"That _was_ Freddie Rooke, wasn"t it? Surely I wasn"t mistaken?"
"But--do you know him? He didn"t seem to know you."
"These are life"s tragedies. He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"
"Oh, you were at school with him?"
"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near his people in Worcestershire."
"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But _I_ used to live near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew him there when he was a boy. We must have met!"
"We met all right."
Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.
"I don"t remember you," she said. "I"m sorry."
"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."
"How do you mean, painful?"
"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very unpleasant child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to have dropped something heavy on me out of a window. They must have been tempted a hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great pest around the home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped _you_!"
"What!"
"Oh, yes. You probably didn"t notice it at the time, for I had a curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest memory of a checkered youth."
Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.
"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.
"It"s too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You aren"t Bobby Morrison?"
"I am not. What is more, I never was!"
Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another possibility.
"Or Charlie--Charlie what was it?--Charlie Field?"
"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with anything like that."
"Would I remember your name if you told me?"
"I don"t know. I"ve forgotten yours. Your surname, that is. Of course I remember that your Christian name was Jill. It has always seemed to me the prettiest monosyllable in the language." He looked at her thoughtfully. "It"s odd how little you"ve altered in looks. Freddie"s just the same, too, only larger. And he didn"t wear an eye-gla.s.s in those days, though I can see he was bound to later on. And yet I"ve changed so much that you can"t place me. It shows what a wearing life I must have led. I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered. But that may be just the result of watching this play."
"It is pretty terrible, isn"t it?"
"Worse than that. Looking at it dispa.s.sionately, I find it the extreme, ragged, outermost edge of the limit. Freddie had the correct description of it. He"s a great critic."
"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 finish! 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.