Fifteen
IM orning in the High Street.
Miss Emily Barton comes out of the grocer’s with her shopping bag. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are excited.
“Oh, dear, Mr. Burton, I really am in such a flutter. To think I really am going on a cruise at last!”
“I hope you’ll enjoy it.”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall. I should never have dared to go by myself. It does seem so providential the way everythinghas turned out. For a long time I’ve felt that I ought to part with Little Furze, that my means were really too straitenedbut I couldn’t bear the idea of strangers there. But now that you have bought it and are going to live there with Megan—it is quite different. And then dear Aimée, after her terrible ordeal¹, not quite knowing what to do with herself, andher brother getting married (how nice to think you have both settled down with us!) and agreeing to come with me.
We mean to be away quite a long time. We might even”—Miss Emily dropped her voice—“go round the world! AndAimée is so splendid and so practical. I really do think, don’t you, that everything turns out for the best?”
Just for a fleeting² moment I thought of Mrs. Symmington and Agnes Woddell in their graves in the churchyard andwondered if they would agree, and then I remembered that Agnes’s boy hadn’t been very fond of her and that Mrs.
Symmington hadn’t been very nice to Megan and, what the hell? we’ve all got to die some time! And I agreed withhappy Miss Emily that everything was for the best in the best of possible worlds.
I went along the High Street and in at the Symmingtons’ gate and Megan came out to meet me.
It was not a romantic meeting because an out-size Old English sheepdog came out with Megan and nearly knockedme over with his ill-timed exuberance³.
“Isn’t he adorable?” said Megan.
“A little overwhelming. Is he ours?”
“Yes, he’s a wedding present from Joanna. We have had nice wedding presents, haven’t we? That fluffy⁴ woollything that we don’t know what it’s for from Miss Marple, and the lovely Crown Derby tea set from Mr. Pye, and Elsiehas sent me a toast-rack—”
“How typical,” I interjected.
“And she’s got a post with a dentist and is very happy. And—where was I?”

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