The Manuscript
December 31, 1912
Ashfield, Torquay, England
“Must this Lieutenant Christie accompany you and your friends tonight?” Mummy asked as I took my leave. “After all, New Year’s Eve is for close friends and family, not for new acquaintances. If”—she paused—“he is in fact only a new social acquaintance, as you’ve maintained.”
Was Mummy testing me? As I’d suspected from my conversation with Madge, Mummy wasn’t keen on this burgeoning connection, and our November discussion had opened the floodgates. At first, I chalked it up to the fact that “the young man” or “this Lieutenant Christie,” as she called him, was nearly as impoverished as myself. But then she began making barbs about his callow nature, his underdeveloped sensitivity, and his overly handsome face; I couldn’t understand the source of these remarks, aside from his obvious attractiveness, of course. I knew she wanted me to stay the course with the gentle, kind Reggie, whom she believed would made me very happy indeed, but did that desire really justify the negative remarks?
“Mummy, he’s already been invited. In fact, he’ll be meeting us at the ballroom. It’s far too late for any changes in plans,” I said as I slipped into my coat.
“He didn’t even have the courtesy of fetching you for the party,” she tsked, her voice quiet but audible enough for me to hear her disappointment. “It’s hardly gentlemanly behavior.”
“Mummy, the party is much closer to his barracks than to Ashfield. He wanted to come and get me, but I insisted that I meet him there,” I said, apologizing for him. No matter what happened in the future, I didn’t want her disliking Archie any more than she already did. And nothing had more significance to Mummy than a man acting like a gentleman and a woman acting her part as a lady in turn.
As we exchanged embraces and farewells, wishing each other an early happy new year, I thought about how different Madge and I were. Unlike my sister, who’d been very strategic in her marriage, I intended to marry for love, and I wasn’t certain that I loved Reggie. My clever older sister, with her claim to authorship fame and her strong, captivating manner, had an abundance of suitors when it came time for her to choose. She had selected the reserved James Watts, who was, unsurprisingly, wealthier than all her other beaus as well as the heir to Abney Hall. While I sensed she admired and rather liked Jimmy, who was a fine fellow and quite kind to me, I often wondered if she felt the deep grip of passionate love for him that I believed necessary for marriage. It was that sort of love I was determined to find. I had noticed that since I met Archie, I’d been putting Reggie’s letters away in a drawer, always intending to read them at a less busy time but never retrieving them, instead of racing to my bedroom to read them alone as I had before. This behavior didn’t seem a hallmark of love. By contrast, I found myself thinking about Archie almost constantly, and I had been daydreaming about ringing in the new year with him for weeks.
The grandfather clock on the far side of the ballroom showed fifteen minutes to midnight. We should have been ebullient, getting ready to cheer in the first chimes of 1913 at the New Year Ball. Instead, while my friends did the one-step to “Scott Joplin’s New Rag” on the dance floor, Archie and I sat silently on a bench.
I was frustrated. Sullen since the evening began, Archie had become almost morose as the clock ticked closer to midnight. Whenever I ventured a topic of conversation, even something as welcoming to him as sport, his responses were random, as if I’d asked him an entirely different question. Even when Nan ventured a discussion with Archie, he answered in monosyllables. In the two and a half months that I’d known him, I’d become accustomed to his occasional bouts of quiet introspection, but this behavior was entirely new. Had I done something wrong? Was he not the man I’d believed him to be?
“That Whistling Rag” started to play. When Archie didn’t invite me to dance, I took the bold liberty of asking, “Shall we?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered without even meeting my eye.
I had reached the limit of my patience. “Whatever is wrong, Archie? You have not been yourself tonight.” Mummy would be humiliated by my whining tone, as it went quite against her admonitions to remain constant and cheerful in the company of a gentleman.
His eyes registered surprise at my unladylike outburst, but he answered calmly enough. “I got my orders from the Royal Flying Corps today.”
I was confused. Why wouldn’t this news have made him elated? He’d been waiting to become a member of the flying corps for months.
When I did not respond, he said, “I have to leave for Salisbury Plain in two days’ time.”
I finally understood; his departure was looming rather faster than he’d hoped. Was his sadness at his separation from me? My heart fluttered at the thought of making someone pine.
“I’ll be sorry to see you go, Archie,” I said.
“Will you?” He met my eyes for the first time that evening, searching for something inside them. My statement had sparked him into life, it seemed.
