Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days (3 page)

Despite the reverberations over her disappearance she gained more fans than she lost. An extraordinary example of how popular she became is a letter from a survivor of the German concentration camp at Buchenwald who wrote to her after the war telling her how the inmates had devised and performed a production of her novel
Ten Little Niggers
. Although it was one of her most macabre stories, in which all the characters are murdered one by one, the suspenseful plot, together with the underlying morality of the tale, had had the effect of lifting the prisoners’ spirits.

Inevitably, there were honours: a CBE in 1956, a Doctorate of Letters in 1961 and a DBE in 1971. By then her readers had come to expect their ‘Christie for Christmas’. When it seemed as if further fame and success were impossible, Sidney Lumet’s faithful 1974 film version of
Murder on the Orient Express
marked the most successful adaptation of her work for the screen ever and resulted in a major film première. Although she savoured the evening and the widespread accolades, she never forgave the press for having intruded into her private life at a time when she had been at her most vulnerable. The emotional scars caused by the disappearance had never entirely left her. Her death two years later, on 12 January 1976, left such a void in the sphere of crime literature that hers is one of the foremost names by which would-be detective writers are compared.

The posthumous publication of her autobiography in 1977 was awaited eagerly. Would she finally reveal what had really happened during those eleven missing days? Far from comment on the disappearance, however, her memoirs made no reference to it whatsoever. Many of her readers felt cheated. Some commentators even wondered if it was an eccentric act of revenge on the press which had hounded her all those years before.

The tributes she still receives as a writer inevitably mention the disappearance, and so the one incident in her life which she would have preferred not to be dwelt on has continued to invite questions. To understand what happened it is necessary to examine her life from childhood, for it was here, surprisingly, that the seeds of her unhappiness were sown.

Part One
Love and Betrayal

Chapter One
Mauve Irises and Ewe Lambs

Agatha was the third child of the American-born Frederick Miller and his wife Clarissa Boehmer Miller who was born in Belfast and raised in England. Their marriage was such a happy one that Agatha confidently believed that the ideal husband for her would come along when she grew up and that love and happiness would be hers for ever.

Ashfield was a white villa on the outskirts of Torquay, a fashionable seaside resort spread over seven hills on the south coast of Devon. She was born there on 15 September 1890 and christened Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller – a much-loved ‘afterthought’ in the lives of her middle-aged parents. Frederick Miller was a genial and highly sociable gentleman, fussy in his health and fond of all forms of theatrical activities. His cousin Clarissa, known to the family as Clara, had adored Frederick since she was a young child and theirs was a particularly loving and fulfilled marriage. Clarissa, who had long been fascinated by religion, was very mystical in outlook. Their love for Agatha, combined with their affluent lifestyle, would make for a secure and happy childhood that would leave Agatha insufficiently prepared for the blows life would offer.

The Millers’ other two children were the gregarious and assertive Madge and Monty who was charming but feckless. Madge was eleven years older than Agatha and would enthral her as she grew up by her ability to put on sinister voices and her love of dressing up. The ne’er-do-well Monty, who after a short-lived military career gradually faded out of his family’s lives, was ten years older than Agatha and was apt to treat her in such a condescending and relentlessly teasing manner that she grew up relating more easily to the women in the family. Since Madge and Monty were away at school for much of the time Agatha was raised virtually as an only child. She never went to school as a little girl and was free to roam Ashfield, the family home, with playmates from her imagination.

The hub of her early universe was the nursery with its wallpaper with mauve irises, where Agatha was presided over by a caring nanny, a devout Christian, whose moral certitudes and conventional beliefs were conveyed forcefully to her adoring young charge. Agatha sometimes found it difficult to reconcile her nanny’s strict morals and ideals with the ways of the world, but she never rebelled because of her complaint nature and the fact that her nanny’s strictures, like those of the other adults around her, were instilled with love not fear.

Agatha was a hypersensitive child. In her memoirs she recalled her horror when she overheard her nanny confiding to a housemaid that young Miss Agatha had been playing again with her imaginary friends the Kittens. After this disturbing exposure of her privacy she vowed never again to let anyone know about her esoteric invented world.

