Contango (Ill Wind)

by James Hilton

  That evening she watched the terrace at intervals from eight o’clock till eleven; then she went across, trembling with almost physical apprehension, and began to chat with the porter. Mr. Brown had gone away that afternoon, he said, and at that she had a queer sensation as though she were on a Channel steamer and about to be sick. Before leaving, the porter continued, Mr. Brown had asked him for the name of a good hotel in Mürren, and he had recommended the “Edelweiss.”

  “You see, miss, Mürren is a better centre for climbing. Mr. Brown seemed to get very keen on it these last few days—I think his trip to the Jungfraujoch impressed him.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “Yes, miss. He said he would always remember it as one of the most marvellous days of his life.”

  “He DID? REALLY?”

  Miss Faulkner spent an excited and nearly sleepless night, and came down in the morning to the perfect sunshine and blue sky that she had dreaded. For, if the weather were thus fine, she had to take some of her people for that same Jungfraujoch excursion. She felt suddenly that she could not bear to go there again, to make her little speech about the construction of the railway, to watch the skiers through the telescopes, to see that ledge of rock overlooking the snow. She felt, indeed, as she faced her people at breakfast, that she could not endure anything, even a continuation of life itself, without relaxing the strain that held her passionately taut. And it was then, during breakfast, that the last vestige of a sense of humour deserted her.

  She left the table abruptly, dashed upstairs to her room, packed a small handbag with a few necessities, ran out of the Hôtel Magnifique de l’Univers without saying a word to anyone, scampered to the station, and booked a single ticket to Mürren.

  In the funicular that climbs up the mountain from Lauterbrunnen, Miss Faulkner became calm enough to face certain obvious realities of the situation. She had, she perceived, most comprehensively burned her boats. Even after the greatest ingenuity of explanation, she could scarcely hope to escape condemnation for leaving her people in the lurch. Poor things, some arrangements would be made for them, no doubt; but they would certainly complain to the travel agency, and she would never be offered a cheap August holiday again. It didn’t matter, of course. Nor did it matter that she owed the hotel a few small sums for tips and extras, while they, on the other hand, had possession of most of her clothes. Details of that sort could all be ignored for the time being, since far more urgent was the problem of what to do when she arrived at Mürren.

  One thing was clear enough: having burned her boats, she must make the burning worth while by risking everything, if necessary. It was no time for half-measures. She would have the great advantage of being free, at any rate—no longer tied to a routine of times and places. And her programme was, in a sense, quite simple. She would go to the “Edelweiss” like an ordinary private visitor, book accommodation, and then—well, she would meet him. She was bound to, staying at the same hotel in a small place like Mürren. She would have to compose some plausible story to account for her being there—lies, of course, but again that didn’t matter. (Afterwards, in that sublime imagined afterwards which her efforts were to make real, how good it would be to confess all these subterfuges—to say: “My dear, you’ve no notion how utterly unscrupulous I was—I lied right and left—I was absolutely conscienceless about you. Do you forgive me?” And he, perhaps, would make a return confession that he had gone to Mürren to forget, if he could, an attraction by which, at that early stage, he had been unwilling to be enslaved…. Oh dear, oh dear, how wonderful it would all be then!)

  She arrived at Mürren before noon, and walked from the station to the hotel. In that midday glory of sunlight the mountains across the valley dazzled and were monstrous. She had seen them from Mürren before, but never on such a day and with such eagerness to yield to rapture. She put on her sun-glasses and found them wet immediately with tears that had sprung to her eyes; oh, this beauty, this beauty everywhere and in everything—did it really exist, apart from her sensing it?—was it all no more than Freud or Havelock Ellis could explain in half a page? And this pity she felt for every suffering being, for soldiers in trenches and work-girls in asbestos- factories and the pigeons at Monte Carlo and the hunted stag on Exmoor—was all this, too, conditioned by no more than secretions and ductless glands? She was passing a shop and went inside to buy a two- day’s-old English newspaper—anything to break the spell of such intolerable sensitiveness; but the spell took hold of the printed words and flaunted them like banners— Famine in China; Heavy Selling on Wall Street; Nottingham Tram-Driver Inherits Fortune; Lover Shoots Sweetheart, Then Himself; Rioting in Bombay; New Prima Donna Creates Furore; Plight of Alabama Flood Victims; Dance-Hall Proprietress Wins Action Against Commercial Traveller; New York Gangster’s Ł20,000 Coffin… the whole world’s crashing symphony, to which, with one’s own heart-cry, one added but the faintest demi-semiquaver.

  In such a mood she came in sight of the Hôtel Edelweiss, and just then, as she approached, he came out of it. He was in heavy climbing boots and thick tweeds, and puffed at a pipe. She began to run towards him involuntarily, like a silly, excited child, though she hasn’t yet thought of any story to tell, or any initial plan of conversation to adopt. It seemed enough, just then, to face him breathlessly, with her bright, terrible smile.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Hullo, hullo…” he answered, halting with a clank of his iron-tipped boots on the road.

