by Edna Dawes
PINK SNOW
Edna Dawes
© Edna Dawes 1975
Edna Dawes has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1975 by Robert Hale & Company.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
If Kathryn was really honest, she would admit that one of the reasons why she was driving through Austria on this late afternoon in autumn was that she was running away from her mother. She fooled herself that the prime purpose of this trip was to find material for her book, but that was because she felt there was something particularly characterless about a girl of twenty-three who allowed herself to be intimidated by a parent.
In fact, she was doing herself less than justice. For years she had struggled to lead her own life, but Mrs. Davis was an extraordinary woman who had a large capacity for involving herself in the lives of others. She sat on numerous committees, but her overriding urge to do good often resulted in the reverse. Many a deserving person had found his early gratitude turning first to irritation, then to active resentment, but Kathryn’s mother sailed blithely on in the happy belief that she brought sunshine into every life she touched. It seemed impossible to convince her otherwise, thought Kathryn bitterly, as she bumped over a railway crossing in her red Volkswagen.
A few yards further on a signpost informed her that she was about to ascend Kapellerpass and Mosskirch, her overnight stop, was twenty kilometers beyond that. She would not be sorry to get there. It had been a long day at the wheel and the last ten kilometers had run through a quiet valley dotted with picturesque farms. It would be delightful on a bright sunny day but now, with the onset of darkness and as late in the year as this, it gave Kathryn a melancholy, somewhat triste feeling. Being extremely sensitive to atmosphere, the slightest hint of remoteness always had this effect on her. The mountains which ranged along either side of the valley now linked together ahead of her, forming the need for a tortured, winding road which climbed to the top and down the other side. There was little enough traffic in evidence for Kathryn to pray the car wouldn’t break down in this lonely spot. Her ignorance of motor engines had led several friends to advise against this trip on her own. Changing down to third gear on the first bend, she recalled the incident which had led to her impetuous decision.
One of her aunts had arrived at the flat and thrust a set of beautiful copper saucepans at her with a happy smile.
“I know it’s a bit early, darling, but Rosaline Forrester said your mother told Madge Norton that it was only a matter of time, and as we are off to Abadan next week I wanted to give these to you before we went.” She had put an affectionate hand on Kathryn’s arm. “I do hope your Andre is that gorgeous olive-skinned creature with the sleepy eyes who was with you at the Regency last month. When I looked at him I found shivers running down my spine.”
“Yes, so did I until I realized it was simply the cold weather,” Kathryn had replied stiffly.
A sizzling phone call to her mother had left that indefatigable lady quite unrepentant, and the last straw had been the sympathetic messages and advice on broken hearts which had poured in from every direction. Two days later she had left Bournemouth – left England!
At the top of the pass, a large restaurant with a commanding view of the Schale valley tempted her to stop, but she stuck to her resolution to continue until she reached Mosskirch. With the start of the descent her mood changed. Wistfulness was replaced by a surge of optimism, for this side of the mountain range was vastly different from the valley she had just left. Mosskirch lay in a wide basin through which a meandering ribbon of river ran, cutting the green slopes with a flash of silver and scattering the buildings into a delightful non-uniformity which gave the place character. The high peaks surrounding the village seemed to Kathryn to lay back from the valley, forming a majestic frame to the picture rather than towering menacingly as they had earlier this afternoon.
Dusk had fallen and lights were beginning to twinkle, beckoning her with the promise of lush meadows, clean pretty houses, and friendly Austrian country folk. Surely in a place like this she would feel free? With each left-hand turn the village below grew nearer and nearer, revealing separate features instead of an overall picture. She had already picked out two onion-domed churches, a large hotel or two, and a single-track railway, but the incline was getting steeper and she reluctantly stopped taking quick peeps as she negotiated the bends.
The road was now running between a wall of rock on the right, and clusters of pines where the ground dropped away to the left, so Kathryn switched on full headlamps and braked slightly as she approached an extra-tight bend. Still unused to driving on the right of the road, she used all her concentration on getting safely round it. Suddenly, a dark shape ran out from the wall of rock right into her path! For a split second her mind was paralyzed, but her body reacted instinctively. Hands turned the wheel sharply and the car headed into the pines across the road, hitting them with an impact which broke into a cascade of blinding white lights inside Kathryn’s head.
*
The white lights were still there when a cool hand touched her head and a strange voice urged her to swallow two tablets with a drink of water. The pain in her head came and went like the raucous sound of a police siren, so she did as she was told without question. It had retreated a little when next she woke.
“Hello. I thought you were never to be awake!” The speaker was middle-aged, plump with a rosy-apple face, and shining brown braids of hair wound round her head. The pretty dirndl and white blouse she wore looked surprisingly right on her ample curves and not a bit at variance with her thick stockings and sturdy shoes. Kathryn returned her smile and struggled to sit up, but the woman stopped her with a tut of disapproval.
