Agahta Christie - An autobiography Part 4

Did I really? I suppose so.

My demand was never satisfied at once. Perhaps two days later there would be a knock at the nursery door, and the voice: 'Can I come in, dear? It's your elder sister.

Many years later, Madge had still only to use the Elder Sister voice and I would feel chills down my spine.

Why did I like like being frightened? What instinctive need is satisfied by terror? Why, indeed, do children like stories about bears, wolves and witches? Is it because something rebels in one against the life that is too being frightened? What instinctive need is satisfied by terror? Why, indeed, do children like stories about bears, wolves and witches? Is it because something rebels in one against the life that is too safe? safe? Is a certain amount of danger in life a need of human beings? Is much of the juvenile delinquency nowadays attributable to the fact of too much security? Do you instinctively need something to combat, to overcometo, as it were, prove yourself to yourself? Take away the wolf from Red Riding Hood and would any child enjoy it? However, like most things in life, you want to be frightened a littlebut not too much. Is a certain amount of danger in life a need of human beings? Is much of the juvenile delinquency nowadays attributable to the fact of too much security? Do you instinctively need something to combat, to overcometo, as it were, prove yourself to yourself? Take away the wolf from Red Riding Hood and would any child enjoy it? However, like most things in life, you want to be frightened a littlebut not too much.

My sister must have had a great gift for story-telling. At an early age her brother would urge her on. 'Tell it me again.'

'I don't want to.'

'Do, do!'

'No, I don't want to.'

'Please. I'll do anything.'

'Will you let me bite your finger?'

'Yes.'

'I shall bite it hard. Perhaps I shall bite it right off!'

'I don't mind.'

Madge obligingly launches into the story once more. Then she picks up his finger and bites it. Now Monty yells. Mother arrives. Madge is punished.

'But it was a bargain,' she says, unrepentant.

I remember well my first written story. It was in the nature of a melodrama, very short, since both writing and spelling were a pain to me. It concerned the n.o.ble Lady Madge (good) and the b.l.o.o.d.y Lady Agatha (bad) and a plot that involved the inheritance of a castle.

I showed it to my sister and suggested we could act it. My sister said immediately that she would rather be the b.l.o.o.d.y Lady Madge and I could be the n.o.ble Lady Agatha.

'But don't you want to be the good one?' I demanded, shocked. My sister said no, she thought it would be much more fun to be wicked. I was pleased, as it had been solely politeness which had led me to ascribe n.o.bility to Lady Madge.

My father, I remember, laughed a good deal at my effort, but in a kindly way, and my mother said that perhaps I had better not use the word b.l.o.o.d.y as it was not a very nice word. 'But she was was b.l.o.o.d.y,' I explained. 'She killed a lot of people. She was like b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, who burnt people at the stake.' b.l.o.o.d.y,' I explained. 'She killed a lot of people. She was like b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, who burnt people at the stake.'

Fairy books played a great part in life. Grannie gave them to me for birthdays and Christmas. The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, and so on. I loved them all and read them again and again. Then there was a collection of animal stories, also by Andrew Lang, including one about Androcles and the Lion. I loved that too. and so on. I loved them all and read them again and again. Then there was a collection of animal stories, also by Andrew Lang, including one about Androcles and the Lion. I loved that too.

It must have been about then that I first embarked on a course of Mrs Molesworth, the leading writer of stories for children. They lasted me for many years, and I think, on re-reading them now, that they are very good. Of course children would find them old-fas.h.i.+oned nowadays, but they tell a good story and there is a lot of characterization in them. There was Carrots, just a little Boy, Carrots, just a little Boy, and and Herr Baby Herr Baby for very young children, and various fairy story tales. I can still re-read for very young children, and various fairy story tales. I can still re-read The Cuckoo Clock The Cuckoo Clock and and The Tapestry Room. The Tapestry Room. My favourite of all, My favourite of all, Four Winds Farm, Four Winds Farm, I find uninteresting now and wonder why I loved it so much. I find uninteresting now and wonder why I loved it so much.

Reading story-books was considered slightly too pleasurable to be really virtuous. No story-books until after lunch. In the mornings you were supposed to find something 'useful' to do. Even to this day, if I sit down and read a novel after breakfast I have a feeling of guilt. The same applies to cards on a Sunday. I outgrew Nursie's condemnation of cards as 'the Devil's picture books', but 'no cards on Sundays' was a rule of the house, and in after years when playing bridge on a Sunday I never quite threw off a feeling of wickedness.

