“He’s waiting for you,” Natalie said, and led the way toward the screens.
There was a space between them where she could step through into Roger Brandt’s own wide living room. He sat in a well-worn green leather armchair, his feet up on an ottoman and a book in his hands. I had time for a quick glance around at a desk, a wall of pictures—from his movies, no doubt—and many shelves that held books and objects he might have collected in his travels. Then my entire focus was on the man.
He stood up to greet me and I had the immediate sense of an actor performing. He meant to charm me—for whatever reason—and I stiffened to resist his easy attraction. There was nothing I wanted to like about Roger Brandt.
His handclasp was cordial. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Castle,” he said as though he was indebted to me.
I murmured something polite and noncommittal, aware of Natalie’s skeptical look.
“We might as well start right away. Natalie has things to do, I’m sure.” He gave his granddaughter a glance of dismissal.
Natalie stood her ground. “I’d like to see this picture, too, Grandfather.”
His smile showed a brittle edge. “Not this time, my dear. I want you to watch for your grandmother and keep her away while I’m showing Mrs. Castle this film.”
This, Natalie would accept, however grudgingly. “I don’t expect her home soon, but I’ll keep her away if she shows up.”
He thanked her and she went off, giving me a look I couldn’t interpret. I was aware again of his striking appearance—gracefully worn—perhaps more seasoned and impressive because of his years. The silk scarf at his throat might hide the damage of age, but it also gave him a jaunty air that I remembered from the screen. Vertical lines creased his cheeks when he smiled and gave his face more character than the young man had possessed.
Roger Brandt touched a button and a movie screen was revealed on the side of the room away from the view. Two armchairs were set before it and he motioned me into one of them. When he’d turned off the lights and drawn the draperies across the glass, he came to sit beside me. The projector stood on a table before him and he turned it on.
The black-and-white picture began to run and my attention was wholly absorbed. Roger Brandt was immediately on-screen in full cowboy regalia. He’d skipped the movie titles and gone straight to the action, where he seemed to be riding to the rescue of a beautiful society girl who had been kidnapped by the villains. His handsome palomino was climbing a wooded trail above a river that tumbled across black rocks. Undoubtedly the Rocky Broad, since this was no western landscape. When he dismounted before a tumbledown mountain shack, a rough-looking character came to the door. There was a heated verbal exchange and then the cowboy thrust the bigger man aside and strode into the shack. How well he knew how much the camera loved him!
But now Victoria Frazer was on the screen and I had eyes for no one else. There were no close-ups at first, but she looked utterly beautiful in the careful disarray of torn shirt and well-cut jodhpurs, dirty at the knees. At once, Roger released her from her bonds. There was no talk between them—it was straight action as he carried her from the shack in strong young arms.
Obviously, the character he played in the film was not in awe of her patrician elegance, and her half-amused response to this high-handed rescue reminded me of later actresses who had played such roles with less sophistication than Victoria Frazer. She was like no one I had ever seen on a movie screen. If she had lived, she would have been one of the greats, and my own emotional response surprised me.
“This is a picture that should be revived,” I whispered to the man beside me.
He stared at me, then looked away, nodding toward the screen, so I watched again. The first real close-up showed Victoria’s enormous eyes, which could express every nuance of emotion, even though their green was lost in black and white. Only in the eyes did we resemble each other. I couldn’t imagine anyone would ever take me to be related to Victoria Frazer, and I sighed with a certain regret. Again Roger glanced at me and then back at the screen.
The slightly foolish story ran on and I didn’t try to follow it. I simply watched those two whenever they were on, watched the electricity that sprang between them. This wasn’t acting and I could understand why Roger had no wish to have his wife know that he owned a print of Blue Ridge Cowboy.
