The Mysterious Mr Quin (13 page)

Mr Satterthwaite had an odd impulse to be perfectly sincere.

‘I am sixty-nine,’ he said. ‘Everything I know of life I know at second hand. Sometimes that is very bitter to me. And yet, because of it, I know a good deal.’

She nodded thoughtfully.

‘I know. Life is very strange. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be that–always a looker-on.’

Her tone was wondering. Mr Satterthwaite smiled.

‘No, you would not know. Your place is in the centre of the stage. You will always be the Prima Donna.’

‘What a curious thing to say.’

‘But I am right. Things have happened to you–will always happen to you. Sometimes, I think, there have been tragic things. Is that so?’

Her eyes narrowed. She looked across at him.

‘If you are here long, somebody will tell you of the English swimmer who was drowned at the foot of this cliff. They will tell you how young and strong he was, how handsome, and they will tell you that his young wife looked down from the top of the cliff and saw him drowning.’

‘Yes, I have already heard that story.’

‘That man was my husband. This was his villa. He brought me out here with him when I was eighteen, and a year later he died–driven by the surf on the black rocks, cut and bruised and mutilated, battered to death.’

Mr Satterthwaite gave a shocked exclamation. She leant forward, her burning eyes focused on his face.

‘You spoke of tragedy. Can you imagine a greater tragedy than that? For a young wife, only a year married, to stand helpless while the man she loved fought for his life–and lost it–horribly.’

‘Terrible,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. He spoke with real emotion. ‘Terrible. I agree with you. Nothing in life could be so dreadful.’

Suddenly she laughed. Her head went back.

‘You are wrong,’ she said. ‘There is something more terrible. And that is for a young wife to stand there and hope and long for her husband to drown…’

‘But good God,’ cried Mr Satterthwaite, ‘you don’t mean–?’

‘Yes, I do. That’s what it was really. I knelt there–knelt down on the cliff and prayed. The Spanish servants thought I was praying for his life to be saved. I wasn’t. I was praying that I might wish him to be spared. I was saying one thing over and over again, “God, help me not to wish him dead. God, help me not to wish him dead.” But it wasn’t any good. All the time I hoped–hoped–and my hope came true.’

She was silent for a minute or two and then she said very gently in quite a different voice:

‘That is a terrible thing, isn’t it? It’s the sort of thing one can’t forget. I was terribly happy when I knew he
was really dead and couldn’t come back to torture me any more.’

‘My child,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, shocked.

‘I know. I was too young to have that happen to me. Those things should happen to one when one is older–when one is more prepared for–for beastliness. Nobody knew, you know, what he was really like. I thought he was wonderful when I first met him and was so happy and proud when he asked me to marry him. But things went wrong almost at once. He was angry with me–nothing I could do pleased him–and yet I tried so hard. And then he began to like hurting me. And above all to terrify me. That’s what he enjoyed most. He thought out all sorts of things…dreadful things. I won’t tell you. I suppose, really, he must have been a little mad. I was alone here, in his power, and cruelty began to be his hobby.’ Her eyes widened and darkened. ‘The worst was my baby. I was going to have a baby. Because of some of the things he did to me–it was born dead. My little baby. I nearly died, too–but I didn’t. I wish I had.’

Mr Satterthwaite made an inarticulate sound.

‘And then I was delivered–in the way I’ve told you. Some girls who were staying at the hotel dared him. That’s how it happened. All the Spaniards told him it was madness to risk the sea just there. But he was very vain–he wanted to show off. And I–I saw him
drown–and was glad. God oughtn’t to let such things happen.’

Mr Satterthwaite stretched out his little dry hand and took hers. She squeezed it hard as a child might have done. The maturity had fallen away from her face. He saw her without difficulty as she had been at nineteen.

‘At first it seemed too good to be true. The house was mine and I could live in it. And no one could hurt me any more! I was an orphan, you know, I had no near relations, no one to care what became of me. That simplified things. I lived on here–in this villa–and it seemed like Heaven. Yes, like Heaven. I’ve never been so happy since, and never shall again. Just to wake up and know that everything was all right–no pain, no terror, no wondering what he was going to do to me next. Yes, it was Heaven.’

She paused a long time, and Mr Satterthwaite said at last:

‘And then?’

