|
John
Charrington’s Wedding
No one ever thought that May Forster would
marry John
Charrington, but he thought differently, and
when John
Charrington wanted something, he usually got
it. He asked
her to marry him before he went to university.
She laughed
and refused him. He asked her again when he
came home.
Again she laughed and again she refused. He
asked her a third time and she laughed at him more than ever.
John was not the only man who wanted to
marry her. She
was the most beautiful girl in our village
and we were all in
love with her. So none of us was pleased
when John suddenly
invited us to his wedding.
‘Your wedding?’
‘You don’t mean it?’
‘Who’s the lucky lady? When is it?’
John Charrington waited a moment before he
replied.
‘Miss Forster and I will be married in
September,’ he said
calmly.
‘No, no, she’s refused you again,’ said
someone. ‘She
always refuses you, John, remember?’
Everyone laughed.
‘No, I can see it’s true,’ I said, looking
at his face. ‘How did you do it, John?’
‘The best luck in the world,’ he said. ‘And
I never stopped
asking her.’
And that was all he would say.
The strange thing was that May Forster
seemed to be in
love with him, too. Perhaps she had been in
love with him all
the time? Oh, I’ll never understand women.
We were all asked to the wedding, and I was
going to be
best man. Everyone was talking about it and
everyone asked
the question, ‘Does she really love him?’
At first, in the early days of summer, I
asked that question
myself, but after one evening in August, I
never asked it again.
I was going home past the church. Our church
is on a hill and the grass around it is very thick and soft, so I made no
sound as I walked. It was there that I saw them. May was sitting on a low
gravestone with her face turned towards the evening sun, and the look on her
face ended for ever any question about her love for John Charrington. She
looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her.
John was lying at her feet, and it was his
voice that broke
the silence of the golden August evening.
‘My dear, my dear, I know that I would come
back from
the dead if you wanted me!’
I understood now, and continued quickly on
my way.
The wedding was planned for early in
September. Two
days before that I had to go up to London on business. As
I was standing in the station, waiting for the train, I saw John Charrington
and May Forster. They were walking up and down, looking into each other’s
eyes. Of course, I didn’t speak to them, and when the train came in, I got on
and found myself a seat. If John was travelling alone, hoped he would come
and talk to me.
And he did. ‘Hello there,’ he said, as he
came into my
carriage. ‘That’s lucky. The journey won’t
be boring now.’
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘To see old Branbridge, my uncle,’ he answered,
as he
turned to say a last goodbye to May through
the window.
‘Oh, I wish you wouldn’t go, John,’ she said
in a low,
serious voice. ‘I feel sure something will
happen.’
‘Do you think I’ll let anything happen to
me, when the day
after tomorrow is our wedding day?’
‘Don’t go,’ she asked him again.
He took her hand in his. ‘I must, May. The
old man’s been
very good to me, and now he’s dying. I must
go and see him, but I’ll come home in good time for the wedding.’
‘You’re sure?’ she said as the train began
to move.
‘Nothing will keep me away,’ he replied.
When he could no longer see her, he sat down
and
explained that his uncle was dying at home
in Peasmarsh and
had asked for him. He felt that he had to
go.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ he said, ‘or, if
not, the day after.
That’s plenty of time.’
‘And suppose Mr Branbridge dies?’
‘Alive or dead I’ll be married on Thursday!’
John said,
opening his newspaper.
John left the train at Peasmarsh station and
I watched him
walk away. I went on to London where I spent the night.
When I arrived home the next afternoon, my
sister said:
‘Where’s John Charrington?’
‘Isn’t he back?’ I asked. I was sure he
would be at home.
‘No, Geoffrey. He has not returned, and,
what is more, he
won’t. There’ll be no wedding tomorrow.’
My sister always thinks badly of other
people, which
makes me very angry.
‘Don’t be stupid! Of course there’ll be a
wedding,’ I said.
But I was not so sure when late that night
John
Charrington had still not returned.
The next morning the sun was shining in a
clear blue sky.
There was a note for me from John and when I
went up to
the Forsters’ house, I found he had written
to May too.
‘Mr Branbridge asked him to stay another
night,’ she said.
‘John’s so kind, he couldn’t refuse, but I
wish he hadn’t
stayed.’
‘Well, he’s asked me to meet him at the
station at three
o’clock, and come straight on to the
church,’ I said.
