VI
In February of the following year Carlo, Rosalind and I went to the Canary Islands. I had some difficulty in getting my way over this, but I knew that the only hope of starting again was to go right away from all the things that had wrecked life for me. There could be no peace for me in England now after all I had gone through. The bright spot in my life was Rosalind. If I could be alone with her and my friend Carlo, things would heal again, and I could face the future. But life in England was unbearable.
From that time, I suppose, dates my revulsion against the Press, my dislike of journalists and of crowds. It was unfair, no doubt, but I think it was natural under the circumstances. I had felt like a fox, hunted, my earths dug up and yelping hounds following me everywhere. I had always hated notoriety of any kind, and now I had had such a dose of it that at some moments I felt I could hardly bear to go on living.
a€?But you could live quietly at Ashfield,a€my sister suggested.
a€?No,a€I said. a€?I couldna€?t. If I am quiet there and all alone I shall do nothing but remembera€“remember every happy day I ever had there and every happy thing I did.a€The important thing, once you have been hurt, is not to remember the happy times. You can remember the sad timesa€“that doesna€?t mattera€“but something that reminds you of a happy day or a happy thinga€“thata€?s the thing that almost breaks you in two. Archie continued to live at Styles for a time, but he was trying to sell ita€“with my consent, of course, since I owned half of it. I needed the money badly now, because I was in serious financial trouble again. Ever since my mothera€?s death I had been unable to write a word. A book was due this year, and having spent so much on Styles I had no money in hand: what little capital I had had was gone in the purchase of the house. I had no money coming in now from anywhere except what I could make or had made myself. It was vital that I should write another book as soon as possible, and get an advance on it. My brother-in-law, Archiea€?s brother Campbell Christie, who had always been a great friend and was a kind and lovable person, helped me here. He suggested that the last twelve stories published in The Sketch should be run together, so that they would have the appearance of a book. That would be a stop-gap. He helped me with the worka€“I was still unable to tackle anything of the kind. In the end it was published under the title of The Big Four, and turned out to be quite popular. I thought now that once I got away and had calmed down I could perhaps, with Carloa€?s help, write another book. The one person who was entirely on my side, and reassured me in all that I was doing, was my brother-in-law, James.
a€?Youa€?re doing quite right, Agatha,a€he said in his quiet voice. a€?You know what is best for yourself, and I would do the same in your place. You must get away. It is possible that Archie may change his mind and come backa€“I hope soa€“but I dona€?t really think so. I dona€?t think he is that kind of person. When he makes up his mind it is definite, so I shouldna€?t count on it.a€I said no, I wasna€?t counting on it, but I thought it only fair to Rosalind to wait at least a year so that he could be quite sure that he knew what he was doing. I had been brought up, of course, like everyone in my day, to have a horror of divorce, and I still have it. Even today I have a sense of guilt because I acceded to his persistent demand and did agree to divorce him. Whenever I look at my daughter. I feel still that I ought to have stood out, that I ought perhaps to have refused. One is so hampered when one doesna€?t want a thing oneself. I didna€?t want to divorce Archiea€“I hated doing it. To break up a marriage is wronga€“I am sure of ita€“and I have seen enough marriages broken up, and heard enough of the inner stories of them, to know that while it matters little if there are no children, it does matter if there are. I came back to England myself againa€“a hardened self, a self suspicious of the world, but better attuned now to deal with it. I took a small flat in Chelsea, with Rosalind and Carlo and went with my friend Eileen Morris, whose brother was now Headmaster of Horris Hill School, to look at various girlsa€preparatory schools. I felt that as Rosalind had been uprooted from her home and friends, and as there were few children of her own age whom I now knew in Torquay, it would be better for her to go to boarding school. It was what she wanted to do anyway. Eileen and I saw about ten different schools. My head was quite addled by the time we had finished, though some of them had made us laugh. Nobody, of course, could have known less about schools than I did, for I had never been near one. I had no feeling about schooling one way or the other. I had never missed it myself. But after all, I said to myself, you may have missed somethinga€“you dona€?t know. Perhaps it would be better to give your daughter the chance. Since Rosalind was a person of the utmost good sense, I consulted her on the subject. She was quite enthusiastic. She enjoyed the day school she was going to in London, but she thought it would be nice to go to a preparatory school the following autumn. After that, she said, she would like to go to a very large schoola€“the largest school there was. We agreed that I should try to find a nice preparatory school, and we settled tentatively on Cheltenham, which was the largest school I could think of, for the future. The first school I liked was at Bexhill: Caledonia, run by a Miss Wynne and her partner, Miss Barker. It was conventional, obviously well run, and I liked Miss Wynne. She was a person of authority and personality. All the school rules seemed to be cut and dried, but sensible, and Eileen had heard through friends of hers that the food was exceptionally good. I liked the look of the children too. The other school I liked was of a completely opposite type. Girls could have their own ponies and keep their own pets, if they liked, and more or less choose what subjects to study. There was a great deal of latitude in what they did, and if they did not want to do a thing they were not pressed to do it, because, so the Headmistress said, they then came to want to do things of their own accord. There was a certain amount of artistic training, and, again, I liked the Headmistress. She was an original-minded person, warm-hearted, enthusiastic, and full of ideas. I went home, thought about it, and finally decided to take Rosalind with me and visit each of them once more. We did this. I left Rosalind to consider for a couple of days, then said: a€?Now, which do you think youa€?d like?a€Rosalind, thank goodness, has always known her own mind. a€?Oh, Caledonia,a€she said, a€?every time. I shouldna€?t like the other; it would be too much like being at a party. One doesna€?t want being at school to be like being at a party, does one?a€So we settled on Caledonia, and it was a great success. The teaching was extremely good, and the children were interested in what they learned. It was highly organised, but Rosalind was the kind of child who liked to be highly organised. As she said with gusto in the holidays, a€?Therea€?s never a momenta€?s leisure for anyone.a€Not at all what I should have liked. Sometimes the answers I would get to questions seemed quite extraordinary:
a€?What time do you get up in the morning, Rosalind?a€?
