Season of Snows and Sins

by Patricia Moyes

  And so it was. I bought a small Christmas tree from the newly opened co-op store in the village, and Anne-Marie helped me to decorate it. I bought boxes of red candles and reels of silver tinsel, so that the little chalet glowed and sparkled. Even Herbert seemed to put on a cheerful face as he roared comfortingly away through the wintry evenings.

  The Tibbetts arrived on the Friday before Christmas, on the indomitable bus which climbed ponderously up the winding road from the valley, come rain, hail, or snow. They were in high spirits, and obviously delighted to be back in Switzerland. They had spent a couple of days in Geneva en route, they told me, meeting old friends—including an Inspector Colliet of the Geneva police, with whom Henry had been concerned on a case a few years ago.

  “You mean, you were working with him? I thought only Interpol—”

  Henry laughed. “No, my dear Jane, I was not working with him. Very much the reverse. Actually, I was the chief suspect.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story. Anyhow, we ended up the best of friends, and it was good to see him again.”

  The Tibbetts settled in at once to Les Sapins, miraculously transforming all its discomforts into a delightful sort of game. What was more, they even persuaded me to go skiing.

  When Emmy first broached the subject, I simply roared with laughter. “No, no,” I said. “Not me, darling. Far too old.”

  “You’re no older than we are,” said Emmy.

  “But you’ve been doing it for ages.”

  “No, we haven’t—we only started a few years ago, and we haven’t been able to keep it up. You can learn at any age, so long as you’re reasonably fit and you take proper lessons. Come on, Jane. You can’t live in a place like this and not ski.”

  There was a lot in what she said, of course. It was sad and silly to have to watch the chattering, laughing groups of skiers every morning, climbing the hill outside the chalet with their skis on their shoulders, and never to be able to join them. It was just one more thing to cut me off from the mainstream of life in Montarraz, and when it came to waving good-bye to Henry and Emmy—my contemporaries—and going back to the studio and kitchen while they headed for the high slopes, it was the last straw. My resistance to Emmy’s idea was halfhearted, and the very next day I agreed to hire the necessary equipment and join the beginners’ class. Although I did not realize it at the time, this was to prove a fateful step.

  It did not start very fatefully. Henry and Emmy escorted me to the ski-school assembly point and left me standing beside a blue-and-white notice board marked “Classe 1.” I was feeling idiotic in my red trousers and white anorak, trying to remember how the man in the shop had told me to put on my skis, and wishing heartily that I had never come. The Tibbetts went off to join the lordly characters of Class 4, and for an awful moment I thought that I was to be the only beginner of the day. Then I saw another woman approaching, looking uncertainly from notice to notice, and finally hurrying toward the spot where I stood.

  “Excuse me, madame,” she said in French. “Is this the assembly point for beginners?” And I saw that it was Mme. Claudet.

  Unlike me, Sylvie Claudet looked exquisite. We must have been about the same age, but whereas I am tall and somewhat angular, she was petite, with a pocket-Venus figure and beautifully set fair hair with artificially silvered streaks sparkling in it. She was all in beige—impeccably cut trousers flaring over beige ski boots, and a little mink-fringed battle-dress jacket. One thing we did have in common, however—we were both patently scared.

  I reassured her that this was, indeed, Class 1; and by the time the other pupils arrived, we had exchanged names and were chattering away, our friendship blossoming in the hothouse of shared apprehension.

  As a matter of fact, the morning’s lesson turned out to be great fun and not at all frightening, and both Sylvie and I were complimented by the instructor—unjustifiably, perhaps, but it made us feel we hadn’t done too badly in comparison with the rest of the class, who were all youngsters. When it was all over, it was only natural that I should invite Mme. Claudet to come with me to the café, where I had arranged to meet Henry and Emmy for a pre-lunch drink.

  Class 4 had gone off on some great excursion to the top of the mountain, and the Tibbetts had warned me that they might be a bit late, so Sylvie and I (we were on “Sylvie” and “Jane” terms by then), were on our own for some time. I reminded her that we had in fact met briefly once before—in the unfinished apartment at Panoralpes.

  “But, my dear Jane, of course!” She was speaking English now, with a deliciously fractured accent. “All morning, I have asked myself where it is that I see your face before!”

