Part 9 (1/2)
”I really do think it's the worst thing I have ever seen.”
”I don't know what plays you have seen, but I feel you're right.”
”Perhaps the second act's better,” said Jill optimistically.
”It's worse. I know that sounds like boasting, but it's true. I feel like getting up and making a public apology.”
”But ... Oh!”
Jill turned scarlet. A monstrous suspicion had swept over her.
”The only trouble is,” went on her companion, ”that the audience would undoubtedly lynch me. And, though it seems improbable just at the present moment, it may be that life holds some happiness for me that's worth waiting for. Anyway, I'd rather not be torn limb from limb. A messy finis.h.!.+ I can just see them rending me asunder in a spasm of perfectly justifiable fury. 'She loves me!' Off comes a leg. 'She loves me not!' Off comes an arm. No, I think on the whole I'll lie low. Besides, why should I care? Let 'em suffer. It's their own fault.
They _would_ come!”
Jill had been trying to interrupt the harangue. She was greatly concerned.
”Did you _write_ the play?”
The man nodded.
”You are quite right to speak in that horrified tone. But between ourselves and on the understanding that you don't get up and denounce me, I did.”
”Oh, I'm so sorry!”
”Not half so sorry as I am, believe me!”
”I mean, I wouldn't have said....”
”Never mind. You didn't tell me anything I didn't know.” The lights began to go down. He rose. ”Well, they're off again. Perhaps you will excuse me? I don't feel quite equal to a.s.sisting any longer at the wake. If you want something to occupy your mind during the next act, try to remember my name.”
He slid from his seat and disappeared. Jill clutched at Derek.
”Oh, Derek, it's too awful. I've just been talking to the man who wrote this play, and I told him it was the worst thing I had ever seen!”
”Did you?” Derek snorted. ”Well, it's about time somebody told him!” A thought seemed to strike him. ”Why, who is he? I didn't know you knew him.”
”I don't. I don't even know his name.”
”His name, according to the programme, is John Grant. Never heard of him before. Jill, I wish you would not talk to people you don't know,”
said Derek with a note of annoyance in his voice. ”You can never tell who they are.”
”But....”
”Especially with my mother here. You must be more careful.”
The curtain rose. Jill saw the stage mistily. From childhood up, she had never been able to cure herself of an unfortunate sensitiveness when sharply spoken to by those she loved. A rebuking world she could face with a stout heart, but there had always been just one or two people whose lightest word of censure could crush her. Her father had always had that effect upon her, and now Derek had taken his place.
But if there had only been time to explain.... Derek could not object to her chatting with a friend of her childhood, even if she had completely forgotten him and did not remember his name even now. John Grant? Memory failed to produce any juvenile John Grant for her inspection.