Treasures of the Snow

by Patricia St John

  “Have you got Klaus in your pocket?” asked Dani, opening his eyes suddenly.

  “I’m fetching her now,” replied his father. Holding the rope, he slid to the edge of the precipice again and picked up the white kitten. Dani held out his arms and Klaus nestled down against his heart, purring like a little steam engine. Annette, for the first time in all that nightmare evening, burst into tears.

  They laid Dani on a coat, and Madame Morel and Monsieur Burnier carried him slowly home down the mountain, while Annette came behind carrying Klaus. A sad little procession, and yet their hearts were full of grateful joy because Dani was alive and had spoken. That was enough for the moment.

  No one, not even his mother, gave one thought to Lucien, who still lay under the wall, huddled down in the grass. When he lifted his head and found that he had been left alone with the night, he felt as though the whole world had turned its back on him and forgotten him. He got up, slunk home through the shadows, and crept, shivering, to bed, feeling the most lonely and miserable little boy in the whole world.

  7

  Annette Plans Revenge

  Dani lay in his little bed between warm blankets, knowing very well that he was a tremendously important person and that anything he wanted would be fetched immediately. As this had never happened before, Dani was making the most of it.

  Papa stood at the end of the bed watching him and telling him all the funny stories he liked best. Annette sat on one side of him with a chocolate stick in her hand. Klaus was curled up on his chest purring. Grandmother sat on the other side of his bed with a bowl of cherry jam, and every time he asked for it she gave him a spoonful! If his leg had not been aching so much Dani would have thought he was in heaven. Even so, the cherry jam didn’t make the ache seem that bad.

  “Papa,” said Dani, for about the tenth time, “are you really sure Klaus isn’t hurt?”

  “Quite certain,” answered his father. “She drank a whole dish of milk and ran upstairs with her tail up. Only healthy kittens would behave like that.”

  “Papa,” went on Dani, opening his mouth like a baby bird for another spoonful of cherry jam, “it was Lucien who threw Klaus over the wall. It was very cruel of Lucien, wasn’t it?”

  “Very,” replied his father, “and he shall certainly be punished.” But Monsieur Burnier was too happy to have his son alive to think very much about Lucien. It was Annette, sitting quietly by with a chocolate stick in her hand, who thought most about Lucien.

  I shall not be in a hurry, thought Annette to herself, but I shall never, never forgive him as long as I live. One day I shall do something terrible to him. I shall never forgive him. Never.

  “’Nette,” said Dani, “I want my chocolate stick, and then I want to go to sleep. And you must stay with me, ’Nette, because my leg hurts.”

  “Yes, Dani,” answered Annette, handing him the chocolate stick. “I’ll stay with you till you go to sleep.”

  Papa and Grandmother kissed him and left. Annette pulled his head down against her shoulder.

  “Sing to me,” commanded Dani. “Sing my favorite song.”

  It was about asking Father God to forgive sins and protect little children, and Annette didn’t want to sing it with her heart so full of hatred and revenge.

  But Dani insisted, so in the end she gave in and sang it rather sadly. By the time she finished, Dani was fast asleep, dribbling his chocolate stick onto the pillow. She lay down beside him, and once again she wept, for she was very tired and the relief had been great. But they were not only tears of joy, for we cannot be truly happy if we hate someone.

  She got up with a sigh and went downstairs. Her father was out with the cows, which had never been milked so late in their lives and were mooing and stamping with impatience. Grandmother was preparing something to eat, for neither she nor Papa had had a bite since lunchtime. No one had had time to think of anything but Dani.

  “He is asleep,” said Annette, and she sat down and stared wearily at the stove.

  “The doctor should be here soon,” said Grandmother, “and then we shall have to wake him, poor little chap. Never mind, let him sleep while he can.”

  “Grandma,” said Annette, looking up suddenly after a little silence, “Lucien must be punished. What is to be done to him? I can’t think of anything bad enough that would pay him back for what he did to Dani.”