“No, please do not move. Herr Doktor Hallstein will be here at any moment and will tell you what is to do.” She smoothed the quilt with work-worn hands. “I must myself introduce to you. Here is Frau Petz. I hope you do not offend that we have put you in the bed, but you must know that my husband found you by the road yesterday, and brings you to my Gasthaus. The Herr Doktor sees you at once and now again this morning.”
“How kind of you. I am very glad to be in this bed. At the moment I ache all over.”
She glanced round the room and liked what she saw. All the furniture was from golden-brown wood carved with skill and polished so that it shone. The floor of similar wood was covered here and there with wool rugs, and a small wash-basin in the corner looked clean and clinically white. The open shutters let in pale sunshine which lit the geraniums in the window-box to a vivid splash of red and formed a panel of yellow on the plain-washed wall beside the bed. Far in the distance, she thought she could make out a range of mountains, but didn’t really trust her eyes in their present state.
The Austrian woman was watching Kathryn with an anxious face.
“You all right here? It is not necessary that you remain for your holiday, I understand that, but it was better that you were soon in bed. Do you remember what has happened to you?”
Kathryn wrinkled her brow. “Not really. Everything seems a little dream-like at present.”
“You were driving to Mosskirch yesterday when you have an accident. Herr Petz has seen you lying in a car by the trees.” She wagged her head. “It is lucky that the trees have been there, or you would fall much distance.”
A vague recollection of h
er journey made Kathryn exclaim, “Heavens, yes! I remember seeing the lights of the village way below me, and feeling excited at arriving here.” The memory brought a little flutter of fear for what might have been her fate. On that mountain pass when she had been feeling so full of optimism, the darkness which suddenly engulfed her might have lasted forever instead of a single night!
A knock on the door at that moment heralded Dr. Hallstein, a tall thin man of around forty, with a sad face and myopic eyes hidden behind spectacles. He was plainly a man of a few words. Beyond telling her she should stay in bed until evening when she might get up to have dinner, and that she was most probably suffering from mild concussion caused by a knock on the head, he said very little.
“I really don’t remember what happened,” she told him. “There was a restaurant at the top of the pass and then I saw the lights of the village below me as I twisted and turned. That’s all!”
“Don’t worry. It will return to you when your mind is ready to accept it,” he consoled her. “It is not uncommon.” He stood up and grasped his bag. “I should like you to call at my surgery in four days. If you feel unwell before that time, you must call me, of course, but I do not think it likely.”
“Can I go out?” she asked quickly.
“You may do anything you feel like doing,” was the dry reply. “If it is too much, you will soon know.”
After he had gone, Kathryn fretted at the problem of remembering the accident, but the thought sequence stopped abruptly like a strip of film with the final picture cut from it. Abandoning the effort, she slept until late afternoon when Frau Petz brought a tray holding a pot of strange tea and a plate of delicious biscuits. Kathryn would have liked to talk, but the woman had to hurry away to prepare the evening meal because, as she explained, there was already a German family staying at the Gasthaus, and an English gentleman had just booked into the last of her four rooms. Kathryn turned down the offer of a meal in her room, feeling she had had enough of solitude for a while.
Doubts on the wisdom of her decision crept into her mind as she dressed rather shakily in a black skirt and pink and white overblouse, but the sound of happily chattering voices below spurred her on. A blast of heat hit her when she entered the Stube. Autumn nights were cold in Mosskirch and it was a foolish person who neglected to stoke up his large-tiled Ofen to warm his house.
Frau Petz had obviously been hard at work for the German family of four were serving themselves liberally from the mass of dishes on the table, and were already rosy from the warmth and several bottles of beer. A slim pretty girl with dark eyes indicated a triangular table in the corner, and Kathryn made her way across the room feeling very conscious of four pairs of eyes on her.
No sooner had she sat down than thick potato soup was brought to her by the young waitress who then asked her, in beautiful English, whether she wished to order a drink with her meal. Kathryn smiled and shook her head. “I would very much like a glass of wine, but I have taken so many tablets today I don’t really think it would be advisable. I must compliment you on your English. Where did you learn to speak so well?”
The girl waved a hand vaguely. “Here, in the school.”
“Really? You live in the village, then?”
The girl laughed. “I am Maria Petz. I prepared your room for you when my father brought you in. I expect you are anxious about your car. It has been towed to Peter’s garage, but he will not repair it unless you give permission.” She colored slightly. “Peter is my boyfriend, that is how I know.”
Kathryn shook her head in bewilderment. “I hadn’t given my car a thought. In fact, life has a rather fluffy quality at the moment. I don’t think I have taken in all the facts yet, and it seems so much easier to ignore them.”
“Maria,” called a voice from the back regions, and the girl picked up her tray. “I have to go. Please don’t worry about yourself. I heard Herr Doktor Hallstein tell Mutti that the bump on your head may make you forget what has happened for a little while.”
