Agahta Christie: An autobiography

by Agatha Christie

  My first acquaintance with racing did not enthral me. When I got home to mother I said that I hoped I would never hear the words ‘They’re off!’ again. When a year had passed, however, I had become quite a keen racing fan, and knew something about the runners. I stayed later with Constance Ralston Patrick’s family in Scotland, where her father kept a small racing stable, and there I was initiated more fully into the sport and was taken to several small race meetings, which I soon found to be fun.

  Goodwood, of course, had been more like a garden party–a garden party going on for far too long. Moreover there was a lot of ragging going on; a kind of ragging I had not been used to. People broke up each other’s rooms, threw things out of the windows, and shouted with laughter. There were no other girls there; they were mostly young married women in the racing set. One old Colonel of about sixty came barging into my room and crying, ‘Now then, let’s have a bit of fun with Baby!’ took out one of my evening dresses from the cupboard–it was rather a babyish one, pink with ribbons–and threw it out of the window saying, ‘Catch, catch, here is a trophy from the youngest member of the party!’ I was terribly upset. Evening dresses were great items in my life; carefully tended and preserved, cleaned, mended–and here it was being thrown about like a football. Mr Ankatell’s sister, and one of the other women, came to the rescue, and told him that he was not to tease the poor child. I was really thankful to leave this party. Still, it no doubt did me good.

  Amongst other House Parties I remember an enormous one at a country house rented by Mr and Mrs Park-Lyle–Mr Park-Lyle used to be referred to as ‘The Sugar King’. We had met Mrs Park-Lyle out in Cairo. She was, I suppose, fifty or sixty at the time, but from a short distance she looked like a handsome young woman of twenty-five. I had never seen much make-up in private life before. Mrs Park-Lyle certainly put up a good show with her dark, beautifully-arranged hair, exquisitely enamelled face (almost comparable with that of Queen Alexandra), and the pink and pale blue pastel shades which she wore–her whole appearance a triumph of art over nature. She was a woman of great kindliness, who enjoyed having lots of young people in her house.

  I was rather attracted to one of the young men there–later killed in the 1914-18 war. Though he took only moderate notice of me, I had hopes of becoming better acquainted. In this I was foiled, however, by another soldier, a gunner, who seemed continually to be at my elbow, insisting on being my partner at tennis and croquet, and all the rest of it. Day by day my mounting exasperation grew. I was sometimes extremely rude to him; he didn’t seem to notice. He kept asking me if I had read this book or that, offering to send them to me. Would I be in London? Would I care to go and see some polo? My negative replies had no effect upon him. When the day came for my departure I had to catch a fairly early train because I had to go to London first and then take another train on to Devon. Mrs Park-Lyle said to me after breakfast ‘Mr S.’–I can’t remember his name now–‘is going to drive you to the station.’

  Fortunately that was not very far. I would have much preferred to have gone in one of the Park-Lyle cars–naturally the Park-Lyles had a fleet of cars–but I presume Mr S. had suggested driving me to our hostess, who had probably thought I would like it. How little she knew! However, we arrived at the station, the train came in, an express to London, and Mr. S. ensconced me in the corner seat of an empty second-class carriage.

  I said goodbye to him, in friendly tones, relieved to be seeing the last of him. Then just as the train started he suddenly caught at the handle, opened the door, and leapt in, closing it behind him. ‘I’m coming to London, too,’ he said. I stared at him with my mouth open.

  ‘You haven’t got any luggage with you.’

  ‘I know, I know–it doesn’t matter.’ He sat down opposite me, leant forward, his hands on his knees, and gazed at me with a kind of ferocious glare. ‘I meant to put it off till I met you again in London. I can’t wait. I have to tell you now. I am madly in love with you. You must marry me. From the first moment I saw you, coming down to dinner, I knew that you were the one woman in the world for me.’

  It was some time before I could interrupt the flow of words, and say with icy coldness: ‘It is very kind of you, Mr S., I am sure, and I deeply appreciate it, but I am afraid the answer is no.’