‘I suppose human beings aren’t ever satisfied. At first, just being free was enough. But after a while I began to get–well, lonely, I suppose. I began to think about my baby that died. If only I had had my baby! I wanted it as a baby, and also as a plaything. I wanted dreadfully something or someone to play with. It sounds silly and childish, but there it was.’

‘I understand,’ said Mr Satterthwaite gravely.

‘It’s difficult to explain the next bit. It just–well, happened, you see. There was a young Englishman staying at the hotel. He strayed in the garden by mistake. I was wearing Spanish dress and he took me for a Spanish girl. I thought it would be rather fun to pretend I was one, so I played up. His Spanish was very bad but he could just manage a little. I told him the villa belonged to an English lady who was away. I said she had taught me a little English and I pretended to speak broken English. It was such fun–such fun–even now I can remember what fun it was. He began to make love to me. We agreed to pretend that the villa was our home, that we were just married and coming to live there. I suggested that we should try one of the shutters–the one you tried this evening. It was open and inside the room was dusty and uncared for. We crept in. It was exciting and wonderful. We pretended it was our own house.’

She broke off suddenly, looked appealingly at Mr Satterthwaite.

‘It all seemed lovely–like a fairy tale. And the lovely thing about it, to me, was that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t real.’

Mr Satterthwaite nodded. He saw her, perhaps more clearly than she saw herself–that frightened, lonely
child entranced with her make believe that was so safe because it wasn’t real.

‘He was, I suppose, a very ordinary young man. Out for adventure, but quite sweet about it. We went on pretending.’

She stopped, looked at Mr Satterthwaite and said again:

‘You understand? We went on pretending…’

She went on again in a minute.

‘He came up again the next morning to the villa. I saw him from my bedroom through the shutter. Of course he didn’t dream I was inside. He still thought I was a little Spanish peasant girl. He stood there looking about him. He’d asked me to meet him. I’d said I would but I never meant to.

‘He just stood there looking worried. I think he was worried about me. It was nice of him to be worried about me. He
was
nice…’

She paused again.

‘The next day he left. I’ve never seen him again.

‘My baby was born nine months later. I was wonderfully happy all the time. To be able to have a baby so peacefully, with no one to hurt you or make you miserable. I wished I’d remembered to ask my English boy his Christian name. I would have called the baby after him. It seemed unkind not to. It seemed rather unfair. He’d given me the thing I wanted most in the
world, and he would never even know about it! But of course I told myself that he wouldn’t look at it that way–that to know would probably only worry and annoy him. I had been just a passing amusement for him, that was all.’

‘And the baby?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite.

‘He was splendid. I called him John. Splendid. I wish you could see him now. He’s twenty. He’s going to be a mining engineer. He’s been the best and dearest son in the world to me. I told him his father had died before he was born.’

Mr Satterthwaite stared at her. A curious story. And somehow, a story that was not completely told. There was, he felt sure, something else.

‘Twenty years is a long time,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You’ve never contemplated marrying again?’

She shook her head. A slow, burning blush spread over her tanned cheeks.

‘The child was enough for you–always?’

She looked at him. Her eyes were softer than he had yet seen them.

‘Such queer things happen!’ she murmured. ‘Such queer things…You wouldn’t believe them–no, I’m wrong,
you
might, perhaps. I didn’t love John’s father, not at the time. I don’t think I even knew what love was. I assumed, as a matter of course, that the child would be like me. But he wasn’t. He mightn’t have been my
child at all. He was like his father–he was like no one but his father. I learnt to know that man–through his child. Through the child, I learnt to love him. I love him now. I always shall love him. You may say that it’s imagination, that I’ve built up an ideal, but it isn’t so. I love the man, the real, human man. I’d know him if I saw him tomorrow–even though it’s over twenty years since we met. Loving him has made me into a woman. I love him as a woman loves a man. For twenty years I’ve lived loving him. I shall die loving him.’

She stopped abruptly–then challenged her listener.

‘Do you think I’m mad–to say these strange things?’

‘Oh! my dear,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. He took her hand again.

‘You do understand?’

‘I think I do. But there’s something more, isn’t there? Something that you haven’t yet told me?’

Her brow clouded over.

