Season of Snows and Sins

by Patricia Moyes

  Then Sylvie went back to Paris, and the beautiful summer began. Life seemed very good and very tranquil. There was no hint in the clear blue mountain skies of the clouds which hung over our future.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CLOUDS MADE no sudden or dramatic appearance. In fact, they seemed at first to be not clouds at all, but silver flecks in a blue sky. What I mean is that, after a serene summer and an autumn of gentle green and gold, the prickling excitements of the new winter were welcome—stimulating rather than menacing.

  For instance, I was as delighted as Anne-Marie at Robert’s success as a ski instructor. Never before, Anne-Marie told me proudly, had a new instructor received so many bookings for private lessons in his first season. Robert was working hard and earning good money—and so was Anne-Marie, with Panoralpes filling up and so many apartments to keep clean. Oh, but she loved it, she was so happy, and all due to you, Mme. Veston. And Anne-Marie laughed, and went waltzing around the studio, embracing her broom like a dancing partner, while I continued to chip away at the white marble form on which I was working. After my excursion into representationalism with Anne-Marie’s figure, I had gone back to abstract work. If Giselle Arnay would sit for me, I would return to portraiture. Not otherwise.

  My second Christmas at Montarraz was very different from my first. I was skiing regularly now, and had recently been promoted to Class 4, which is a big step for a middle-aged beginner. So my days were busy, and I made plenty of transitory friends among the visitors. In fact, I found that if I was to get any work done at all, I had to impose a strict timetable on myself. This consisted of ski school in the morning, followed by the usual after-class coffee and drinks with friends. Then a few practice runs on my own, and home to a late lunch, after which I made it a rigid rule to work in the studio from half-past two until half-past four, by which time it was too dark to see properly. Later in the year, as the days grew longer, I increased my working hours to five o’clock.

  This timetable I maintained even during Christmas week, and in spite of the fact that Pierre and Sylvie Claudet arrived from Paris. They invited me over on their very first evening, and so I made the acquaintance of Pierre Claudet.

  I must admit he was rather frightening. In contrast to Sylvie’s warm, kittenish friendliness, Pierre was grave and aloof, a tall man like a rock, the very epitome of a minister of the Republic. It took me some time to discern that beneath the correct public image was a much more human personality.

  That first evening, I was overawed—as much by the apartment as by Pierre Claudet. True, I had helped Sylvie with moving in, but I had not seen the flat in all its glory—if that is the right word. It was not the decor that I would have chosen for the mountains, I must say, although it would have been fine for a fashionable penthouse in Paris. Everything was exquisite: Louis Quinze furniture, delicate and ornate, upholstered in silk brocade; engraved crystal glasses and Sèvres porcelain; Aubusson carpets wreathed in roses; fine silver tableware; lace and silk and ivory and eggshell china. The irresistible first impression was a dazed mental calculation—what must it all have cost? The second impression was one of acute embarrassment, as heavy, snow-packed ski boots trampled the woven garlands underfoot, and cold, clumsy hands fumbled with a thin-stemmed crystal champagne glass.

  Pierre Claudet was pretty hard going, too. He inquired politely about my progress on skis and thanked me for the help I had given Sylvie in fixing the apartment. After that, conversation languished, and I was relieved when a diversion arrived in the form of Chantal Villeneuve—a blond, willowy girl of about twenty, whom Sylvie introduced as her goddaughter who was spending Christmas with them. Even then, however, the talk was hardly sparkling, for Chantal confined herself to whispered monosyllables and heroine-worshiping glances at Sylvie, whom she obviously idolized. It was a relief when the champagne was finished, and Pierre proposed that we should all go out to dinner at the fashionable Hotel Mirabelle.

  Things went much more easily over dinner, but afterward I was ready to go home to Les Sapins, and my heart sank when Claudet—now in thoroughly good form—insisted that we all go down the street to the little Farinet bar for a final drink. However, I didn’t like to refuse.

