Treasures of the Snow (21 page)

Monsieur Givet looked at the brave old woman in front of him. He saw her with her two happy, healthy grandchildren behind her and the clean, peaceful home of which she was the guardian angel. He knew she was strengthened by love and courage and realized she was a very special person.

“You, too,” he replied, “are a good, unselfish woman and will most certainly find your reward.”

Monsieur Givet pulled Lucien to his own chalet on a borrowed sled and carried him to his mother. She pretended to be very angry with him.

“You naughty boy, Lucien,” she cried, “going off like that and giving us all such a dreadful fright. How could you do such a thing? You deserve a beating.” She took him almost roughly from Monsieur Givet’s arms, helped him up the stairs, and put him to bed herself. Then she came back, sat down at the table, flung her black apron over her face, and began to cry.

“You have a very brave son, Madame,” said Monsieur Givet.

“He’s a very naughty boy,” snapped Madame, and because she was so terribly proud of him and so glad to see him safe, she began to cry worse than before.

She and Marie had been baking a big batch of Lucien’s favorite cakes all morning, and the house was full of the good smell. They invited Monsieur Givet to sit and eat with them, but he refused because he still had something important to do and time was getting on.

“I believe,” he began rather sharply, “that Lucien knows some old man around here. Can you tell me where he lives?”

“An old man?” repeated Marie. “Oh, yes, that would be the old man up the mountain who teaches Lucien wood carving. They spend hours together, although what Lucien sees in him, goodness knows! Most people say he’s crazy.”

“Can you tell me the way to his house?” asked Monsieur Givet.

“Why, yes,” replied Marie, surprised. “It’s straight up through the forest. But I shouldn’t go up there if I were you, sir. The path will be bad after all this snow.”

“I have business with him,” replied Monsieur Givet. “Perhaps you will point out the path to me from the door. On the way down I will come and say good-bye to Lucien.”

Monsieur Givet thought how beautiful the forest looked as he toiled up the track that late afternoon. What must it be like, he thought, to be that old man and live alone among all this silence and peace, sharing the secrets of the forest. He began to look forward to meeting him and found his heart was beating faster than usual.

As he left the forest he could see the hut standing halfway up the meadow, with the snow piled high against its walls. The old man had dug a little path as far as the trees—almost as though he was expecting a visitor, thought Monsieur Givet, picking his way along it.

He knocked softly on the door and went in without waiting for a reply. The old man sat hunched up over his stove, whittling wood and smoking his pipe. A goat and a cat sat one each side of him for company, and Monsieur Givet sat on the chair on the other side of the stove.

“Well,” said the old man, still not looking up, “did you get there safely, Lucien?”

“It’s not Lucien,” replied Monsieur Givet softly, and the old man jumped and looked up. They sat staring at each other as though they had each seen a ghost—and yet uncertainly, as though the ghost might possibly be real after all.

“I have come to give you back this money,” said Monsieur Givet at last. “I don’t want money to help that child. Under the circumstances I will do it free, if it can be done.”

“Then the boy broke his promise,” growled the old man. He leaned his chin on his stick and stared and stared and stared.

“He did not break his promise,” replied Monsieur Givet. “He told me nothing except that it was given him by an old man and that it was the payment of a debt. But I do not accept large sums of money from peasant boys without making sure that they were come by honestly. I had no difficulty in finding out from other people who you were and where you lived.”

There was another long, long silence. “Is that all you came to say?” said the old man at last. His voice sounded suddenly old and weary and hopeless.

Monsieur Givet got up quickly and knelt down beside the bowed figure of the old man.

“Need we pretend any more?” he asked. “Surely we are both quite sure of each other. I’ve come to take you home, Father, and to tell you how much we’ve missed you and wanted you.”

A
few hours later Annette sat in a big wooden rocking chair, smiling at Lucien, who was sitting up in bed. He was still rather pale and tired, but otherwise well and happy.

“Tell me all about it,” urged Annette, her eyes big with admiration and astonishment. “Everyone says it was so brave of you. Tell me right from the beginning, Lucien, and what it was like on the top of the mountain.”

It was nice to be called brave, and Lucien would have liked to make a good story of it, but somehow it all seemed very far away and difficult to talk about—almost as if it had been a dream.

“Well,” he began, “I went up to the old man first and asked him for some money, and then I got my skis on the way down and skied down the valley and climbed through the woods across the river, and then I went down the other side.”

“Of course you did,” interrupted Annette impatiently, “or you’d never have got there. But tell me about it properly, Lucien. What did you feel like? Did you have any adventures? Were you frightened, and did you nearly die? What was it like on the top?”

Lucien was silent for a few moments. All afternoon he had been wondering whether there would be a chance to tell Annette, but now the chance was here and he didn’t know how to begin.

“Yes,” he said at last, rather slowly, “I was very frightened a little way before the top. I nearly came back. Annette, do you remember telling me how you used to hate me so much, and how you asked Jesus into your heart and He made you like me instead?”

“Yes,” replied Annette eagerly, “of course I remember. Why, Lucien?”

“Because,” went on Lucien shyly, “something like that happened to me when I was feeling so frightened. I remembered those verses your grandmother taught us about perfect love driving out fear, and I asked Jesus to take away mine, and I stopped feeling so terribly afraid almost at once.”