The scene changed and I missed the transition. The cowboy and the lady were dining together in a lavish private room that I guessed to be at the Lake Lure Inn. A room apparently engaged by the wealthy young woman—much to the comic embarrassment of the cowboy, unused to such surroundings. It was obvious to the audience that their love affair was doomed from the first, since they were totally unsuited to each other. After some awkward conversation, the cowboy brought out a gift for the lady. He handed her the crudely wrapped box across the table.
“It’s something that belonged to my mother,” the cowboy said. I heard the ardor beneath his words and knew that it was real.
Victoria’s voice was low, throaty, filled with tears as she expressed delight, unwrapping the tissue to reveal a satin box. If cameras whirred around them and booms moved, with the whole movie crew watching, to say nothing of the director—one would never know. I’d often wondered how movie actors could lose themselves so completely in a scene, carrying an audience with them into the story, in spite of the mechanics of moviemaking that surrounded them.
The camera moved in for a close-up as Victoria held up a silver bracelet decorated with tiny silver bells. She gasped with delight, and the camera caught the shine of tears on her cheeks.
Roger Brandt whispered in my ear. “I really gave that bracelet to her when we played the scene. She was happy then—her tears were real.”
I heard the catch in his voice, the sadness. Though all this was long ago, the record of a living moment between them was still there in the film—and he had not forgotten.
How strange to consider that we, the audience who watched old movies, knew so much more than the actors on the screen ever could. We knew what hand fate had dealt them—who had lived and who had died. We knew what the future held for them, and that made such films all the more poignant.
The bracelet shone with its own silver light and the tiny bells, silent now in my purse, chimed from the screen. Victoria held out her hand and Roger clasped the bracelet about her wrist.
I wanted to take out my treasure and show it to him, but I didn’t dare. I had no idea what the consequence of such a move would be and I wasn’t ready. Not yet. One day soon, perhaps, I would show it to him and tell him who I was. Not because I felt affectionate or sentimental but because I wanted—rather fiercely at that moment—to hurt him, punish him for what he had done to my grandmother. Now, however, I simply watched in silence.
The story on the screen continued to unfold rapidly. The villains showed up again and there was the usual fistfight. The cowboy and the meanest assailant did a dive through breakaway glass in a prepared window frame, sailing out into space and then dropping to the ground, where they finished the fight.
Beside me, Roger Brandt laughed softly. “That fellow didn’t like me, and he punched pretty hard, though I gave as good as I got. It was a fine fight. You did your own stunts in those days—that was really me flying through the window. Not like the easy course actors take today.”
I nodded politely and then looked back to the screen, where there was another scene that held my rapt attention. The cowboy and the lady were scrambling around in the dirt, digging for gems. I missed how this tied in to the story, not that it mattered. My grandmother held out her hand to show the cowboy her assorted treasures. He picked out one small stone and swept the rest from her hand. Then he kissed her palm warmly.
I knew this, too, was real. The love scenes were all real—and, of course, even more passionate offscreen, since a baby had resulted. On impulse, I reached into my bag for the scrap of tissue that held the tiny emerald Betsey had given me. This I could show him. Like Victoria on t
he screen, I held it out on my palm for him to see. Even uncut, the green end that emerged from its sheath of stone caught a gleam from the screen.
“Is this the emerald she gave you?” I asked.
He took it from me and for the moment we both forgot actors and screen as the projector wound on.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“It really is the same emerald,” I told him. “Your wife took me to visit Betsey Harlan this morning. Before we left, Betsey sent your wife out to her car so we could talk privately abut Victoria. She gave me this and showed me a beautiful white gown she said Victoria wore in the picture.”
Whatever Roger’s reaction might have been, he revealed nothing. He held the stone in his fingers and watched the screen. “Look,” he said, “you’ll see the dress.”
Time had passed while we were talking and a ball was in progress far from the small mountain town where the earlier scenes had taken place. Victoria wore the white dress Betsey had shown me, her beautifully shaped head bound in the gracefully folded white turban Betsey had probably made for her.