The person on whom she came to depend most was Clarissa. There formed between mother and daughter a uniquely intuitive and loving bond. In times of misery Agatha found there was no one more understanding and supportive than Clarissa. Agatha also knew that when she was ill there was no one quite like her mother for restoring her vitality.

Agatha’s dumpling face, with its heavy-lidded grey eyes and long blonde hair, gave her a wraith-like appearance. As she grew older she developed an elusive manner, a defence against inquisitive probing; an unwelcome question was liable to glance off her like a spent arrow. When she did part with information she preferred to do so on her own terms. Silence for Agatha became a preciously guarded commodity, a cocoon for concocting fantasies, and in later life the two things she most hated were noise and large crowds.

Beneath the surface of her seemingly idyllic upper-middle-class childhood her dream of the Gun Man introduced an element of discord. This recurring nightmare originally involved a figure in some sort of military dress with a gun, only it was not his gun that frightened Agatha into waking screaming but the moment when his pale blue eyes looked into hers. Later variations of the dream became more macabre: Agatha would be attending a tea-party or picnic with family and friends when she looked into a familiar loved one’s face to see the dreaded eyes of the Gun Man staring back. To her greater horror she would see that stumps had replaced her loved one’s hands. The dream perhaps reflected her caution and reticence before offering any object of her affections unconditional love.

Agatha’s religious beliefs were derived mainly from her nanny. The child formed the opinion that, being virtuous, she was one of the ‘saved’ and dreamed of being addressed as ‘Lady Agatha.’ It came as a profound disappointment when her nanny told her she could be called Lady Agatha only if she was an aristocrat. Heaven, she thought, must be exactly like the beautiful meadows full of grazing lambs near Ashfield. Agatha’s confused religious beliefs were revealed in her ambivalent feelings towards her father: for a time she feared that Frederick would burn in hell because he defied conventions by playing croquet on Sunday afternoons and by telling light-hearted jokes about the clergy. Clarissa also played croquet, but Agatha’s concern for her was less acute because her mother kept a copy of Thomas à Kempis’s
The Imitation of Christ
by her bedside.

Shortly after Agatha’s fifth birthday she went with her family for an extended holiday in France; included in their itinerary were Paris, Dinard, Pau, Argeles, Lourdes and Cauterets. Travelling was relatively inexpensive in those days. Ashfield was rented out because it was cheaper for the family to live abroad than at home, and Frederick was anxious to relieve the strain on his finances, which were being handled by a New York firm at this time. Later there were suspicions in family circles – though never any proof – that his fortune may have been embezzled by the US company.

The effect of Frederick’s dwindling resources was to weaken his resistance to illness over the next six years, although doctors never managed to come up with a definite diagnosis. Frederick’s finances and ill health formed a faint, almost imperceptible shadow over Agatha.

The decision for Agatha to be educated at home, after their return to Ashfield, was made by Clarissa, who was not afraid to try out new ideas. She had an exceptionally vivid imagination, and this acted as a catalyst on her daughter. Clarissa was prejudiced against children learning to read before they were eight, but Agatha had already taught herself to read by the time she was five by learning to recognize the shapes of words, rather than the spelling. Her father taught her elementary mathematics and soon discovered she had a natural talent for the subject, and her ability to sort out complicated mental problems later proved invaluable when devising plots for her detective fiction. Her two grandmothers – one of whom lived in Bayswater, the other in Ealing – were firm upholders of Victorian values, and from them she gleaned many of the precepts that were to form the character of her spinster sleuth Miss Marple. Surrounded by so many forceful and extrovert adults, Agatha grew up believing herself to be ‘the slow one’ of the family. She was to realize only in her twenties that her family had been abnormally bright and that she was more intelligent and able than she had previously thought.

Frederick’s finances, strained by his eldest daughter’s coming-out in New York, continued to dwindle and to perplex him. Around Agatha’s eleventh birthday he sought employment in the City of London; a difficult prospect for a gentleman of fifty-five who had never worked and who had no qualifications. His inability to find a job in the City led to increased worry. The weather tuned cold, and the chill Frederick caught turned into double pneumonia. On the afternoon of 26 November 1901 Agatha saw her mother burst out of the room in which her father was lying, and, without having to be told, she knew he was dead.

