Contango (Ill Wind) Page 5

  Miss Faulkner’s attitude towards Mr. Brown was governed, therefore, by conditions perfectly well known to herself. She was attracted, and she was aware that the attraction was to a large extent physical; she liked the man’s tallness, his distinguished, if not exactly handsome, features, his quiet voice, his rare but satisfying smile. The fastidious and slightly snobbish part of her was also attracted; she liked his well-dressed dignity, his accent, his courtesy, his old-fashioned readiness to treat her as a lady for no other reason than that she was a woman. Thinking the matter over in bed that night, she was very candid with herself. She was smitten; yes, most decidedly; indeed, she couldn’t get the man’s image out of her head. The way he had sat with her at the Jungfraujoch; no doubt it would give her a pang whenever she saw the place again. On the other hand, facing facts quite squarely, she came to the rather depressing conclusion that he probably wasn’t very clever. His finding Shaw’s book dull, for instance— not that that by itself proved much, but it linked itself with other things—notably the fact that he hadn’t made one really intelligent remark to her during the whole of their talks. He had listened; he had often made some “suitable” comment; he had certainly never said anything stupid; but of wit, of originality, of anything subtle or scintillating, there had been nothing. Miss Faulkner was disappointed, but she knew it could not be helped. After all, she met charming people far less often than clever ones, and how devastating for her if Mr. Brown had chanced to be both! She turned out the light, deciding that the really satisfactory conclusion would be for him to invite her to spend a week in Paris with him; she would accept, and they would thus live happily ever afterwards—without each other.

  Unfortunately for this pleasant possibility, Mr. Brown had so far shown no sign of desiring even friendship, much less amorous adventure. Miss Faulkner admitted this, but without despair. She had, in her time, surmounted barriers that had at first seemed just as forbidding; and she surmised, too, that, in most men as in most women, love was largely a question of having the idea put into their heads when they had nothing else to do. Besides, it was fun trying to get what she wanted, particularly when it didn’t matter a great deal if she were unsuccessful. It was even fun to try and imagine things about him, though she gave up her vision of a high Genevan official and substituted that of a retired bank manager whom his wife had left because she found him too much of a bore.

  And then, the very next morning, she made her great discovery.

  She had received by the first post a further batch of correspondence forwarded from England, and among its items was a monthly paper issued by some society to which she belonged—one of those organisations for the protection, abolition, or propagation of something or other. The paper was a meagre product in its own particular class of journalism, badly printed and on poor quality paper, but its centre page did contain a sufficiently recognisable photograph of Mr. Brown. And underneath was the caption: “Mr. Charles Gathergood, late British Agent at Cuava, Broken on the Wheel of Capitalist Imperialism.”

  Miss Faulkner knew, of course, all about Gathergood. She had followed the whole business in the daily Press; she had even proposed in public a resolution of protest against the shooting down of defenceless Cuavanese by British sailors. Her sympathy with the Cuavanese was naturally intense, since she had never seen them, and since all her respected sources of information assured her that they were the persecuted victims of sadistic rubber-planters in league with a cynical white bureaucracy. Gathergood, according to the unanimous and almost automatic decision of left-wing authority, had stood up, one solitary man against a system, to champion a stricken and exploited subject-race. He had refused consent to Prussianised methods (only, of course, one must not say “Prussianised” any more), and had in consequence been put to the cruel farce of an enquiry at which the real villains had sat in the judgment- seat and condemned him. Quite a vociferous section of English opinion held these views, and for some time after the issue of the report working-men hecklers at their opponents’ meetings had been in the habit of shouting: “What erbaht Gathergood of Kewarver?”—just as they might similarly ask about the Zinovieff Letter, Amritsar, or any other disputed phenomenon.

