Distant Flame

July 22, 1914

July 22,1914 C HARLIE STOOD IN THEthe library of Grace House looking at the names along the spines of books, familiar and leatherstruck , gilt shining in the sharp morning light. These were his last and best friends, foxed pages, steel engravings, volumes that marked the passage of his days. He took out a black volume and opened it: The Life, Speeches and PublicServices of]ames A. Garfield. . . The title wandered on for another seventeen words. Published in Boston by B.B. Russell. The flyleaf had grown the brown speckles of an old man's hands. President Garfield, in his engraved portrait, looked bored or even petulant, face hidden in a beard that was now lost to fashion. After Lincoln, it seemed American presidents were doomed to violent deaths. The library smelled of leather and dust, mostly history and biography . His tastes ran to Greece and Rome, to the early years of the Great Republic. On his desk lay a familiar oversized book: Merrill's History of Branton County, which had been struck in an edition of three hundred. All of them were eventually sold, but it took four years. Charlie looked at the book and knew it contained statistics, stories, and family lies. During his years as a newspaperman, he had written five books and achieved considerable national fame. Three were novels, and their long stories, of families bearing sorrow, of loves achieved, brought letters from all over the country. 44 PHILIP LEE WILLIAMS He walked across the room to his globe, an expensive blue ball sunk in the half circle of a mahogany frame, where it could be turned. He pushed it around to Europe, looking at the white bristles on the back of his hand, the yellowed fingernails, the slight tremor. Barry said that war was near, and Charlie believed it. Soon enough, men would have enough of peace anywhere, in place or time. They would feel an unassailable urge to destroy everything they had made, to spill blood, wreck cities, purge ideas. They would line up against each other and scythe down strong young men with murderous weapons—the teeth of an animal grown more perfect and voracious each year. Charlie felt the shadow again, hovering near him and whispering his name. He could do little else about it now. Only one other person could know what he felt. But she will not come. Small, rapid footsteps came down the hallway, paused, then turned into the library, and Charlie craned back and smiled broadly. "Catherine," he said. "I'm so happy to see you this morning, dear." "Papa, Mrs. Knight said you ate nothing, took Belle for a walk, and haven't written your speech. She called me on the telephone and said you were acting strange. Barry said you refused to pose for a photograph in your uniform. You've kept it in good condition in the attic all these years—what are you waiting for, the hundredth anniversaryof the battle?" Catherine Phillips stood in a fierce pose of love, arms down. She wore a fashionable green dress, not the high-collared affairs of her mother, but more comfortable, easier to managewith two children. She was not smiling but seemed more nettled than worried, her chestnut hair moving as she spoke. Always, Charlie recalled, she was an animated child, dancing along the hallways, running into rain with her head up, mouth open, as if she could inhale all nature. She was a force, a dimpled wind that lifted everything before it. He walked painfully to her, not showing the discomfort, of course, and he grasped her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. She smelled of rosewater and freshly cut fabric. "Cath, you look lovely this morning." "And you are changing the subject this morning. What were you doing walking the dog in this heat? Looking for a weed in the family plot?" "Just me," he said, laughing out loud. A Distant flame 45 "I worry about you, Papa," she said. Her voice was gentle and edged, like book leaves blessed with gold. She shifted from one foot to another, impossibly restless, loving motion as a young animal does, impossibly fit to frolic. He felt only a need for poise and slow motions. Perhaps he would turn into a statue one day, and that would be death. "I'm not wearing some ridiculous uniform for a picture. Barry had to ask, and I...