a€?I dona€?t know, really. A bell rings.a€?
a€?Dona€?t you want to know the time the bell rings?a€?
a€?Why should I?a€said Rosalind. a€?Ita€?s to get us up, thata€?s all. And then we have breakfast about half an hour afterwards, I suppose.a€Miss Wynne kept parents in their place. I asked her once if Rosalind could come out with us on Sunday dressed in her everyday clothes instead of her Sunday silk frock, because we were going to have a picnic and a ramble over the downs. Miss Wynne replied: a€?All my pupils go out on Sunday in their Sunday clothes.a€And that was that. However, Carlo and I would pack a small bag with Rosalinda€?s rougher country clothes, and in a convenient wood or copse she would change from her silk Liberty frock, straw hat and neat shoes into something more suitable to the rough and tumble of our picnic. No one ever found us out. She was a woman of remarkable personality. Once I asked her what she did on Sports Day if it rained. a€?Rain?a€said Miss Wynne in a tone of surprise, a€?It has never rained on Sports Day that I can remember.a€She could, it seemed, dictate even to the elements: or, as one of Rosalinda€?s friends said, a€?I expect, you know, God would be on Miss Wynnea€?s side.a€I had managed to write the best part of a new book, The Mystery of The Blue Train, while we were in the Canary Islands. It had not been easy, and had certainly not been rendered easier by Rosalind. Rosalind, unlike her mother, was not a child who could amuse herself by any exercise of imagination: she required something concrete. Give her a bicycle and she would go off for half an hour. Give her a difficult puzzle when it was wet, and she would work on it. But in the garden of the hotel at Oratava in Tenerife there was nothing for Rosalind to do but walk around the flower-beds, or occasionally bowl a hoopa€“and a hoop meant little to Rosalind, again unlike her mother. To her it was only a hoop.
a€?Look here, Rosalind,a€I said, a€?you must not interrupt. Ia€?ve got some work to do. Ia€?ve got to write another book. Carlo and I are going to be busy for the next hour with that. You must not interrupt.a€?
a€?Oh, all right,a€said Rosalind, gloomily, and went away. I looked at Carlo, sitting there with pencil poised, and I thought, and thought, and thoughta€“cudgelling my brain. Finally, hesitantly, I began. After a few minutes, I noticed that Rosalind was just across the path, standing there looking at us.
a€?What is it, Rosalind?a€I asked. a€?What do you want?a€?
a€?Is it half an hour yet,a€she said.
a€?No, it isna€?t. Ita€?s exactly nine minutes. Go away.a€?
a€?Oh, all right.a€And she departed. I resumed my hesitant dictation. Presently Rosalind was there again.
a€?Ia€?ll call you when the time is up. Ita€?s not up yet.a€?
a€?Well, I can stay here, cana€?t II can just stand here. I wona€?t interrupt.a€?