  Upon Miss Faulkner, therefore, the unmasking of that heroic name behind the prosaic pseudonym came like a spark to dry tinder. She sat for a long time in her wicker chair under the bedroom window, holding the revealing photograph in her hand. Yes, she was sure it was he; the nose, mouth, and forehead were unmistakable, and even the eyes and hair were as confirmatory as could be expected from a newspaper print. And then, too, it fitted in with his own queer vagueness and reticences, with his mention of malaria, with the sombre look that she had noted in his eyes sometimes, with—yes, yes, of course it did—even with the very thing that had caused her misgiving. For how could he be expected to respond to stimulating conversation if his mind were still clouded with the memory of undeserved censure? And how could he feel in any mood for a display of mental agility after such storms as had lately broken over his head? Besides, however clever he might or mightn’t be, he was principally a man of action, a hero. Normally Miss Faulkner was not very keen on heroes (she had always thought there was something a little vulgar about winning the V.C.); but Gathergood’s heroism was clearly different; he had championed the oppressed, which was to say, the non-British; indeed, since the stand taken by the conscientious objectors during the War, Miss Faulkner could not call to mind anything more inspiring.

  She came down to breakfast with eyes ablaze, and when, in fear lest he were gone, she looked through the hotel doorway across the road, there he was, taking his coffee and rolls as usual, but, oh, how much more to her now—this Gathergood of Cuava, man of such magnificent sorrow, already more than canonised in her heart.

  She had to escort her party to Brienz that day, but before setting out she scribbled a hasty note to her brother.

  “I wonder if you would mind looking out and sending me back-numbers of the ‘Record’ dealing with the Gathergood case—you know, the man who refused to shoot the native rubber-workers in Cuava. I think Miss Totham gave me some cuttings about it as well—they’re probably in the cupboard under the gramophone. You might send them along with the papers and also the report of the Singapore Enquiry which was held recently. I daresay you can get it at the Stationery Office for a few shillings. It’s a shame to bother you with all these things, but I know you won’t mind. I’d tell you why I want them, but it’s rather a long story and I must dash away to collect my people for a train that leaves almost immediately. In great haste therefore,

  “Your affectionate sister,

  “FLORENCE.”

  All the time she was piloting her party round the wood-carving shops at Brienz, Miss Faulkner was exulting over her discovery. Now, more than ever, she craved the friendship of the lonely, blue-eyed man at the “Oberland”; but now her desire was tinged with the thrill of a secret shared between them, with the pursuit of all her cherished ideals, with—yes, with love. Indeed, for a moment there in the main street of Brienz she became quite dazed with her new vision and could only stare stupidly when she heard one of her party addressing her. “Yes, they are rather sweet, aren’t they?” she managed to answer at last, and to show a belated interest in her surroundings she picked up something haphazardly from the wood-carver’s counter and pretended to examine it. She put it hastily back, however, on perceiving it to be a musical-box disguised as a toilet-roll.

  There was, of course, the question of immediate tactics to be settled; should she, or should she not, declare her knowledge? The fact that he was staying at the hotel under an assumed name seemed to indicate a wish not to be identified, which was quite understandable in the circumstances; on the other hand, might he not be glad of the sympathy that could be given him by one, such as herself, who understood and admired the real man? Still, Miss Faulkner felt a little doubtful about it. He did not look to be a person who would like anyone to find out something he had taken special precautions to con
ceal. Besides, might there not be a species of heaven-sent tact in knowing and yet pretending not to know? Might there not come a moment when Mr. Brown-Gathergood would think: “What a marvellous woman—she guesses, yet she respects my desire for privacy; I will therefore tell her everything.” … At the thought of that, Miss Faulkner decided quite definitely that she would adopt the more cautious policy. It certainly would be wonderful if he eventually told her himself, and she imagined a conversation which would end by her exclaiming: “But, my dear, why should you have been afraid to tell me? Did you think I didn’t guess it all the time?”

  At sunset that evening occurred the phenomenon known as the Alpine glow—a momentary transfiguration of the mountains that turned their snow-slopes into the appearance of pink blancmange. All Miss Faulkner’s party rushed out of the hotel into the middle of the roadway to stare hard, Miss Faulkner with them. And there, on the terrace opposite, the man—her man—was staring hard like everyone else. Miss Faulkner’s heart experienced a sudden Alpine glow of its own; she knew, at that moment, that the world was full of beauty, that Switzerland was marvellous, that the Jungfrau was superb, that even the orchestrola tinkling away from the neighbouring bar was in tune with her own emotions at the sight of that saffron summit. Never had she experienced such a sensation of being at one with everything, part of the tumultuous earth; her eyes filled up as she edged her way through the crowd to the line of shrubs that fringed the “Oberland” terrace. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” she breathed.