  “Good morning…. I—I—I’ve just arrived.”

  “So I see.”

  And then there came a curious silence, during which they both stared hard at each other. He KNOWS, her heart whispered; he knows I know; and he is angry for the moment, but that will pass. She went on: “I’m—I’m staying here—in Mürren—for several days. On business, you know. It’s—it’s odd that we should meet again… isn’t it?”

  “Yes, very odd …. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I must get along—I’m meeting some people at another hotel.”

  “May I—may I walk with you to it?”

  “I suppose you may.”

  He set off at a good swinging pace, without continuing the talk. It occurred to her then that it might be her last chance, that she had bungled the encounter so far, and could do little worse by plunging straight into the depths. At least she would secure the advantage of surprise—unless, of course, he HAD already guessed that she knew, in which case it might be a relief to him to learn how safe his secret was in her hands. She went on, in a low, desperate voice: “You must think it strange of me to approach you like this, but I feel I can’t keep silence any longer. To you, I mean. Others needn’t know, of course.”

  “WHAT?” he said.

  “I’ve known the—the truth for some time. And believe me, I—I honour—and—and admire you—for it—”

  “WHAT? What are you talking about?”

  “You… YOU… you see, I know who you really are. I’ve known for quite a long time.”

  “You say you know who I really am?”

  “Yes… Mr. Gathergood… of Cuava… .” She felt herself almost fainting as she uttered the words.

  He suddenly stopped and towered above her. “Good God, woman, this is becoming preposterous! I don’t know what sort of microbe has bitten you, but if you take my advice you’ll catch the tram over there and get back to your proper business. Where are all your tourist people—haven’t you got THEM to look after?”

  “I left them—to come here and tell you. I felt I had to let you know what I knew. It was terrible for me, waiting. And I don’t care how angry you are with me—so long as you DO know. You can’t deny it—not to me.”

  “Deny what?”

  “That you ARE him—really. Gathergood—British Agent at Cuava—”

  He struck his heel sharply on the ground. “Gathergood? GATHERGOOD? Why should I be him, whoever he is?”

  “But you ARE. I know you want to keep it secret—I can understand and sympathise—bu
t to me, now that I know—oh, you must tell me the truth!”

  “But, my good woman, that’s just what I AM doing! I’m sorry to disappoint you if this Gathergood man was someone you wanted to meet, but you must pull yourself together and be sensible. And if it’s really any concern of yours, my name is Stuart Brown, I live in England, and on my passport I’m put down as a company-director. Perhaps you’d like to see it? No? Well, there you are, anyhow. This sort of thing won’t do, you know, following men about and pestering them….”

  With a quiet little cry of dreadfulness she put her hand to her head and scampered away. But when she was a few dozen yards off she swung round, flashed him her ever-bright smile, and called out: “It’s all right. All my mistake….” Then she broke into a shrill peal of laughter that echoed faintly across the valley to the green-blue glaciers. A few heads looked out of windows, saw the puzzled man and the laughing woman, and wondered what kind of joke, private or public, lay between them. But it all seemed of small consequence, on that blazing August noontide in Mürren. And a moment later Miss Faulkner turned the corner by the tramway-station and was gone.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE. — STUART BROWN

  In the restaurant-car between Belfort and Paris, Stuart Brown got into conversation with a dark-haired and very good-looking young man sitting opposite. To Brown, who liked young men and who had lost an only son, there was always pleasure in these encounters, the more so as their transience minimised the risk of boredom. And at this particular moment Brown was bored enough with his own company and with the world in general to welcome any such attractive diversion. The deplorable issue of a recent business visit to Italy, plus that annoying incident in Switzerland, had induced what was for him an unwontedly darkened humour.

  The two chance travellers began to exchange commonplaces during the soup; by the coffee stage the youth had proffered a visiting-card which declared him to be a M. Palescu, of Bukarest. Brown did not reciprocate the intimacy, but he put the card away in his pocket-book and congratulated Palescu on his excellent English. “You speak so well,” he said, “that I wasn’t at all sure you weren’t one of my countrymen.”

  “Ah, well, you see, my mother was English, and I have always had many contacts with English people. I have had jobs in India, Malta, and Egypt.”

  “You must have travelled a good deal.”

  The youth smiled. “That is one of the things I have been—a traveller. What you call in England a ‘commercial’. Until recently I worked for my uncle, who was the head of a big firm in Bukarest. Then, early this year, owing to the crise mondiale, the firm went smash and he killed himself. My parents are both dead and my sisters—”

  Brown toyed with his cigar, sympathetic but a little disappointed. He had heard so many “hard luck” stories, and though he was by no means cynical about them, he could not but prefer a conversation that did not so soon and so inevitably drift into one. To his surprise and relief, however, Palescu went on quite cheerfully: “My sisters have a little money, which is lucky for them, and I— well, I never wanted to settle at one thing for long. There’s so much I want to do, and at present I’m my own master, at any rate, though I’m not yet making a fortune.”