  “You saw more of my seat than my face this morning,” I remarked.

  “No, no, you were so good. You English are all sportif. I would not come to ski, but Pierre insist. He say that now we have this apartment—you have seen it, the apartment at Panoralpes?”

  “Only that once,” I said.

  “Oh, when it is all ready, you must come often and visit us. How nice that we shall have a good friend so near.” Sylvie was like a kitten, for all her forty-plus years. I couldn’t help smiling at being called a good friend after a two-hour acquaintanceship—but that was Sylvie all over. She went on, “Bienne tells us the building will be quite ready in the spring, and then we shall move in. After that, we shall be busy in Paris, but next winter we will spend all the time we can here. Oh, I do so like Montarraz. I think I shall stay all this winter, with you and my darling Giselle, and if Pierre has to go to his silly old office in Paris, that is—how do you say?—his bad chance!”

  “Does…does your husband ski?” I asked. My hesitation was due to the fact that I hardly liked to refer to a minister of the French government by his Christian name.

  “Pierre? Oh, yes, he is the great expert—or so he says. That is why he insist for me to learn, so that when he come here I shall not be so maladroite.”

  “He’s not with you now, then?”

  “No, no. He is at this boring conference in Brussels.”

  I blushed. I had quite forgotten about the Common Market Christmas summit, as the papers called it. I should have known where Pierre Claudet was.

  “And so I stay until Christmas with my darling Giselle, but then I go back to Paris to Pierre. Or so he think. Me, I think I shall stay here in the sun.” And Sylvie stretched her arms luxuriously toward the blue sky.

  Then the Tibbetts arrived, more drinks were ordered, and before we knew where we were, the whole party from Les Sapins had been invited for drinks that evening to darling Giselle’s chalet, to meet darling Giselle. I felt a bit dubious; after all, Sylvie was apparently a house guest at this Chalet Perce-neige, and I wondered what her hostess would think of such an invasion. However, Sylvie was adamant, and so we accepted.

  The Chalet Perce-neige, or Snowdrop, was as different from Les Sapins as was possible for two dwellings which could both be described as chalets. Wood as a basic building material and a faintly alpine flavor in the design were all that they had in common. Perce-neige was in the most fashionable part of Montarraz—far enough outside the village to make it extremely inconvenient to reach without a car, as we discovered to our cost. It stood in a couple of acres of ground, protected from any prying eyes which might be lurking even on that small country road by a dense plantation of fir trees, as well as a stout wire fence. If you were not keeping a sharp lookout for the discreet signboard beside the formidable iron gate, you could easily miss it altogether.

  Emmy, Henry, and I arrived on foot that evening—by bad luck, my little car was temporarily out of action. We had not realized just how isolated the chalet was, and consequently we were very late, footsore, and irritated. As I rang the bell, we all agreed that we would stay for just one drink, and then telephone for a taxi to drive us home.

  In fact, we wondered whether we would get as much as one drink, because the place seemed to be deserted and in total darkness. However, the chime of the be
ll had hardly died away before a light came on in the little porch under which we were standing, illuminating us prettily. At the same moment, a faint clicking sound came from behind the little iron-barred window in the front door. We were being inspected from the inside.

  There was a tiny pause, and then a light went on in the hallway inside, and the door was opened by an excessively handsome young man—dark-haired and sunburned—wearing very tight white trousers and a purple silk shirt.

  “Come in,” he said in French, but with a strong Italian accent. “Sylvie is expecting you.”

  I think this is the moment to describe the Chalet Perce-neige, even though, of course, we were able to explore its exterior only later on. The house was modern, but genuflecting toward a traditional alpine design, and had been built on a manmade plateau on a steep, south-facing slope. The plateau had been carefully landscaped to include a tennis court, a reconstruction of an old Valaisan stone well, complete with wrought-iron superstructure and bucket-lowering gear, and an elaborate dovecote. The gardens, at the time of our first visit, were covered in snow, but the swimming pool had cleverly been incorporated into the house. That is to say, an enormous sort of lean-to structure made of plate glass jutted out from the west wall to enclose the pool and its adjacent fountains, so that swimming could be enjoyed at tropical temperatures even when the snow was drifting outside. I remembered my chemical water closet and couldn’t help smiling. The principle was the same.

