My sympathy turned wholly to Victoria and I had little patience with Roger. I had just come to Victoria’s supposed suicide and the resulting scandal that had ruined Roger’s career. But before I could read further, I heard steps on the stairs. A moment later, Roger Brandt walked into the shop. I was screened from his view where I sat, and he didn’t see me. I gave up the copy of the book to Megan reluctantly.
While it was being wrapped, I went to stand beside Roger. “Good morning,” I said. “I see you needed a copy of the book you were telling me about last evening.”
He hid any surprise he might feel at my presence. “So it seems,” he said shortly.
“Why do you want a copy after all these years?”
He looked off toward the silken dragon winding its colorful way across the end wall. “To keep it out of your hands, of course. Ramsay wrote a number of lies into his account, and I’d hoped they were long forgotten. I should never have mentioned the book to you. Now you are stirring up unhappy occurrences all over again.”
“Lies about you, or about Victoria?”
I had seen that same expression of angry distaste on the screen—usually followed by some violent action. But he could hardly draw a gun and shoot me. He wasn’t even on a horse.
“Lies about my wife,” he said.
I hadn’t expected that, and I was silent. He smiled wryly, pleased that he had startled me. Now I was all the more curious about whatever part Camilla had played in the famous tragedy.
“How is your wife?” I asked.
He surprised me with his own question. “Where did you get that bracelet?”
Ty’s earlier visit made me hesitant to tell him, but I could find no real reason not to answer his question. “Victoria’s brother, Ty, gave it to me. But that’s all I know.”
What that might mean to him, I couldn’t tell. He thanked Megan, picked up his package, and walked out of the shop. Far from being accepted as his granddaughter, I was clearly less than nothing in his eyes.
Gordon had stayed out of this exchange, but he had been listening. “I’d certainly like to know what’s in that book,” he said. “Do you know where we could get another copy, Megan?”
“I don’t think I can get you one. It’s been out of print for quite some time, but you might look up the author,” she suggested. “I believe Dennis Ramsay is still alive and living out at Fairfield Mountains at Lake Lure. Perhaps he would loan you a copy.”
Gordon and I looked at each other, and I knew we were again on our way.
“We’ll have lunch first,” he said, “and then we’ll look him up. That’s a good tip—thanks, Megan.”
I felt a new stirring of excitement. Dennis Ramsay, whether I approved of what he had written or not, had lived at the time of all those happenings and he had known the principal players.
As we walked back to the car, Gordon told me about Fairfield Mountains.
“It’s a residential resort on Lake Lure and Bald Mountain Lake. There are homes for family living, a golf course, and a beach. It’s exclusive and well protected. You don’t just walk in. I’ll phone when we get to the restaurant and find out if Ramsay will see us.”
Gordon seemed more relaxed than he’d been earlier, and I began to relax a little myself. We were sharing something in a search we could make together.
11
We drove up Sunset Mountain high above the city. Grove Park Inn, Gordon told me, was one of the grand old hotels of the South. It had opened in 1913 and had received distinguished guests from all over the world. William Jennings Bryan had given the opening address, and presidents had stayed there. It had been modernized considerably over the decades, but the basic rocks with which it was built could never be changed.
A winding road took us to the top, where I had my first view of the astonishing building. Thousands of tons of rocks of all sizes, from huge boulders to smaller stones, had been carried up the mountain and painstakingly fitted into the walls—by Italian masons, Gordon said. The visual effect of the massive structure of gray rock was overpowering. One had almost the same sense of awe that would be felt at viewing some natural phenomenon.
Windows had been set into the walls at intervals, overhung by a brown roof of surprising curves and scallops. Two more high rows of windows had been set into the roof itself.
Inside the great hall, more stonework was evident, framing doorways, mounting stairs, and set into gigantic fireplaces. We walked down a long corridor to one of several dining rooms, where we were seated at a table from which we could look out over Asheville.