At some period before Nursie left, my mother and father went to America and were away some time. Nursie and I went to Ealing. I must have been several months there, fitting in very happily. The pillar of Grannie's establishment was an old, wrinkled cook, Hannah. She was as thin as Jane was fat, a bag of bones with deeply lined face and stooped shoulders. She cooked magnificently. She also made homebaked bread three times a week, and I was allowed in the kitchen to a.s.sist and make my own little cottage loaves and twists. I only fell foul of her once, when I asked her what giblets were. Apparently giblets were things nicely brought up young ladies did not not ask about. I tried to tease her by running to and fro in the kitchen saying, 'Hannah, what are giblets? Hannah, for the third time, what are giblets?' etc. I was removed by Nursie in the end and reproved, and Hannah would not speak to me for two days. After that I was much more careful how I transgressed her rules. ask about. I tried to tease her by running to and fro in the kitchen saying, 'Hannah, what are giblets? Hannah, for the third time, what are giblets?' etc. I was removed by Nursie in the end and reproved, and Hannah would not speak to me for two days. After that I was much more careful how I transgressed her rules.

Some time during my stay at Ealing I must have been taken to the Diamond Jubilee for I came across a letter not long ago written from America by my father. It is couched in the style of the day, which was singularly unlike my father's spoken wordsletter-writing fell into a definite and sanctimonious pattern, whereas my father's speech was usually jolly and slightly ribald.

You must be very very good to dear Auntie-Grannie, Agatha, because remember how very very good she has been to you, and the treats she gives you. I hear you are going to see this wonderful show which you will never forget, it is a thing to be seen only once in a lifetime. You must tell her how very grateful you are; how wonderful it is for you, I wish I could be there, and so does your mother. I know you will never forget it.

My father lacked the gift of prophecy, because I have have forgotten it. How maddening children are! When I look back to the past, what do I remember? Silly little things about local sewing-women, the bread twists I made in the kitchen, the smell of Colonel F.'s breathand what do I forget? A spectacle that somebody paid a great deal of money for me to see and remember. I feel very angry with myself. What a horrible, ungrateful child! forgotten it. How maddening children are! When I look back to the past, what do I remember? Silly little things about local sewing-women, the bread twists I made in the kitchen, the smell of Colonel F.'s breathand what do I forget? A spectacle that somebody paid a great deal of money for me to see and remember. I feel very angry with myself. What a horrible, ungrateful child!

That reminds me of what I think was a coincidence so amazing that one is so inclined to say it could never have happened. The occasion must have been Queen Victoria's funeral. Both Auntie-Grannie and Granny B. were going to see it. They had procured a window in a house somewhere near Paddington, and they were to meet each other there on the great day. At five in the morning, so as not to be late, Grannie rose in her house at Ealing, and in due course got to Paddington Station. That would give her, she calculated, a good three hours to get to her vantage point, and she had with her some fancy-work, some food and other necessities to pa.s.s the hours of waiting once she arrived there. Alas, the time she had allowed herself was not enough. The streets were crammed. Some time after leaving Paddington Station she was quite unable to make further headway. Two ambulance men rescued her from the crowd, and a.s.sured her that she couldn't go on. 'I must, but I must!' cried Grannie, tears streaming down her face. 'I've got my room, I've got my seat; the two first seats in the second window on the second floor, so that I can look down and see everything. I must!' 'It's impossible, Ma'am, the streets are jammed, n.o.body has been able to get through for half an hour.' Grannie wept more. The ambulance man kindly said, 'You can't see anything, I am afraid, Ma'am, but I'll take you down this street to where our ambulance is and you can sit there, and they will make you a nice cup of tea.' Grannie went with them, still weeping. By the ambulance was sitting a figure not unlike herself, also weeping, a monumental figure in black velvet and bugles. The other figure looked uptwo wild cries rent the air: 'Mary!' 'Margaret!' Two gigantic bugle-shaking bosoms met.

V

Thinking over what gave me most pleasure in my childhood I should be inclined to place first and foremost, my hoop. A simple affair, in all conscience, costinghow much? Sixpence? A s.h.i.+lling? Certainly not more.

And what an inestimable boon to parents, nurses, and servants. On fine days, Agatha goes out into the garden with her hoop and is no more trouble to anyone until the hour for a meal arrivesor, more accurately, until hunger makes itself felt.

