Season of Snows and Sins

by Patricia Moyes

  “So?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  After that, neither of us spoke. She sat, like an exquisite statue, immobile and uncomplaining. I began to work the pliant clay, drawing out the bones and muscles under the surface, feeling the planes and contours coming to life beneath my fingers. I was utterly absorbed, utterly concentrated, utterly happy.

  Emmy

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I DON’T MIND telling you, Jane had me worried. I mean, Henry and I had known her for years, and she had always been what I call a nice person. When her husband, Simon, was alive, things had been easy for her, I suppose—but I’ve met plenty of people who have everything in life, and still make a complaining hash of it. Jane was comfortably off, happily married, and talented—and she made absolutely the best of it. She was a marvelous hostess, a witty conversationalist, a personality; she was also generous, unconventional, completely unsnobbish, and she never gossiped. Henry and I both loved her.

  When Simon died so suddenly, she behaved just as well and bravely as I would have expected. He left her very inadequately provided for, because he had been something of a gambler in business and had never anticipated being struck down by a coronary in his early fifties. I happen to know that Jane had several unpleasant shocks to cope with after his death. She didn’t tell me, of course, but I heard from other people.

  For a start, the Chelsea house had not belonged to Simon, but was heavily mortgaged. Unable to keep up the payments, Jane found herself literally without a roof over her head. The Bentley turned out to be the property of the firm—another scrap of information which Simon had not thought fit to pass on to his wife. She also learned that he had opted for a pay-less-now pension scheme which would have provided quite handsomely for both of them had he survived until the age of seventy. As it was, he had gambled on longevity, and lost. Jane was left to manage on a shoestring.

  As I said, I heard none of this from Jane herself at the time, and she made Meriel Blunt’s offer of a Swiss chalet sound like a glamorous dream come true. In fact, it just about saved her bacon. Meriel told me afterward that they had been on the point of accepting a huge offer for the land, but had decided that Jane needed the house more than they needed the money. She had had to run the place down, she said, before Jane would accept it, in case it smacked of charity. Having seen Les Sapins, and knowing how land values are rising in Switzerland, I must say I don’t think Meriel and Charlie were being quite so altruistic as they made out, but the point is that Jane, in disaster, was courageous, resourceful, and quite without self-pity. I admired her more than ever, and when I saw her bronze of Anne-Marie in the Bassingtons’ London garden, I realized that she had progressed greatly as an artist since Simon’s death.

  Henry and I thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to Montarraz. Jane appeared to have settled down happily, to have adjusted from a life of luxury in Chelsea to the rigors of Les Sapins, and to have integrated with the local community. We had all laughed afterward about our bizarre evening at the Chalet Perce-neige, and Jane had shown a healthy lack of respect for the local celebrities. And now, suddenly, it was all different.

  Naturally, I didn’t blame Jane for accepting Sylvie Claudet’s offer of her apartment—it was heavenly, and only a fool would have turned it down. Still, from the moment of our arrival there, I could sense a change in Jane. She wasn’t relaxed any longer; she was as tense as a drawn bow, and had the same tendency to twang nastily if even slightly plucked. When she told us the story of Anne-Marie, I thought that explained everything. Now, I was unsure again.

  For a start, that evening with Giselle Arnay and her ridiculous barbecue. Honestly, if you could have seen it… Henry had told me exactly what he had seen through the binoculars after our raclette picnic, and it seemed to me that Giselle and Michel probably knew they had been overlooked, and were determined to scotch adverse criticism in the village. Which just shows what silly conclusions one can jump to—if Henry ever reads this, he’ll make me rewrite that sentence. He has a passion for correct grammar which I don’t share.

  Anyhow, the point is that Jane fell for the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker. I suppose it was flattering for her as an artist, having Giselle Arnay fawning all over her and begging to be sculpted, but I thought she’d have been level-headed enough to see through a ploy like that. But the more she talked, the more it seemed to me that Jane was going soft, was slipping into the role of yes-woman to the Verons and the Claudets. I didn’t like it.

