Final Curtain Read Online Free PDF Page A

absence should drop like a curtain between their understanding of each other. The Commissioner had promised she should know two days beforehand of Alleyn’s arrival, and in the meantime the train carried her to a job among strangers who at least would not be commonplace. But I hope, Troy thought, that their family upheaval won’t interfere with the old boy’s sittings. That would be a bore.
    The train drew into a junction, and the other passengers, with the exception of the young man on the suitcase, began to collect themselves. Just what she’d feared, thought Troy. She opened her lunch-basket and a book. If I eat and read at him, she thought, that may keep him off; and she remembered Guy de Maupassant’s strictures upon people who eat in the train.
    Now they were off again. Troy munched her sandwiches and read the opening scene of Macbeth . She had decided to revisit that terrible country whose only counterpart, she thought, was to be found in Emily Brontë. This fancy pleased her, and she paused to transport the wraiths of Heathcliff and Cathy to the blasted heath or to follow Fleance over the moors to Wuthering Heights. But, if I am to paint Macbeth, she thought, I must read. And as the first inflexions in the voice of a friend who is re-met after a long absence instantly prepare us for tones that we are yet to hear, so with its opening phrases, the play, which she thought she had forgotten, returned wholly to her memory.
    â€˜Do forgive me for interrupting,’ said a high-pitched voice, ‘but I’ve been madly anxious to talk to you, and this is such a magical opportunity.’
    The young man had slid along the seat and was now opposite. His head was tilted ingratiatingly to one side and he smiled at Troy. ‘ Please don’t think I’m seething with sinister intentions,’ he said. ‘Honestly, there’s no need to pull the communication cord.’
    â€˜I didn’t for a moment suppose there was,’ said Troy.
    â€˜You are Agatha Troy, aren’t you?’ he continued anxiously. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken. I mean, it’s too shatteringly coincidental, isn’t it? Here I am, reading my little journal, and what should I see but a perfectly blissful photograph of you. So exciting and so miraculously you . And if I’d had the weeniest doubt left, that alarming affair you’re reading would have settled it.’
    Troy looked from her book to the young man. ‘Macbeth?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
    â€˜Oh, but it was too conclusive,’ he said. ‘But, of course, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Cedric Ancred.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Troy after a pause. ‘Oh, yes. I see.’
    â€˜And then to clinch it, there was your name on that envelope. I’m afraid I peered shamelessly. But it’s too exciting that you’re actually going to make a picture of the Old Person in all his tatts and bobs. You can’t imagine what that costume is like! And the toque! Some terrifically powerful man beat it out of solid steel for him. He’s my Grandpa, you know. My mother is Millamant Ancred. My father, only promise you won’t tell anyone, was Henry Irving Ancred. Imagine!’
    Troy could think of nothing to say in reply to this recital and took another bite out of her sandwich.
    â€˜So, you see, I had to make myself known,’ he continued with an air that Troy thought of as ‘winsome.’ ‘I’m so burnt up always about your work, and the prospect of meeting you was absolutely tonic.’
    â€˜But how did you know,’ Troy asked, ‘that I was going to paint Sir Henry?’
    â€˜I rang up Uncle Thomas last night and he told me. I’d been commanded to the presence, and had decided that I couldn’t face it, but immediately changed my plans. You see,’ said Cedric with a boyish frankness which Troy found intolerable,