My hoop was to me in turn a horse, a sea monster, and a railway train. Beating my hoop round the garden paths, I was a knight in armour on a quest, a lady of the court exercising my white palfrey, Clover (of The Kittens) escaping from imprisonmentor, less romantically, I was engine driver, guard, or pa.s.senger, on three railways of my own devising.

There were three distinct systems: the Tubular Railway, with eight stations and circling three quarters of the garden; the Tub Railway, a short line, serving the kitchen garden only and starting from a large tub of water with a tap under a pine tree; and the Terrace Railway, which encircled the house. Only a short while ago I came across in an old cupboard a sheet of cardboard on which sixty odd years before I had drawn a rough plan of all these railways.

I cannot conceive now why why I so enjoyed beating my hoop along, stopping, calling out 'Lily of the Valley Bed. Change for the Tubular Railway here. Tub. Terminus. All change.' I did it for hours. It must have been very good exercise. I also practised diligently the art of throwing my hoop so that it returned to me, a trick in which I had been instructed by one of our visiting naval officer friends. I could not do it at all at first, but by long and arduous practice I got the hang of it, and was thereafter immensely pleased with myself. I so enjoyed beating my hoop along, stopping, calling out 'Lily of the Valley Bed. Change for the Tubular Railway here. Tub. Terminus. All change.' I did it for hours. It must have been very good exercise. I also practised diligently the art of throwing my hoop so that it returned to me, a trick in which I had been instructed by one of our visiting naval officer friends. I could not do it at all at first, but by long and arduous practice I got the hang of it, and was thereafter immensely pleased with myself.

On wet days there was Mathilde. Mathilde was a large American Rocking Horse which had been given to my sister and brother when they were children in America. It had been brought back to England and now, a battered wreck of its former self, sans sans mane, mane, sans sans paint, paint, sans sans tail, etc., was ensconced in a small greenhouse which adjoined the house on one sidequite distinct from The Conservatory, a grandiloquent erection, containing pots of begonias, geraniums, tiered stands of every kind of fern, and several large palm trees. This small greenhouse, called, I don't know why, K.K. (or possibly Kai Kai?) was bereft of plants and housed instead croquet mallets, hoops, b.a.l.l.s, broken garden chairs, old painted iron tables, a decayed tennis net and Mathilde. tail, etc., was ensconced in a small greenhouse which adjoined the house on one sidequite distinct from The Conservatory, a grandiloquent erection, containing pots of begonias, geraniums, tiered stands of every kind of fern, and several large palm trees. This small greenhouse, called, I don't know why, K.K. (or possibly Kai Kai?) was bereft of plants and housed instead croquet mallets, hoops, b.a.l.l.s, broken garden chairs, old painted iron tables, a decayed tennis net and Mathilde.

Mathilde had a splendid actionmuch better than that of any English rocking horse I have ever known. She sprang forwards and back, upwards and down, and ridden at full pressure was liable to unseat you. Her springs, which needed oiling, made a terrific groaning, and added to the pleasure and danger. Splendid exercise again. No wonder I was a skinny child.

As companion to Mathilde in Kai Kai was Truelovealso of trans-atlantic origin. Truelove was a small painted horse and cart with pedals. Presumably from long years of disuse, the pedals were no longer workable. Large applications of oil might have done the trickbut there was an easier way of making Truelove serviceable. Like all gardens in Devon, our garden was on a slope. My method was to pull Truelove to the top of a long gra.s.sy slope, settle myself carefully, utter an encouraging sound, and off we went; slowly at first, gathering momentum whilst I braked with my feet, so that we came to rest under the monkey puzzle at the bottom of the garden. Then I would pull Truelove back up to the top and start down once more.

I discovered in later years that it had been a great source of amus.e.m.e.nt to my future brother-in-law to see this process enacted, for sometimes an hour at a time, always in perfect solemnity.

When Nursie left I was, naturally, at a loss for a playmate. I wandered disconsolately about until the hoop solved my problem. Like all children I went round trying to induce people to play with mefirst my mother, then the servants. But in those days, if there was no one whose business it was to play with children then the child had to play by itself. The servants were good-natured, but they had their work to doplenty of itand so it would be: 'Now run away, Miss Agatha. I've got to get on with what I'm doing.' Jane was usually good for a handful of sultanas, or a slice of cheese, but suggested firmly that these should be consumed in the garden.

So it was that I made my own world and my own playmates. I really do think that it was a good thing. I have never, all through my life, suffered from the tedium of 'nothing to do'. An enormous number of women do. They suffer from loneliness and boredom. To have time on their hands is a nightmare and not a delight. If things are constantly being done to amuse you, naturally you expect it. And when nothing is done for you, you are at a loss.

