Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [50]
‘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,