Read Contango (Ill Wind) for Free Online

Mrs. Walsh, your bag will be all
right—all the luggage is coming along afterwards,” she sang out;
and Mrs. Walsh, a granitic matron who might otherwise have given trouble, was
instantly captivated.
    “We’ve been having it quite hot here lately,” continued
Miss Faulkner, in the omnibus, launching the regulation chitchat about the
weather. “And I see from the papers it’s been cold and rainy in
England…. Yes, we get all the English papers here a day late…. There,
that’s the Jungfrau—that big one over there. Rather fine,
isn’t it?” And privately to herself she reflected: “I must
write to George immediately after lunch, or I shall never get a
chance.”…
    Just as the horses turned out of Interlaken’s main thoroughfare into
the side-street leading to the hotel, a man stepped off the kerb and would
have been run down had not a shaft caught his arm and jerked him back. One of
the horses half-stumbled, and the driver pulled up and began to shout angrily
in German. There seemed here the makings of an awkward little scene, and it
was in just such an emergency that Miss Faulkner was at her best. Climbing
down from the omnibus she first commanded silence from the driver and then
approached the pedestrian. He was well-dressed, she noticed, and she was
relieved to find that he was English. “It was entirely my own
fault,” he admitted, calmly. “I wasn’t looking where I was
going at all. Fortunately I’m not hurt.”
    “Oh, well, if that’s the case, there’s really nothing
more to be said, is there?” replied Miss Faulkner, flashing her smile.
“I’m glad you’re all right. Good morning.”
    The man raised his hat and walked off, and Miss Faulkner, continuing her
smile to her people in the omnibus, climbed in again. “Really,”
she said, as the journey was resumed, “if people WILL do these
things—” Somebody cried: “Day-dreamin’, that’s
what he must have been doin’,” and Miss Faulkner echoed:
“Yes, that’s just it!” with an air of finding the remark a
perfect and wished-for expression of her own feelings. There was thus a
second person captivated.
    When the hotel was reached, Miss Faulkner presided briskly over the usual
commotion about rooms; then came lunch, during which, from the head of the
long table, she made the speech she always made at first meals. It was one of
carefully mingled exhortation and facetiousness—all about being
punctual, making the best of things, keeping together on party expeditions,
and taking warm clothing on the mountain trips. “Oh, yes, and
there’s just one other thing— some of you may already have
discovered that foreign hotels don’t supply soap. If you haven’t
brought any with you, there’s a chemist’s shop just round the
corner where they speak English.” Somebody cheered. Miss Faulkner
smiled. And then: “Perhaps we’d better not plan anything for this
afternoon, as I daresay many of you feel tired after the journey and would
like to rest.” She gazed round the tables with a look of slightly
intimidating enquiry, and the response came easily to her bidding, in the
form of mumbled assent. “All right. Then we’ll meet again at
seven-thirty for dinner.”
    Thank goodness, she thought, escaping through the crowd—that left
her free for the afternoon. She went up to her bedroom and dragged a wicker
chair to the window. The view was not of the Jungfrau, as all the
advertisements would have led one to assume, but of a row of similar windows
overlooking a small well-like courtyard in between. Free for the afternoon,
Miss Faulkner echoed to herself, as she got out pen and paper and began to
write. The letter was to her brother, who worked in a stockbroker’s
office in Old Broad Street. She wrote:
    “DEAR GEORGE,
    “Thanks for sending on my correspondence. The weather here has been
hot, which I don’t mind, except that it makes people dawdle, and I have
to keep on chivvying