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas in holiday time. I am always astonished when children come to me and say: 'Please. I've nothing to do.' With an air of desperation I point out: 'But you've got a lot of toys, haven't you?'

'Not really.'

'But you've got two trains. And lorries, and a painting set. And blocks. Can't you play with some of them?'

'But I can't play by myself myself with them.' with them.'

'Why not? I know. Paint a picture of a bird, then cut it out and make a cage with the blocks, and put the bird in the cage.'

The gloom brightens and there is peace for nearly ten minutes.

Looking back over the past, I become increasingly sure of one thing. My tastes have remained fundamentally the same. What I liked playing with as a child, I have liked playing with later in life.

Houses, for instance.

I had, I suppose, a reasonable amount of toys: a dolls' bed with real sheets and blankets and the family building bricks, handed down by my elder sister and brother. Many of my playthings were extemporised. I cut pictures out of old ill.u.s.trated magazines and pasted them into sc.r.a.p-books made of brown paper. Odd rolls of wallpaper were cut and pasted over boxes. It was all a long, leisurely process.

But my princ.i.p.al source of indoor amus.e.m.e.nt was undoubtedly my dolls' house. It was the usual type of painted affair, with a front that swung open, revealing kitchen, sitting-room and hall downstairs, two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. That is, it began that way. The furniture was acquired, piece by piece. There was an enormous range of dolls' furniture in the shops then, quite cheap in price. My pocket money was, for those days, rather large. It consisted of what copper coins father happened to have in his possession every morning. I would visit him in his dressing-room, say good morning, and then turn to the dressing-table to see what Fate had decreed for me on that particular day. Twopence? Fivepence? Once a whole elevenpence! Some days, no coppers at all. The uncertainty made it rather exciting.

My purchases were always much the same. Some sweetsboiled sweets, the only kind my mother considered healthypurchased from Mr Wylie who had a shop in Tor. The sweets were made on the premises, and as you came in through the shop door you knew at once what was being made that day. The rich smell of boiling toffee, the sharp odour of peppermint rock, the elusive smell of pineapple, barleysugar (dull), which practically didn't smell at all, and the almost overpowering odour when pear drops were in process of manufacture. the only kind my mother considered healthypurchased from Mr Wylie who had a shop in Tor. The sweets were made on the premises, and as you came in through the shop door you knew at once what was being made that day. The rich smell of boiling toffee, the sharp odour of peppermint rock, the elusive smell of pineapple, barleysugar (dull), which practically didn't smell at all, and the almost overpowering odour when pear drops were in process of manufacture.

Everything cost eightpence a pound. I spent about fourpence a weekone pennyworth of four different kinds. Then there was a penny to be donated for the Waifs and Strays (money-box on the hall table); from September onwards a few pence were salted away to save up for such Christmas presents as would be bought, not made. The rest went towards the furnis.h.i.+ng and equipping of my dolls' house.

I can still remember the enchantment of the things there were to buy. Food, for instance. Little cardboard platters of roast chicken, eggs and bacon, a wedding cake, a leg of lamb, apples and oranges, fish, trifle, plum pudding. There were plate baskets with knives, forks and spoons. There were tiny sets of gla.s.ses. Then there was the furniture proper. My drawing-room had a suite of blue satin chairs, to which I added by degrees a sofa and a rather grand gilded armchair. There were dressing-tables with mirrors, round polished dinner-tables, and a hideous orange brocade dining-room suite. There were lamps and epergnes and bowls of flowers. Then there were all the household implements, brushes and dustpans, brooms and pails and kitchen saucepans.

Soon my dolls' house looked more like a furniture storehouse. Could Icould I, possiblyhave another another dolls' house? dolls' house?

Mother did not think that any little girl ought to have two dolls' houses. But why not, she suggested, inspired, use a cupboard cupboard. So I acquired a cupboard, and it was a wild success. A big room at the top of the house, originally built on by my father to provide two extra bedrooms, was so much enjoyed in its bare state by my sister and brother as a playroom that that is what it remained. The walls were more or less lined with books and cupboards, the centre conveniently free and empty. I was allotted a cupboard with four shelves, part of a built-in fitment against the wall. My mother found various nice pieces of wall-paper which could be pasted on the shelves as carpets. The original dolls' house stood on top of the cupboard, so that I now had a six-storied house.

