If: A Play in Four Acts by Lord Dunsany (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗
- Author: Lord Dunsany
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MARY
John, it may alter your whole life!
JOHN
Now do listen, Mary, do listen. He never turned up. I got a letter from him apologising to me before I posted mine to him. It turned out he never meant to help me, mere meaningless affabilities. He never came to London that day at all. I should have taken the next train back. That can't affect the future.
MARY
N-no, John. Still, I don't like it.
JOHN
What difference could it make?
MARY
N-n-no.
JOHN
Think how we met. We met at ARCHIE's wedding. I take it one has to go to one's brother's wedding. It would take a pretty big change to alter that. And. you were her bridesmaid. We were bound to meet. And having once met, well, there you are. If we'd met by chance, in a train, or anything like that, well, then I admit some little change might alter it. But when we met at ARCHIE's wedding and you were her bridesmaid, why, Mary, it's a cert. Besides, I believe in predestination. It was our fate; we couldn't have missed it.
MARY
No, I suppose not; still..
JOHN
Well, what?
MARY
I don't like it.
JOHN
O, Mary, I have so longed to catch that infernal train. Just think of it, annoyed on and off for ten years by the eight-fifteen.
MARY
I'd rather you didn't, John.
JOHN
But why?
MARY
O, John, suppose there's a railway accident? You might be killed, and we should never meet.
JOHN
There wasn't.
MARY
There wasn't, John? What do you mean?
JOHN
There wasn't an accident to the eight-fifteen. It got safely to London just ten years ago.
MARY
Why, nor there was.
JOHN
You see how groundless your fears are. I shall catch that train, and all the rest will happen the same as before. Just think Mary, all those old days again. I wish I could take you with me. But you soon will be. But just think of the old days coming back again. Hampton Court again and Kew, and Richmond Park again with all the May. And that bun you bought, and the corked ginger-beer, and those birds singing and the 'bus past Isleworth. O, Mary, you wouldn't grudge me that?
MARY
Well, well then all right, John.
JOHN
And you will remember there wasn't an accident, won't you?
MARY [resignedly, sadly]
O, yes, John. And you won't try to get rich or do anything silly, will you?
JOHN
No, Mary. I only want to catch that train. I'm content with the rest. The same things must happen, and they must lead me the same way, to you, Mary. Good night, now, dear.
MARY
Good night?
JOHN
I shall stay here on the sofa holding the crystal and thinking. Then I'll have a biscuit and start at seven.
MARY
Thinking, John? What about?
JOHN
Getting it clear in my mind what I want to do. That one thing and the rest the same. There must be no mistakes.
MARY [sadly]
Good night, John.
JOHN
Have supper ready at eleven.
MARY
Very well, John. [Exit.]
JOHN [on the sofa, after a moment or two]
I'll catch that infernal train in spite of him.
[He takes the crystal and closes it up in the palm of his left hand.]
I wish to go back ten years, two weeks and a day, at, at—8.10 a.m. to-morrow; 8.10 a.m. to-morrow, 8.10.
[Re-enter MARY in doorway.]
MARY
John! John! You are sure he did get his fifty pounds?
JOHN
Yes. Didn't he come to thank me for the money?
MARY
You are sure it wasn't ten shillings?
JOHN
Cater paid him, I didn't.
MARY
Are you sure that Cater didn't give him ten shillings?
JOHN
It's the sort of silly thing Cater would have done!
MARY
O, John!
JOHN
Hmm.
Curtain
SCENE 3
Scene: As in Act I, Scene 1. Time. Ten years ago.
BERT
'Ow goes it, Bill?
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