“Did you really?” asked Annette, deeply interested. “Then I suppose Jesus came into your heart as well as mine, and then your being afraid had to go away just like my hating had to go away. I suppose it’s all really the same, Lucien. Whether you’re afraid or don’t like people, or whether you cheat or don’t speak the truth, or you are lazy or cross—whatever’s the matter with you, when Jesus comes in, I suppose there just isn’t room for it anymore.”

“Yes,” agreed Lucien thoughtfully, and they sat and talked about it for quite some time.

It was not until Annette was walking home across the snow that she fully realized that this was her last evening at home for a long time, and it suddenly made her feel very sad. She ran home quickly.

Papa was still over in the cattle shed, but Grandmother was sitting sewing a button on Annette’s clean pinafore dress. Their clothes, neatly folded and mended, were tied in two bundles on the table all ready for morning. Dani lay fast asleep in the bed in the corner with all his kittens on top of him as a last treat.

“Grandmother,” cried Annette, and she ran straight into the old woman’s arms and burst into tears.

Grandmother let her cry for a little, then she pulled up the stool and Annette sat down and leaned against Grandmother’s knees while the old lady talked. She talked about the home Annette was going to, the work she would have to do, and how good it would be to see Dani made well. She talked so bravely that Annette never knew that deep down in her heart Grandmother was saying to herself, “What shall I do tomorrow night and all the nights after when the stool at my feet is empty and there’s no sleeping little boy in the bed in the corner?”

Then, because it was getting late and they must be up early, Annette fetched the big Bible down from the shelf, as she always did at bedtime, and read aloud to Grandmother.

“We’ll read first Corinthians chapter thirteen tonight,” said Grandmother as Annette rested the great Book on her knees. “It’s a chapter I would like you to remember all the time you’re away.”

Annette read it right through, and when she had finished, Grandmother said, “The verse I want you to really remember is verse four—

“Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud.”

“Now,” said Grandmother, looking at Annette over her glasses, “you tell me you have asked Jesus into your heart, and He has come in and brought His love with Him—the kind of love we were reading about. You are going to look after children, and they won’t always be good. When they are naughty and you feel cross and impatient with them, ask Jesus to help you.

“You are going to a big house, Annette, and you will see nice things that you will probably never have yourself. Sometimes you may feel jealous and unhappy about it. But remember, if your heart is full of love, there won’t be room for jealousy.

“You are going to be a little servant in a busy household. I don’t expect you will get much notice taken of you. But remember, the love of Jesus in you never pushes itself forward and never looks for attention. His love can make you go on doing your work quietly and faithfully whether anyone notices you or not. Remember, He is your master and you are working to please Him.”

“I’ll try to remember, Grandmother,” said Annette thoughtfully, then she kissed her and ran across to the cattle shed to spend the last half an hour before bed with Papa.

Early next morning the whole family drove to the station in the mule cart and arrived half an hour too early because they were so afraid of missing the train. They stood on the platform among the milk churns waiting for Monsieur Givet, who soon joined them. Annette carried their luggage in a brown paper parcel, and her hand was clasped tightly in her father’s.

Dani, in his cloak and hood, seemed unusually shy and kept edging off behind the milk churns. He seemed nervous and didn’t want to be hugged when it came to say good-bye. The train was far down the valley before Annette understood why. Then she noticed strange movements under Dani’s cloak, as if he was having hiccups.

“What is that under your cloak, Dani?” she asked, gazing in astonishment at it.

Dani went pink. “It’s only one, ’Nette,” he replied nervously. “One what?” inquired Annette, glancing worriedly up at Monsieur Givet. But the doctor was reading a book and not listening.

“Just him,” explained Dani, and he undid a button. The face and whiskers of a white kitten appeared in the gap for a moment, then pulled back inside.

“Dani,” cried Annette, horrified, “you’re a very, very naughty boy! You know Grandmother said you couldn’t have kittens in the hospital. I don’t know what we shall do with him.”

Dani gazed thoughtfully out of the window and said nothing. He couldn’t think of a single excuse for his wickedness, but under his cloak he gave the white kitten a secret squeeze. The white kitten curled its warm body against Dani’s and purred like a little steam engine, and neither of them felt the least bit sorry about it.

D
ani went straight to bed when they reached the town. He was taken to a large room full of lame children like himself, with a tired-looking nurse in charge. He took one look at them and decided they needed cheering up, so he offered to do kangaroo hops on his bear crutches all down the ward. It was a great success, and within an hour Dani was friends with everybody. The white kitten was given a basket in the kitchen and was allowed in during visiting time.

Annette’s arrival was not quite so happy. She was welcomed kindly by Madame Givet, who was young and pretty and jolly, and taken to her room at the top of the house. When she was left alone, she ran across to the window and looked out to see houses and slushy snow in the streets and low grey skies. She gazed out for a moment and then flung herself on the bed and wept bitterly for her home.

Here Madame Givet found her half an hour later when she came up to see what had happened to her. She said nothing but slipped away and returned with baby Claire in her arms, and laid her down on the bed beside Annette. It was the best thing she could have done. Five minutes later Annette was sitting up smiling, with baby Claire chuckling and giggling on her lap, and in another minute Annette was chuckling back.