  Grandmother did not answer for a time. Then she replied, “Have you ever thought, Annette, that when we do wrong it often brings its own punishment without anyone else interfering?”

  No, Annette had never thought about it at all. “Think of Lucien’s fright when he saw Dani fall,” went on Grandmother. “Think how miserable and terrible he will be feeling tonight, and think of his shame and fear of others finding out what he did. And then think whether perhaps he has not been punished enough already, and whether we should forgive him and help him to start again.”

  Annette did not take much notice of Grandmother’s words, except for one sentence. “Think of his fear of others finding out what he did.” That was a splendid idea. She would make sure people did find out. Wherever she went she would tell everyone. She would tell it in the village and tell it at school until everyone would hate him for his wickedness.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a hurried knock at the door, and Lucien’s big sister burst into the room. She had arrived home from the town across the mountain, where she worked, just in time to meet the slow little procession coming down from the fields. She had raced down to the village post office to phone the doctor, who lived five miles up the valley.

  “Dr. Pilliard can’t come,” she panted. “He has gone to another village to a sick woman and he won’t be home till midnight and the last train’s gone. They say you must take Dani in the cart to the hospital tomorrow morning and he will see him there.”

  “Thank you, Marie,” said Grandmother. “It was good of you to go for us.” She turned back to the kitchen. But Marie stayed. She wanted to know what had actually happened.

  “Tell me, Annette,” Marie said, lowering her voice, “how did the accident happen? Why is my mother so silent and troubled?”

  “It happened up the mountain,” replied Annette shortly. “Lucien threw Dani’s kitten over the ravine and Dani tried to rescue it. Lucien did not try to stop Dani at all. I shouldn’t be surprised if he pushed him. I think Dani has broken his leg. He lay on the rocks for hours and Lucien never told anybody. He could have died.”

  Marie went quite pale with horror, for she had never been very fond of her younger brother. If she had been, perhaps Lucien might have turned out a better, kinder boy. Children who are not loved themselves often find it difficult to love others.

  “He shall be severely punished,” she said angrily. “I will see to it myself.” Then she flounced out of the house.

  Annette smiled. To turn his own family against Lucien was just what she wanted. She felt her revenge had begun.

  There was nothing more to wait for now, so after a rather silent meal Annette dragged her way up to bed, tired and heavy-hearted. She lit a candle and stood looking at Dani through eyes that were misty with tears. He lay with his damp hair pushed back from his forehead and his arms flung out, and his usual peaceful look had gone. He was frowning even in his sleep, and now and then he moved his head restlessly and muttered troubled words.

  Annette got into her bed by the window, but tired as she was, she could not sleep. She felt strangely alone. Then, to her joy, she heard slow, painful steps climbing the stairs and Grandmother came into her room. Grandmother hardly ever came upstairs because it hurt her rheumatic legs so badly.

  “Grandma,” cried Annette, holding out her arms. Grandmother said nothing for a time. She sat down on the bed and stroked Annette’s head until the child stopped crying.

  “Listen, my child,” said Grandmother at last, “when Dani was a baby we took him to the church, and by faith we asked Jesus to look after him. Every day in prayer we have asked God to hold him sa
fe in His arms, and even when Dani fell, God did not let go of him. His arms were underneath him all the time. Even if he had been killed he would have been carried straight home to heaven. So let us dry our tears and go on trusting God to hold onto Dani and do the very best for him.”

  “But why did God let Lucien hurt Dani so?” argued Annette. “Grandma, I hate Lucien so much I should like to kill him.”

  “Then you cannot pray for Dani,” replied Grandma simply. “God is love, and when we pray we are drawing near to love, and all our hatred must melt away like the snow melts when the sun shines on it in spring. Leave Lucien to God, Annette. He rewards both good and evil, but remember, He loves Lucien just the same as He loves Dani.”

