IV
In the end The Mystery of the Mill House got finished somehow or other, in spite of the difficulties of Cuckooa€?s obbligato outside the door. Poor Cuckoo! Shortly afterwards she consulted a doctor and moved to a hospital where she had an operation for cancer of the breast. She was a good deal older than she had said she was, and there was no question of her returning to work as a nurse. She went to live, I believe, with a sister.
I had decided that the next nurse should not be selected at Mrs Bouchera€?s Bureau, or from anyone of that ilk. What I needed was a Mothera€?s Help, so a Mothera€?s Help I advertised for.
From the moment which brought Site into our family, our luck seemed to change for the better. I interviewed Site in Devonshire. She was a strapping girl, with a large bust, broad hips, a flushed face and dark hair. She had a deep contralto voice, with a particularly lady-like and refined accent, so much so that you couldna€?t help feeling that she was acting a part on the stage. She had been a Mothera€?s Help to two or three different establishments for some years now, and radiated competence in the way she spoke of the infant world. She seemed good-natured, good-tempered, and full of enthusiasm. She asked a low salary, and seemed quite willing to do anything, go anywherea€“as they say in the advertisements. So Site returned with us to London, and became the comfort of my life.
Naturally her name at that time was not Sitea€“it was Miss Whitea€“but after a few months of being with us Miss White became in Rosalinda€?s rapid pronunciation a€?Switea€?. For a while we called her Swite; then Rosalind made another contraction, and thereafter she was known as Site. Rosalind was very fond of her, and Site liked Rosalind. She liked all small children, but she kept her dignity and was a strict disciplinarian in her own way. She would not stand for any disobedience or rudeness.
Rosalind missed her role as controller and director of Cuckoo. I suspect now that she transferred these activities to mea€“taking me in her same beneficent charge, finding things for me that I had lost, pointing out to me that I had forgotten to stamp an envelope, and so on. Certainly, by the time that she was five years old, I was conscious that she was much more efficient than I was. On the other hand she had no imagination. If we were playing a game with each other, in which two figures took parta€“for instance, a man taking a dog for a walk (I may say that I would be the dog and she would be the man)a€“there might come a moment when the dog had to be put on a lead.
a€?We havena€?t got a lead,a€Rosalind would say. a€?Wea€?ll have to change that part.a€?
a€?You can pretend you have a lead,a€I suggested.
a€?How can I pretend I have a lead when Ia€?ve nothing in my hand?a€?
a€?Well, take the waist-belt of my dress and pretend thata€?s a lead.a€?
a€?Ita€?s not a dog lead, ita€?s the waist-belt of a dress.a€Things had to be real to Rosalind. Unlike me, she never read fairy stories as a child. a€?But theya€?re not real,a€she would protest. a€?Theya€?re about people who arena€?t therea€“they dona€?t really happen. Tell me about Red Teddy at the picnic.a€?
The curious thing is that by the time she was fourteen she adored fairy stories, and would read books of them again and again.
Site fitted into our household extremely well. Dignified and competent as she looked, she did not really know much more about cooking than I did. She had been an assistant always. We had to be assistants to each other in our present way of living. Although we each had dishes that we made wella€“I made cheese souffle, Bearnaise sauce, and old English syllabub, Site made jam tartlets and could pickle herringsa€“we were neither of us adept at producing what I believe is termed a€?a balanced meala€?. To assemble a joint, a vegetable such as carrots, or brussels sprouts, potatoes, and a pudding afterwards, we would suffer from the fact that we did not know exactly how long these various things took to cook. The brussels sprouts would be reduced to a soggy mess, while the carrots were still hard. However, we learnt as we went along.
We divided duties. One morning I took Rosalind in charge and we set off in the serviceable, but not fashionable pram to the parka€“though by now we used the push-chair more oftena€“while Site prepared the lunch and made the beds. Next morning I would stay at home and do the domestic chores and Site would depart for the park. On the whole I found the first activity more tiring than the second. It was a long way to the park, and when you got there you couldna€?t sit still and rest and make your mind a blank. You had either to converse with Rosalind and play with her, or see she was suitably occupied playing with somebody else and that nobody was taking away her boat or knocking her down. During domestic chores I could relax my mind completely. Robert Graves once said to me that washing up was one of the best aids to creative thought. I think he is quite right. There is a monotony about domestic dutiesa€“sufficient activity for the physical side, so that it releases your mental side, allowing it to take off into space and make its own thoughts and inventions. That doesna€?t apply to cooking, of course. Cooking demands all your creative abilities and complete attention.
Site was a welcome relief after Cuckoo. She and Rosalind occupied themselves quite happily without my hearing a peep out of them. They were either in the nursery or down on the green below, or doing some shopping.