Frederick’s death brought home to Agatha how things could suddenly change. Owing to the family’s straitened circumstances it was thought that Clarissa would have to sell Ashfield. But following the entreaties of her daughters and a letter of protest from Monty – by now abroad serving with his regiment – Clarissa capitulated. Instead, rigid economizing enabled her to keep on the small estate. Agatha adored Ashfield so much that a recurring theme in several of her books would be her protagonists’ overwhelming desire to retain the family home.

Fortunately, nine months after Frederick’s death, an event took place that reduced the isolation of mother and daughter at Ashfield. In September 1902 Agatha’s sister Madge married Jimmy Watts, the sensible, prudent and self-effacing eldest son of a wealthy Manchester manufacturer, James Watts II. Agatha approved of Jimmy, who was kind to her, always treated her seriously, refrained from making infantile jokes and, best of all, spoke to her as if she were an adult. Agatha’s former jealousy at the attention Clarissa and Frederick had lavished on Madge’s New York coming-out was forgotten, for she had her own part to play in her vivacious and witty sister’s wedding.

The choral service was held in Torquay at St Saviour’s Church, and Madge wore a gown of beautifully wrought silver embroidery and carried a prayer book instead of a bouquet out of respect for her father’s memory. Agatha was one of six bridesmaids, including Nan Watts, the bridegroom’s younger sister. They wore ivory white Louisine pictures dresses, with petticoats, elbow sleeves and fichus of Alencon lace. Pinned on the dresses were diamond and pearl brooches in the shape of marguerites, the gift of Jimmy, who also gave them bouquets of the same flower to carry as a floral pun on the name of the bride.

Although many deserted Agatha after the notoriety she acquired following her disappearance, Nan would stand by her for life. Initially, there was antagonism between them. The brash fourteen-year-old tomboy Nan had been told that Agatha was an exceedingly demure and well-behaved twelve-year-old. Agatha had been given to understand that Nan was a polite but forthright child who always spoke up clearly for herself. The two girls met in mutual suspicion but lowered their reserve sufficiently to inflict ‘every variety of torture’ possible on the newly-weds. With the help of Agatha’s cousin, Gerald, and Nan’s brothers, Lyonel and Miles, satin shoes were tied to the carriage in which Madge and Jimmy drove away; a notice on the back of the carriage proclaimed ‘Mrs Jimmy Watts is a first class name’; and throughout the honeymoon rice fell out of every garment they removed from their suitcases.

After the wedding was over Nan’s parents returned to their hotel and Agatha’s mother retired to her bedroom at Ashfield, exhausted and weeping with happiness. Much to their surprise Agatha and Nan discovered they liked each other enormously. Upstairs in the school room they had a glorious time steeplechasing over furniture with Gerald, Lyonel and Miles. The springs on the chesterfield sofa were broken beyond repair. The day was rounded off with a visit to the theatre to see
The Pirates of Penzance.

The Watts family lived in a splendid Victorian Gothic pile called Abney Hall in Cheadle, Cheshire (now part of Greater Manchester). Agatha’s regular visits there over the years provided her with the experience of lavish living that she was to make use of in her future country-house murders. Abney Hall had been in the Watts family since 1849, and in the past they had offered hospitality to Prince Albert and other famous aristocratic and political figures. Complete with gargoyles, it contained numerous corridors and passageways, ornate carved staircases, mullioned windows, suits of armour, marble busts and more than three hundred oil paintings, including ones by Holbein, Gainsborough and Ansdell. A stuffed lion that had once killed a missionary guarded the main hallway. Outside, the manicured gardens contained a small lake in front of the house and a larger one at the back. An archway with a clock tower opened on to the enormous walled kitchen garden where a Gothic-style ventilating shaft wafted warm air towards the fruit trees. Agatha considered Abney Hall ‘marvellous’, and it would later surface, lightly disguised, as the setting for a large number of her mysteries, including
The Secret of Chimneys
and
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
.