The Manuscript
December 23–24, 1914
Clifton, England
A faint tap sounded at the bedroom door. The soft noise roused me from the light sleep into which I had just drifted. I sat up and glanced around the unfamiliar bedroom. Oh right, I realized. I was in Clifton, at Archie’s parents’ home to celebrate Christmas. When Archie suddenly got leave three days prior, we met in London, and after a few awkward days with my mother in tow as chaperone, we took the train to Clifton alone where the mood lifted considerably after we shared a bottle of wine.
The war had altered us both, in ways we were still discovering. On his prior leave—he’d had only two since deploying—we greeted each other with a desperate, loving embrace, but within minutes, we were interacting like strangers, unsure of which topics to discuss and what tone to take. Archie had been strangely casual about the war and his experiences, almost dismissive, in a way that disturbed me. How could he be so glib about such horrific destruction? It wasn’t as if I was unaccustomed to the reality of war and he needed to protect me from it; I tended to it daily in the wards, and he knew it. I was perhaps more emotional and less carefree than the girl he’d known, and it took us days to connect with each other again. Even then, something had been lost in translation between us, something we hadn’t rediscovered on this leave either. Not yet, anyway.
Reaching for my robe, I wrapped it tightly around myself before opening the door. I’d overheard Archie’s mother make another snide remark about the Peter Pan collars on my dresses, and I wanted to ensure I did nothing else to scandalize her, should she be standing behind the door. But it wasn’t Peg. It was Archie.
Walking into the bedroom, he quietly closed the door behind him. He slipped his arms around my waist and kissed me deeply. The feel of his lips on mine and the scent of his cologne made me light-headed. We kissed and caressed each other until shivers ran through me. I felt us moving backward toward the bed, and while I longed to acquiesce, the thought of his mother—and propriety—stopped me.
“You shouldn’t be in here. Imagine what your mother would say,” I whispered, pushing him away gently.
He pulled me toward him but made no motion toward the bed. “We’ve got to get married, Agatha. At once. Let’s marry tomorrow.” He was breathing heavily.
“But you said—” Earlier, on the train, he’d declared that getting married during wartime was selfish and wrong, never mind the scores of young people hurrying to the altar and his sense of urgency about our engagement. It was greedy, he said, to rush into marriage, only to leave behind a widow and perhaps a child. Yet the conversation about marriage continued to bind us together.
Archie interrupted me. “I was wrong. Marriage is the only sensible thing to do in the circumstances. And I simply cannot wait to make you mine.”
“I am yours, Archie,” I reassured him.
“Fully mine,” he whispered into my ear as he drew me even closer to him. “Just think, we have two days together before I go back. We will get married tomorrow morning, and after a Christmas lunch here with my parents, we will take the train to Torquay to share the news with your family, and we’ll still have time to honeymoon at the Grand Hotel.”
“Can we manage it so quickly?”
“We will check with the vicar in the morning.” Burrowing his face in the curve of my neck, he said, “Then, once we’ve done our familial duty, I have no intention of letting you out of our Grand Hotel room until I have to report for duty.”
The morning brought neither the swift trip to the altar for which Archie had hoped nor parental blessings. Peg was beside herself at our hurry; she collapsed into hysterical tears at the very thought of our “race” to marriage, although—in the privacy of my thoughts—I thought it hardly deserved to be called a race, given its many years in the making. But I understood her point and felt hesitant myself, even though Archie and I had known each other for over two years by now. Archie’s lovely stepfather, William Hemsley, took control of the situation, calming Peg and encouraging us onward, and with his blessing, we scurried around Clifton, trying to secure the necessary paperwork, and any misgivings I had about our haste and disregard for protocol were swept away by Archie’s ebullience.
In an effort to expedite matters, we approached an ecclesiastical headmaster at the school where Archie’s stepfather worked to see if he had the authority to marry us, to no avail. A visit to the registry office to assess whether they could perform the legal marriage ceremony yielded a demoralizing spurning, as we didn’t have the requisite fourteen days of notice. Dejected, we stood on the steps of the registry office, lamenting our luck, when a registrar stepped out and saw us, all desperation and melancholy over our predicament.
A spark of recognition shone in his eyes as he spotted Archie. “My dear boy, you live here in Clifton, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“With your mother and stepfather, the Hemsleys, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Yes, that’s right, sir.”
“Well, as long as you keep some belongings here at their house in Clifton, you can call Clifton home. In that case, you don’t need a fortnight’s notice to get married here. You can purchase what’s called an ordinary license and get married at your parish church today.”
Archie whooped in delight, thanked the thoughtful registrar profusely, and swung me around in the air. We ran around following his instructions and borrowing the necessary eight pounds from Archie’s stepfather. License in hand, we tracked down the vicar at his friend’s home where he was enjoying tea, and he agreed to perform the ceremony that afternoon.
Yet even as we mounted the steps to Archie’s parish church, we weren’t certain the marriage would proceed. We’d noticed that the license required a second witness to the ceremony, and Peg refused to leave her bed, where she’d collapsed in despair at our announcement. Archie’s stepfather had agreed to serve as a witness, but we still needed one more.
Perhaps our inability to proceed with the ceremony right now is for the best, I thought to myself. After all, Mummy would be extremely disappointed to miss the event, not to mention Madge and my grandmother, who we called Auntie-Grannie. My sister’s wedding had been a grand affair with nearly a dozen in the wedding party and festivities that lasted for days with all our relatives and family friends in attendance, and while no one anticipated a similar fete during wartime, Madge, Mummy, and Auntie-Grannie, at the very least, would want to be included in whatever celebration took place for our wedding.
But when I broached this idea, Archie disagreed and insisted on proceeding. “The decision has been made,” he pronounced, “and how would it look if we changed our plans at the eleventh hour?” He pulled me onto the street outside the church to see if we might approach a complete stranger and request their service as a second witness. It was then that I heard my name being called. Turning around, I was astonished to see Yvonne Bush, an old friend with whom I’d stayed in Clifton several years earlier, before I’d even met Archie.
Archie grasped my hand and exclaimed, “We’ve been saved!” Turning toward me, he added, “I told you our marriage was meant to be. Go ask your friend if she’ll serve as our marriage witness.”
I raced to her side, and before I even greeted her properly, I made the request. Yvonne gamely stepped into the impromptu bridesmaid role, and with her by my side and William Hemsley standing for Archie, the vicar performed the marriage ceremony. Surrendering to the inevitably of this hurried affair, I almost laughed at the bride I made in my everyday dress and coat, my only adornment a small purple hat. But I knew it didn’t matter.
Because I was no longer Agatha Miller. I was Agatha Christie.