It was a shock to me when about six months after she came to us I discovered Sitea€?s age. I had not asked her. She seemed obviously between twenty-four and twenty-eight, which was about the age I wanted, and it did not occur to me to be more definite. I was startled when I learnt that at the time of coming into my employment she was seventeen, and was now only just eighteen. It seemed incredible; she had such an air of maturity about her. But she had worked as a Mothera€?s Help since she had been about thirteen. She had a natural liking for her job and full proficiency in it; and her air of experience came from really being experienced, very much in the way that the eldest child of a large family has had great experience in dealing with small brothers and sisters.
Young as Site was, I would never have hesitated to go off for long periods and leave Rosalind in her charge. She was eminently sensible. She would send for the right doctor, take a child to a hospital, find out if anything was worrying her, deal with any emergency. Her mind was always on her job. In good old-fashioned terms, she had a vocation.
I heaved an enormous sigh of relief as I finished The Mystery of the Mill House. It had not been an easy book to write, and I considered it rather patchy when I had finished it. But there it was, finished, and, like Uncle Tom Cobley and all, with old Eustace Pedler and all. The Bodley Head hemmed and hawed a bit. It was not, they pointed out, a proper detective story, as Murder on the Links had been. However, graciously, they accepted it.
It was about then that I noticed a slight change in their attitude. Though I had been ignorant and foolish when I first submitted a book for publication, I had learnt a few things since. I was not as stupid as I must have appeared to many people. I had found out a good deal about writing and publishing. I knew about the Authorsa€Society and I had read their periodical. I realised that you had to be extremely careful in making contracts with publishers, and especially with certain publishers. I had learnt of the many ways in which publishers took unfair advantage of authors. Now that I knew these things, I made my plans.
Shortly before bringing out The Mystery of the Mill House, The Bodley Head threw out certain proposals. They suggested that they might scrap the old contract and make another one with me, also for five books. The terms of this would be much more favourable. I thanked them politely, said I would think about it, and then refused, without giving any definite reason. They had not treated a young author fairly, I considered. They had taken advantage of her lack of knowledge and her eagerness to publish a book. I did not propose to quarrel with them on this pointa€“I had been a fool. Anyone is a fool who does not find out a little bit about the proper remuneration for the job. On the other hand, would I, in spite of my acquired wisdom, still have refused the chance to publish The Mysterious Affair at StylesI thought not. I would still have published with them on the terms they had suggested, but I would not have agreed to so long a contract for so many books. If you have trusted people once and been disappointed, you do not wish to trust them any more. That is only common sense, I was willing to finish my contract, but after that I was certainly going to find a new publisher. Also, I thought, I was going to have a literary agent.
I had a request from the Income Tax about this time. They wanted to know the details of my literary earnings. I was astonished. I had never considered my literary earnings as income. All the income I had, I thought, was ?￡100 a year from ?￡2000 invested in War Loan. Yes, they said, they knew about that, but they meant my earnings from published books. I explained that these were not something that came in every yeara€“I had just happened to write three books just as I had happened to write short stories before, or poems. I wasna€?t an author. I wasna€?t going on writing all my life. I thought, I said, coming on a phrase from somewhere, that this sort of thing was called a€?casual profita€?. They said they thought by now I really was an established author, even though as yet I might not have made much from my writing. They wanted details. Unfortunately I could not give them detailsa€“I had not kept any of the royalty statements sent me (if they had even been sent me, which I could not remember). I occasionally received an odd cheque, but I had usually cashed it straight away and spent it. However, I unravelled things to the best of my ability. The Inland Revenue seemed amused, on the whole, but suggested that in future I should keep more careful accounts. It was then that I decided I must have a literary agent.
As I didna€?t know much about literary agents, I thought I had better go back to Eden Philpottsa€original recommendationa€“Hughes Massie. So back I went. It wasna€?t Hughes Massie nowa€“apparently he had dieda€“instead I was received by a young man with a slight stammer, whose name was Edmund Cork. He was not nearly so alarming as Hughes Massie had beena€“in fact I could talk to him quite easily. He seemed suitably horrified at my ignorance, and was willing to guide my footsteps in future. He told me the exact amount of his commission, of the possibility of serial rights, and publication in America, of dramatic rights, and all sorts of unlikely things (or so it seemed to me). It was quite an impressive lecture. I placed myself in his hands, unreservedly, and left his office with a sigh of relief. I felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
That was the beginning of a friendship which has lasted for over forty years.