  The man looked down at her. “Oh, good evening. … Yes, it’s great. I wouldn’t mind being up there now.”

  “Yes… yes…. Oh yes….” Trite remark and trite reply, yet how impossible it seemed for either of them to have said anything more, less, or different.

  A moment later the glow had faded into the cool grey distance, and the crowd was filtering back into the hotel. But Miss Faulkner stayed talking—talking less fluently than usual, for she was struggling for mastery with forces that seemed to split her sentences in two just as she had them nicely shaped. It was queer; there was something now that made the barrier higher and more difficult than ever, and her emotion was a pain as well as a pleasure. The mountain-spectacle had made her feel that she must, at any cost, secure a repetition of that magic day with him—not at the Joch again (which would doubtless be impossible to contrive), but somewhere, anywhere that would give them time and opportunity to talk. “Have you made any plans for to-morrow?” she asked.

  “I rather thought of going for a long walk somewhere beyond Lauterbrunnen.”

  “Splendid idea! There are some lovely paths along the valley.”

  It was a few minutes later, re-entering her hotel, that she began to lose her sense of humour. She had already arranged a trip to Kandersteg for the following day, but she suddenly came to a new decision and announced there and then, to those of her party who were in the hotel lobby, that Kandersteg was “off.”

  “It’s rather a long trip, you see, and as most of you are leaving for England by the evening train I thought that a shorter one might be more suitable—the Trummelbach Waterfall; we could leave comfortably during the morning and be back for tea.” She felt quite victorious when they all agreed. For the waterfall was just beyond Lauterbrunnen, and there was only one road along the valley, so that if he were to be taking his long walk….

  But the next morning it was raining hard. She took her people to the fall and they all got soaked to the skin and there was no sign of the pedestrian hero. When she returned in the late afternoon she found that, like a sensible person, he had stayed indoors all day. It was the friendly porter of the “Oberland” who told her that. And he added: “He was asking me about you this morning, miss.”

  Miss Faulkner could not repress a start of joy. “He WAS? Was he REALLY? I hope—I do hope you gave me a good character.”

  The porter grinned. “Oh, yes, miss. I said you were very clever— could speak French, German, Italian, Spanish—”

  “What nonsense!” she interrupted, with gay indignation. But she was not without hope that the porter’s account of her might have been nearly as impressive.

  The party went back to England that evening, having presented Miss Faulkner with an embroidered handbag and received in return her customary speech of thanks and farewell. She saw them off on the Calais train at the station. The next morning she met the incoming train with its load of new arrivals, “Oh, dear, now it all begins again,” she thought, scampering along the platform with her usual smile of sprightly welcome. She had a mixed collection of books under her arm. The clanking carriages drew slowly in, pulled by an electric engine that stood at the far end ticking like an enormous clock. Everything outwardly was the same as a week ago—the labels on the carriage windows, the unshaven faces of the men, the two horse-omnibuses waiting in the station yard, the sky and the mountains and the level-crossing gate like a barber’s pole that seemed so ridiculously confident of being able to hold up a Simplon express. All was the same, except Miss Faulkner, and she was different. She was in love.

  There could be no doubt of that. The affair with the university extension lecturer had been nothing to it. It caught up the urge of physical attraction and the drive of ambition and the devouring flame of her love for abstract humanity, and fused them all together into one transcendent and compulsive entirety. It turned Interlaken into the New Jerusalem and the Hôtel Oberland into the ark of all Miss Faulkner’s covenants. “Yes, we’ve been having it quite hot here lately,” she said in the omnibus. “There—that’s the Jungfrau—the one that has all the snow. …” But she felt she was dreaming, and talking in a dream.

