wouldn’t stop. Because you had to go headlong into danger. Clay told me about the letters—and I guessed. But now I’m only thankful you’re alive. Wait with him, Linda.”

  He put on his skis swiftly and went down the last third of the trail to the house and telephones. I left my skis lying in the snow and plodded to where Stuart lay. I knelt in the snow beside him and bent above him, my tears flowing unrestrained. Dark wetness seeped across the snow, and I took off my parka, peeled my sweater over my head and then wadded it to stanch the flow of blood from his scalp.

  While I put on my jacket again, I talked to him. “Julian’s gone for help. It will only be a little while. Oh, Stuart, Stuart!”

  Moonlight fell upon his upturned face, and I could see the flicker of his eyelids. He opened his eyes and looked up at me, and something in his look beseeched me.

  “I know,” I whispered to him. “I know you’d never have dropped me.”

  But he wasn’t thinking of me. His gaze shifted from my face, looking off into the distance.

  “She never put her brakes on,” he said so softly that I could barely catch the words. “When I pushed the chair, she never tried to fight me. She let it go—straight to her death.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I told him. “Don’t try to talk.”

  He paid no attention to me. “She would have told Julian we were having … affair. Not true. She’d have made him drop me. All the skiing ended.… I … couldn’t let her. She wanted … to die. She …”

  His head fell sideways and there were no more words. I felt his pulse under the mitten and found a faint beat. He was only my little brother whom I’d loved for so long. I bent and let my lips graze his cheek as he had done mine. Then I got up and began to stamp about in the snow because I was shaking so, because I was terribly cold and frightened.

  Though it must have been quite soon, it seemed forever before the Ski Patrol men, wearing their parkas with the big yellow crosses on the back, came down the trail by snowmobile, dragging a sled behind them. They were quick and efficient, and they had strapped Stuart down under blankets by the time Julian came back up the trail, climbing in walking boots, without his skis.

  The ambulance was already on its way, and the snowmobile went ahead of us toward the house: Julian put his arm about me as we walked, and I used my ski poles for a cane. Back at Graystones, doctor and ambulance had already gone by the time we got there. Shan had brought Julian’s car home, and he drove me to the hospital in East Stroudsburg. Stuart was unconscious and all that could be done was being done. There was a good possibility that he would pull through. The sheriff was there, but we told him as little as possible. We still knew too little ourselves.

  The doctor gave me pills to help me sleep, and Julian drove me back to the house. I couldn’t talk to him. My brother had caused Margot’s death—the only person he had been protecting was himself—and there was nothing I could say. He left me to my silence, and I could not tell what he was feeling.

  All I remember of that night was that Shan looked in once or twice, and Julian sat beside my bed until I went to sleep. All the words that must be spoken were left until tomorrow.

  XVII

  First of all in the morning there was Adria, to whom the truth must be told, to whom reassurance and comfort must be given. Julian was alone with her for a long time, and when they had talked enough, he brought her to my room, where I was dressed and waiting for whatever the day might call for.

  Julian said the doctor had phoned, and Stuart had a broken shoulder and a scalp wound, concussion. But I could see him later in the day if I liked. He was not mortally hurt and he would live.

  Adria came straight to me. “I’m sorry about Stuart’s getting hurt. But I’m not sorry it was Stuart who—who—”

  I caught her to me. “I know, darling. But it could never have been your father. We know that, don’t we?”

  But had we known? Didn’t we both feel guilty over our lack of trust? There was much we owed Julian now.

  When Adria went away, he spoke to me a bit grimly. “Clay and Shan and I sat up and talked late last night. We compared notes and reconstructed as we haven’t done properly till now. Would you like me to tell you our conclusions while you have breakfast?”

  “Of course,” I said, as grave as he.

  Until now we had all had only bits and pieces. It had taken Stuart’s wild actions to pull everything together. The answers were simple and quite terrible.

