Agatha's Story

The book was an old dusty volume, almost as old as the hand that took it from the shelf; as worn by usage as she who ran an arthritic finger down its listof contents. Thumbing the pages produced a fresh helping of the fustiness to the atmosphere of the bookshop. A smile of recognition swept years from herface; the spark in her eyes grew into a glow as she read the title of the short story and then next to it, her own name, or what it had been before Richard.So many things had changed when she met Richard Christie. It had led to her name changing for a start and that in itself had been so detrimental to her writing career. Just when it was taking off it had flopped. From Mallory to Christie in a few minutes at the altar of Saint Mary’s. Agatha could never bring herself to write under her new name - not with that great lady herself churning out one book after another in the same genre. Agatha had been thrilled when she first met Richard. Not only was he handsome and refined but as a promising writer the idea of being legally named Agatha Christie had appealed to her. Over a short period of time it had soon occurred to her that she could never possibly write under that name; surely it would never be allowed. She would continue to write under her own name, her maiden name, and avoid any confusion or even worse, possible law suits. It was too late to turn back anyway; she was madly in love with this sophisticated pillar of society. It wasn’t until after their marriage Richard proved to be difficult on the subject.“You are Mrs Christie now and that is the name you shall use.” He was adamant. “You will publish under your proper name or not at all.” he had ordered before going on to give his opinion of her work which he considered not appropriate for one of her new station. Had it been bruised masculine pride that had brought him to deride her art so much. Eventually he had barred her from exercising her creativity at all.“What is the point of all that wastage of time when nothing is to become of the finished work?” He had kept her well occupied with six children to raise but she had continued to write in secret, hiding her work in an old chest in the attic of their Kensington home. How could she cease writing? She was a writer; she had always been a writer since she was a child. It was a compulsion; she had no say in the matter. The stories formed in her head and she was forced to put them down on paper. She would go crazy with plots shaping themselves in her fertile imagination until they spilled out onto paper. No alcoholic was so tormented. She had tried to refrain from it but always she returned as the power of creation took over and she would scribbleaway and only when the last dot was written would she would find release from her distress. Before putting the children down to sleep they would plead with her to tell them a story and these formed the bases of the children’s books she wrote in secret. She had to write them; they begged to be written and for the most it was all she wrote, leaving her namesake to get on with the crime writing. On one occasion she had been overcome by temptation and sent a collection off to a publisher. They had been received with enthusiasm and published a few months later.Richard’s reaction to his authority being challenged was violent. He left her so bruised and marked that she was confined to the house for several weeks until she looked well enough to be seen. If he brought anyone home to discuss business she was forced to spend the time out of sight in her room. Alone in her room her scarred mind had not healed anything like the physical damage. Life together would never be the same again. She wanted to be free of him but such was his standing in society that a divorce was out of the question. That first beating destroyed everything they had between them. In time it was followed by other assaults until it became almost a regular part of her life but she turned this negative into a positive by spending her convalescence’s writing.Then came the war and Richard was called up, given a commission in the navy, and went off to war. How she had hoped to receive a telegram saying he had been killed in action. But he never was but in his absence she was able to submit her manuscripts to her publisher. In a short enough time, despite the shortage of paper for publishing, she she began to publish regularly enough to accumulated, in her own account, sufficient funds to buy a small house which in the beginning she used as little more than a postal address and somewhere to keep her manuscripts. Richard returned from the war unscathed and returned to his business. As the children grew older she spent hours at her secret home writing her stories for children but this was curtailed somewhat when her husband became ill. His sickness prevented him from working and before long he was unable to leave his sickbed. A little after their twelfth wedding anniversary he died.Agatha, after a long enough bereavement, continued with her writing and became a best selling author but she never forgot that first story she’d had published inthe English Crime Writers Anthology. Now she was content. In her hand was a second-hand copy. She held it to her chest as her mind read the story she knewonly too well. It was a murder that Agatha Christie herself would have been pleased to pen. The old woman moved to the counter and paid fifty pence for thevolume. One day the children would read it and know the truth about their father’s death.