Waltzing in the arms of an officer in uniform, she looked so sad that it broke my heart. I knew this sadness, too, was real, since she could never have her cowboy for keeps either in the story or in real life.
But then—dramatically—the palomino mare, with Roger Brandt in the saddle, stepped onto the polished floor of the ballroom, with silver chandeliers glowing overhead. Alarmed and indignant, dancers scrambled out of his way. When he reached Victoria and her partner, he dismounted and took her from the officer’s arms to whirl her down the room in a waltz so beautiful that the other dancers stood apart and watched. The dress flared out as the camera followed them and then came in for a close-up of Victoria’s face as she watched her partner with her heart in her eyes. One might wonder where a cowboy had learned to waltz like that, but this, of course, was Hollywood.
The mare, well trained not to take alarm, stood still, waiting. Suddenly, Roger Brandt swept his partner down the room and then left her as he vaulted into the saddle. The camera showed the agony in Victoria’s face as she looked up at him. Then, in a sudden graceful move, Roger leaned down to her. She took his hand and sprang with skill and ease into the saddle in front of him, hooking a knee over the western pommel. His strong arms around her, they rode away into a staged sunset. At the last minute, Roger turned his head and glanced back at the camera, speaking worlds in that familiar look. Strangely, Victoria never looked back for the camera to catch a final close-up of her.
Startling me, Roger left his chair abruptly to turn off the projector before the credits ran. He made a great business of opening the draperies and flooding the room with trembling light from the lake. Perhaps he didn’t want me to see whatever emotion had touched him and might show in his face.
When he returned to the chair beside me, he had himself in hand. “So there you are.” He spoke with deliberate lightness, as though he discounted any earlier feeling he might have shown. “I haven’t watched that in years. I ought to burn it, really—it’s not my best picture.”
“But you won’t,” I said softly. “Why did you let her go? Why did you let the baby go?”
Anger sprang to light—not in the actor but in the man. “That is nobody’s business. Now that you’ve seen what she was like, Mrs. Castle, what will you do with this remarkable knowledge?”
His cold fury frightened me, but I managed to answer quietly.
“I’ll feel it—savor it. I’ll remember. How graceful she was, flying up into that saddle in front of you. What riding skill that must have required.”
“Hah!” he said, irony evident in his voice. “Such great skill!” Whatever momentary mood the movie had roused in him was gone. He was an old man—impatient, and perhaps a little put off by young love.
“Why are you so interested?” he demanded. “Your husband didn’t care in the least about Victoria’s side of the story.”
“He wouldn’t have let you know if he did.” For a moment, I was almost ready to tell him the truth. But once taken, the step would be irrevocable, and I had no idea what the result might be. Roger Brandt was unlikely to open his arms to a granddaughter whose mother he had long ago rejected.
“How did she die? How did she really die?” I asked.
He turned away from the light, so that whatever he felt about the question was hidden. His next words astonished me.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight, Lauren?” It was the first time he had used my first name. “I would like to take you to the Esmeralda Inn, where we all stayed while that picture was being made.”
Perhaps I’d been wrong. Perhaps remembrance of how the young man felt had remained. I tried to keep too much eagerness from my voice. “I would enjoy that.”
“Fine. Then you can tell me about your visit with Betsey Harlan and why Camilla took you to see her.”
So, as I suspected, he’d had no knowledge of what his wife had done.
“I’ll pick you up at the lodge at seven,” he continued. “Though I don’t advise letting Gretchen Frazer know that you’re meeting me. I’m not a favorite of hers.”
“I’ve already discovered that. But I don’t consult with Miss Frazer about anything I do.”
This time, his smile once more belonged to the actor—warm and approving. He still held the tiny emerald and I didn’t ask for it back.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” I promised. “Thank you for the privilege of seeing Blue Ridge Cowboy.”
Whatever emotion had shaken him after the picture ended was now under control. Suddenly, he looked very tired, and I took my leave quickly.
