If: A Play in Four Acts, Lord Dunsany [any book recommendations TXT] 📗

different. I've got fond of this little house. And Briggs is a good old sort, you know. Cater's a bit of an ass, but there's no harm in him. In fact, I'm contented, Mary. I wouldn't even change Aunt Martha now.

[Points at frowning framed photograph centrally hung.]

You remember when she first came and you said "Where shall we hang her?" I said the cellar. You said we couldn't. So she had to go there. But I wouldn't change her now. I suppose there are old watch-dogs like her in every family. I wouldn't change anything.

MARY

O, John, wouldn't you really?

JOHN

No, I'm contented. Grim old soul, I wouldn't even change Aunt Martha.

MARY

I'm glad of that, John. I was frightened. I couldn't bear to tamper with the past. You don't know what it is, it's what's gone. But if it really isn't gone at all, if it can be dug up like that, why you don't know what mightn't happen! I don't mind the future, but if the past can come back like that.... O, don't, don't, John. Don't think of it. It isn't canny. There's the children, John.

JOHN

Yes, yes, that's all right. It's only a little ornament. I won't use it. And I tell you I'm content. [Happily] It's no use to me.

MARY

I'm so glad you're content, John. Are you really? Is there nothing that you'd have had different? I sometimes thought you'd rather that Jane had been a boy.

JOHN

Not a bit of it. Well, I may have at the time, but Arthur's good enough for me.

MARY

I'm so glad. And there's nothing you ever regret at all?

JOHN

Nothing. And you? Is there nothing you regret, Mary?

MARY

Me? Oh, no. I still think that sofa would have been better green, but you would have it red.

JOHN

Yes, so I would. No, there's nothing I regret.

MARY

I don't suppose there's many men can say that.

JOHN

No, I don't suppose they can. They're not all married to you. I don't suppose many of them can.

[MARY smiles.]

MARY

I should think that very few could say that they regretted nothing... very few in the whole world.

JOHN

Well, I won't say nothing.

MARY

What is it you regret, John?

JOHN

Well, there is one thing.

MARY

And what is that?

JOHN

One thing has rankled a bit.

MARY

Yes, John?

JOHN

O, it's nothing, it's nothing worth mentioning. But it rankled for years.

MARY

What was it, John?

JOHN

O, it seems silly to mention it. It was nothing.

MARY

But what?

JOHN

O, well, if you want to know, it was once when I missed a train. I don't mind missing a train, but it was the way the porter pushed me out of the way. He pushed me by the face. I couldn't hit back, because, well, you know what lawyers make of it; I might have been ruined. So it just rankled. It was years ago before we married.

MARY

Pushed you by the face. Good gracious!

JOHN

Yes, I'd like to have caught that train in spite of him. I sometimes think of it still. Silly of me, isn't it?

MARY

What a brute of a man.

JOHN

O, I suppose he was doing his silly duty. But it rankled.

MARY

He'd no right to do any such thing! He'd no right to touch you!

JOHN

O, well, never mind.

MARY

I should like to have been there... I'd have...

JOHN

O, well, it can't be helped now; but I'd like to have caught it in sp... [An idea seizes him.]

MARY

What is it?

JOHN

Can't be helped, I said. It's the very thing that can be helped.

MARY

Can be helped, John? Whatever do you mean?

JOHN

I mean he'd no right to stop me catching that train. I've got the crystal, and I'll catch it yet!

MARY

O, John, that's what you said you wouldn't do.

JOHN

No. I said I'd do nothing to alter the past. And I won't. I'm too content, Mary. But this can't alter it. This is nothing.

MARY

What were you going to catch the train for, John?

JOHN

For London. I wasn't