An almost unbelievable thing then occurred. I was offered ?￡500 by The Evening News for the serial rights of The Mystery of the Mill House. It was no longer The Mystery of the Mill House: I had rechristened it The Man in the Brown Suit, because the other title seemed too like Murder on the Links. The Evening News proposed to change the title yet again. They were going to call it Anna The Adventuressa€“as silly a title as I had ever heard, I thought; though I kept my mouth shut, because, after all, they were willing to pay me ?￡500, and though I might have certain feelings about the title of a book, nobody could be bothered about the title of a serial in a newspaper. It seemed the most unbelievable luck. I could hardly believe it, Archie could hardly believe it, Punkie could hardly believe it. Mother, of course, could easily believe it: any daughter of hers could earn ?￡500 for a serial in The Evening News with the utmost easea€“there was nothing surprising about it.
It always seems to be the pattern of life that all the bad things and all the good things come together. I had my stroke of luck with The Evening News, now Archie was to have his. He received a letter from an Australian friend, Clive Baillieu, who had long before suggested Archie might join his firm. Archie went to see him and was offered the job he had been yearning for for so many years. He shook off the dust of his present job, and went in with Clive Baillieu. He was immediately, wonderfully, completely happy. Here at last were sound and interesting enterprises, no sharp practice, and proper entry into the world of finance. We were in the seventh heaven.
Immediately I pressed for the project that I had cherished for so long, and about which Archie had hitherto been indifferent. We would try to find a small cottage in the country from which Archie could go to the City every day, and in the garden of which Rosalind could be turned out to grass, as it were, instead of having to be pushed to the park or confined to activities on the grass strip between the flats. I longed to live in the country. If we could find a cheap enough cottage we decided we would move.
Archiea€?s ready agreement to my plan was mostly, I think, because golf was now occupying more and more of his attention. He had been recently elected to Sunningdale Golf Club, and our weekends together of going off by train and making expeditions on foot had palled. He thought of nothing but golf. He played with various friends at Sunningdale, and now lesser and minor courses were treated by him with scorn. He could get no fun out of playing with a rabbit like me, so little by little, though not aware of the fact yet, I was becoming that well-known figure, a golf widow.
a€?I dona€?t mind living in the country,a€said Archie. a€?Indeed, I think Ia€?d quite like it, and of course it would be good for Rosalind. Site likes the country, and I know you do. If so, there is really only one possible place where we can live, and that is Sunningdale.a€?
a€?Sunningdale,a€I said with slight dismay, for Sunningdale was not quite what I meant by the country. a€?But surely that is terribly expensive, isna€?t itIta€?s all rich people who live there.a€?
a€?Oh, I expect we could find something,a€said Archie, optimistically. A day or two later he asked me how I was going to spend my ?￡500 from The Evening News. a€?Ita€?s a lot of money,a€I said. a€?I supposea€“a€I admit I spoke grudgingly, with no conviction: a€?I suppose we ought to save it for a rainy day.a€?
a€?Oh, I dona€?t think we need worry too much about that now. In with the Baillieus I shall have very good prospects, and you seem to be getting on with your writing.a€?
a€?Yes,a€I said. a€?Perhaps I could spend ita€“or spend some of it.a€Vague ideas of an new evening dress, perhaps gold or silver evening shoes instead of black ones, something rather ambitious like a fairy cycle for Rosalind. Archiea€?s voice broke into these musings. a€?Why dona€?t you buy a car?a€he asked.
a€?Buy a car?a€I looked at him with amazement. The last thing I dreamed of was a car. Nobody I knew in our circle of friends had a car. I was still imbued with the notion that cars were for the rich. They rushed past you at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour, containing people with their hats tied on with chiffon veils, speeding to impossible places. a€?A car?a€I repeated, looking more like a zombie than ever.
a€?Why not?a€Why not indeedIt was possible. I, Agatha, could have a car, a car of my own. I will confess here and now that of the two things that have excited me most in my life the first was my car: my grey bottle-nosed Morris Cowley. The second was dining with the Queen at Buckingham Palace about forty years later. Both of those happenings, you see, had something of a fairy-tale quality about them. They were things that I thought could never happen to me: to have a car of my own, and to dine with the Queen of England.
p-ssycat, p-ssycat, where have you been?
Ia€?ve been to London to visit the Queen.
It was almost as good as having been born the Lady Agatha!
p-ssycat, p-ssycat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
I had no chance of frightening any mouse under Queen Elizabeth IIa€?s chair, but I did enjoy my evening. So small, and slender, in her simple dark red velvet gown with one beautiful jewela€“and her kindness and easiness in talking. I remember she told us one story of how they used a small drawing-room one night, and in the middle of the evening a terrific fall of soot came down the chimney and they had to rush out of the room. It is cheering to know that domestic disasters happened in the highest circles.