“Of course. I’ve enjoyed our time together these past few months,” I answered, feeling my cheeks burn. This was rather an understatement, but as Mummy had instructed me, a girl could only say so much without going too far.
He took my hands in his and blurted out, “You’ve got to marry me, Agatha. You simply must.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. Admittedly, I felt something for Archie—something almost indescribable—that I hadn’t felt for Reggie or Wilfred Pirie or Bolton Fletcher, other serious suitors before Reggie who were, of course, family friends. But in my world, monumental decisions were not based upon such short acquaintances but on long family history, as Madge had made abundantly clear in our little chat, a sentiment with which Mummy clearly agreed.
He continued, his vivid blue eyes staring into mine. “I have known since I first saw you at the ball at Chudleigh that I must have you.”
An unfamiliar sensation, almost like longing, surged through me. It was time for the truth. But how could I tell him about Reggie now? I’d been musing over the topic for several weeks as our visits grew more frequent and very nearly had crossed the breach, only to lose my courage at the last second. I worried that if he knew about Reggie, Archie would accuse me of stringing him along when there was no future in our relationship. But that simply wasn’t the case. Reggie had given me leave to see other fellows, although he couldn’t have foreseen the arrival of someone like Archie. Nor could I.
“Oh, Archie, that’s simply impossible. You see…” I inhaled deeply, then took the plunge. “You see, I’m engaged to someone else.”
I explained about Reggie and our families and our loose engagement, assuming that Archie would be furious. Or at the very least hurt. Instead, he waved his hand dismissively. “You will just have to break it off. After all, you didn’t know what would happen between us when you agreed to the engagement. If that’s even what you can call it.”
“I couldn’t possibly do that.” An image of Reggie’s kind face alongside his equally benevolent sisters flashed through my mind, and I felt sick. I would be disappointing not only Reggie but the network of Torquay families to which we belonged. Not to mention Mummy.
“Of course you can. If I had been engaged to someone when I met you, I would have broken it off immediately,” he said flippantly.
“I can’t. Our families are old, dear friends. The Lucys are lovely people—”
“No.” He cut off my excuses, and I realized he’d never belonged to a community—maybe not even to a family—the way that I did. But then he drew me close, and all thoughts of anything but him vanished. “If you truly loved this Reggie, wouldn’t you have married him straightaway? The way that I want to marry you.”
Breathless from my proximity to him and my heart pounding in my chest, I gave him the explanation we gave everyone else. “We thought it best to wait until he returned, when our situations would be more stable.”
“I wouldn’t have waited, Agatha. I feel too strongly to wait for you.” His voice sounded thick with longing. To be wanted so desperately made me want him even more. Was this that passionate love for which I’d been waiting? Was this the surge of desire I’d only read about in books?
Archie’s words struck a chord in me. Had I ever had these feelings for Reggie? I recalled one spring evening when he and I broke away from the group to stroll on the lawn after a large dinner party of neighborhood friends. We’d been chatting about the boats being readied for the upcoming sailing regatta—nothing really, just the stuff of usual Torquay life—when a shiver overtook me, even though the night wasn’t particularly cold. Without missing a step or a beat in our conversation, Reggie removed his jacket and placed it upon my shoulders with a touch surprisingly gentle for his large hands. For a long moment, our gazes met, and I experienced a sensation of complete comfort, as if I knew I’d be safe and well cared for in his arms. But I felt nothing more.
In truth, I had known for some time that I didn’t care for Reggie with the proper emotion a wife should have for her husband. Instead, I felt a contentment and peacefulness with Reggie that one feels with another very like oneself. It was almost as if, together, Reggie and I were too alike, too right, and honestly, too boring. I felt none of the things with Reggie that I felt with Archie. Archie felt like the one. He must be my Fate. The one we girls were meant to be waiting for.
I laughed. “You’re mad.”
He smiled for the first time that evening. “I am mad. For you.”
Even though it went against ballroom protocol, he pulled me even closer to him. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek and on my lips as he asked, “Agatha Miller, will you marry me? Right away?”
Without warning, Madge’s cautionary face flashed into my mind alongside Reggie’s kindly smile, but I dismissed it. Then, in spite of Madge’s admonition—or perhaps because of it—I answered him from the core of my longing and my feelings.
“Yes, Archibald Christie. I will marry you.”