a€?I suppose you can stand there,a€I said, unwillingly. And I started again. But Rosalinda€?s eye upon me had the effect of a Medusa. I felt more strongly than ever that everything I was saying was idiotic! (Most of it was, too.) I faltered, stammered, hesitated, and repeated myself. Really, how that wretched book ever came to be written, I dona€?t know! To begin with, I had no joy in writing, no elan. I had worked out the plota€“a conventional plot, partly adapted from one of my other stories. I knew, as one might say, where I was going, but I could not see the scene in my minda€?s eye, and the people would not come alive. I was driven desperately on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make some money. That was the moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you dona€?t want to, dona€?t much like what you are writing, and arena€?t writing particularly well. I have always hated The Mystery of the Blue Train, but I got it written, and sent off to the publishers. It sold just as well as my last book had done. So I had to content myself with thata€“though I cannot say I have ever been proud of it. Oratava was lovely. The big mountain towered up; there were glorious flowers in the hotel groundsa€“but two things about it were wrong. After a lovely early morning, mists and fog came down from the mountain at noon, and the rest of the day was grey. Sometimes it even rained. And the bathing, to keen bathers, was terrible. You lay on a sloping volcanic beach, on your face, and you dug your fingers in and let waves come up and cover you. But you had to be careful they did not cover you too much. Masses of people had been drowned there. It was impossible to get into the sea and swim; that could only be done by one or two of the very strongest swimmers, and even one of those had been drowned the year before. So after a week we changed, and moved to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. Las Palmas is still my ideal of the place to go in the winter months. I believe nowadays it is a tourist resort and has lost its early charm. Then it was quiet and peaceful. Very few people came there except those who stayed for a month or two in winter and preferred it to Madeira. It had two perfect beaches. The temperature was perfect too: the average was about 70?°, which is, to my mind, what a summer temperature should be. It had a nice breeze most of the day, and it was warm enough in the evenings to sit out of doors after dinner. It was in those evenings with Carlo that I made two close friends, Dr Lucas and his sister Mrs Meek. She was a good deal older than her brother, and had three sons. He was a tuberculosis specialist, was married to an Australian, and had a sanatorium on the east coast. He had himself been crippled in youtha€“whether by tuberculosis or by polio, I do not knowa€“but he was slightly hunch-backed, and had a delicate constitution. He was by nature a born healer, though, and was extraordinarily successful with his patients. He said once: a€?My partner, you know, is a better doctor than I ama€“better in his qualifications, knows more than I doa€“but he cannot do for his patients what I can. When I go away, they droop and fall back. I just make them get well.a€He was always known as Father to all his family. Soon Carlo and I were calling him Father too. I had a bad ulcerated throat when we were there. He came to see me and said, a€?You are very unhappy about something, arena€?t youWhat is itHusband trouble?a€I said yes it was, and told him something of what had happened. He was cheering and invigorating. a€?Hea€?ll come back if you want him,a€he said. a€?Just give him time. Give him plenty of time. And when he does come back, dona€?t reproach him.a€I said I didna€?t think he would come back, that he wasna€?t the type. No, he agreed, some werena€?t. Then he smiled and said: a€?But most of us are, I can tell you that. Ia€?ve been away and come back. Anyway, whatever happens, accept it and go on. Youa€?ve got plenty of strength and courage. Youa€?ll make a good thing out of life yet.a€Dear Father. I owe him so much. He had enormous sympathy for all human ailments and failings. a€?When he died, five or six years later, I felt I had lost one of my best friends. Rosalinda€?s one fear in life was that the Spanish chamber-maid would speak to her!
a€?But why shouldna€?t she?a€I said. a€?You can speak to her.a€?
a€?I cana€?ta€“shea€?s Spanish. She says a€?Senoritaa€and then she says a lot of things I cana€?t understand.a€?
a€?You mustna€?t be so silly, Rosalind.a€?
a€?Oh, ita€?s all right. You can go to dinner. I dona€?t mind being left alone as long as Ia€?m in bed. Then I can shut my eyes and pretend to be asleep when the chamber-maid comes in.a€It is odd what children like or dona€?t like. When we got on a boat to come back it was rough, and a large, hideously ugly Spanish sailor took Rosalind in his arms, and jerked up with her from the boat to the gangway. I thought she would roar with disapprobation, but not at all. She smiled at him with the utmost sweetness.
a€?Hea€?s foreign, and you didna€?t mind,a€I said.
a€?Well, he didna€?t talk to me. And anyway I liked his facea€“a nice, ugly face.a€Only one incident of note happened as we left Las Palmas for England. We arrived at Puerto de la Cruz to catch the Union Castle boat, and the discovery was made that Blue Teddy had been left behind. Rosalinda€?s face immediately blanched. a€?I wona€?t leave without Teddy,a€she said. The bus driver who had brought us was approached. Largesse was pressed upon him, though he hardly even seemed to want it. Of course he would find the little onea€?s blue monkeya€“of course, he would drive back like the wind. In the meantime he was sure the sailors would not let the boat leavea€“not without the favourite toy of a child. I did not agree with him. I thought the boat would leave. It was an English boat, en route from South Africa. If it had been a Spanish boat, no doubt it would have remained a couple of hours if necessary. However, all was well. Just as whistles began blowing, and everyone was told to go ashore, the bus was seen approaching in a cloud of dust. Out jumped the driver; Blue Teddy was passed to Rosalind on the gangway; and she clasped him to her heart. A happy ending to our stay there.