  He protested for about five minutes, finally urging that we should at least leave it, so that we could be friends and meet again. I said that I thought it was much better that we shouldn’t meet again, and that I would not change my mind. I said it with such finality that he was forced to accept it. He leant back in his seat and gave himself up to gloom. Can you imagine a worse time to propose to a girl? There we were, shut up in an empty carriage–no corridors then–going to London, two hours at least, and having arrived at such an impasse in the conversation that there was nothing for us to say. Neither of us had anything to read. I still dislike Mr S. when I remember him, and have no proper feeling of gratitude such as one was always taught should be felt for a good man’s love (Grannie’s maxim). I am sure he was a good man–perhaps that was what made him so dull.

  Another country house visit I paid was also a racing one, to stay with some old friends of my godmother’s in Yorkshire, the Matthews. Mrs Matthews was a non-stop talker, and rather alarming. The invitation was to a party for the St. Leger. By the time I went there I had got more used to racing, and in fact was beginning to enjoy it. Moreover–a silly thing to remember, but the sort of thing one does–I had a new coat-and-skirt bought for this particular occasion. I was vastly pleased with myself in it. It was of a greenish brown tweed of good quality. It came from a good tailoring house. It was the sort of thing my mother said was worth spending money on, because a good coat and skirt would do you for years. This one certainly did: I wore it for six years at least. The coat was long and had a velvet collar. With it I wore a smart little toque in greenish brown shades of velvet and a bird’s wing. I have no photographs of myself in this get-up; if I had I should no doubt think I looked highly ridiculous now, but my memories of myself are as looking smart, sporting, and well-dressed!

  The height of my joy was reached when at the station where I had to change (I must, I think, have been coming from Cheshire, where I had been with my sister). There was a cold wind blowing, and the station-master approached me and asked if I would like to wait in his office. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘your maid would like to bring along your jewel-case or anything valuable.’ I had of course never travelled with a maid in my life, and never should–nor was I the owner of a jewel case–but I was gratified by this treatment, putting it down to the smartness of my velvet toque. I said my maid was not with me this time–I could not avoid saying ‘this time’ in case I should go down in his eyes–but I gratefully accepted his offer, and sat in front of a good fire exchanging pleasant platitudes about the weather. Presently the next train came in and I was seen into it with much ceremony. I am convinced I owed this preferential treatment to my coat-and-skirt and hat. Since I was travelling second class and not first, I could hardly be suspected of great wealth or influence.

  The Matthews lived at a house called Thorpe Arch Hall. Mr Matthews was much older than his wife–he must have been about seventy–and he was a dear, with a thatch of white hair, a great love of racing, and, in his time, hunting. Though extremely fond of his wife he was inclined to be greatly flustered by her. Indeed, my principal memory of him was saying irritably, ‘Damme, dear, don’t hustle me. Damme, don’t hustle me, don’t hustle me, Addie!’

  Mrs Matthews was a born hustler and fusser. She talked and fussed from morning to night. She was kind, but at times I found her almost unbearable. She hustled poor old Tommy so much that he finally invited a friend of his to live permanently with them–a Colonel Wallenstein–always said by the surrounding County to ‘be Mrs Matthews’ second husband’. I am quite convinced that this was no case of ‘the other man’ or the wife’s lover. Colonel Wallenstein was devoted to Addie Matthews–I think it had been a lifetime passion of
his–but she had always kept him where she wanted him, as a convenient, platonic friend with a romantic devotion. Anyway, Addie Matthews lived a very happy life with her two devoted men. They indulged her, flattered her, and always arranged that she should have everything she wanted.