  Grandmother kissed her and went away, and Annette lay thinking over her words. The last remark she did not believe. It seemed impossible that even God should love cruel, ugly, stupid Lucien as much as good, sunny little Dani.

  But the first part she knew to be true, and it troubled her. She could not really pray for Dani and go on planning how to hurt Lucien. The two just did not go together. She wanted to pray for Dani, but if she did, her hatred might disappear and she did not want that to happen at all—anyway, not before she had really had her revenge.

  In the meantime she would let Grandmother do the praying and she would go on planning her revenge. Just as she decided this, Dani sat up in bed and started crying in a frightened, half asleep sort of way.

  “Klaus,” cried Dani. “Where is Klaus? She has fallen in the stream.”

  Annette ran over to him. “No, no,” she murmured comfortingly, “she is here,” She picked up the white purring ball of fur at the bottom of the bed and put it in Dani’s arms. He fell back and went fast asleep again with his kitten sprawling across his chest.

  Annette waited beside him for a few minutes until his breathing grew quiet and peaceful. Then she climbed into bed and fell asleep, too.

  8

  A Day of Escape

  Lucien lay in bed in the dark with a hot, throbbing head and eyes that would not shut. Each time he closed them he saw Dani just disappearing over the cliff. And it wasn’t an ordinary cliff. It was a dark, steep cliff that had no bottom. You just went on falling forever and ever.

  Now and again he fell half asleep, but each time he awoke with a little cry of fear and his heart beating wildly, for his dreams were even worse than his thoughts. If only someone would come! It was so dreadful being alone. He wanted his mother, and he knew she had come in, for he could hear her moving about in the kitchen below. But he dared not call to her, for she must be so terribly angry with him that perhaps she was staying away on purpose. Besides, his sister might answer his call, and Lucien did not in the least want to see his sister. What she would say to him he dared not even imagine.

  He began to think about tomorrow. He supposed he would have to go to school and Annette would have told everyone. Nobody liked him much in any case, because he was ugly, bad-tempered, and stupid, but now they would all hate him. No one would be friends with him, or want to sit next to him in class, or walk home from school with him.

  He heard steps on the stair, and his mother came into the room. He sat up crying and held out his arms to her, but she did not come to him. Instead, she sat down on the bed and watched him with a worried look on her face.

  In her heart she felt very sorry for him, and she longed to comfort him, but she was frightened. She was afraid of what the Burniers would do if Dani was badly injured—afraid of the law, afraid of the doctor’s bills that she could not pay. She dared not seem too sympathetic in case it should be said that she had taken her son’s side. Besides, she felt it was her duty to punish him somehow.

  If she had been a more understanding woman she would have seen that no punishment from her was needed. She would have seen the long weeks of fear and misery, loneliness, and guilty shame that lay ahead of Lucien. She would have known that her part was to comfort him and help him through them as best as she could. But she was not an understanding woman.

  “You are a naughty boy, Lucien,” she said heavily, “and I do not know what is going to happen. If that Burnier child is badly injured we shall be ruined. We shall have to pay all the bills, and we cannot possibly afford it. I expect we’ll get the police after us. It’s a terrible thing you’ve done, and I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself.”

  Lucien was so very ashamed of himself that he didn’t answer at all, which puzzled his mother very much for he was usually quick to answer back and to stick up for himself. A silent Lucien was indeed a new thing.

  “Well,” she said at last in a gentler voice, “we must hope for the best. Tomorrow you could go and tell the Burniers how sorry you are, and perhaps they will forgive you.”

  She waited for his reply, but none came, so she left the room feeling very troubled. She returned later with a bowl of hot soup. It might be wrong to comfort her son, but she could at least feed him.

  Lucien took the bowl and tried to eat, but at the third mouthful he choked and handed it back to his mother. Then flinging himself down with his face buried in the pillows, he cried again as though his heart would break. His mother said nothing, for she did not know what to say, but she stroked the back of his head gently. As his sobs grew quieter she crept away and left him alone.

