The Christie Affair (46 page)

Meanwhile, Chilton had to go on foot to the manor house – no longer timeless – to collect what Agatha had asked of him. Her typewriter, and everything she’d written in the midst of this adventure. She would never think much, in later years, of the work she did while she was away. A short story or two, and the beginnings of her novel
The Mystery of the Blue Train
. She always said it was the least favourite of all her books. But she published it just the same. She published everything she wrote – even the
short story ‘The Edge’, which ended with my doppelganger dead at the bottom of a mountain. It appeared the following year in
Pearson’s Magazine
, with the ending changed so that my character was not pushed, but leaped.

Chilton had no plans to transport Agatha’s typewriter and work to Sunningdale. He would take it with him back to Brixham, so that she’d have to find him there.

‘But where’s Nan?’ Finbarr asked, when Chilton told him Agatha had been discovered.

Chilton placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. He had already given me the gift of freedom. He did not have the remaining generosity to wish for Finbarr’s romance resolved in favour of his own.

‘I’m sorry,’ Chilton said. ‘If Nan’s not back by nightfall, I don’t expect she ever will be.’

‘She’ll be back,’ Finbarr said, but he didn’t sound sure. As if to confirm this, he said, ‘If you see her, tell her I’ll be waiting in Ballycotton, ready to go anywhere in the world she likes. She can find me there when she comes to her senses.’

But alas. I never did.

A New Year

1928

Y
OU DON’T NEED
to guess. You already know. Agatha and Archie’s reunion did not last. The urgency to continue her marriage had left Agatha. Instead, she mooned about Styles mourning the loss of the Timeless Manor. All I had to do was reappear before Archie – smiling and smiling. Agatha left, this time for good, taking Teddy with her.

But eventually she sent Teddy back to Styles. By then Archie and I were married – a diamond ring and wedding band replacing Finbarr’s Claddagh. Teddy would stay with us a full year while Agatha went off on her own, adventuring, the first of many journeys she’d take aboard the Orient Express.

Honoria brought the child to us from London. I had planned to be downstairs with Archie to greet Teddy on her arrival. But when the car pulled into the drive, I found myself overcome with emotion I didn’t want my husband to witness. I’d seen Teddy several times since returning to Archie but this would be our first extended stretch, together in a home we shared, with myself her official stepmother.

‘Are you quite all right?’ Archie asked, placing a hand at my waist. He had learned a bit about being solicitous since his first marriage.

‘Yes, I’m fine. Just the tiniest bit light-headed. I believe I’ll go upstairs and rest.’

As I crested the stairs I heard them – Honoria and Teddy, one dark and stern voice, one small and light. I walked through the hall of what was now my own home and went into the nursery, nobody here anymore to scold me for intruding. Honoria would be heading back to London. ‘I’m happy to take care of her myself,’ I’d said to Archie, when he asked me how we’d manage. ‘In fact, I’d like to.’

And I would take care of her myself, many times, in the years that followed. I would rush to her when she woke up crying from a terrible dream. I would hold her hand, my arm round her shoulders, when the doctor put stitches in her wounded knee. When she married during the Second World War, a small and hasty ceremony without even Archie in attendance, Agatha made sure to send a telegram so that I could be there, too.

There on the windowsill stood the dog Finbarr had carved for her. Sonny. I picked it up. I could hear Teddy walking quickly and purposefully down the hall. Whoever coined the phrase ‘the patter of little feet’ might be the most brilliant person in history. How the sound filled the house, the music of a child living inside it. I drew in a breath, determined that my eyes would not be full of tears when I turned towards her.

‘Nan,’ Teddy said, coming through the door of the nursery to find me with the whittled dog still in my hands. ‘I was looking for you.’

I returned Sonny to the windowsill and kneeled, putting one hand on either side of Teddy’s face, bright blue eyes staring back at me. Then I gathered her up in my arms, almost believing her hair – grown darker since I’d seen her last – smelled of the Irish Sea.

‘I was looking for you, too.’