  The bar was small, dark, and smoky, crammed with people in ski clothes and overflowing with an ear-splitting tide of talk, laughter, and canned music. We forced our way to the bar, and were greeted loudly and joyfully by a couple of ski instructors who had had the dubious pleasure of steering Sylvie and myself down the mountain several times. Pierre, who seemed to my annoyance to be self-consciously slumming, insisted on buying drinks all around, and made a great fuss of the instructors, whose names were Jean and Henri. It was very noticeable, however, that Chantal cheered up at once in the company of people of her own age. I suddenly realized that she was a very pretty girl, and that she was enjoying herself for the first time that evening.

  I suppose that it was because of Chantal and her newly found sparkle that I agreed to the next idiotic move. Pierre Claudet, playing the jolly uncle with an arm around the shoulders of each of the young instructors, boomed genially that we should all move on to Le Jockey Bar—the ridiculously named nightclub which was patronized by the smart set of Montarraz, and whose prices were rumored to be higher than those in Paris.

  Chantal cried, “Oh, yes, Uncle Pierre!”—and kissed him on the nose. Sylvie, amid much laughter, volunteered to teach Henri something called le thing, and so take her revenge for his bullying on the ski slopes. I made an attempt to get away—but since I was dependent on the Claudets for transport, it was made clear that by doing so I should break up the party. I gave in. All six of us were crammed into Pierre’s flashy Mercedes, and whirled away up the hill to Le Jockey Bar.

  This proved to be every bit as dark as the Farinet, but larger and less crowded. In fact, it was most attractive. In the center of the wood-paneled room, a big open fire blazed under a central chimney. Around it was a small dance floor ringed by tables in inglenooks, each in darkness except for one big, wax-dripping candle. Soft piped music, discreet waiters, and the clinking of ice in champagne buckets completed the atmosphere. Several couples were dancing languidly, considerably intertwined and scarcely moving. The tables were in such deep shadow that it was hard to tell whether the place was full or empty.

  We quickly found a table, and Chantal and Jean—young Bertrand from the Café de la Source—were on the dance floor before the first drink had been ordered. A moment later Sylvie was dragging a mock-reluctant Henri off to dance. Pierre Claudet ordered a bottle of whiskey and a soft drink for Chantal, and then leaned back, lit a cigar, and savored the scene. After a moment he said, “Sylvie enjoys herself here in Montarraz.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “So do I.”

  “I’m very grateful to you, Jane,” he added, using my Christian name for the first time. “I know I said that earlier this evening, but you may have thought I was just being polite. I wasn’t. I mean it.” He paused. “I have to leave Sylvie on her own quite a lot, you see. Sometimes I worry about her. I like to think that she has you as a friend. She is lucky.”

  “And so am I,” I said. I found myself warming to Pierre. “Sylvie’s been wonderful to me.”

  As though he had not heard me, Claudet went on, “Some of the people that she…well, some of the people here are not…” His voice trailed into silence. He was watching the dance floor. I followed his gaze, but could see nothing exceptional. Sylvie and Henri were dancing energetically and laughing a lot. Chantal and Jean, in the modern manner, appeared to be ignoring each other’s existence while performing complicated gyrations. A few other couples… And then I saw what had caught Claudet’s attention. Into the flickering illumination of the firelight moved a couple dancing so close that they appeared to be a single person, each lost in the other. But I would have recognized Robert Drivaz anywhere, and there was no mistaking, either, the long black hair and the tiny, supple body of his partner. So Giselle Arnay was back at the Chalet Perce-n
eige, and for the first time I was aware of a cloud.

  Then the waiter arrived with our drinks, and by the time I was able to study the dance floor again there was no sign of either Robert or Giselle Arnay. I tried to put the whole thing out of my head, remembering how often and how innocently a ski lesson ended up in a party, but the uneasiness remained, and was not allayed when Pierre and Sylvie finally drove me home at three o’clock in the morning. For I could not help noticing that there was no sign of Robert Drivaz’s little car outside his chalet, and that a light was still burning in Anne-Marie’s bedroom. After that, I noticed that she no longer sang as she went about her work.

