ACT II
abroad. Oh, I can remember saying to myself, “Perhaps five years,” trying to make it as bad as could be so that if we could marry sooner it would be a lovely surprise. We’d made so many plans . . . Chris had talked so much . . . he always wanted a son, he said. Perhaps five years! I never thought . . . (She cries again a little.) Oh, well . . . crying won’t help, and it’ll make my eyes red. I shouldn’t like Chris to think I’d been crying. I won’t cry.
[She fishes in her bag for her handkerchief, dabs her eyes, and drinks some tea.
Jenny : If you’d rather not talk about it . . .
Margaret : No, I'd like to. I’ve never told anyone . . . all these years . . . just kept it to myself . . . but they were happy times, and one can’t help thinking of them sometimes. Well . . . and then one afternoon—a Thursday it was—I’d gone on the backwater with Bert Batchard, nephew to Mr. B., who kept the inn at Surly Hall, and I was laughing out loud because he did row so funny! He’s a town chap, and he was handling those oars for all the world as though they were teaspoons. The old dinghy just sat on the water like a hen on its chicks, and didn’t move, and he so sure of himself. And me used to boats and the water all my life. I just sat and laughed and laughed. And then, all of a sudden, I heard the bell at the ferry, and there was Chris,
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