  Margot had told Julian more than once that she could no longer endure life, and that was his fault—but if she went she would find a way to take him with her in one way or another. As she considered that he had destroyed her life, she would destroy him. Unfortunately, he didn’t pay enough attention to her threats. So she began to write her letters, drop her hints that Julian meant to harm her. A letter went to Emory and one to Clay, each blaming Julian if anything should happen to Margot. She got a boy from town, who was going away to school in another day, and brought him in to saw through the guardrail for her. She had him take out a piece, telling him that she wanted to put ornamental iron in its place. She had him nail it back loosely in the meantime. She could be persuasive enough, plausible enough when she chose, and the boy asked no questions, and was gone before the “accident” happened. Not until a few days ago had he come to Shan and told her about the curious job he’d done for Margot.

  Next, Margot planned her course of action so that someone would push that chair. She tried hard to infuriate Julian, so that he would be the one, but he only stamped away from her, angry, but not one to strike out at her violently. She tried to torment Clay, to get him to act, but he laughed at her. There was only Stuart left. When she attempted to promote an affair with him, he would have nothing to do with her. And he took no action until she told him she meant to go to Julian with a story that Stuart had been trying to make love to her, that he was undercutting his benefactor in every way. Here she had fertile ground. Stuart could not bear to lose Julian’s patronage, but even then he acted without planning when he pushed the chair, goaded by Margot.

  On that last morning he must have gone from the library, where he’d been talking to Clay, through the drawing-room door to Margot’s room. He was the “ghost” Adria had seen reflected in the windowpane, moving behind her. He went to make one last plea with Margot, and when she wouldn’t listen he lost his temper. Her chair was poised at the head of the ramp—purposely—and he pushed it as hard as he could, perhaps more in angry reaction than with any dire intent. Then he ran out to leave the house by the front door. Margot’s chair, unchecked by brakes because she didn’t want to check it, flew down the ramp and across the few feet of yard at that narrow place, to break through the weakened guardrail and fling Margot into the ravine.

  Julian and Emory were working in different parts of the yard. Julian saw the chair strike the rail, and he ran down to the ravine and was the first to find her. Emory believed that Julian had killed her, and when the police arrived he got in his word first—that he was the one who had found the body. Julian could see endless questionings arising if he contradicted Emory, so he let it go. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter.

  But Emory had already found what he thought was a scapegoat. He had no belief that Stuart had really killed Margot by pushing her chair, but he decided to pin the thing upon him, save Julian, and punish Stuart for the affair he had supposedly been trying to promote with Margot Emory never really cared whether the wrong man was charged or not, so long as he saved Julian. He didn’t care who was hurt—and that included me, whom he regarded as dangerous to Julian’s safety.

  He talked a bit to Shan, who was upset, but went along with his deception in order to protect her brother. Shan hoped it was Stuart, wasn’t entirely sure it was Julian, feared that it was Adria, and much of the time retreated into her own world and shut the whole thing out. Until my arrival on the sce
ne.

  Clay, too, was undecided. He rather thought it was Julian because of the letter. But he meant to keep still and see what happened when it came to Stuart.

  But as he had pointed out—I was the catalyst. I had begun to make things happen, and I stirred up forces against me without realizing why. It was fortunate that I had stirred up better things too—the change in Adria. And perhaps even in Julian.

  I ate my breakfast and listened in silence. When I had heard all I could bear, I excused myself and went up to my room and began to pack. I’d had nothing more to offer him by way of information, and I could stay here no longer. My own world had collapsed about me at that moment when Stuart had held me over the abyss. I still did not know whether or not he would have dropped me, and perhaps I would never know. But I knew now that it was his hands which had sent Margot to her death. Perhaps if it had not been for what she herself intended, Stuart might have hurt her, punished her spitefully, but it was unlikely he would have caused her death. But how the law would look on all this no one knew as yet. There would be grim days ahead—and a trial to get through. I could not stay at Graystones.

  Julian had been kind to me, solicitous. He had kissed me and put his arms about me. And that was that. I knew how I felt about him, but there was nothing to be done except put distance between us and start recovering. To be near Stuart, whether he was in hospital or jail, I would stay in town.