  It was while staying there that I met Evelyn Cochran, Charles Cochran’s wife. She was a lovely little creature, just like a Dresden shepherdess, with big blue eyes, and fair hair. She had with her dainty but highly unsuitable shoes for the country, which Addie never let her forget, reproaching her for them every hour of the day: ‘Really, Evelyn dear, why you don’t bring proper shoes with you! Look at those things–pasteboard soles, only fit for London.’ Evelyn looked sadly at her with large blue eyes, Her life was mostly spent in London, and was entirely wrapped up in the theatrical profession. She had, so I learnt from her, climbed out of a window to run away with Charles Cochran, who was heavily disapproved of by her family. She adored him with the kind of adoration that one seldom meets. She wrote to him every single day if she was away from home. I think, too, that, in spite of many other adventures, he always loved her. She suffered a good deal during her life with him, for with such a love as hers jealousy must have been hard to bear. But I think she found it worth it. To have such a passion for one person that lasts all your life is a privilege, no matter what it costs you in endurance.

  Colonel Wallenstein was her uncle. She disliked him very much. She also disliked Addie Matthews, but was rather fond of old Tom Matthews. ‘I have never liked my uncle,’ she said, ‘he is a most tiresome man. And as for Addie, she is the most aggravating and silly female I have ever met. She can’t leave anyone alone; she is always scolding them or managing them, or doing something–she can’t keep quiet.’

  III

  After our stay at Thorpe Arch, Evelyn Cochran asked me to come to see them in London. I did, feeling shy, and was thrilled by hearing so much theatrical gossip. Also, for the first time, I began to appreciate that there might be something in pictures. Charles Cochran had a great love of painting. When I first saw his Degas picture of ballet girls it stirred something in me that I had not known existed. The habit of marching girls to picture galleries willy-nilly, at too young an age, is much to be deprecated. It does not produce the wanted result, unless they are naturally artistic. Moreover, to the untutored eye or the unartistic one, the resemblance of great masters to one another is most depressing. They have a sort of shiny mustard gloom. Art was forced on me, first by being made to learn to draw and paint when I didn’t enjoy it, and then by having a kind of moral obligation to appreciate art laid on me.

  An American friend of ours, herself a great devotee of pictures, music, and all kinds of culture, used to come over to London on periodical visits–she was a niece of my godmother, Mrs Sullivan, and also of Pierpont Morgan. May was a dear person with a terrible affliction–she had a most unsightly goitre. In the days when she had been a young girl–she must have been a woman of about forty when I first knew her–there was no remedy for goitre: surgery was supposed to be too dangerous. One day when May arrived in London, she told my mother that she was going to a clinic in Switzerland to be operated on.

  She had already made arrangements. A famous surgeon, who made this his speciality, had said to her, ‘Mademoiselle, I would not advise this operation to any man: it must be done with a local anaesthetic only, because during the course of it the subject has to talk the whole time. Men’s nerves are not strong eough to endure this, but women can achieve the fortitude necessary. It is an operation that will take some time–perhaps an hour or more–and during that time you will have to talk. Have you the fortitude?’

  May says she looked at him, thought a minute or two, and then said firmly, yes, she had the fortitude.

  ‘I think you are right to try, May,’ my mother said. ‘It will be a great ordeal for you, but if it succeeds it will make such a difference to your life that it will be worth anything you suffer.’

  In due course word came from May in Switzerland: the operation had been successful. She had now left the clinic and was in Italy, in a pension at Fiesole, near Florence. She was to remain there for about a month, and after go back to Switzerland to have a further examination. She asked whether my mother would allow me to go out and stay with her there, and see Florence and its art and architecture. Mother agreed, and arrangements were made for me to go. I was very excited, of course; I must have been about sixteen.

  A mother and daughter were found who were travelling out by the train that I was taking. I was delivered over to them, introduced by Cook’s agent at Victoria, and started off. I was lucky in one thing: both mother and daughter felt ill in trains if they were not facing the engine. As I did not care, I had the whole of the other side of the carriage on which to lie down flat. None of us had appreciated the fact of the hour’s difference in time, so when the moment came in the early hours of the morning for me to change at the frontier I was still asleep. I was bundled out by the conductor on to the platform, and mother and daughter shouted farewell. Assembling my belongings, I went to the other train, and immediately journeyed on through the mountains into Italy.