Finbarr returned to Ballycotton, where he received word of my marriage to Archie. I sent him a letter with the news, along with a lock of Teddy’s hair. In a few years he would marry an Irish girl. It pained me to think of it and at the same time, how I did wish him happiness. How I loved him enough to wish him all the dogs, all the books, all the everything, we had planned for ourselves. He fathered three sons, and I can imagine how much he loved and enjoyed them before he died young, from a slow-burning cancer in his lungs, one last gift from the mustard gas.

The rage that lingers, when one thinks of war.

But forget all that. As readers, our minds do reach towards the longed-for conclusions, despite what we know to be true. Pretend there is no Second World War come to bombard England again, what no one should have to endure once in a lifetime, let alone twice. This story belongs to me. I hold no allegiance to history, which has never done me a single favour. Still, I can’t end my own story with Finbarr, even in my imagination, because any ending with him is an ending away from our child.

But Agatha’s story – I can end that however I like.

Let’s pause another moment and go back in time. One month after leaving the Bellefort Hotel with her husband and returning to Styles, Agatha charged Honoria with packing a bag for Teddy. After placing a letter to Archie on the table in the front hall, she went through the morning’s post and found a small package sent by, of all people, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She opened it to find a pair of lovely leather gloves that she’d never
seen before in her life, which made his note,
So glad to hear you are safely at home. Allow me to return these to their rightful owner
, all the more perplexing. Still, she couldn’t refuse a gift from him of all people, and it was chilly out, so she pulled them onto her hands.

Before she left, she made sure to gather the small staff at Styles and announced to them clearly: ‘I’m going to Ashfield. I’m taking Teddy with me. If anybody doubts my whereabouts, please send them round to Torquay. If I’m not at the house, I’ll be walking by the shore.’

Agatha loaded Teddy and her dog into her dear old Morris Cowley and off she drove, passing all chalk pits and bodies of water without incident. The Silent Pool shimmered, reflecting the cold blue sky as if nobody had ever been pulled, lifeless, from its silty depths. She drove past the length of stream where Annabelle Oliver had been found and pressed a hand to her chest, a kind of salute, a sad but grateful thanks.

Chilton had a place of his own by then, in Brixham, close enough to his mother’s house for him to be able to check in on her daily. A cottage by the sea, they could be let for a song in those days. Although he’d quite given up on seeing Agatha again, he knew the moment he heard it, the knock on the door was hers. He opened the door to find her standing there in the chilly dusk, wearing a skirt and jumper under a fur coat, her hair a beautiful mess, her smile wide and liberated. Holding on to Teddy, who had fallen asleep in the car, the little girl’s cheek flattened against Agatha’s shoulder.

‘I saved your work,’ Chilton said. ‘It’s all here.’

‘Thank you.’

He stepped aside so she could enter, then closed the door quietly behind her. A little dog wagged by her feet, regarding Chilton as if wanting to be properly introduced.

‘Here,’ Chilton said, gesturing with his good hand. Agatha followed him to the spare bedroom, and stood quietly while he hurried to put sheets on the narrow bed. Then she laid Teddy down – deaf to the world as only sleeping children can be – and pulled the quilt up to her chin. Kissed her forehead.

‘She’s a lovely little girl, isn’t she?’ Chilton said.

‘Yes, she certainly is.’

The dog hopped onto the bed and curled up beside the child. Chilton and Agatha watched Teddy sleep a while, simple rise and fall of her chest. A child’s breath has a different quality to an adult’s. Deeper and more precious. They shut her door tightly and went together into the kitchen. The cottage was small and cosy, ceilings nestling close above their heads. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, thank you.’

And here came the embrace. It lasted a long while, Chilton feeling so happy, so grateful to be alive, he scarcely recognized himself. Oh, while we’re at it, let’s give him back the use of his left arm. It rose as if by magic, wrapping around her strongly enough to communicate that he had no interest in ever letting her go.

‘It’s a sweet cottage,’ Agatha said, somewhere past midnight, the two of them tangled companionably in his bed. ‘Wonderfully close to Ashfield. Teddy and I will settle there in the morning.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You want to be sure and be there when they come looking for you.’

The two of them laughed and laughed. The happiness
swirled through the small house. Teddy, in the other room, smiled in her sleep.

‘You don’t like love stories,’ Chilton reminded her.

‘Not as a rule. But I like this one.’