I was at the station at half-past two. I was
a little angry
with John. It didn’t seem right to arrive at
the church straight from the train to marry that beautiful girl.
But when the three o’clock train came in and
went out
again without leaving any passengers, I was
more than angry.
There was no other train for thirty-five
minutes. ‘If we really hurry,’ I thought, ‘we should just get to the church in
time.
But what a stupid man to miss that first
train!’
That thirty-five minutes seemed like a year
as I waited. I
grew more and more angry with John
Charrington. The train
was late, of course – and John Charrington
wasn’t on it.
I jumped into the carriage which was waiting
outside the
station. ‘Drive to the church!’ I said.
I was now more worried than angry. Where
could he be?
Was he ill? But he was never ill. Perhaps
he’d had an accident.
Yes, that was it. Something terrible had
happened, I was sure of it. And I was going to have to tell his bride . . .
It was five to four when I reached the
church. I jumped
from the carriage and ran past the crowd of
villagers waiting
outside the church. I saw our gardener up at
the front, by the door.
‘Are they all still waiting, Tom?’ I asked.
‘Waiting, sir? No, no, the wedding’s nearly
finished.’
‘Finished! Then Mr Charrington has come?’
‘Yes, sir. He was here on time, all right.
But, sir,’ Tom
looked around him, then spoke quietly in my
ear, ‘I’ve never
seen Mr Charrington like this before. I
think he’s been
drinking. His clothes were all dirty, and
his face was as white
as a sheet. People are saying all kinds of
things, sir, but I think it’s the drink. He looked like a ghost, and he went
straight in without a word to any of us.’
The villagers were talking in whispers, and
getting ready
to throw their handfuls of rice over the
newly married pair.
Then they appeared at the church door – John
Charrington
and his bride. Tom was right. John
Charrington was not
himself. His coat was dirty, his hair
untidy, and his face was
deathly pale. But no paler than the face of
his wife, which was as white as her wedding dress and the flowers in her
hand.
As they left the church, the bell-ringers
began to pull. And
then came – not the happy music of wedding
bells – but the long, slow, deep sound of the death bell.
Horror filled every heart in the crowd. How
could the bellringers make so terrible a mistake? But the ringers themselves ran
in fear from the church, and refused to go back in.
The bride’s hands were shaking, and there
were grey shadows around her mouth. Her husband held her arm and walked
with her through the crowd of villagers,
waiting with their
handfuls of rice. But the handfuls were
never thrown, and the wedding bells never rang.
In a silence deeper than the silence of
death, John
Charrington and his bride got into their
carriage, closed the
door, and drove away.
At once people began to talk, full of
surprise and anger and
horror at what they had seen.
I drove back to the house with Mr Forster,
May’s father.
‘Why did I let my daughter marry him?’ old
Forster said.
‘To come to the wedding like that! I’d like
to hit him in the
face for doing that!’
He put his head out of the carriage window.
‘Drive as fast as you can!’ he shouted.
The driver obeyed. We passed the wedding
carriage
without looking at it, and reached home
before it.
We stood at the door, in the burning
afternoon sun, and
a minute later the wedding carriage arrived.
When it
stopped in front of the steps, Mr Forster and
I ran down.
‘Good Heavens, the carriage is empty! But—’
I pulled the door open at once, and this is
what I saw . . .
There was no John Charrington, and all we
could see of
May, his wife, was something white, lying
half on the floor
of the carriage and half on the seat.
‘I came straight here,’ the driver said, as
May’s father lifted her out, ‘and no one got out of the carriage.’
We carried her into the house in her wedding
dress – and
then I saw her face. How can I ever forget
it? White, white, and in her eyes more fear and horror than I have ever seen
on any living face. And her hair, her beautiful golden hair, was as white as
snow.
As we stood there, her father and I, unable
to move or
speak, a boy came up to the house with a
message. I took it
from him and opened it.
Mr Charrington was thrown from his horse on
his
way to the station at half past one. He was
killed
immediately.
And he was married to May Forster at the
church at half
past three, with half the village watching.
‘Alive or dead, I’ll be married on
Thursday!’
What had happened in that carriage on the
way home? No
one knows – no one will ever know.
Before a week was over, they laid May
Charrington beside
her husband, under the soft green grass by
the little church
where they used to meet as lovers.
And that was the way John Charrington was
married.
|