When we’d ordered, Gordon went off to telephone Dennis Ramsay. “Wish me luck,” he said. “I didn’t know the man was still alive, so he must keep a pretty low profile.”
I waited eagerly for Gordon to return. More than ever, I wanted to know why Roger Brandt had tried to keep Mr. Ramsay’s book out of my hands.
Gordon came back quickly enough. “We don’t exactly have an appointment, but we’ll take a chance that we can see him. He was asleep when I called and I talked to his granddaughter, Carol Ramsay. Apparently, he has made it a rule for some time not to discuss anything about The Firefly or the events that made him write it. She said his memory isn’t as sharp as it once was and that he has become rather frail. But when I was insistent and told her who you are, Lauren, she gave in.”
As we ate our lunch, Gordon made an effort to distract me from my growing concern.
“I’ve heard,” he said, “that a scene from Blue Ridge Cowboy was filmed in a ballroom here in the Grove Park Inn.”
I remembered the scene where Roger Brandt had ridden his palomino into that room, scattering the dancers, waltzing with Victoria and then taking her up onto his saddle. She had risen so gracefully that I’d wondered how many takes it had required to achieve that smooth ascent.
At any other time, I would have wanted to see the real ballroom, but now something more important drew us, and we ate quickly. When we were on our way back to Lake Lure, Gordon said there was one more stop we might make to see whether we could find a copy of The Firefly—in case the author failed us.
Mountains Library was not far from Fairfield grounds and staffed by volunteers. There was just a chance that it might have the book we were looking for. Though of course it would be a plus if Ramsay would agree to see us.
Again we followed the high, winding road from Asheville until we descended into Hickory Nut Gorge and drove on past Lake Lure. Along the road, kudzu had made beautiful sculptures, hiding everything that lay beneath. Trees, old shacks, abandoned cars—all disappeared under the mantling of lush, destructive green. Ty Frazer would never run out of vines to harvest, and it was certainly time for the South to wake up to the way kudzu might be put to use.
The little library was set close to the road and interesting in itself. Three small six-sided huts had been joined to make a whole. Inside, the carpeting was bright and there were comfortable chairs. Shelves with colorful book jackets added to a cheerful atmosphere. Paintings by local artists had been hung wherever there was wall space. While a volunteer searched the shelves for a copy of The Firefly, I looked at the paintings. One in particular caught my eye and I recognized Natalie’s style.
Again she had painted the Indian village from an angle that included the ominous stake, with longhouses stretching back beyond it. At first glance, the scene seemed empty of any human figure. Yet I had the curious feeling that someone was watching me from around the corner of one longhouse. I moved my eyes quickly from one spot to another in the painting, as though I might surprise something I hadn’t seen at first glance. Of course there was nothing there, but the effect of Natalie’s curious spell reached out to the viewer.
I studied the picture carefully once more, and when I glanced sidewise from the corner of my eye, I caught the impression of a misty figure that hovered there—not quite in view. Gordon came to stand beside me, and I pointed out the illusion.
“I’m never sure how she does it,” he said. “In fact, I won
der if Natalie herself knows what can be present in her painting.”
“She’s good—but unsettling. I can see why your mother has a hard time selling her work.”
The librarian came to tell us that they owned one copy of The Firefly, which had been donated by Dennis Ramsay. It had sat on the shelf for years, only to be checked out just an hour or so ago.
Gordon and I looked at each other. Roger, of course.
We drove to the main gateway into Fairfield Mountains. The guard had been told to expect us, and he gave Gordon directions for finding the house where Dennis Ramsay lived with his family.
We found it easily, set on a rise of ground and apparently built from local timber, with a cantilevered deck that looked out across a lake on the highest level.
Carol Ramsay had told Gordon on the phone that her parents were away and she was looking after her grandfather. She waited for us at the rustic front door as we climbed the incline to reach her. She was a round-faced, pretty young woman who greeted us anxiously.
