The Golden Peaks (16 page)

“If you would really like to see it,” he said, “and are not too tired to get up early in the morning, I will show it to you—dawn over the peaks. It may, of course, be dull or clouded or misty—but I think the signs are good. Will you come?”

Her heart had leaped in delight.

“Seriously. You mean it?”

“Certainly. You must be up very early—in the dark. And put on your climbing boots, and remember to wear something warm, because it is cold up there so early.” When she said goodnight to him, she was so excited that
she
thought she would not sleep, but as soon as her head was on the pillow, she was asleep. But downstairs, as soon as she had gone, and Kurt had lit a fresh cigarette, Anneliese spoke to him from the office window.

“Do you remember,” she said, in a soft voice that made him jump, because it was so unexpected, “that day when Rudi and Ernst and you and I climbed up to the ski hut and waited for the dawn? I think I was about sixteen?”

“What are you doing in the office so late, Anneliese?”

“I came to get my cigarettes. I was already in bed, but I could not sleep, so I thought I would smoke, and my cigarettes were down here. I am just going back again.” She was now leaning but of the window, still speaking softly, wrapped in a pale-blue dressing gown.

“Do you remember that night?” she asked. “Rudi was cross because you came, but I was glad.”

“I remember it very well,” he said, “chiefly because you
were so unkind to Rudi.”

“I’d love to do it again,”
she
said. “May I come with
you tomorrow?”

He did not hesitate. He said at once, and cordially: “Of course you may. I think it should be a good, clear
morning.”

“
Marvellous. Then I will go straight back to bed now. Goodnight, Kurt.”

“Goodnight, Anneliese.”

Anneliese went up to her room. Kurt had sounded quite pleased at her inclusion, but was that because he was so clever at hiding what he really felt, or did he, in fact, want
her
to be in the party. Anyway, she felt reasonably sure that Celia would not like it, and she smiled triumphantly as she stubbed out her cigarette and
sl
ipped into bed.

At the first ring of her alarm
clock
, Celia turned over quickly and stopped it
.
It was still quite dark, and she dressed quietly, remembering the something warm. She put a suede cap on the back of her headland crept carefully downstairs in her stoutest shoes, afraid of waking the sleeping hotel. She let herself out of the
si
de door, and,
keeping
to the grass verge, she made her way out of the courtyard on to the mountain road. Fifty yards along, the light
of a to
rch
swung to and fro, and she made her way towards it
.

“Good morning,” said Kurt .

“Good morning,”
she
said, laughter in her voice. Thai
she
saw Anneliese, and at once, half her pleasure in this trip was gone. Was nothing right for him unless Anneliese was in it, too. “Good morning, Anneliese,” she said.

They walked along the road,
sl
owly climbing. Up past Geoffrey’s chalet, past all the other chalets, into
the darkness of the pine wood, climbing steeply, and out of it again; u
p
towards the rest centre, but turning off before it was reached, and on to the rough path she had climbed on her
arrival.
It was quite dark, and Kurt’s powerful torch was
indispensable.
By grass stretches and rough boulders they climbed, the path frequently disappearing to re-appear rougher than before, until at last,
it gave up, and stopped altogether. From then on, Kurt’s helping hand was a great consolation to both Anneliese and Celia.

At last, Celia paused for breath. “I must rest a little,”
she
said.

The others stopped at once.

“I had nearly forgotten you are not a climber,” he said, “you were doing so well.”

She was pleased at his praise, but protested
tha
t this was not what they called
climbing
.

“No, but it is good practice. You must not rest for long, or the dawn will beat us.”

So they went on soon and climbed up and up. Anneliese was sure footed, and showed to better advantage
than
Celia. The sky was lightening in the east, the black becoming grey, and the grey gradually growing paler. At last, they came to the top, and Celia, who had taken off her suede jacket when her climbing had made her too warm, was now glad to put it on again, for the night air was chill, and here, on the summit, there was always wind.
A
nne
liese, in a pale-blue coat of thick soft wool, wrapped it closely round her throat. Her soft, golden hair was uncovered. Celia thought how attractive she looked.

The sky lightened still more, and the mountain range lay quiet and calm and grey before them, even the snowpeaks seeming palely grey. Slowly, as they watched, the greyness of the sky became suffused with a tinge of
pin
k
,
which reflected itself on the snowpeaks, and as the grey disappeared, pearl and pink deepened, and spread over the mountains.

“Very soon,” said Kurt quietly, “the sun will rise.”

They waited. Celia was completely at peace. All material things had dropped out of her consciousness. Here, time had no meaning. Perhaps this was one of Kurt’s everlasting things. Then, as she watched, a lovely
thing
happened. The sun had risen, but they could not see it as yet; it was hidden from them by a great shoulder of mountain; but its beams had reached the snowpeaks across the valley, and lighted each one with a rim of burning gold an edging of incandescent golden fire. Slowly, the concen
t
ration was diffused until the gold, less intense now, was spread over the whole of the snowpeaks.

Celia shivered in quick delight
.
The golden peaks, said her
mind,
the golden peaks. She wanted to delay the
passing
minutes, wanted to preserve this beauty, this beauty shared with Kurt, these minutes shared with Kurt
. Something
impelled her to turn her head to look at him, and at the same moment he looked towards her and, briefly, beautifully, the golden glory was reflected in the dark depths of his eyes. They looked away again, without a word, waiting until the sun had risen higher, and every vestige of pearl and gold had drained out of the sky and away from
the
mountains, and the pure white light of
m
orning
fell round them. Then they were all reluctant to move, reluctant to break the spell that had settled over them, and for some time longer, they sat still; until suddenly, in the cold of the morning, Celia sneezed. At that Kurt laughed.