  Of course, it was not long before rumors began to spread. They even reached me, which meant that nobody in Montarraz could have been ignorant of the scandal. Michel Veron was in Paris appearing in cabaret at various nightclubs—everybody knew that. Giselle Arnay, attended by the ambiguous Mario, remained at the Chalet Perce-neige. Every afternoon she skied with Robert Drivaz, and every evening she danced with him. Anne-Marie’s lovely young face grew more and more unhappy, her gaiety quenched. I wondered if she would confide in me, but she did not. So, of course, I said nothing. At that point, she may even have imagined that I did not know.

  It was in February, soon after Pierre and Sylvie Claudet had gone back to Paris, that the whole thing exploded into a public bombshell—an open and acrimonious row between Robert Drivaz and his second-cousin Lucien Simonet, who was the head of the Montarraz ski school.

  The issue was very simple. Robert, as a newly qualified ski instructor, had naturally signed on with the ski school for this, his second winter season. This entailed his taking a regular class, as allotted to him, every weekday morning from half-past nine till half-past eleven. After that, he was free to accept bookings from private pupils, and it was an open secret that he had been engaged on a long-term basis by Giselle Arnay.

  So far, so good; but in the middle of February Robert Drivaz submitted a formal request to his cousin Lucien, painstakingly written in a labored hand. In view of the fact, Robert wrote, that Mlle. Arnay proposed to engage him exclusively as a full-time ski instructor, he wished to cancel his contract with the ski school. Mlle. Arnay, he added somewhat naïvely, required his services in the morning as well as the afternoon. He hoped that his cousin Lucien and the other members of the school would agree to release him from his contract.

  For several days the village talked of nothing else. Lucien received the letter on a Monday morning, and had called a meeting of all the instructors for Wednesday evening to consider the matter. Meanwhile, tongues wagged and gossip buzzed. Robert and Giselle Arnay not only skied and danced together, but walked defiantly and provocatively through the village street arm in arm at five o’clock in the evening—the great shopping and après ski hour, when a maximum number of people would be sure to see them. Since, as a rule, Giselle Arnay never appeared in the village at all, this gesture was unnecessarily blatant. The next day a couple of journalists from sensational French newspapers arrived at the Hotel Carlton.

  Anne-Marie, her face pale and drawn, her lips set in a hard line, went doggedly about her work and spoke to nobody—not even to me. I abandoned work on my abstract form and—for no good reason—whiled away the time modeling the head of a baby in clay. When Anne-Marie came in to sweep out the studio, she took one look at it and burst into tears. But still she would not talk to me.

  Of course, no outsiders were present at the meeting of the ski school on Wednesday evening, but the news leaked out that it had been bitter and unanimous. In any case, whatever was actually said, Robert received a formal letter from his second-cousin Lucien informing him that the director and members of the ski school of Montarraz had decided to refuse his request to be released from his contract, and that he was expected to report for duty as usual the following morning. Robert did not turn up, nor did he ever go near the ski school again. The breach was public and complete.

  Village opinion was inevitably divided, but I think it is fair to say that all of it was basically anti-Robert. All, that is, except for the young man’s mother—the widow Drivaz from the grocery. I suppose one could contend that it was right and proper for her to support her own son, but her manner of doing so was unfortunate. For a start, she had taken to flaunting a fur coat, and she made no secret of the fact that she had ordered a washing-up machine and a hi-fi stereo radio—and her neighbors were offering no prizes for guessing whose money would pay for them.

  Then, when the row broke out between Robert and Lucien, Mme. Drivaz used it as an excuse for lashing out bitterly at poor, gentle Mlle. Simonet at the baker—Lucien’s aunt, who had cared for her orphaned nephew ever since he was six years old. Lucien’s treatment of Robert, according to Mme. Drivaz, was provoked by jealousy, pure and simple. Aided and abetted, of course, by his aunt. None of the Simonets, Mme. Drivaz declared, could bear anybody else to be cleverer or more successful than they were—and Robert’s spectacular rise to fame and fortune had naturally brought on this cheap and vicious attempt at revenge. Mme. Drivaz also took every opportunity of lamenting Robert’s unfortunate marriage. Had she not said at the time that Anne-Marie was unworthy of her son? And had she not been proved right? It was a tragedy, no less, that Robert—with a glittering future in high society ahead of him—should be shackled to that little skivvy. And much more in the same vein.

