The Square Peg or The Gun Fella полностью

However, the burial came to an end; the body was laid in the grave and left there. The mourners moved from the grave to their cars, followed by a great rush of photographers, who wanted to get close-ups of the gun-maker and his father. Frampton looked at some of these men, and said: “You damned carrion-hunters,” and was thanked by them for giving them so fair a chance to take him. After this, he drove away with his father to the house at Newbury. His father was quiet and sympathetic, being a very feeling man, who had been through many sorrows of his own. He said little on the way home except:

“The great thing is, never to let it make you cynical. It is all in that.”

Presently, they were at the house at Newbury. The father went up to his room to rest. Frampton went out to walk up and down in the walk between the hedges of hornbeams. His father’s spaniel, Joe, saw him there, and came floundering and wagging out to suggest a walk together. He scowled at the dog, who saw that something was amiss, and wagged and cringed, still hoping against hope, but at last saw that the walk was hopeless and lay down there, at the walk’s end, to watch if perchance the black mood would pass.

After a long, long time, he went in, flung off his mourning clothes, and bathed and dressed for dinner. It was delayed for a minute by a telephone enquiry from the Press, to ask if the recent sad bereavement would interfere with his plans for the new gun.

“Then I can say, Mr. Mansell, that you are carrying on as usual? Business as usual, eh?”

He hung up on this optimist, and let the telephone ring unacknowledged for the rest of the evening.

During dinner, his father said:

“You will come away with me to-morrow, Fram. I’ve taken berths to New York. We’ll fly to Vancouver together and see some of those plants there. I’ve long wanted to do that. We’ll be away three weeks or a month.”

The next morning, they motored to Southampton and so away into the West.

He had planned to be in the West for three weeks only, but stayed on for six, in frequent change of scene and in the great heat which his father always enjoyed. He found no consolation for his loss, but something which kept his mind from it; strangers to talk with, and new landscape to look at. Before leaving England, and while on the sea, he had determined to sell Mullples for what it would fetch as soon as he returned, but in the far West, the thought of that old house, which he had rescued from ruin, plucked at his heart; he had put a lot of thought and imagination into it, as well as all his hope. “Peggy liked it,” he thought. “She wanted that sanctuary at Spirr. I’ll keep it going for her sake. I’m not likely to meet another woman I shall want to marry.”

On their return to England, late in September, they drove to the Newbury house. It was all full of memories of Margaret; it was a grim home-coming to Frampton. He spent a couple of days there before going back to the Works.

“Look here, Fram,” his father said, “what d’you say to giving up Mullples and keeping on with me here for your week-ends? We’ve always got along together, and you know I’d be glad of you.”

“No,” Frampton said, “I’ve made Mullples. It’s my flesh and blood. I put my guts into that old house. It’s me. Besides, I’ve begun something there. I’ll not draw back, now I’ve put my hand to the plough. I’ll winter it and summer it before I chuck it.”

“I expected you’d say something like that,” the old man said, “but I’m thinking that the winter’s on us. You won’t find much congenial company there in winter-time, with nobody but shooters and fox-hunters. What will you do with all those sportsmen? Why not spend the autumn and winter here, at any rate? In the spring, go down to Mullples.”

“No,” he said, “I ought to go to Mullples. I’ve got all the household there. I’ve got them all pledged to stick it with me, and I won’t go back on them. I’ve got the thing to go. I mean to make it go. You see, it can’t go without me.” He mused for a moment and then went on. “You must not bother about the sportsmen. I’ve never failed to find congenial company, wherever I’ve been,” he said. “I shall only be there for the long week-ends; and there’ll always be work to do in the gardens or along by the waters. I can bring people down from the Works, and from Town, to eke out the local supply. I’ve got my gun to work at, if I’m bored; but I’ve never been bored yet.”

“I don’t believe you ever have been, Fram,” his father said. “It’s a good record. But you’ve never had a winter yet, in an English countryside. By the way, which pack of hounds is it at Mullples?”

“We are in the Tuncester country, what they call the Tunster; and close to the edge of the PDQ.”

“Are you going to hunt?”

“I? Hunt? No. Why do you ask a thing like that? Is thy servant a dog?”