“Come,” he said, “breakfast.”

He had a light rucksack over one shoulder. Now, he swung it forward and began to unfasten it
.
First came out a large flask of coffee.

“Good,” said Anneliese, “coffee. Bless you.”

“And ham rolls,” he said.

They
fell
on their breakfast with delight.

“Well,” said Kurt. “Now I have given you a golden dawn. It was good luck for me. I might have been a bad weather prophet and brought you here to watch—nothing.”

Celia said in h
er
heart: “Instead, you gave me the golden peaks, and I shall never forget that
you
gave them to me.”

Anneliese said, laughing:

“Oh,
Kurt
, do you remember that frightful day when we got Mutti and Gert up so early, to go and meet the men who had been climbing? And it poured and poured and we missed them? We had breakfast enough for about eight, but they, poor things, got nothing?”

He laughed, and for a few minutes, joined in her reminiscences.
Celia
felt
out of it, as no doubt, Anneliese
meant her to feel. It became more and more apparent to her that Kurt St. Pierre and Anneliese had a vast store of shared experience, that he was intimately received by all the members of her family, and that they themselves were on an intimate footing. She told herself to check this wild love for him in time. It had been, perhaps, a good thing that he had invited Anneliese to come, too; for a dawn shared with him alone would have been sure to further this unavailing love still more. She watched Kurt, feeling that she was beginning to know every line and expression of his face, and as she watched, she wondered that, having lived his life in the mountains, he yet found it worth while to get up in the night and make this climb to see the sunrise. Feeling her eyes on him, he turned his head towards her. “We are neglecting Celia,
”
he said. “Well, Celia?”

“I wouldn’t have missed this morning for anything.”

“I thought you might appreciate it
.
”

“But I rather wonder at you and Anneliese.”

“Why?”

“You must have done it often before.”

“Oh, we have,” cried Anneliese, giving an impression of wonderful, shared dawns.

“But it keeps its newness?”

“Well, what do you think, Celia?” said Kurt.
“A few, precious minutes, that’s all, and it is gone; so quick, so evanescent so transient that we can only grasp it with our emotions. It’s no good trying to grasp it with your mind.
I come up here because, here in the mountains, I keep my sense of proportion.” He poured out some more coffee for both of them, and got to his feet. “And, heaven knows,” he went on, “that it isn
’
t always easy to keep one’s sense of proportion. One loses one’s grip on what is really important in this life. Things that are not real, not sincere, assume a look of importance; and sometimes the things that
are
important seem to drop into insignificance. A dose of the mountains sorts it out, puts it right.”

Both of his listeners had an odd feeling that there was more in his words than was at first apparent Almost it seemed as if he were announcing some sort of decision; as if he, now, on this particular morning, had discovered what was important to him. But though both of them searched their minds, they could find no sign of what it was. Celia supposed that he must be re-vowing himself to Anneliese, but could not be sure. Anneliese was not very interested in what she called the “idealistic” side of Kurt’s nature.

“
Come,” he said, “it is time we wait down.”

They packed the rucksack and started down the
mountain.
Celia was surprised to find, when they reached the hotel, that almost nobody was stirring yet Roberto was sweeping out the hall, and wielding an electric cleaner. There was a wonderful smell of new hot rolls from the kitchen.

“
A clean-up,” said Kurt “and another breakfast I think.”

They both agreed with him—they had come a long way since the coffee and rolls on the mountain top. But while Anneliese and Kurt had theirs at a table in the dining room,
Celia
had hers in the small room devoted to the staff, in the company of Johanna.

All day, the beauty of the dawn stayed with her, casting its golden glory over every small happening. She was free in the afternoon and went to see Dorothy, and described to her the wonderful morning climb. Dorothy was still on absolute rest, still drawn and thin and feverish, but she
made plans
to do this climb with Celia when she was better, and see the golden peaks for herself.

Celia
looked at the temperature chart, still violently up and down. She talked to Irmgard on the staircase, and Irmgard thought there might be a little improvement, but Celia saw that it was not much. “Somehow,” she thought as she went back to the hotel, “for Dorothy’s sake, I must manage to stay here.”

There followed a whole week of mist and rain, when the visitors to the Hotel
Rotihorn
were confined indoors, or made the journey into Interlaken in search of amusement; and when the scenery, which was their man purpose in visiting Switzerland, was completely blotted out. The vast range of mountains with their snow peaks might never have existed, so tota
l was
t
h
eir
di
sappearance
. Even the lower green hills were seen through mist, and sometimes these and the whole valley were hidden, and it seemed that the Rotihorn was suspended in space.

It made hard work for the whole staff. It meant that nearly everybody was in the hotel for all meals, so that the waitresses and kitchen staff felt it. It meant that the visitors were in need of amusement and distraction, so that Kurt and Anneliese were kept busy finding it for them and organizing it. Dampness was everywhere, and wet coats, mackintoshes and umbrellas were the order of the day. Many guests, having only a week for their holiday, arrived in the wet and departed again in it, feeling defrauded, as well they might. Celia was very sorry for them, knowing how beautiful it had been and would soon be again.