  Sunday; she did not see him. The porter told her he had gone out early with some young men for a long walk and climb. As she returned with her people in the afternoon from Grindelwald, the church bell at Lauterbrunnen was tolling for a funeral, and she wondered if it were for some intrepid climber killed on the mountains. There was a wait of three-quarters of an hour at the station, and she left her party and hurried to the churchyard, feeling curiously warm and sentimental as she passed all the English names on the tombstones. She wanted to find some simple outlet for all her emotions, and she was quite disappointed when she reached the open grave and saw from the coffin-lid that the dead person was one Johanna Zimmermeister, aged eighty-seven.

  That evening she felt that she could not keep her secret any longer; she must tell somebody, anybody. So she wrote to her brother:

  “The reason I asked for the papers about Gathergood is because Gathergood is here, staying at the hotel across the road under an assumed name. I recognised him from a photograph. He is a very quiet man and naturally not anxious to mix up with people. But I have already got to know him, though of course he doesn’t know I know who he is. We had a wonderful day together last week at the Jungfraujoch. I hope I may be able to help him eventually, because he’s bound to feel very deeply all that has happened—you have only to look at him to see that. I am sure you would like him; he is tall and rather slim, and has very blue eyes. I don’t think I have ever seen a man who gives such an impression of brooding power, if you know what I mean. One would rather expect that, from the attitude he took up. I don’t, of course, even hint at the subject of Cuava with him, but he did confide in me that he had been in the East. I want to read up the case so that when does feel inclined to tell me everything (as I think he will) I shall be able to show him how completely I understand. Perhaps the papers and things will arrive by to-morrow morning’s post—I do hope so….”

  They did, and she spent the whole of breakfast-time perusing them, forgetting her smiles, forgetting her small talk at table, and— most serious of all—forgetting that the train for the Schynige Platte left at a quarter past ten. It was the first time she had ever made such a blunder, and she was compelled to fix up the impromptu alternative of a trip by lake steamer to Isseltwald and Giesbach. Her people sensed that she had mismanaged things, and were scarcely mollified when they observed her po
ring over a bulky paper-backed volume at every available moment. But Miss Faulkner was past caring for things like that. Her mind was roaming like molten metal into the vast ramifying moulds of human injustice, and the very loveliness of lake and mountain only served to throw her visions into more dazzling focus. It was terrible, and lovely, and nearly unendurable. Her body and spirit felt like a single raw nerve; she was in pain with pity, with an aching tenderness, with this love of hers. All over the earth the endless panorama of suffering humanity called her, and she yearned towards it, and in yearning saw the face of a man. Her man; the only man who was “yes” to all her eagerness and “no” to all her fears. If only she could make him respond a little! Had he not already, however unsusceptible at first, begun to interest himself in her? His questioning the porter about her seemed a good sign. And it was really unlikely that they could have progressed much faster, he with his natural shyness and she with that dawdling cavalcade always at her heels. But they had had that day together at the Jungfraujoch and he must have realised then how much they shared in common. Miss Faulkner’s heart beat more hopefully when she reckoned up all this; no, it was not at all impossible; indeed, if fate but yielded an opportunity of overcoming the first impediments, the rest might almost be considered probable. Nor, quite honestly, could she imagine a more satisfactory match for either of them. He probably had money—not very much, but enough to let her give up her job and devote herself wholeheartedly to “the cause”; in fact, as the wife of Gathergood (“You know, my dear, the man who—“) her chances and prospects would be greatly enhanced. And he too, reinforced by her capabilities, might go very far. She pictured the two of them, working together in perfect community of ideas and ideals, sitting perhaps for adjacent constituencies (she for Chester-le-Street, say, and he for Houghton-le-Spring), and living in some mellow Georgian house in Chelsea, with a big workroom full of white-painted bookshelves and a tradition of Sunday tea-parties for the intelligentsia. A sort of Sidney and Beatrice Webb business, but with moments during which even the Fabian bloodstream might race. And at this, the mere possibility of it, Miss Faulkner felt herself deliciously flushing. Absurd, of course, to let herself dream in such a way. And yet… and yet… there WAS the chance, the minute, incalculable chance that she had to seize if she could…. “Oh yes, the tickets—I have them, of course,” she stammered, in confusion as the collector approached. But there was another hitch about that; she had thirty-three in her party and had bought tickets for only thirty-one. After complicated countings and reckonings she paid the difference; but it was another thing that had never happened before.