“If I were not sure I would be, do you think I would be marrying you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
They turned to leave the garden. She turned at the garden door.
“Good-bye and good luck,” she said. “Half-past five, then, at the stile beyond the wheelwright’s.”
“Half-past five. I’m glad we’ve had this moonlight talk. I shall remember it.”
“So shall I,” she said. “Good night.”
He was up early, in spite of his late going to bed. He was in his car by seven, so as to dodge the rush of traffic; by nine he was in the Works, with a dozen different things to see to, each sufficient to put Margaret and the moonlight out of his mind. By twelve he had done his necessary tasks; he could hand over for a month, to his partner. He washed his hands of works and guns, shook hands with his partner, received the usual good wishes from two or three of the staff, and so escaped to his car, which was driven rapidly to a country club where he had a plunge in the swimming-pool, and then lunch. After lunch, he had to see a man in London about some prints for Margaret. It was full three before he turned out of London. He had plenty to think of on the way, because the road was full of traffic; however, he was used to that, and made good time notwithstanding. He was a vindictive driver. If a man cut in on him, to pass, he would accelerate and cut in on him. He gave rather more than he received in this way. He was at the stile a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. He pulled the car on to the strip of grass by the roadside, where a wisp of copse gave shade. He sat on the stile, thinking that at that time on the morrow he would be a married man. He supposed that it would be a clipping of his wings, but all men consented to it sooner or later, pretty nearly all; he had dodged it a lot longer than most; but then, he hadn’t been susceptible; he hadn’t been caught in the man-trap; he had waited till he had met the woman he really wanted. The wisp of copse was fenced by a wall. A weasel appeared upon the wall and looked at him with interest. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, then the weasel popped down into the copse and pattered about there on its affairs. It went off presently; a robin and then a hedge sparrow hopped on the grassy strip, gathered each some food and flew away. He heard the Windlesham church clock chime for half-past five, but Margaret did not appear. He looked at his watch; the church clock was a minute fast; she was sure to be there in a minute; she was a punctual soul; even the day before her marriage she would be punctual. He himself loathed unpunctuality as the very devil; appointed moments ought to be kept; people with no sense of time got short shift from him.
Five minutes after the half-hour, he heard footsteps coming, and went to the bend in the road, thinking that they must be Margaret’s; but they were the steps of an old woman, whom he had seen once or twice in the village, “rather a character,” that is, not quite sane, wearing the old battered hat and shapeless clothes which the old in English villages affect. She was mumbling to herself; she looked at him curiously as she went by, with a shrewdness which was not mad, wished him “Good evening” and passed on; but turned to look at him after she had passed.
He loathed old age, as he loathed poverty; it was so often inefficient; he wanted to scrap it. He remembered something which had been told him about this old woman: she had bewitched a farmer’s sheep, so the story went, so that they all vomited needles. He wished that he could think that the story were true.
The minutes passed, to his growing impatience. Presently, it was a quarter to six; yet still there was no Margaret. He had always held a theory that the simplest explanation is generally the right one, when problems of this sort occur. No doubt, on the eve of her wedding, people would be coming in with gifts, or asking to see her, or telephoning, from that misguided interest which goes with want of understanding.
“The female bore has got her,” he muttered, “one of these old prurient crones.”
He thought, that as their walk would now be ruined, he had better walk up towards the house, meet her on the way and walk home with her. He stepped up the road, round the bend. She was not in sight yet. The wheelwright, so-called, was at work outside his shop; he was no longer a wheelwright, but did odd jobs with bicycles, motors and the sale of oils and petrols. He was bent over a basin of water in which he held a bicycle tyre. He was slowly turning the tyre round, watching for the bubbles which would betray the puncture; when he heard Frampton’s footsteps he looked up. He was a somewhat slow-witted, but very gentle and good man. His wife, who was standing by him, said something to him in a low voice; he thereupon straightened himself up and put down the tyre. Frampton had seen him singing in Margaret’s choir at the village concert; he had also heard him imitating the cries of several British birds; he had spoken to him then; and had liked him. Seeing that the man now advanced to speak, he turned to him. The man wavered always in his speech, so much Frampton remembered. He noticed that he was now looking very solemn.
“Good evening,” Frampton said.
The man was wearing his black Sunday trousers, which seemed odd to Frampton.
“Mr. Mansell, sir,” the man said, “they been trying to get at you, sir. I hope as someone told you the sad news.”
A pang of coming frightful disaster went into Frampton’s very soul and was then turned out by an act of will, so that he might deal with the situation.
“What news is that?” he asked.
“There’s been an accident, Mr. Mansell; to poor Miss Margaret.”
He was a simple good soul; he began to cry; his wife was crying at his side and mopping her eyes with the end of her apron.
“She was killed, sir, in her motor-car,” the wife sobbed.
“Along about twelve o’clock, sir,” the wheelwright said. “She was turning into the road in her car when a London car went into her. She was killed, sir, and the London man not far short of killed.”
Stunned as he was, Frampton thanked them. He remembered something in the life of Drake, when disaster threatened, how Drake had contrived to keep going, and to keep his crew going.
“‘There will be time,’” he quoted to himself; his world was spinning about him, as he walked on; “‘that will be the end of me, pretty much,’” he said. Odds and ends of verse rang in his head, about the little house they had built to be so gay with. That came into his mind over and over again. Yet he felt now and again that perhaps the news was not true. In the village, there was a sort of awe, as he passed; all stood to look.
“Look, damn you,” he muttered savagely, as he saw the elbows nudging and the faces turning. “Here you’ve got a moving picture for nothing; and to-morrow you’ll have the gutter press. Take a good look.”
At the outside of Holtspur Manor, a group of idlers lounged smoking and chatting. They had camped in the shade of the trees and had been there for some time. As he drew near, these people dropped their cards and cigarettes; they sprang up, seized their cameras and at once began to photograph him. “Famous Gun-Maker Walks to House of Dead Fiancée.” There were a dozen of them, male and female. The clicks of the cameras reminded him of triggers. One robust man, with a cinema camera, seemed to be machine-gunning him. There were little cries of:
“Look this way, Mr. Mansell; just turn your head. Won’t you just look this way a second?”
He was the corpse, they were the cannibals; there could be no doubt that the news was true. The vultures would not gather for Life.
The news was true. Presently, he was at the old house, speaking to Margaret’s sister. Margaret’s body was upstairs. He heard all that was known. It was an accident, like most of the disasters on the road. The chief cowman at the dairy farm was the only man who had with his own eyes seen it happen; two had heard it from a little distance; these two dairymen had seen a big car going at great speed along the road, and had then heard a crash at the corner. They had no doubt that the car was going too fast, and cutting across side roads without warning. All three men swore to having heard Margaret sound her horn as she drove out.