  Mme. Bertrand, from the Café de la Source, also lamented the marriage in hindsight—but from the opposing viewpoint. She, it now appeared, had always known that young Drivaz was unreliable—a playboy, or worse. If she had been consulted, she would never have allowed that poor girl to get involved with him.

  “What will become of her now, Mme. Weston?” Mme. Bertrand demanded, glaring at me accusingly from behind the bar of the café.

  Miserably, I replied that I hoped it would all blow over. Mme. Bertrand snorted. “That young man is rotten to the core, just like his mother. You mark my words.”

  Robert’s former associates at the ski school, the young men of his own age, were divided between downright disapproval and a sneaking envy. Sly sniggers and blatant obscenities were exchanged in bars and cafés, together with overt speculation as to what actually went on behind the high fence of the Chalet Perce-neige. The same speculation, in a slightly more guarded form, was spun by the gossip writers from the Hotel Carlton into several sensational articles for the gutter press of Paris. It was all extremely unpleasant and distressing. As the days went by, tensions stretched until it became obvious that the breaking point could not be far away.

  What happened next seemed curiously like an anticlimax. I heard of it from Mlle. Simonet, one morning in late February, when I went into her warm, sweet-smelling little shop to buy my usual livre of mi-blanc.

  “Have you heard, Mme. Weston?” Mlle. Simonet’s round, scrubbed face was alive with suppressed excitement, and two bright spots of color glowed in her chubby cheeks.

  “Heard what, Mlle. Simonet?”

  “Why, about Giselle Arnay. That will show Isabelle Drivaz just how high and mighty her precious son really is.” Mlle. Simonet flicked a square of flimsy white paper out from below the counter to wrap my bread.

  “What has Giselle Arnay done?” I asked.

  “Why, gone back to Paris. That’s all. Without a word to anybody. My cousin Louise Brizet, who obliges at the Chalet Perce-neige—you’ve heard me speak of her, madame—well, she arrived there this morning to find the place empty, if you please. Mlle. Arnay…Mme. Veron, I should say”—Mlle. Simonet corrected herself with great emphasis—“Mme. Veron and that Mario have gone back to Paris. They left a note for Louise. And more than a note, Louise says. The state of that house, madame!… Well, there you are, I suppose one can’t expect film stars to behave like ordinary people, and Mlle.—Mme. Veron—is very generous, so Louise says. But it’ll take her a good week to set the place to rights. She said to me herself, ‘Annette,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what goes on in that chalet, and that’s the t
ruth.’ Of course, she’s never there of an evening—”

  “And what about Robert?” I asked.

  “Him?” Mlle. Simonet snorted with satisfaction. “Well may you ask, Mme. Weston! Back home, with his tail between his legs, and looking very foolish. The ski school won’t have him back, that’s for sure. He can thank his lucky stars he has a roof over his head and a sensible young wife with a job of her own.” Mlle. Simonet had always had a soft spot for Anne-Marie. “Yes—back to the ski lift for young Robert, back to being a builder’s laborer in the summer, and serve him right. That’ll be seventy-five centimes, Mme. Weston. Lovely weather, isn’t it?”

  That day I decided to buy my groceries from the cooperative store. I did not feel up to a confrontation with Mme. Drivaz, nor did I wish to appear to be gloating over her discomfiture.

  Back at Panoralpes, life settled into a dull and dismal round, as far as the young Drivazes were concerned. Robert had indeed come home, but this seemed to bring no joy either to him or to Anne-Marie.

  As Mlle. Simonet had prophesied, Robert did not go back to the ski school—but whether from his own choice, or because they would not have him, I never discovered. Neither did he go back to his old job on the ski lift. Instead, he sat around, sometimes at home, more often in one or other of the village bars, drinking too much and doing too little. I am congenitally averse to eavesdropping, but my studio was very close to the Drivaz chalet, and I could not help overhearing several bitter quarrels. Once I nearly went to intervene when it became obvious that Robert—who was more than half-drunk—was physically attacking his wife, but before I was out of the studio, Anne-Marie came running out in the blue overall she always wore for housework, and hurried over to Les Sapins, where I found her a few minutes later energetically polishing the sitting-room floor.