‘My dear young man,’ said Mr Satterthwaite placidly, ‘I can hardly attach myself to you like the proverbial limpet. Sooner or later you would give me the slip and accomplish your purpose. But you are frustrated at any rate for this afternoon. You would hardly like to go to your death leaving me under the possible imputation of having pushed you over.’
‘That is true,’ said Cosden. ‘If you insist on remaining here–’
‘I do,’ said Mr Satterthwaite firmly.
Cosden laughed good-humouredly.
‘Then the plan must be deferred for the moment. In which case I will go back to the hotel. See you later perhaps.’
Mr Satterthwaite was left looking at the sea.
‘And now,’ he said to himself softly, ‘what next? There must be a next. I wonder…’
He got up. For a while he stood at the edge of the plateau looking down on the dancing water beneath. But he found no inspiration there, and turning slowly he walked back along the path between the cypresses and into the quiet garden. He looked at the shuttered, peaceful house and he wondered, as he had often wondered before, who had lived there and what had taken place within those placid walls. On a sudden impulse he walked up some crumbling stone steps and laid a hand on one of the faded green shutters.
To his surprise it swung back at his touch. He hesitated a moment, then pushed it boldly open. The next minute he stepped back with a little exclamation of dismay. A woman stood in the window facing him. She wore black and had a black lace mantilla draped over her head.
Mr Satterthwaite floundered wildly in Italian interspersed with German–the nearest he could get in the hurry of the moment to Spanish. He was desolated and ashamed, he explained haltingly. The Signora must forgive. He thereupon retreated hastily, the woman not having spoken one word.
He was halfway across the courtyard when she spoke–two sharp words like a pistol crack.
‘Come back!’
It was a barked-out command such as might have been addressed to a dog, yet so absolute was the authority it conveyed, that Mr Satterthwaite had swung round hurriedly and trotted back to the window almost automatically before it occurred to him to feel any resentment. He obeyed like a dog. The woman was still standing motionless at the window. She looked him up and down appraising him with perfect calmness.
‘You are English,’ she said. ‘I thought so.’
Mr Satterthwaite started off on a second apology.
‘If I had known you were English,’ he said, ‘I could have expressed myself better just now. I offer my most sincere apologies for my rudeness in trying the shutter. I am afraid I can plead no excuse save curiosity. I had a great wish to see what the inside of this charming house was like.’
She laughed suddenly, a deep, rich laugh.
‘If you really want to see it,’ she said, ‘you had better come in.’
She stood aside, and Mr Satterthwaite, feeling pleasurably excited, stepped into the room. It was dark, since the shutters of the other windows were closed, but he could see that it was scantily and rather shabbily furnished and that the dust lay thick everywhere.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I do not use this room.’
She led the way and he followed her, out of the room across a passage and into a room the other side. Here the windows gave on the sea and the sun streamed in. The furniture, like that of the other room, was poor in quality, but there were some worn rugs that had been good in their time, a large screen of Spanish leather and bowls of fresh flowers.
‘You will have tea with me,’ said Mr Satterthwaite’s hostess. She added reassuringly: ‘It is perfectly good tea and will be made with boiling water.’
She went out of the door and called out something in Spanish, then she returned and sat down on a sofa opposite her guest. For the first time, Mr Satterthwaite was able to study her appearance.
The first effect she had upon him was to make him feel even more grey and shrivelled and elderly than usual by contrast with her own forceful personality. She was a tall woman, very sunburnt, dark and handsome though no longer young. When she was in the room the sun seemed to be shining twice as brightly as when she was out of it, and presently a curious feeling of warmth and aliveness began to steal over Mr Satterthwaite. It was as though he stretched out thin, shrivelled hands to a reassuring flame. He thought, ‘She’s so much vitality herself that she’s got a lot left over for other people.’
He recalled the command in her voice when she had stopped him, and wished that his protégée, Olga, could be imbued with a little of that force. He thought: ‘What an Isolde she’d make! And yet she probably hasn’t got the ghost of a singing voice. Life is badly arranged.’ He was, all the same, a little afraid of her. He did not like domineering women.
She had clearly been considering him as she sat with her chin in her hands, making no pretence about it. At last she nodded as though she had made up her mind.
‘I am glad you came,’ she said at last. ‘I needed someone very badly to talk to this afternoon. And you are used to that, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t quite understand.’
‘I meant people tell you things. You knew what I meant! Why pretend?’
‘Well–perhaps–’
She swept on, regardless of anything he had been going to say.
‘One could say anything to you. That is because you are half a woman. You know what we feel–what we think–the queer, queer things we do.’
Her voice died away. Tea was brought by a large, smiling Spanish girl. It was good tea–China–Mr Satterthwaite sipped it appreciatively.
‘You live here?’ he inquired conversationally.
‘Yes.’
‘But not altogether. The house is usually shut up, is it not? At least so I have been told.’
‘I am here a good deal, more than anyone knows. I only use these rooms.’
‘You have had the house long?’
‘It has belonged to me for twenty-two years–and I lived here for a year before that.’
Mr Satterthwaite said rather inanely (or so he felt): ‘That is a very long time.’
‘The year? Or the twenty-two years?’
His interest stirred, Mr Satterthwaite said gravely: ‘That depends.’
She nodded.
‘Yes, it depends. They are two separate periods. They have nothing to do with each other. Which is long? Which is short? Even now I cannot say.’
She was silent for a minute, brooding. Then she said with a little smile:
‘It is such a long time since I have talked with anyone–such a long time! I do not apologize. You came to my shutter. You wished to look through my window. And that is what you are always doing, is it not? Pushing aside the shutter and looking through the window into the truth of people’s lives. If they will let you. And often if they will not let you! It would be difficult to hide anything from you. You would guess–and guess right.’
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 a
lways 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.