  For the moment, however, we saw none of this. We found ourselves in a warm, pine-scented hallway paneled in light-colored wax wood, where the young man divested us rather brusquely of our anoraks and then flung open a huge frosted-glass door.

  “They’re here,” he said, and propelled us into the main living area of the Chalet Perce-neige.

  I say “living area,” because the word “room” really does not apply to such an enormous space. Designed on several levels, it included a cocktail bar, a dining recess, a music area (complete with grand piano, drums, and several guitars, electric and hand-operated), and a vast open fireplace from which a log fire sent flames leaping up into a rough stone funnel, as well as a sizable drawing room furnished with elegantly opulent leather-covered furniture. In this part of the room, obliquely lit by flickering flames and lamplight, were two women. Sylvie Claudet, wearing a leopard-printed trouser suit, was lying full length on her back on a sofa, smoking a black Russian cigarette; and crouched on a sheepskin rug in front of the fire was a tiny figure, like an orphan child sheltering from a blizzard.

  “Darlings!” said Sylvie, not moving from her horizontal position. She waved her cigarette vaguely in our direction. “Come in. Have a drink. Mario!”

  “Yes, Sylvie?” The young man reappeared at the door.

  “Bring some booze for these people, darling Mario.” Suddenly she sat up straight. “Jane, Henry, Emmy. Forgive me. I am so stiff after the ski lesson this morning, I can hardly move.” But she jumped to her feet lithely enough, and stretched out both hands in a warm, simple gesture of welcome. Then she said gently, “Giselle, darling.”

  The small figure in front of the fire did not move. She was sitting crouched, her knees drawn up under her chin, her head down, and her long black hair falling around her like a mourning veil. My first thought had been to compare her with an orphan of the storm; now, all at once, she looked like a witch. Then she raised her head, pushed back her trailing hair with long, white fingers, and smiled at us—and I saw that it was Giselle Arnay.

  I suppose it always comes as a shock to meet face to face someone whom you know from their screen performances. The meeting is so very lopsided. To me, Giselle Arnay was somebody I felt I knew very well. I had laughed with her in Vacances à Paris, I had cried with her in Le Diable de la Nuit, and in that extraordinary modern film version of Oedipus à Colonus we had share—or so it seemed to me—a deep spiritual experience. To her I was a total and perhaps not very welcome stranger. Then, there is the question of dimension. The exquisite face which had filled a wide screen in close-up now shrank to a tiny, pale triangle; the body—well, of course, the camera is a notorious liar, making the skeletal look normal, and the normal elephantine. Still, I had not been prepared for how minuscule she was. I felt that I could pick her up in one hand, like a baby bird.

  “Hello, Sylvie’s friends,” she said in barely understandable English. The smile said the rest, but after the first dazzlement, I realized that it was a press-conference smile. It meant nothing.

  We accepted drinks and made a few foolish and stilted remarks about the house and the snow conditions, and tried not to gawk too obviously. I felt a little annoyed at having been taken off my guard. Sylvie might have warned me who “darling Giselle” actually was. Mlle. Arnay herself said very little, retreating under her curtain of hair again, and staring at the fire. After ten minutes or so she suddenly stood up and said, “Excuse me. I go to bed now.”

  Like a well-mannered child, she solemnly shook hands with each of us in turn, and then—again like a child—ran out of the room. It was just half-past six. I saw Mario and Sylvie exchange a brief glance. Then Mario poured another round of drinks, and unobtrusively slipped out of the room. It was all a little odd but soon forgotten.

  Sylvie slid easily into the role of hostess, and soon we were joined by other guests—mostly young, mostly from Paris. I never gathered half their names, but I know that one of the girls was a fashion model, one of the older men a film producer, and at least four of the young men were a pop group, who quickly took over the guitars and drums. Mario reappeared with a big tureen of onion soup, which he served with hot, garlicky bread and jugs of red wine. We all sat on the floor.

  Before long Henry was deep in conversation with the model girl—who, it appeared, knew a niece of his in the same profession in London; Emmy was explaining to a long-haired young guitarist how to make a Christmas pudding; and I found myself expounding the joys of skiing to the film producer, who knew even less about it than I did—that is to say, nothing at all. It was a gratifying experience.