  More than anything, I was haunted by the thought of that poor girl, Anne-Marie. I remembered her vividly—so gay, so young, so vulnerable, and on the brink of happiness.

  Of course, I couldn’t blame Jane for her part in the wretched affair—she had to tell the police the truth as she saw it. But was it really the truth? Was there no other explanation? There did not seem to be. Jane knew Anne-Marie well enough, and she had seen her going back to her chalet before five o’clock. All right, the girl must have been lying. That didn’t necessarily make her a killer.

  No, I didn’t blame Jane, but I did blame Giselle Arnay—and it made me feel sick to see Jane fussing around her, more like a teenage fan than a grown woman. Meanwhile, down in the valley, Anne-Marie waited for her baby, entirely alone. When she went to the hospital, she would not have a single visitor, for the Sisters never left the convent.

  It was true, of course, that Jane and Sylvie had both tried to visit Anne-Marie, and had been snubbed. Well, that was understandable enough. They had both, however unwittingly, contributed toward the verdict of guilty. But surely if an outsider, somebody quite unconnected with Robert’s death, somebody she knew… That was when I decided to drive down to Charonne and see the girl myself.

  I had intended to tell Jane about my plan at lunchtime, but she was so offhand, so wrapped up in herself and Giselle, that I thought better of it. So I just asked if I might borrow the car, and left it at that. I expect she noticed that I was a bit brusque—or perhaps it did not register. She was entirely concerned with getting back to that studio of hers.

  I did tell Henry my idea, and he agreed that I should go alone. He thought I would have a better chance that way of getting to see Anne-Marie.

  The drive to the valley was beautiful, revealing a series of glorious panoramas as the road snaked downhill. Soon I could see the steep red roofs of Charonne clustered below me, dominated by the square church tower. A little way outside the town, I could pick out the forbidding, barracks-like shape of the convent.

  At close quarters it looked even more daunting. The garden was well kept but severe, and the whole place seemed deserted. The windows, set in regimented rows, were actually barred, like a prison. The whole building seemed to have turned its back on the world. With some trepidation, I grasped the iron bell pull and jerked it downward. I was answered by a mournful chime, which died away into the stillness of the interior. The dark oaken door, with its barred grille, remained firmly closed.

  Then there was the sound of heavy footsteps on stone, the grating of a bolt, and the little door behind the grille shot open. I found myself looking into a pair of steady gray eyes, which studied me from beneath the white wimple and black veil of the order. The face, which was middle-aged, was calm but severe, not unkind, but with no softness, either.

  “Yes?” said the nun. She did not smile.

  I summoned what I hoped was an ingratiating smile, and my best French. “Good afternoon, Sister. I am sorry to bother you, but I have called for news of Anne-Marie Drivaz.”

  “You are a relative?”

  I shook my head. “She has no relatives that I know of. I’m a friend.”

  “She has no friends,” said the nun simply, stating a fact.

  “That’s not true.” I was nettled, and my smile was wearing thin.

  “When did you know her?” the Sister demanded, adding, “You are a foreigner”—as if it were an accusation.

  “That’s right. I’m English. I met Anne-Marie when she was concierge at Panora
lpes, in Montarraz. I was staying there.” I had decided not to mention Jane, remembering the hostility with which she had been greeted. The nun considered this. “I see. Your name, madame?”

  “Tibbett. Emmy Tibbett. Anne-Marie will certainly remember me.” I paused. “How is she?”

  “She is well.”

  “The baby…?”

  “Expected next week.”

  “Look, Sister,” I said, “I would very much like to see Anne-Marie. I have made a special journey here. May I come in?”

  Again the calm gray eyes appraised me. Then, without a word, the nun bent down, and I heard the noise of heavy bolts being drawn, and the groaning of an old-fashioned key in the lock. Then the door swung open, to reveal a long, bare, stone-flagged corridor. Silently the Sister stood aside to let me pass. I stepped into the chilly twilit bleakness.