“I’m not sure I should have let you come,” she told us immediately. “He’s awake now, but not feeling too well.…”
I felt that she was about to turn us away, but Gordon spoke smoothly. “Perhaps we’ll be good for him, since we’re interested in his writing. As a journalist, he should want to meet Victoria Frazer’s granddaughter.”
She was still uncertain. “I’ve had second thoughts about this. If I’d known where to reach you, I’d have told you not to come.”
“Was Roger Brandt here?” Gordon asked, and everything fell into place.
“Well, yes. He hoped I would keep you away from my grandfather if you came.”
Gordon persisted. “Why don’t you let your grandfather decide whether he wants to talk to us or not?”
“All right—we’ll find out. But please don’t stay if he gets the least bit upset.”
We followed her out to the cantilevered high deck, where Dennis Ramsay lay stretched in a deck chair in the sun. In his youth, he must have been a big man, but now corpulence had taken over, so that his face was heavy with jowls and his flesh had gone ruddy.
“Grandfather, you have visitors,” Carol told him. “They’d like to talk to you about your writing.”
That seemed to bring him wide awake, and he looked us over curiously. “Are you connected with a paper?” he asked. “Is that why you want to talk with me? Nobody’s bothered for a long time.”
I decided to tell him straight out. “I’m Victoria Frazer’s granddaughter. I know that you wrote about her in your book The Firefly. Not many people are left who actually knew her, and I’ve wanted to find out more about my grandmother.”
He reached to a table beside him and put on thicklensed glasses, the better to see me. I couldn’t tell whether he was accepting or rejecting me. His question sounded cautious. “What do you want to know about her?”
“Anything you can tell me.” I pulled over a chair and sat beside him while Gordon drew Carol down the deck, leaving me alone with the author.
“I’d love to hear whatever you remember about her, Mr. Ramsay,” I went on. “I know so little, since my mother was sent away days after her birth.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes, I remember. I didn’t much like Victoria, but she fascinated me and I thought it was time someone wrote about her. I suppose I fell all over myself when I first met her and she consented to let me interview her. Later she turned against me. Nobody really got near her except Roger Brandt. Maybe I was envious of him at first—until I got to know Camilla and saw how badly he was treating his wife. What Victoria saw in that cowboy, or what Camilla saw, for that matter, I’ll never know.”
“Roger Brandt is my grandfather,” I reminded him.
He closed his eyes behind the glasses, shutting me out. “At least that’s how the story goes.”
I quickly called him on that, startled. “Don’t you believe what was said?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t. As their granddaughter, I suppose you want to glamorize Victoria and Roger, but that’s not what I did in writing the book. The Firefly is also about the beautiful woman they both betrayed.”
“Camilla Brandt?”
His sigh suggested a wistful memory, and I watched him closely as he continued.
“Camilla was strong as well as beautiful and she could hold her own well enough. She knew when to give Roger his head, and I don’t think she ever really worried about Victoria. He’d had a wandering eye before.”
“This time there was a baby,” I reminded him.
“That must have been hard for Camilla to take, but she stood by him when all that scandal broke into the open and his career went down the drain. A lot of good Victoria did him then. It would have been convenient for everyone if she had simply disappeared, but since she upped and died, everything became known.”
“Drowned in Lake Lure?” I said. “A suicide?”
“I never believed that, either. All that propaganda the studio tried to put out to make the story sound romantic! A lot of good it did.”
“But you wrote about Victoria—not Camilla?”
“Of course. She was the one who would sell my book, and Camilla never wanted to be written about. Strong, noble women aren’t as interesting to write about as those with a great deal of self-love who are flamboyantly wicked.”
I spoke quickly, indignantly. “I can’t believe that Victoria was wicked. What do you think she did?”