  When the group struck up for the second session of the evening, it seemed to me that it was time we went home. We had been asked only for drinks, after all, and it was already past ten. Henry and Emmy agreed, and the film producer volunteered to drive us back—an offer which we accepted gratefully. We withdrew quietly, leaving Sylvie and the young people to enjoy themselves.

  It was only when I was tucked snugly up in bed at Les Sapins, listening to the infinite silence of the alpine night outside the windows and the quiet roar of the stove, Herbert, in the hall, that it struck me just how strange the evening had been.

  For a start, none of the guests had even mentioned Giselle Arnay, and she had not reappeared; and yet, it was her house. Perhaps, I thought, I understand the young even less than I thought I did. Then, there was Mario. What was his position at Perce-neige? A servant? A friend? It was none of my business, of course…but it was puzzling, and I don’t like puzzles. Anyhow, I thought sleepily, I’ll see Sylvie at ski school tomorrow. I’ll keep in touch. The real interest that I had in the Chalet Perce-neige was a purely professional one. I was absolutely determined, somehow, someday, to get Giselle Arnay to sit for me.

  As it was, I was doomed to disappointment. Sylvie Claudet did not appear at ski school on the following day. The day after, she turned up in a stunning lilac velvet outfit, and remarked casually that Giselle had gone back to Paris. Somehow, I was not surprised. The image of Giselle Arnay lingered in my mind as an insubstantial shadow, a tiny, dark presence, not quite a real person.

  Sylvie Claudet, however, was very much flesh and blood. She had another two days in Montarraz before rejoining her husband in Paris on Christmas Eve, and most unusually she found herself alone at the Chalet Perce-neige. I don’t want to sound cynical; I think that Sylvie had genuinely taken a fancy to me and to the Tibbetts. All the same, I don’t believe she would have embraced us with quite such fervor if she had not felt somewhat deserted. In any case, for wh
atever reason, the Chalet Perce-neige became our headquarters for the next few days.

  Mario had departed with Giselle, leaving Sylvie in the care of Mme. Brizet, the cook, and her elderly husband, who tended the garden. The Brizets did not live in, but made their way up from the village each day, from eight in the morning until six in the evening. Mme. Brizet busied herself in the kitchen, producing delicious meals; while we swam in the heated indoor pool in the daytime and sipped hot wine around the fire in the evenings. It was delightful and luxurious, and Sylvie was gay and friendly, and yet…and yet, I never felt entirely at home in the Chalet Perce-neige. I was not really sorry when Christmas Eve came.

  We all went to the station to see Sylvie into her first-class compartment on the Paris train, and with a distinct sense of relief we went back to Les Sapins. Herbert was roaring cheerfully in the hall, the Christmas tree sparkled in a corner of the tiny living room, and Anne-Marie was singing to herself as she scrubbed the kitchen floor. I think we were all glad to be home.

  It was a quiet, happy Christmas, up there in the snows. We skied in the daytime—I was promoted to Class 2, to my great pride. In the evenings, we relaxed over good food and drink. On Christmas Day Emmy and I cooked a frozen American turkey and opened a tin of English Christmas pudding. Anne-Marie and Robert came in for a glass of wine, and we all exchanged small presents. And then, the holiday was over. Henry and Emmy went back to London, and I resumed my tranquil life, feeling every day more at home in my new place—Montarraz.

  Then January came, and with it, as I have said, Giselle Arnay’s runaway wedding to Michel Veron. In April, the snow melted, and the tourists with it, and Robert Drivaz married Anne-Marie. Panoralpes was finished, and Sylvie arrived to supervise the lorry loads of expensive furniture that rolled up the hill from Geneva.

  I must say, the Claudets’ apartment was beautiful, and I spent a lot of time there, helping Sylvie to move in. Anne-Marie, happy as a bird with her new husband and her new home, was a tower of strength, and Sylvie—to my delight—made a point of congratulating M. Bienne on finding such an ideal concierge. She also left a spare set of keys with Anne-Marie, and concluded a satisfactory bargain by which Anne-Marie would clean the apartment whenever required.