  The Sister led the way down the corridor, her heavy black shoes thudding on the stone flags like the footsteps of some medieval jailer. Near the end of the corridor she opened a door and said, “Please wait in here, madame.” Then she had gone.

  The room was small and cheerless. It contained a plain wooden table on which lay a black Bible, and four upright chairs. On the walls were a crucifix and a couple of bad reproductions of sentimental religious paintings. The small, high, barred window let in a little light, but no sunshine. I sat down and waited.

  After about five minutes the door opened again, and the Sister returned, followed by a woman whom I could scarcely recognize as Anne-Marie. She was wearing a curious sort of floor-length apron, which made her look like an old-fashioned housemaid with a leaning toward holy orders, and under it her pregnant stomach was swollen and ugly. Her lovely hair was invisible beneath a hideous white cotton coif, like those worn by hospital nurses at the turn of the century. In the heat of the summer, she was wearing thick black woolen stockings and stout black laced-up shoes. Her face was as pale as her white headdress, but her hands were red and roughened by hard work and harsh kitchen abrasives. A huge black cross, made of some heavy material, clanked on her chest like fetters, and the weight of it seemed to drag on the back of her neck, so that her head was permanently bent forward, her eyes always on the ground.

  “Well, Anne-Marie?” The Sister’s voice was stern but not unkind. “Do you know this lady?”

  Anne-Marie raised her eyes timidly and looked at me. I smiled warmly. There was a tiny answering flicker—no more than a momentary gleam. Then she looked down again and said, “Yes, ma Soeur.”

  “Do you wish to speak with her?”

  “Yes, ma Soeur.”

  “Do you wish me to remain in the room with you?”

  Anne-Marie hesitated. “If you wish to, ma Soeur…”

  “Do you wish it, Anne-Marie?”

  In a whisper Anne-Marie said, “No, ma Soeur. If it is permitted…”

  The nun showed no emotion. “Very well. I will return for you in ten minutes.” She nodded briefly in my direction, and went out. Anne-Marie sat down on one of the hard chairs on the other side of the table, and we looked at each other for an endless, silent moment.

  Then I said, “I’m staying in Montarraz, and I did so want to see you, Anne-Marie. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you, madame.”

  “Are you happy here?”

  “The Sisters are very kind.”

  “Do you need help—of any sort?

  “No, thank you, madame.”

  We seemed to be getting nowhere. I said, almost roughly, “Anne-Marie, tell me the truth. You’re not happy, are you?”

  She burst out suddenly, “How can I be happy?” And then, lowering her eyes again, she whispered, “I do not deserve to be happy.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Everybody. I have been wicked.”

  “Have you? Anne-Marie, look at me. Have you been wicked?”

  There was a long silence. Then she said softly, “In my heart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wished that Robert was dead.” Her voice was not passionate, not even emphatic. It was apathetic—a repetition which had grown stale. “I wanted him to die. So the court was right to call me guilty. In God’s eyes, the thought is as evil as the deed.”

  “Who’s been saying that to you?”

  “Everybody. The good Sisters. They are right. They say I must be resigned. They say I deserve to be punished.”

  I was so angry that I didn’t trust myself to speak for a moment. Then I said, controlling myself as best I could, “You have been punished enough, Anne-Marie. Now it is time for you to be happy again. After your baby is born…”

  She began to cry very quietly.

  I went on, “I know it will be hard to part with it, but it is for the best. Then, you must leave this place.”

  “But, Mme. Tibbett, I cannot.” At last her voice, although choked with sobs, began to sound natural.

  “Of course you can.” I was growing reckless. “You have friends, you know. You mustn’t think you are alone. Mme. Weston is your true friend, if only you will believe it, and so am I. I might even be able to arrange for you to come to England.”

  “No, no, madame. I cannot leave here unless I go to prison.”

