It was not, perhaps, a very full-blooded romance, but it sounded well in the dim-faded chintz and eggshell china atmosphere of Lady Mary’s drawing-room.
Afterwards Lady Mary spoke of her own life, of her married life, which had not been very happy.
“I was such a foolish girl – girls are foolish, Mr. Satterthwaite. They are so sure of themselves, so convinced they know best. People write and talk a lot of a ‘woman’s instinct.’ I don’t believe, Mr. Satterthwaite, that there is any such thing. There doesn’t seem to be anything that warns girls against a certain type of man. Nothing in themselves, I mean. Their parents warn them, but that’s no good – one doesn’t believe. It seems dreadful to say so, but there is something attractive to a girl in being told anyone is a bad man. She thinks at once that her love will reform him.”
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded gently.
“One knows so little. When one knows more, it is too late.”
She sighed.
“It was all my own fault. My people didn’t want me to marry Ronald. He was well born, but he had a bad reputation. My father told me straight out that he was a wrong’un. I didn’t believe it. I believed that, for my sake, he would turn over a new leaf… ”
She was silent a moment or two, dwelling on the past.
“Ronald was a very fascinating man. My father was quite right about him. I soon found that out. It’s an old- fashioned thing to say – but he broke my heart. Yes, he broke my heart. I was always afraid – of what might come out next.”
Mr. Satterthwaite, always intensely interested in other people’s lives, made a cautious sympathetic noise.
“It may seem a very wicked thing to say, Mr. Satterthwaite, but it was a relief when got pneumonia and died… Not that I didn’t care for him – I loved him up to the end – but I had no illusions about him any longer. And there was Egg – ”
Her voice softened.
“Such a funny little thing she was. A regular little roly-poly, trying to stand up and falling over – just like an egg; that’s how that ridiculous nickname started… ”
She paused again.
“Some books that I’ve read these last few years have brought a lot of comfort to me. Books on psychology. It seems to show that in many ways people can’t help themselves. A kind of kink. Sometimes, in the most carefully brought-up families you get it. As a boy Ronald stole money at school – money that he didn’t need. I can feel now that he couldn’t help himself… He was born with a kink… ”
Very gently, with a small handkerchief, Lady Mary wiped her eyes.
“It wasn’t what I was brought up to believe,” she said apologetically. “I was taught that everyone knew the difference between right and wrong. But somehow – I don’t always think that is so.”
“The human mind is a great mystery,” said Mr. Satterthwaite gently. “As yet, we are going groping our way to understanding. Without acute mania it may nevertheless occur that certain natures lack what I should describe as braking power. If you or I were to say, ‘I hate someone – I wish he were dead,’ the idea would pass from our minds as soon as the words were uttered. The brakes would work automatically. But, in some people the idea, or obsession, holds. They see nothing but the immediate gratification of the idea formed.”
“I’m afraid,” said Lady Mary, “that that’s rather too clever for me.”
“I apologise. I was talking rather bookishly.”
“Did you mean that young people have too little restraint nowadays? It sometimes worries me.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that at all. Less restraint is, I think, a good thing – wholesome. I suppose you are thinking of Miss – er – Egg.”
“I think you’d better call her Egg,” said Lady Mary, smiling.
“Thank you. Miss Egg does sound rather ridiculous.”
“Egg’s very impulsive, and once she has set her mind on a thing nothing will stop her. As I said before, I hate her mixing herself up in all this, but she won’t listen to me.”
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled at the distress in Lady Mary’s tone. He thought to himself:
“I wonder if she realise for one minute that Egg’s absorption in crime is neither more nor less than a new variant of that old, old game – the pursuit of the male by the female? No, she’d be horrified at the thought.”
“Egg says that Mr. Babbington was poisoned also. Do you think that is true, Mr. Satterthwaite? Or do you think it is just one of Egg’s sweeping statements?”
“We shall know for certain after the exhumation.”
“There is to be an exhumation, then?” Lady Mary shivered. “How terrible for poor Mrs. Babbington. I can imagine nothing more awful for any woman.”
“You knew the Babbingtons fairly intimately, I suppose, Lady Mary?”
“Yes, indeed. They are – were – very dear friends of ours.”
“Do you know of anyone who could possibly have had a grudge against the vicar?”
“No, indeed.”
“He never spoke of such a person?”
“No.”
“And they got on well together?”
“They were perfectly mated – happy in each other and in their children. They were hardly off, of course, and Mr. Babbington suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Those were their only troubles.”
“How did Oliver Manders get on with the vicar?”
“Well – ” Lady Mary hesitated, “they didn’t hit it off very well. The Babbingtons were sorry for Oliver, and he used to go to the vicarage a good deal in the holidays to play with the Babbington boys – though I don’t think he got on very well with them. Oliver wasn’t exactly a popular boy. He boasted too much of the money he had and the tuck he took back to school, and all the fun he had in London. Boys are rather merciless about that sort of thing.”
“Yes, but later – since he’s been grown up?”
“I don’t think he and the vicarage people have been much of each other. As a matter of fact Oliver was rather rude to Mr. Babbington one day here, in my house. It was about two years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Oliver made a rather ill-bred attack on Christianity. Mr. Babbington was very patient and courteous with him. That only seemed to make Oliver worse. He said, ‘All you religious people look down your noses because my father and mother weren’t married. I suppose you’d call me the child of sin. Well, I admire people who have the courage of their convictions and don’t care what a lot of hypocrites and parsons think.’ Mr. Babbington didn’t answer, but Oliver went on: ‘You won’t answer that. It’s ecclesiasticism and superstition that’s got the whole world into the mess it’s in. I’d like to sweep away the churches all over the world.’ Mr. Babbington smiled and said, ‘And the clergy, too?’ I think it was his smile that annoyed Oliver. He felt he was not being taken seriously. He said, ‘I hate everything the Church stands for. Smugness, security and hypocrisy. Get rid of the whole canting tribe, I say!’ and Mr. Babbington smiled – he had a very sweet smile – and he said, ‘My dear boy, if you were to sweep away all the churches ever built or planned, you would still have to reckon with God.’”
“What did young Manders say to that?”
“He seemed taken aback, and then he recovered his temper and went back to his usual sneering tired manner.”
“He said, ‘I’m afraid the things I’ve been saying are rather bad form, padre, and not very easily assimilated by your generation.’”
“You don’t like young Manders, do you, Lady Mary?”
“I’m sorry for him,” said Lady Mary defensively.
“But you wouldn’t like him to marry Egg.”
“Oh, no.”
“I wonder why, exactly?”
“Because – because, he isn’t
“Yes?”
“Because there’s something in him, somewhere, that I don’t understand. Something