  Brown found this optimism in adversity rather refreshing, and his own spirits willingly responded to it. He had always been a naturally optimistic person himself; even during the darkest days of the War he had not despaired, and throughout the post-War years of disappointments and disillusionments he had found comfort in a steadfast if rather vague belief that things were bound to take a turn for the better when they had finished taking turns for the worse. Even so, however, the events of the first half of 1930 had given his nerves one or two severe jolts, and in Italy he had just had a singularly unpleasant experience.

  Still, he could exclaim, only those few weeks afterwards to his casual acquaintance in the Paris train: “Splendid! It’s good to hear a fellow of your age talking so hopefully. Most of the young chaps in England nowadays …” He was about to enter upon his usual remarks about demoralisation caused by the dole, but reflected that a Roumanian, even an intelligent one with an English mother, might not comprehend them very fully. Besides which, the youth had just mentioned the word “engineering,” and at this Brown instinctively recoiled again, since he was in the engineering line himself, and sufficiently well-known in it for pushful young men to buttonhole him sometimes, in trains and hotels, and ask for jobs. Which, of course, was always very awkward and uncomfortable. He therefore remarked, rather cautiously across the table: “If that’s your profession, I don’t altogether envy you.”

  “Yes, it’s pretty hard just now. But there’s always room for new ideas—especially in my branch of the trade.”

  Brown was not so sure, despite the fact that he had often echoed the platitude at meetings and public dinners. But Palescu’s charming manner and almost sensational good looks were potent enough to overcome such a very minor misgiving, the more so as Brown was quite satisfied that the youth had no notion who he was. “Provided you realise that an idea isn’t necessarily good because it’s new,” he countered.

  “Oh, of course. But a really GOOD new idea. … For instance, has it ever occurred to you, sir, why air-travel isn’t yet really popular with the general public?”

  “I should say one of the reasons most people have is a rooted objection to being roasted alive.”

  “Ah, no—not that—not nowadays!” Palescu laughed with a most attractive heartiness. “What I mean is rather this—suppose an aeroplane holds thirty people, all bound from London to Paris, yet you yourself don’t want Paris at all—you’re going to Chantilly, say, for the races. The aeroplane, of course, won’t come down at Chantilly just for you alone, out of the thirty. So what do you have to do?”

  “My dear boy, don’t ask me—I never fly, I never go to races, and nothing would induce me to do either.”

  Palescu smiled slowly. “I must explain then. The trouble about flying is that very often it doesn’t save much time—because it dumps you where you don’t want to go. People talk of flying from London to Paris in so many hours, but unless you happen to live at Croydon and have business at Le Bourget, you often find that your total hours from place to place are not much less than by train and boat. And what if your business happens to be in some town that you actually fly over on the way—wouldn’t you feel: ’Ah, if I could only get down to it’?”

  “I daresay, but the same might happen on an express train that dashes through a place you really want to get to and takes you on to a big station miles beyond.”

  “Except that on railways you can have what is called in England, I think, a slip-carriage.”

  “Yes, that’s sometimes done. Of course I quite see that there’s no possible parallel to that in the air.”

  “But that isn’t what I want you to see at all.” The youth’s dark, eager eyes expressed a certain merry ecstasy in the revelation he was approaching. “As a matter of fact, there could be something like an aerial slip-carriage—that’s not a bad description of it. And—and it happens to be a particular invention of mine that I’m busy with just now.”

  For the third time Brown’s pleasure was momentarily retarded. Inventors were a tribe that had bothered him a good deal in the past; he counted them, on the whole, an even bigger nuisance than job-seekers. He remembered one fellow, during the 1928 boomlet, who had tried to get him interested in some new idea for burglar-proof bicycle-pumps…. But Palescu was talking on, with insurgent enthusiasm: “My invention is a sort of aluminium cigar, not much bigger than a man, and quite light in construction, so that a large aeroplane could easily carry half-a-dozen of them. Each one would contain a very small petrol-driven motor at one end, quite as small and compact as a motor-cycle two-stroke, together with a system of gyroscopic controls embodying certain new ideas of my own. All the alighting passenger need do would be to get into one of these things at any point he found convenient, have himself launched from the tail of th
e machine in full flight, and come to earth. The ‘gyrector,’ which is the name I have given to it, would descend in gradual spirals, and, when sufficiently near the ground, could be steered and brought to rest in any desired spot—even, if need be, in a square or street in the middle of a town, or on the roof of a building. The cost—”