Three Act Tragedy (10 page)

M
r. Satterthwaite had come down to Crow's Nest with Sir Charles. Whilst his host and Egg Lytton Gore were visiting Mrs. Babbington, Mr. Satterthwaite was having tea with Lady Mary.

Lady Mary liked Mr. Satterthwaite. For all her gentleness of manner, she was a woman who had very definite views on the subject of whom she did or did not like.

Mr. Satterthwaite sipped China tea from a Dresden cup, and ate a microscopic sandwich and chatted. On his last visit they had found many friends and acquaintances in common. Their talk today began on the same subject, but gradually drifted into more intimate channels. Mr. Satterthwaite was a sympathetic person—he listened to the troubles of other people and did not intrude his own. Even on his last visit it had seemed natural to Lady Mary to speak to him of her preoccupation with her daughter's future. She talked now as she would have talked to a friend of many years' standing.

“Egg is so headstrong,” she said. “She flings herself into a thing
heart and soul. You know, Mr. Satterthwaite, I do not like the way she is—well, mixing herself up in this distressing business. It—Egg would laugh at me, I know—but it doesn't seem to be ladylike.”

She flushed as she spoke. Her brown eyes, gentle and ingenuous, looked with childish appeal at Mr. Satterthwaite.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I confess that I don't quite like it myself. I know that it's simply an old-fashioned prejudice, but there it is. All the same,” he twinkled at her, “we can't expect young ladies to sit at home and sew and shudder at the idea of crimes of violence in these enlightened days.”

“I don't like to think of murder,” said Lady Mary. “I never, never dreamed that I should be mixed up in anything of that kind. It was dreadful.” She shivered. “Poor Sir Bartholomew.”

“You didn't know him very well?” hazarded Mr. Satterthwaite.

“I think I'd only met him twice. The first time about a year ago, when he came down to stay with Sir Charles for a weekend, and the second time was on that dreadful evening when poor Mr. Babbington died. I was really most surprised when his invitation arrived. I accepted because I thought Egg would enjoy it. She hasn't many treats, poor child, and—well, she had seemed a little down in the mouth, as though she didn't take any interest in anything. I thought a big house party might cheer her up.”

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded.

“Tell me something about Oliver Manders,” he said. “The young fellow rather interests me.”

“I think he's clever,” said Lady Mary. “Of course, things have been difficult for him….”

She flushed, and then in answer to the plain inquiry of Mr. Satterthwaite's glance she went on.

“You see, his father wasn't married to his mother….”

“Really? I had no idea of that.”

“Everyone knows about it down here, otherwise I wouldn't have said anything about it. Old Mrs. Manders, Oliver's grandmother, lives at Dunboyne, that biggish house on the Plymouth road. Her husband was a lawyer down here. Her son went into a city firm and did very well. He's quite a rich man. The daughter was a good-looking girl, and she became absolutely infatuated with a married man. I blame him very much indeed. Anyway, in the end, after a lot of scandal, they went off together. His wife wouldn't divorce him. The girl died not long after Oliver was born. His uncle in London took charge of him. He and his wife had no children of their own. The boy divided his time between them and his grandmother. He always came down here for his summer holidays.”

She paused and then went on:

“I always felt sorry for him. I still do. I think that terribly conceited manner of his is a good deal put on.”

“I shouldn't be surprised,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “It's a very common phenomenon. If I ever see anyone who appears to think a lot of themselves and boasts unceasingly, I always know that there's a secret sense of inferiority somewhere.”

“It seems very odd.”

“An inferiority complex is a very peculiar thing. Crippen, for instance, undoubtedly suffered from it. It's at the back of a lot of crimes. The desire to assert one's personality.”

“It seems very strange to me,” murmured Lady Mary.

She seemed to shrink a little. Mr. Satterthwaite looked at her with an almost sentimental eye. He liked her graceful figure with
the sloping shoulders, the soft brown of her eyes, her complete absence of makeup. He thought:

“She must have been a beauty when she was young….”

Not a flaunting beauty, not a rose—no, a modest, charming violet, hiding its sweetness….

His thoughts ran serenely in the idiom of his young days….

He remembered incidents in his own youth.

Presently he found himself telling Lady Mary about his own love affair—the only love affair he had ever had. Rather a poor love affair by the standards of today, but very dear to Mr. Satterthwaite.

He told her about the Girl, and how pretty she was, and of how they had gone together to see the bluebells at Kew. He had meant to propose to her that day. He had imagined (so he put it) that she reciprocated his sentiments. And then, as they were standing looking at the bluebells, she had confided in him…He had discovered that she loved another. And he had hidden the thoughts surging in his breast and had taken up the rôle of the faithful Friend.

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 he 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 apologize. 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 realizes 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 badly 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 Babbing
ton 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 seen 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
kind
…and because—”

“Yes?”

“Because there's something in him, somewhere, that I don't understand. Something
cold
—”

Mr. Satterthwaite looked at her thoughtfully for a minute or two, then he said:

“What did Sir Bartholomew Strange think of him? Did he ever mention him?”

“He said, I remember, that he found young Manders an interesting study. He said that he reminded him of a case he was treating at the moment in his nursing home. I said that I thought Oliver looked particularly strong and healthy, and he said, ‘Yes, his health's all right, but he's riding for a fall.'”

She paused and then said:

“I suppose Sir Bartholomew was a very clever nerve specialist.”

“I believe he was very highly thought of by his own colleagues.”

“I liked him,” said Lady Mary.

“Did he ever say anything to you about Babbington's death?”