The mysterious Mr. Quin
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 so 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 sort 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 wished 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 into
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, 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 learned to
know that man--through his child. Through the child, I learned 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 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 manner. 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 him. 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?"