My house, of course, needed a family to live in it. I acquired a father and mother, two children and a maid, the kind of doll that has a china head and bust and malleable sawdust limbs. Mother sewed some clothes on them, from odd bits of stuff she had. She even fixed with glue a small black beard and moustache to the face of the father. Father, mother, two children and a maid. It was perfect. I don't remember their having any particular personalitiesthey never became people to me, they existed only to occupy the house. But it really looked right right when you sat the family round the dinner table. Plates, gla.s.ses, roast chicken, and a rather peculiar pink pudding were served at the first meal. when you sat the family round the dinner table. Plates, gla.s.ses, roast chicken, and a rather peculiar pink pudding were served at the first meal.

An additional enjoyment was housemoving. A stout cardboard box was the furniture van. The furniture was loaded into it, it was drawn round the room by a string several times, and then 'arrived at the new house'. (This happened at least once a week.) I can see quite plainly now that I have continued to play houses ever since. I have gone over innumerable houses, bought houses, exchanged them for other houses, furnished houses, decorated houses, made structural alterations to houses. Houses! G.o.d bless houses!

But to go back to memories. What odd things really, when one collects them all together, one does does remember out of one's life. One remembers happy occasions, one remembersvery vividly, I thinkfear. Oddly enough pain and unhappiness are hard to recapture. I do not mean exactly that I do not remember themI can, but without remember out of one's life. One remembers happy occasions, one remembersvery vividly, I thinkfear. Oddly enough pain and unhappiness are hard to recapture. I do not mean exactly that I do not remember themI can, but without feeling feeling them. Where they are concerned I am in the first stage. I say, 'There was Agatha being terribly unhappy. There was Agatha having toothache.' But I don't them. Where they are concerned I am in the first stage. I say, 'There was Agatha being terribly unhappy. There was Agatha having toothache.' But I don't feel feel the unhappiness or the toothache. On the other hand, one day the sudden smell of lime trees brings the past back, and suddenly I remember a day spent near the lime trees, the pleasure with which I threw myself down on the ground, the smell of hot gra.s.s, and the suddenly lovely feeling of summer; a cedar tree nearby and the river beyond...The feeling of being at one with life. It comes back in that moment. Not only a remembered thing of the mind but the feeling itself as well. the unhappiness or the toothache. On the other hand, one day the sudden smell of lime trees brings the past back, and suddenly I remember a day spent near the lime trees, the pleasure with which I threw myself down on the ground, the smell of hot gra.s.s, and the suddenly lovely feeling of summer; a cedar tree nearby and the river beyond...The feeling of being at one with life. It comes back in that moment. Not only a remembered thing of the mind but the feeling itself as well.

I remember vividly a field of b.u.t.tercups. I must have been under five, since I walked there with Nursie. It was when we were at Ealing, staying with Auntie-Grannie. We went up a hill, past St. Stephen's Church. It was then nothing but fields, and we came to one special field, crammed with golden b.u.t.tercups. We went to itthat I do knowquite often. I don't know if my memory of it is of the first time we went there or a later occasion, but the loveliness of it I do remember and feel. It seems to me that for many years now I have never seen a field of b.u.t.tercups. I have seen a few b.u.t.tercups in in a field, but that is all. A great field full of golden b.u.t.tercups in early summer is something indeed. I had it then, I have it with me now. a field, but that is all. A great field full of golden b.u.t.tercups in early summer is something indeed. I had it then, I have it with me now.

What has one enjoyed most in life? I daresay it varies with different people. For my own part, remembering and reflecting, it seems that it is almost always the quiet moments of everyday life. Those are the times, certainly, when I I have been happiest. Adorning Nursie's old grey head with blue bows, playing with Tony, making a parting with a comb down his broad back, galloping on what I feel to be real horses across the river my fancy has set in the garden. Following my hoop through the stations of the Tubular Railway. Happy games with my mother. My mother, later, reading d.i.c.kens to me, gradually getting sleepy, her spectacles half falling off her nose and her head dropping forward, and myself saying in an agonised voice. 'Mother, you're going to have been happiest. Adorning Nursie's old grey head with blue bows, playing with Tony, making a parting with a comb down his broad back, galloping on what I feel to be real horses across the river my fancy has set in the garden. Following my hoop through the stations of the Tubular Railway. Happy games with my mother. My mother, later, reading d.i.c.kens to me, gradually getting sleepy, her spectacles half falling off her nose and her head dropping forward, and myself saying in an agonised voice. 'Mother, you're going to sleep', sleep', to which my mother with great dignity replies, 'Nothing of the kind, darling. I am not in the to which my mother with great dignity replies, 'Nothing of the kind, darling. I am not in the least least sleepy!' A few minutes later she would be asleep. I remember feeling how ridiculous she looked with her spectacles slipping off her nose and how much I loved her at that moment. sleepy!' A few minutes later she would be asleep. I remember feeling how ridiculous she looked with her spectacles slipping off her nose and how much I loved her at that moment.

