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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?”