“Ask Ty Frazer and Betsey Harlan. Ask her sister, Gretchen. And of course Camilla could tell you, if she was ever willing to talk. It was all too neat—the suicide. What I asked in my book was who most wanted her out of the picture. Are you sure you want to dig into all this? How can it matter anymore?”
I was silent for a little while, wondering how much to tell him.
“There was another death,” I said. “My husband, Jim Castle, died a little more than two years ago under mysterious circumstances. He was making a documentary on Roger Brandt’s career.”
Ramsay stopped hiding behind closed lids and stared at me with a bright, curious look—still the journalist. “Of course! That’s who you are—Jim’s wife. He came to see me a few times and he seemed to want to talk more about Camilla than about Victoria. I suppose because Roger was the subject of his film.”
I spoke softly. “You’d fallen in love with Camilla, hadn’t you?”
He answered me indirectly. “I couldn’t see why Roger would stray from a woman like Camilla and take up with Victoria Frazer. Roger came to see me one time while I was working on my book. I was staying at the Esmeralda at the time, and maybe I had had a few drinks one night and said a few things about Victoria. He got pretty nasty and I had to throw him out.”
Interesting, I thought. “You knew them all, didn’t you—Ty, for instance?”
“Of course. I always liked Ty, even after Betsey turned him down and he took to the hills. He has a good heart, no matter what happened in the past, and he loved Victoria—even after he found out how much his love was misplaced. She never loved anybody but herself. Ty still comes to see me now and then and Carol always lets him in, though my son doesn’t think much of him.”
“And Gretchen?”
“It was pretty hard on her when Victoria disappeared. I guess she’d lived her life through her older sister for a long time. Gretchen still comes to see me, too. I have arthritis, high blood pressure—the works—and she helps me, though she scolds a lot, too. She tells me I have these problems because I haven’t respected the temple, as she calls the body. But she brings out her pots of goo and touches my swollen joints with her hands—and I’m better for months after she’s been here.”
I wanted to draw him back to the subject of Victoria, but I could see that he was tiring. Before I could ask any more questions, I wanted to make sure I had a copy of his book.
“Mr. Ramsay, would you loan me a copy of The Firefly?”
He studied me doubtfully before he looked away again, as though he couldn’t m
eet my eyes. “You won’t like what I wrote about your grandmother.”
“That doesn’t matter. Whatever she was like—and some people think she was an angel—I want to know her a little better.”
He made up his mind. “I’ll do more than loan you a copy. I’ll give you one and sign it for you. It’s not often that I get to play author these days.” He spoke to his granddaughter, who was still talking with Gordon down the deck. “Carol, can you find a copy of The Firefly for Mrs. Castle?”
When she went off on her errand, he had nothing more to say. I asked a question, but he seemed not to hear me, and when Carol returned with the book, it was as though he had forgotten who I was. She had to remind him of my name and how to spell it.
It was time to leave, so I thanked him, though I’m not sure he heard me. Carol came with us to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He can fade out like that when he tires—sometimes in the middle of a sentence. He did very well to talk to you this long. You caught his attention.”
“I think he wanted to talk about Camilla Brandt,” I suggested.
“Of course.” She smiled affectionately. “His great love! In his imagination, I’m sure she was that. I’m very fond of him. In his day, he was a top journalist. He even won an award or two, and I have an album of clippings—pieces he wrote for various papers. Though he never did another book after this one.”
We thanked her and went out to the car, and Gordon explained what Carol had told him.
“Roger was in a fierce mood when he came here. Carol was even afraid of him. But she felt indignant at the same time. He was going to such extremes to keep the book out of your hands that she decided to let us in. Now that you have the book—what?”
“I’d like to go back to the lodge and read it carefully.”
He looked uneasy. “Okay. Let me see anything that strikes you. And, Lauren—don’t go wandering off anywhere alone. I feel uncomfortable about Roger’s behavior.”
I agreed, but wished I could recapture that wonderful feeling I’d had on Chimney Rock. Roger and Dennis Ramsay had taken over.
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