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous, that you realise just how much you love them! Anyone can admire somebody for being handsome or amusing or charming, but that bubble is soon p.r.i.c.ked when a trace of ridicule comes in. I should give as my advice to any girl about to get married: 'Well now, just imagine he had a terrible cold in his head, speaking through his nose all full of b's and d's, sneezing, eyes watering. What would you feel about him?' It's a good test, really. What one needs to feel for a husband, I think, is the love that is tenderness, that comprises affection, that will take colds in the head and little mannerisms all in its stride. Pa.s.sion one can take for granted.

But marriage means more than a loverI take an old-fas.h.i.+oned view that respect respect is necessary. Respectwhich is not to be confused with admiration. To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious. You would get, as it were, a mental crick in the neck. But respect is a thing that you don't have to think about, that you know thankfully is there. As the old Irish woman said of her husband, 'Himself is a good head to me'. That, I think, is what a woman needs. She wants to feel that in her mate there is integrity, that she can depend on him and respect his judgment, and that when there is a difficult decision to be made it can safely lie in his hands. is necessary. Respectwhich is not to be confused with admiration. To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious. You would get, as it were, a mental crick in the neck. But respect is a thing that you don't have to think about, that you know thankfully is there. As the old Irish woman said of her husband, 'Himself is a good head to me'. That, I think, is what a woman needs. She wants to feel that in her mate there is integrity, that she can depend on him and respect his judgment, and that when there is a difficult decision to be made it can safely lie in his hands.

It is curious to look back over life, over all the varying incidents and scenessuch a mult.i.tude of odds and ends. Out of them all what has mattered? What lies behind the selection that memory has made? What makes us choose the things that we have remembered? It is as though one went to a great trunk full of junk in an attic and plunged one's hands into it and said, 'I will have thisand thisand this.'

Ask three or four different people what they remember, say of a journey abroad and you will be surprised at the different answers you get. I remember a boy of fifteen, a son of friends of ours, who was taken to Paris as part of his spring holidays. When he returned, some fatuous friend of the family said, with the usual jovial accent inflicted on the young, 'Well, my boy, and what impressed you most in Paris? What do you remember about it?' He replied immediately: 'The chimneys. The chimneys there are quite different from chimneys on houses in England.'

From his point of view it was a perfectly sensible remark. Some years later he started studying as an artist. It was, therefore, a visual detail that really impressed him, that made Paris different from London.

So, too, another memory. This was when my brother was invalided home from East Africa. He brought with him a native servant, Shebani. Anxious to show this simple African the glories of London, my brother hired a car and, sitting in it with Shebani, drove all round London. He displayed to him Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Guildhall, Hyde Park and so on. Finally, when they had arrived home, he said to Shebani, 'What did you think of London?' Shebani rolled his eyes up. 'It is wonderful, Bwana, a wonderful place. Never did I think I would see anything like it.' My brother nodded a satisfied head. 'And what impressed you most?' he said. The answer came without a moment's thought. 'Oh, Bwana, shops full of meat. meat. Such wonderful shops. Meat hanging in great joints all over Such wonderful shops. Meat hanging in great joints all over and n.o.body steals them, and n.o.body steals them, n.o.body rushes and pushes their way there and s.n.a.t.c.hes. No, they pa.s.s by them in an orderly fas.h.i.+on. How rich, how great a country must be to have all this meat hanging in shops open to the streets. Yes, indeed, England is a wonderful place. London a wonderful city.' n.o.body rushes and pushes their way there and s.n.a.t.c.hes. No, they pa.s.s by them in an orderly fas.h.i.+on. How rich, how great a country must be to have all this meat hanging in shops open to the streets. Yes, indeed, England is a wonderful place. London a wonderful city.'

Point of view. The point of view of a child. We all knew it once but we've travelled so far away from it that it's difficult to get back there again. I remember seeing my own grandson Mathew when he must have been, I suppose, about two and a half. He did not know I was there. I was watching him from the top of the stairs. He walked very carefully down the stairs. It was a new achievement and he was proud of it, but still somewhat scared. He was muttering to himself, saying: 'This is Mathew going down stairs. This is Mathew. Mathew is going down stairs. This is Mathew going down stairs.'