Kathryn sighed, and ate her soup slowly enjoying its thick nourishment. She let her eyes wander to the four Germans who appeared to be exchanging amusing stories. They spoke loudly with great animation, and their narrative brought roars of laughter and banging fists on the table. As was usually the case, another person’s jollity brought an answering response in Kathryn. She found herself silently participating in their happiness, even though she didn’t understand a word they said.
By the end of that meal a strange sort of communication had sprung up between them all. The Germans had introduced themselves individually with a slight bow and a handshake, and Kathryn gave them her own name. Since they hadn’t a common language in which to converse, young Maria was kept busy as an interpreter. For the first time in her life Kathryn faced the restrictions of a language barrier and vowed she would think seriously about studying anew when she returned home. Apart from a little school-girl French, the usual British confidence that all foreigners spoke English had prevented her from bothering to learn any other.
Eventually, the warmth of the room and the effort of being sociable brought a return of Kathryn’s headache, so she escaped to her room. Half-way up the stairs she heard the clatter of heavy shoes and, next minute, a man appeared on the half-landing above her. He checked his descent and stood back to allow her to go on up.
“Thank you,” she said taking in the sweep of dark hair above equally dark eyes, and the breadth of his shoulders beneath the black and white Tyrolean sweater.
“Oh, you’re English.” He smiled. “That makes two of us. I’m not too late for dinner, I hope?”
“I shouldn’t think so. I can recommend the meal; it’s delicious. There is also a very convivial atmosphere down there.”
The dark eyes flicked over her. “You’re coming back?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve had an exhausting day.”
“Been travelling, have you? Well,” he started down the stairs, “see you around.” The boots clattered on the wooden treads and a short blast of noise indicated that he had entered the Stube. Kathryn prepared for bed wrapped in thought. Maybe she would stay here for the rest of her holiday. The accommodation was comfortable, the food was good, and the other guests were . . . interesting!
It was raining the following morning. Not heavy drenching sheets of water, but fine, misty dampness which blotted out the tops of mountains and hung in a ghostly curtain right through the length of the valley. The meadows on the lower slopes were vividly green to her eyes and the belt of trees above them echoed the color in a darker shade. Chalet-houses with color-washed walls and lightwood balconies and window-boxes stood out cleanly in the moist atmosphere as though each of them had been newly painted.
Kathryn threw back her window and breathed deeply. The air outside was sweet and fresh. The clanking of cowbells in the distance added to her feeling of having stepped into one of her own story-books. Writing for children had developed in her an extra enchantment in things quaint and mystical. Mosskirch, as it appeared now, awoke thoughts of flaxen-haired maidens and wood-cutters, hobgoblins in the mountains, and houses made from gingerbread. This is what I need, she thought with a sigh of contentment. How right I was to come!
The Germans had already breakfasted and set off for the day with packets of sandwiches and fruit.
“They are here for a walking holiday,” Maria told Kathryn as she served the freshly-baked rolls and coffee. “Mosskirch is a fine area for mountain walks, but it is only for those with experience at this time of the year. The Braun family know the paths well. Even so, they have left word of where they are going today in case the mist falls lower and they cannot get back.”
“What happens then?” asked Kathryn.
“If they do not arrive here by nightfall, a party of men from the village will follow the route they have taken until the missing ones are found. Twice this season a search has been made for walkers who are lost. In one case, a young lady had fallen very badly and was too afraid t
o let her boyfriend return for help.”
“What about the other time?”
Maria spread her hands in disgust. “They were not missing. Some friends had persuaded them to have dinner at another hotel, so they were laughing and drinking while our men searched the mountainside for them.”
“I should think the search party would be livid when it arrived back.”
Maria nodded. “My father made one of the party – also Peter.”
“Your boyfriend at the garage?” put in Kathryn.
“Yes. He has learnt all he knows about the mountains from my father who, for many years, was a guide. There are not many who know as much as he about this part of Austria, but he is too, old for this kind of work now.” She hesitated for a moment. “I do not know what you would call this in English, but his work is seeing that the paths are well-kept and any dangerous landslides, or falling trees, are cleared away before they cause any accidents. This is why he was in the mountains when you crashed your car.”
“It was lucky for me that he was. I haven’t had an opportunity, to thank him yet, but please tell him I hope to meet him soon.”
This seemed to please Maria. “He will be happy to, Miss Davis, but he is out very early and does not return until late. I shall give him your message, though.”
“There is the matter of my car, too. I’ll walk along to the garage to see your Peter this afternoon. I would like him to repair the car; I can’t go home until he does.”
The door of the Stube swung open at that moment, and heavy boots announced the arrival of the dark-haired Englishman.
“Good morning,” he said to them both. “I hope your breakfast coffee is as good as last night’s, Fräulein, because I am just ready for some.” He made his way to a table in the opposite corner, then hesitated and looked at Kathryn with a question in his dark eyes. “You know, it seems awfully silly to sit in opposite corners of the room. We’d do it in England without another thought, but over here they have a much better idea of how to go on. Don’t you think we should follow the local customs?”