‘Yes, there’s something. It was clever of you to guess. I knew at once you weren’t the sort one can hide things from. But I don’t want to tell you–and the reason I don’t want to tell you is because it’s best for you not to know.’

He looked at her. Her eyes met his bravely and defiantly.

He said to himself: ‘This is the test. All the clues are
in my hand. I ought to be able to know. If I reason rightly I shall know.’

There was a pause, then he said slowly:

‘Something’s gone wrong.’ He saw her eyelids give the faintest quiver and knew himself to be on the right track.

‘Something’s gone wrong–suddenly–after all these years.’ He felt himself groping–groping–in the dark recesses of her mind where she was trying to hide her secret from him.

‘The boy–it’s got to do with him. You wouldn’t mind about anything else.’

He heard the very faint gasp she gave and knew he had probed correctly. A cruel business but necessary. It was her will against his. She had got a dominant, ruthless will, but he too had a will hidden beneath his meek manners. And he had behind him the Heaven-sent assurance of a man who is doing his proper job. He felt a passing contemptuous pity for men whose business it was to track down such crudities as crime. This detective business of the mind, this assembling of clues, this delving for the truth, this wild joy as one drew nearer to the goal…Her very passion to keep the truth from him helped her. He felt her stiffen defiantly as he drew nearer and nearer.

‘It is better for me not to know, you say. Better for
me
? But you are not a very considerate woman. You
would not shrink from putting a stranger to a little temporary inconvenience. It is more than that, then? If you tell me you make me an accomplice before the fact. That sounds like crime. Fantastic! I could not associate crime with you. Or only one sort of crime. A crime against yourself.’

Her lids drooped in spite of herself, veiled her eyes. He leaned forward and caught her wrist.

‘It
is
that, then! You are thinking of taking your life.’

She gave a low cry.

‘How did you know? How did you know?’

‘But why? You are not tired of life. I never saw a woman less tired of it–more radiantly alive.’

She got up, went to the window, pushing back a strand of her dark hair as she did so.

‘Since you have guessed so much I might as well tell you the truth. I should not have let you in this evening. I might have known that you would see too much. You are that kind of man. You were right about the cause. It’s the boy. He knows nothing. But last time he was home, he spoke tragically of a friend of his, and I discovered something. If he finds out that he is illegitimate it will break his heart. He is proud–horribly proud! There is a girl. Oh! I won’t go into details. But he is coming very soon–and he wants to know all about his father–he wants details. The girl’s
parents, naturally, want to know. When he discovers the truth, he will break with her, exile himself, ruin his life. Oh! I know the things you would say. He is young, foolish, wrong-headed to take it like that! All true, perhaps. But does it matter what people ought to be? They are what they are.
It will break his heart
…But if, before he comes, there has been an accident, everything will be swallowed up in grief for me. He will look through my papers, find nothing, and be annoyed that I told him so little. But he will not suspect the truth. It is the best way. One must pay for happiness, and I have had so much–oh! so much happiness. And in reality the price will be easy, too. A little courage–to take the leap–perhaps a moment or so of anguish.’

‘But, my dear child–’

‘Don’t argue with me.’ She flared round on him. ‘I won’t listen to conventional arguments. My life is my own. Up to now, it has been needed–for John. But he needs it no longer. He wants a mate–a companion–he will turn to her all the more willingly because I am no longer there. My life is useless, but my death will be of use. And I have the right to do what I like with my own life.’

‘Are you sure?’

The sternness of his tone surprised her. She stammered slightly.

‘If it is no good to anyone–and I am the best judge of that–’

He interrupted her again.

‘Not necessarily.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Listen. I will put a case to you. A man comes to a certain place–to commit suicide, shall we say? But by chance he finds another man there, so he fails in his purpose and goes away–to live. The second man has saved the first man’s life, not by being necessary to him or prominent in his life, but just by the mere physical fact of having been in a certain place at a certain moment. You take your life today and perhaps, some five, six, seven years hence, someone will go to death or disaster simply for lack of your presence in a given spot or place. It may be a runaway horse coming down a street that swerved aside at sight of you and so fails to trample a child that is playing in the gutter. That child may live to grow up and be a great musician, or discover a cure for cancer. Or it may be less melodramatic than that. He may just grow up to ordinary everyday happiness…’