  Stengel, May’s maid, met me in Florence, and we went up together in the tram to Fiesole. It was inexpressibly beautiful on that day. All the early almond and peach blossom was out, delicate white and pink on the bare branches of the trees. May was in a villa there, and came out to meet me with a beaming face. I have never seen such a happy looking woman. It was strange to see her without that terrible bag of flesh jutting out under her chin. She had had to have a great deal of courage, as the doctor had warned her. For an hour and twenty minutes, she told me, she had lain there in a chair, her feet held up in a wrench above her head, while the surgeons carved at her throat and she talked to them, answering questions, speaking, grimacing if told. Afterwards the doctor had congratulated her: he told her she was one of the bravest women he had ever known.

  ‘But I must tell you, Monsieur le docteur,’ she said, ‘just before the end I was feeling I had to scream, have hysterics, cry out and say I could not bear any more.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Doctor Roux, ‘but you did not do so. You are a brave woman. I tell you.’

  So May was unbelievably happy, and she did everything she could to make my stay in Italy agreeable. I went sightseeing into Florence every day. Sometimes Stengel went with me, but more often a young Italian woman engaged by May came up to Fiesole and escorted me into the town. Young girls had to be even more carefully chaperoned in Italy than in France, and indeed I suffered all the discomforts of being pinched in trams by ardent young men–most painful. It was then that I had been subjected to so large a dose of picture galleries and museums. Greedy as ever, what I looked forward to was the delicious meal in a patisserie before catching the tram back to Fiesole.

  On several occasions in the later days May came in also, to accompany me on my artistic pilgrimage, and I remember well on the last day, when I was to return to England, she was adamant that I should see a wonderful St. Catherine of Siena, which had just been cleaned. I don’t know if it was in the Uffizi or what gallery now, but May and I galloped through every room looking in vain for it. I couldn’t have cared less about St. Catherine. I was fed up with St. Catherines, revolted by those innumerable St. Sebastians struck all over with arrows–heartily tired of saints one and all, and their emblems and their unpleasant methods of death. I was fed up, too, with self-satisfied Madonnas, particularly with those of Raphael. I really am ashamed, writing now, to think what a savage I was in this respect, but there it is: Old Masters are an acquired taste. As we raced about looking for St. Catherine, my anxiety was mounting. Would we have time to go to the patisserie and have a final delicious meal of chocolate and whipped cream, and sumptuous gateaux? I kept saying: ‘I don’t mind, May, really I don’t mind. Don’t bother any more. I’ve seen so many pictures of St. Catherine.’

  ‘Ah, but this one, Agatha dear, it’s so wonderful–you’ll realise when you see it h
ow sad it would be if you’d missed it.’

  I knew I shouldn’t realise, but I was ashamed to tell May so! However, fate was on my side–it transpired that this particular picture of St. Catherine would be absent from the gallery for some weeks longer. There was just time to stuff me with chocolate and cakes before catching our train–May expatiating at length upon all the glorious pictures, and I agreeing with her fervently as I pushed in mouthfuls of cream and coffee icing. I ought to have looked like a pig by now, with bulging flesh and tiny eyes; instead of which I had a most ethereal appearance, fragile and thin, with large dreamy eyes. Seeing me, you would have prophesied an early death in a state of spiritual ecstasy, like children in Victorian story-books. At any rate I did have the grace to feel ashamed at not appreciating May’s artistic education. I had enjoyed Fiesole–but mostly the almond blossom–and I had got a lot of fun out of Doodoo, a tiny Pomeranian dog which accompanied May and Stengel everywhere. Doodoo was small and very clever. May often brought him to visit England. On those occasions he got inside a large muff of hers and always remained unsuspected by Customs officers.

  May came to London on her way back to New York, and displayed her elegant new neck. Mother and Grannie both wept and kissed her repeatedly, and May wept too, because it was like an impossible dream come true. Only after she had left for New York did mother say to Grannie, ‘How sad, though, how terribly sad, to think that she could have had this operation fifteen years ago. She must have been very badly advised by consultants in New York.’