  In my packing I came upon the Ullr medallion, and I set it ruefully upon my dressing table. It belonged to Julian, not to me—and I couldn’t bear the sight of it. But the thing that really destroyed me was the small carving of a skier that Stuart had made for me so long ago. I drew it from the pocket of my suitcase and felt the smoothness of the wood in my fingers, knew by heart the poise of the small carved body as it came down some imaginary slope. I dropped to my knees beside the open suitcase on my bed and wept bitterly, the small carving clasped in my fingers.

  Julian found me there. He came tapping on my door, and when I didn’t answer he opened it and looked in—saw me beside the suitcase, with my head on my arm, the little skier in my hand.

  He came in and closed the door gently behind him, bent to take the carving from me. “It’s like the one he did for Adria, isn’t it?”

  “I failed him!” I wept. “I did all the wrong things while he was growing up. If I had been different—”

  “Poor little mother,” Julian said. “Though of course that’s what every parent thinks at times like this. And through no fault of yours you had to be more parent than sister. But who’s to weigh the import of genes against anything else? I doubt that Stuart was like others in his family. His mold was his own. Except to learn from the past, it’s never profitable to go back to distant reasons for causes, and it’s not the way the law looks at things. It is the hand that pulls the trigger which kills, and Stuart was apt to be trigger-happy.”

  “Don’t talk about him like that!” I cried, the old sore anger against Julian rising in me.

  “We’ll have to talk about him a lot. And about Margot. And Emory—and all of us. It’s silence that has let us down. Silence for too long. If it’s any comfort to you, the law, while not shifting blame, will take into account that there was no planning on Stuart’s part, and that Margot, who wanted to die, goaded him to what he did. And now perhaps you’ll tell me where you’re going, why you’re packing?”

  I dashed at my tears with wet fingers. “I don’t know. To town for a while until I know about Stuart. I’ll be out of here as quickly as possible. Perhaps you would drive me in?”

  He carried the carved skier across the room and placed it beside the medallion. “Stuart will be back eventually. He’ll be on skis again. Stay here and wait for him.”

  I raised my head and stared at Julian as he went on casually enough:

  “After all, you have a job here. It will last until Adria goes back to school. I think she should be able to return next term, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want to stay here,” I said, and got resolutely to my feet. “There are too many—too many—”

  “Memories of a bad time? But don’t they need to be erased with better memories?”

  I shook my head. “Every time you look at me you’ll remember Stuart. And how can I be of any use with Adria, when I did so badly with my brother?”

  “You’ll do all the better now for having learned. So stop reproaching yourself.” His words were curt. “I don’t know of anyone I’d rather trust Adria with—permanently.”

  He looked quite furious with me—prickly and angry, as if he resented having to argue with me. Quite suddenly I smiled at him.

  He caught me by the shoulder, whirled me to him, engulfed me in his arms. His kiss was hard on my mouth.

  “Does that make it any more clear? Adria needs a mother. And I need a wife. A proper wife. But quite aside from practical matters of that sort, I don’t want to live without you. You’re a stormy petrel, and quite wrong-headed at times. You make me angry. You annoy me. But will you please say that you love me, Linda?”

  His second kiss was more tender as I raised my face to his. “You already know that I do.”

  Something struck a window and splattered. Outside, Adria was throwing snowballs. We went to the window and looked out. Her face was radiant as she laughed up at us.

  “Come down and play with me!” she cried. “Both of you!”

  Both of us. Julian waved at her and we went to put on our outdoor things and join Adria in the yard. Now was the time to begin making new memories to overlay the old.

  Appearing from nowhere, Cinnabar walked amiably down the hall with us, permitting our company. Old ghosts had been laid, and he was only a big orange cat.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Pam Conklin of Camelback for introducing me to “the mountain” in all its aspects—lifts, and trails and sweeping views, and for placing the friendly hospitality of the base lodge as well as her knowledge of skiing at my disposal.

  Thanks also to Joan and David Toms of the Swiftwater lodge, The Antlers. Here I first sampled those memorable evenings of ski talk, firelight singing and fondue, which help to further the mystique of skiing.

  A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney

  Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”

  Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.

  Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.

  In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).


  After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.

  In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.

  Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commercial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.

  Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961) and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.