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 …’
She stared at him.
‘You are a strange man. These things you say – I have never thought of them …’
‘You say your life is your own,’ went on Mr Satterthwaite. ‘But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a divine Producer? Your cue may not come till the end of the play – it may be totally unimportant, a mere walking-on part, but upon it may hang the issues of the play if you do not give the cue to another player. The whole edifice may crumple. You as you, may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.’
She sat down, still staring.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she said simply.