I wonder if we all start life thinking of ourselves, as soon as we can think of ourselves at all, as a separate person, as it were, from the one observing. Did I say to myself once, 'This is Agatha in her party sash going down to the dining-room?' It is as though the body in which we have found our spirit lodged is at first strange to us. An ent.i.ty, we know its name, we are on terms with it, but are not as yet identified fully with it. We are Agatha going for a walk, Mathew going down stairs. We see ourselves rather than feel feel ourselves. ourselves.

And then one day the next stage of life happens. Suddenly it is no longer 'This is Mathew going down stairs.' Suddenly it has become I I am going down stairs. The achievement of 'I' is the first step in the progress of a personal life. am going down stairs. The achievement of 'I' is the first step in the progress of a personal life.

PART II

'GIRLS AND BOYS COME OUT TO PLAY'

I

Until one looks back on one's own past one fails to realise what an extraordinary view of the world a child has. The angle of vision is entirely different to that of the adult, everything is out of proportion.

Children can make a shrewd appraisal of what is going on around them, and have a quite good judgment of character and people. But the how how and the and the why why of things never seems to occur to them. of things never seems to occur to them.

It must have been when I was about five years old that my father first became worried about financial affairs. He had been a rich man's son and had taken it for granted that an a.s.sured income would always come in. My grandfather had set up a complicated series of trusts to come into effect when he died. There had been four trustees. One was very old and had, I think, retired from any active connection with the business, another shortly went into a mental asylum, and the other two, both men of his own age, died shortly afterwards. In one case the son took on. Whether it was sheer inefficiency or whether in the course of replacement somebody managed to convert things to his own use I do not know. At any rate the position seemed to get worse and worse.

My father was bewildered and depressed, but not being a businesslike man he did not know what to do about it. He wrote to dear old So-and-So and dear old Somebody Else, and they wrote back, either rea.s.suring him or laying the blame on the state of the market, depreciation and other things. A legacy from an elderly aunt came in about this time and, I should imagine, tided him over a year or two, whilst the income that was due and should have been paid to him never seemed to arrive.

It was at about this time, too, that his health began to give way. On several occasions he suffered what were supposed to be heart attacks, a vague term that covered almost everything. The financial worry must, I think, have affected his health. The immediate remedy seemed to be that we must economise. The recognised way at that particular time was to go and live abroad for a short while. This was not, as nowadays, because of income taxincome tax was, I should imagine, about a s.h.i.+lling in the poundbut the cost of living was much less abroad. So the procedure was to let the house with the servants, etc., at a good rent, and go abroad to the South of France, staying at a fairly economical hotel.

Such a migration happened, as far as I remember, when I was six years old. Ashfield was duly letI think to Americans, who paid a good price for itand the family prepared to set off. We were going to Pau in the South of France. I was, of course, very much excited by this prospect. We were going, so my mother told me, where we should see mountains. I asked many questions about these. Were they very, very high? Higher than the steeple of St. Marychurch? I asked with great interest. It was the highest thing I knew. Yes, mountains were much, much higher than that. They went up for hundreds of feet, thousands of feet. I retired to the garden with Tony, and munching an enormous crust of dry bread obtained from Jane in the kitchen set to work to think this out, to try to visualise mountains. My head went back, my eyes stared up at the skies. That was how mountains would lookgoing up, up, up, up, up until lost in the clouds. It was an awe-inspiring thought. Mother loved mountains. She had never cared for the sea, she told us. Mountains, I felt sure, were to be one of the greatest things in my life.

One sad thing about going abroad was that it meant a parting between me and Tony. Tony was not, of course, being let with the house; he was being boarded out with a former parlourmaid called Froudie. Froudie, who was married to a carpenter and lived not far away, was quite prepared to have Tony. I kissed him all over and Tony responded by licking me frantically all over my face, neck, arms and hands.

Looking back now, the conditions of travel abroad then seem extraordinary. There were, of course, no pa.s.sports or any forms to fill in. You bought tickets, made sleeping-car reservations, and that was all that had to be done. Simplicity itself. But the Packing! (Only capital letters would explain what packing meant.) I don't know what the luggage of the rest of the family consisted of; I do have a fair memory of what my mother took with her. There were, to begin with, three round-top trunks. The largest stood about four feet high and had two trays inside. There were also hat boxes, large square leather cases, three trunks of the type called cabin trunks and trunks of American manufacture which were often to be seen at that time in the corridors of hotels. They were large, and I should imagine excessively heavy.

