The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [42]
“The war finally over … some very good years for Agatha and Archie. Rosalind’s birth. The wonderful news, in 1920, after she’d almost forgot its existence, that Bodley Head would publish her book. Agatha and Archie’s unforgettable tour of the empire. More books: The Secret Adversary, 1922; Murder on the Links, 1923; Poirot Investigates and The Man in the Brown Suit, 1924; The Secret of Chimneys, 1925.
“Nineteen twenty-six.” Lady Gwendolyn tolled the year. “The best of years for Agatha. And the worst.
“A watershed year in the history of the mystery … the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd… artful, clever, brilliant … but 1926 brought also the death of Clara, her impulsive, warm, and eager mother. It brought the duty of clearing Ashfield, her childhood home. Grief-stricken, her husband absorbed in golf and business, Agatha worked in a frenzy at clearing the house, sleeping poorly, eating erratically.”
Lady Gwendolyn gazed out soberly at her enraptured listeners. “August 1926: Expecting to go on a holiday to Italy with her husband, Agatha instead is told by Archie that he loves another woman and wants a divorce. Archie had once told Agatha that he hated it when people were ill or unhappy. He was true to his word.
“December 1926: Archie was living at his club, still pressing for a divorce. Agatha, profoundly depressed, lived at Styles and was attempting to write. At eleven o’clock on the night of December third, she drove off into the darkness. The car was found the next day on a grassy slope off the main road. No trace of Agatha. A massive search ensued Speculation arose that Archie had murdered his wife. The press had a field day, carrying reams of sensational copy. Ten days later, Agatha was discovered at a resort hotel in Harrogate, registered as Theresa Neele. The woman Archie wished to marry was Nancy Neele. Archie came to the hotel, identified Agatha, and whisked her into seclusion, issuing a statement that she was suffering from the most complete amnesia.”
The cherubic author posed the familiar questions. “A publicity stunt? An effort to humiliate her unfaithful husband? A mental collapse from stress and heartbreak?”
Lady Gwendolyn was emphatic “A mind and heart and soul can only bear so much. This was an emotional collapse. Agatha was never able, despite yeoman effort, to recall all that happened during those ten days.
“Put yourself in her place,” Lady Gwendolyn suggested quietly to her mesmerized audience. The musical voice fell away, and there was a long moment of silence.
Annie imagined how Christie must have suffered: the loss of a beloved mother, the task of clearing away the mementos of a lifetime, the betrayal by the man she’d loved and trusted, the inability to sleep because of the painful images jostling in her mind, the depression that caused food and laughter and sunlight to lose their savor, the drudgery of work contracted for but now meaningless, the anger and tears and misery.
“Then think,” and it was a clarion call, “think how dreadful to collapse in spirit and reawaken to painful reality scarred by a flood of ugly publicity. No wonder that ever afterward Christie shunned publicity, avoided reporters, was cautious in her trust.
“But,” and this was a triumphant cry, “she never gave up. Thank God for all of us, she never gave up.”
Travel. More books. A ticket to the West Indies, but a chance conversation at a dinner party convinced her to cancel that trip, go instead on the Orient Express to Baghdad. A visit to an archaeological dig. An invitation to return the next year.
“Nineteen thirty, oh, that was a very good year …”
Max Mallowan, a young archaeologist at the dig. A trip together. A happy companionship. Marriage that September, beginning a journey that would last forty-six happy years. The first Miss Marple, The Murder at the Vicarage.
Lady Gwendolyn moved ebulliently on, totting up the triumphs, the great events, the tragedies of a long life. Happy expeditions to Max’s digs. Plays. Rosalind’s marriage. The Second World War. The birth