  I could have bitten out my tongue for my tactlessness. I had completely forgotten that the girl was under the sentence of the court. A three-year term in prison, suspended only on condition that she stayed in the convent. In fact, the only way to get her away would be to prove her innocence and upset the verdict.

  I said, “Of course. I had forgotten. We shall have to think what we can do. Meanwhile, I’d like to visit you again. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, yes, madame.” Anne-Marie extracted a handkerchief from beneath her hideous apron and blew her nose. She had stopped crying, and there was a distinct suggestion of her old self as she said, “You are so kind. It is wonderful to have a friend.”

  “But I tell you, Anne-Marie, you have many friends. Mme. Weston wants to come and visit you…”

  An iron curtain came down on her face. “I do not want to see Mme. Weston.”

  “And Mme. Claudet…”

  “Nor Mme. Claudet.”

  “Anne-Marie, you mustn’t blame them. The police asked them questions, and they had to tell the truth.”

  “They were lying, both of them,” she said fiercely.

  “Why on earth should they lie?” I said.

  “How should I know? I’m just an ignorant girl, not a fine lady. I only know they were lying, and I think it is perhaps because they know who really killed Robert. Somebody they wish to protect. Some rich person.” She spat the words out. Then she said, quiet again, “Forgive me, madame. The Sisters say I must learn humility, and it is true that I wished him dead.”

  “Now, I don’t want to hear any more of that nonsense, Anne-Marie,” I said. “If you didn’t kill Robert, you didn’t kill him, and you are innocent. Goodness me, I’ve often told Henry to go and jump in the lake. And meant it. That doesn’t make me a criminal.”

  She even managed a tiny smile at that, and she was still smiling when the Sister came back.

  “Have you finished your talk?” she asked me politely but coldly.

  “Yes, thank you, Sister.”

  “Then run along back to the kitchen,” she said to Anne-Marie. The girl jumped up, gave a curious little bob-curtsy, and went out of the room.

  I said, “She is looking very ill, Sister.”

  The nun sniffed. “That is hardly surprising. She is near her time.”

  “I think she is overworking.”

  “Did she say so?” A note of sharp suspicion.

  “No, no,” I said hastily. Above all things, I didn’t want to get Anne-Marie into trouble. “She didn’t complain at all.”

  “I should hope not. She is a very lucky girl. If our good Mother Superior had not taken pity on her, she would be in prison.” She did not actually add “as she deserves to be,” but the implication lingered in the air.

  On impu
lse I said, “Sister, do you believe that Anne-Marie killed her husband?”

  She froze me with a look. “It is not for me to say, madame. The court found her guilty. The matter is closed.” She held the door open pointedly, waiting for me to go out.

  In the chilly corridor I said, “I should like to come and see her again. I hope that will be permitted?”

  She tramped ahead of me in silence, her brogues pounding the worn stone flags. I thought she was going to ignore my remark altogether, but at the last moment, when I was already outside in the sunshine, she said, “I will ask the good Mother Superior.” Then the massive door closed, and I heard the bolts being shot and the key turning in the ancient lock.

  It was wonderful to be out in the sunshine again, away from the religious gloom and the smell of mingled disinfectant and incense. I drove down the road into Charonne, where I bought a number of small presents—a nestful of small, sweetly scented soap bars carved to look like roses; a bottle of eau de cologne; a pretty handkerchief in fine white lawn with a lace edge; and a little jointed wooden cow with a bell around her neck and an endearingly comic expression. Then I went to the largest fruit shop I could find, and got them to make up a basket of fruit, arranging the other little gifts among the apples, grapes, and bananas, and covering the whole thing with beribboned cellophane in the traditional Swiss style of gift wrapping. I could only hope that the rules of the convent and the humanity of the Sisters would allow Anne-Marie to keep my present, for I was sure that the trinkets would amuse her, and she certainly looked as though she could do with the vitamin C. Within an hour I was back on the doorstep again, ringing the iron bell pull.