For a week at least before departure my mother was surrounded by her trunks in her bedroom. Since we were not well off by the standards of the day, we did not have a lady's maid. My mother did the packing herself. The preliminary to it was what was called 'sorting'. The large wardrobes and chests of drawers stood open while my mother sorted amongst such things as artificial flowers, and an array of odds and ends called 'my ribbons' and 'my jewellery'. All these apparently required hours of sorting before they were packed in the trays in the various trunks.

Jewellery did not, as nowadays, consist of a few pieces of 'real jewellery' and large quant.i.ties of costume jewellery. Imitation jewellery was frowned on as 'bad taste', except for an occasional brooch of old paste. My mother's valuable jewellery consisted of 'my diamond buckle, my diamond crescent and my diamond engagement ring'. The rest of her ornaments were 'real' but comparatively inexpensive. Nevertheless they were all of intense interest to all of us. There was 'my Indian necklace', 'my Florentine set', 'my Venetian necklace', 'my cameos' and so on. And there were six brooches in which both my sister and myself took a personal and vivid interest. These were 'the fishes', five small fish in diamonds, 'the mistletoe', a tiny diamond and pearl brooch, 'my parma violet', an enamel brooch representing a parma violet, 'my dogrose', also a flower brooch, a pink enamelled rose with cl.u.s.ters of diamond leaves round it, and 'my donkey', prime favourite, which was a baroque pearl mounted in diamonds as a donkey's head. They were all earmarked for the future on my mother's demise. Madge was to have the parma violet (her favourite flower), the diamond crescent and the donkey. I was to have the rose, the diamond buckle and the mistletoe. This earmarking of possessions for the future was freely indulged in by my family. It conjured up no sad feelings about death, but merely a warm appreciation of the benefits to come.

At Ashfield the whole house was crowded with oil paintings bought by my father. To crowd oil paintings as closely as you could on your walls was the fas.h.i.+on of the day. One was marked down for mea large painting of the sea, with a simpering young woman catching a boy in a net in it. It was my highest idea of beauty as a child, and it is sad to reflect how poorly I thought of it when the time came for me to sort out pictures to sell. Even for sentiment's sake I have not kept any of them. I am forced to consider that my father's taste in pictures was consistently bad. On the other hand every piece of furniture he ever bought is a gem. He had a pa.s.sion for antique furniture, and the Sheraton desks and Chippendale chairs that he bought, often at a very low figure since at that time bamboo was all the rage, are a joy to live with and possess, and appreciated so much in value that my mother was able to keep the wolf from the door after my father died by selling a good many of the best pieces.

He, my mother and my grandmother all had a pa.s.sion for collecting china. When Grannie came to live with us later she brought her collection of Dresden and Capo di Monte with her, and innumerable cupboards were filled with it at Ashfield. In fact, fresh cupboards had to be built to accommodate it. There is no doubt that we were a family of collectors and that I have inherited these attributes. The only sad thing is that if you inherit a good collection of china and furniture it leaves you no excuse for starting starting a collection of your own. The collector's pa.s.sion, however, has to be satisfied, and in my case I have acc.u.mulated quite a nice stock of papier-mache furniture and small objects which had not figured in my parents' collections. a collection of your own. The collector's pa.s.sion, however, has to be satisfied, and in my case I have acc.u.mulated quite a nice stock of papier-mache furniture and small objects which had not figured in my parents' collections.

When the day came I was so excited that I felt quite sick and completely silent. When really thrilled by anything, it always seems to deprive me of the powers of speech. My first clear memory of going abroad was when we stepped on to the boat at Folkestone. My mother and Madge took the Channel crossing with the utmost seriousness. They were bad sailors and retired immediately to the ladies' saloon to lay themselves down, close their eyes and hope to get across the intervening water to France without the worst happening. In spite of my experience in small dinghies I was convinced that I I was a good sailor. My father encouraged me in this belief, so I remained on deck with him. It was, I imagine, a perfectly smooth crossing, but I gave the credit not to the sea but to my own power of withstanding its motion. We arrived at Boulogne and I was glad to hear father announce, 'Agatha's a perfectly good sailor'. was a good sailor. My father encouraged me in this belief, so I remained on deck with him. It was, I imagine, a perfectly smooth crossing, but I gave the credit not to the sea but to my own power of withstanding its motion. We arrived at Boulogne and I was glad to hear father announce, 'Agatha's a perfectly good sailor'.