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

at the office then. It was a business appointment. There was a man who had promised to get me a job, and I was going up to...

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?