  When he awoke next morning he could not remember what had happened, nor why his head ached and his eyes felt so hot and heavy. Then it all came rushing back, and he remembered something else, too. Today he had to go to school and face the other children.

  Dani might have died in the night and they would all know it was his fault.

  He decided he would not go. He would hide all day. It would not be too difficult. He would run up to the pinewoods and come back in the afternoon, and no one would ever know. His mother would think he had been at school and no one from school would ask questions. He lived too far up the valley, and anyway, who cared? Of course someone would find out in the end, but today was all that mattered at the moment. He might feel differently tomorrow, or Dani might be better. Anything might happen later on, but today he would run away and hide.

  He got up and went downstairs. Marie was in the kitchen. She had already eaten her bread and drank her coffee and was getting ready to set out for the station. She tossed her head and turned away when Lucien came in, but Lucien did not look at her at all. He passed through the kitchen in silence and went across to the stable to help his mother with the early milking.

  She looked at him anxiously when he came in, but he said nothing. Sitting on the stool by the stove eating his breakfast, he was still perfectly silent. At last he got up, put on his coat, kissed his mother goodbye without a word, and went off.

  She stood watching him as far as the bend in the road and then waved to him. He waved back and waited around the corner until he was sure she had gone. Then, turning on his steps, he ran off up the hill as quickly as his legs could carry him.

  He ran very fast and arrived breathless into the quiet coolness of the great pinewood that went around the mountain. Here he was safe, for it was still early in the morning, so he sat down and began to think.

  It was a beautiful pinewood, and sap was bursting from the trees and streaming down their grey trunks. The scent of pine needles rose from the ground and the forest seemed full of peace and cool light. Lucien suddenly felt a tiny bit more cheerful.

  He had no idea what he was going to do all day, and he had no food, as dinner was always provided for him at school. But this strange feeling of hope made him feel sleepy, and because he had not slept well the night before, he stretched himself on the ground and fell into a deep sleep. He slept on until the sun was high overhead and the children down in the school were coming out to their dinners. Then he woke up and wanted his dinner, too.

  But there was none to be had here in the forest, so he got up and wandered on up the hill, wondering whether some kind farmer in one of the higher chalets might give him a drink of milk. As he wandered he stuck his
hands in his pockets and found his knife. He took it out. He sat down on a log, picked up a piece of wood, and began whittling away at it with the knife. He had often whittled at bits of wood, though he had never made anything properly. But now, with nothing to do, he decided to try to carve out the shape of a chamois, one of the wild mountain goats that live on the high precipices. He started off idly, chipping away.

  Very gradually it began to take shape under his fingers, and a strange excitement took hold of him. For the first time he forgot his misery and became absorbed in what he was doing. He could see the creature in his mind’s eye, and as he thought about it, so he shaped it.

  Lucien held it out at arm’s length to inspect it. It was not perfect, though it was very definitely a chamois and he had no idea how good it was. But for the first time since the accident he felt almost happy. He had found something he could do. Though he was stupid, he could carve, and now he would not mind being alone again. When the other children didn’t want him he would come out to a quiet corner of the woods and see beautiful things and carve them. While he carved he could forget, and that was what he wanted more than anything. Whatever happened, he could come away by himself and forget.

  He climbed up the slope and looked down over the forest to the valley below. The sun was moving toward the western mountains, and far beneath he could see little dark specks running in all directions. The children were coming out of school. In another quarter of an hour or so it would be safe to go home.

  He walked slowly back through the pinewood, for he must not get back too soon. The sun was shining on the other side of the valley now, and the pinewood was cool and dark. Lucien kept his hand in his pocket with his fingers closed tightly over the rounded body of his chamois. It was a satisfying feeling.

  He wondered rather dully what he would hear when he got home. Dani might have died, but Lucien pushed that thought away from him, for he dared not face it. He was probably just badly hurt, and into Lucien’s mind there came a picture of Dani’s white, scared little face looking up from the grass.