When I reached the door by which I’d entered, Natalie was waiting for me. “Let’s go out another way. Gran has just driven in, and it’s better if she doesn’t know that you were with my grandfather. She has an uncanny ability to figure things out, and it would be disastrous if she got wind of this screening.”
She led the way to the lower part of the house, where I had visited her yesterday, and then went out on the walk that ran down to the boathouse.
“I’ll take you back to the lodge by boat,” she said, hurrying ahead of me. “I just hope Gran doesn’t look out a window and see us.”
All this secrecy and caution disturbed me. “Does everyone in this family keep secrets from everyone else?” I asked as we reached the stretch of dock that ran beside the boathouse.
Natalie didn’t answer. A small pontoon boat was tethered to the dock. I noted its name wryly: The Jolly Roger. Natalie held it steady while I stepped down to sit in one of the four seats. But before she could cast off, Justyn came running down from the main house, looking upset. What a family at odds this seemed to be.
“I’d like to talk with you, Mrs. Castle,” he said as soon as he reached us. “You seem to have caused my mother to act in an odd manner this morning. I came back to the house with her just now and I’m worried about her state of mind. We do try to protect her and my father.”
This seemed surprising. Protect them from what? I’d seldom seen a lady more in control of herself than Camilla Brandt. I’d have thought she was always one to guard her emotions.
“Get in, Dad.” Natalie sounded impatient. “Let’s get away from the house. Grandfather has just shown Lauren his print of Blue Ridge Cowboy. If Gran should suspect he has that movie, much less that he’s shown it to Lauren, she’ll really be upset.” Justyn took the seat opposite me. I suspected that he was the one who was upset.
As we chugged out of the little cove and reached-the body of the lake, I tried to give myself up to savoring the beauty of this place. I mustn’t allow these crosscurrents in the Brandt family to upset me. I had a lot to think about before my dinner with Roger Brandt. More than anything, I wanted to see Gordon and tell him all that had happened and find out what he thought about these developments. But that must wait until morning. For now, I looked down the lake to where distant high peaks stood in hazy blue contrast against the sky. Bright su
nlight gave the lake a golden cast. All around, thick tree growth tapered down the banks to the water’s edge, reflecting its deep green shade. At no point was the lake very wide, conforming as it did to the shape of the original valley that had been filled in. This made it possible to grasp a clear, lovely vista almost all at once. A luring lake indeed.
Along the route, I could look into little inlets where boats were moored and where houses showed through the trees. The houses sat at the water’s edge and also high on the steep hills beyond.
When we were out of sight of the Brandt place, Natalie turned off the motor and we drifted on calm water.
Justyn was ready to explode. “Why did Dad show you that movie, Mrs. Castle? Nobody ever mentions Victoria Frazer around him—so why?”
I tried to answer quietly. “Your mother wants me to continue Jim’s work that was left unfinished, so I felt I needed to know more about the Victoria Frazer side of the story. I mentioned to your father that I wished I could see the picture and he offered to show it to me. That’s all.”
Justyn looked more shocked than seemed justified. “Why is everyone so put out about this?” I asked. “It all happened so long ago—what can it matter now, except as an interesting story?”
Justyn and Natalie exchanged a look I couldn’t read. He made an effort to control his temper and speak more quietly.
“I never approved of Jim’s project in the first place, Mrs. Castle. It’s pointless for you to try to pick up his work.”
I rather agreed, but I wouldn’t tell him that. “Your mother seems to think this is something that should be done.”
“She’s off on one of her enthusiastic notions,” Natalie told her father. “She even took Lauren to see Betsy Harlan this morning. A prejudiced viewpoint if ever there was one. I wondered if Gran might want to stir things up.”
“I’d better talk to her,” Justyn said. “Not that she’s likely to listen. Mrs. Castle, you can’t possibly know all the ramifications involved, but, believe me, it’s better to let this alone.”
Star Flight Page 13