An Autobiography

  I had a request from the Income Tax about this time. They wanted to know the details of my literary earnings. I was astonished. I had never considered my literary earnings as income. All the income I had, I thought, was £100 a year from £2000 invested in War Loan. Yes, they said, they knew about that, but they meant my earnings from published books. I explained that these were not something that came in every year–I had just happened to write three books just as I had happened to write short stories before, or poems. I wasn’t an author. I wasn’t going on writing all my life. I thought, I said, coming on a phrase from somewhere, that this sort of thing was called ‘casual profit’. They said they thought by now I really was an established author, even though as yet I might not have made much from my writing. They wanted details. Unfortunately I could not give them details–I had not kept any of the royalty statements sent me (if they had even been sent me, which I could not remember). I occasionally received an odd cheque, but I had usually cashed it straight away and spent it. However, I unravelled things to the best of my ability. The Inland Revenue seemed amused, on the whole, but suggested that in future I should keep more careful accounts. It was then that I decided I must have a literary agent.

  As I didn’t know much about literary agents, I thought I had better go back to Eden Philpotts’ original recommendation–Hughes Massie. So back I went. It wasn’t Hughes Massie now–apparently he had died–instead I was received by a young man with a slight stammer, whose name was Edmund Cork. He was not nearly so alarming as Hughes Massie had been–in fact I could talk to him quite easily. He seemed suitably horrified at my ignorance, and was willing to guide my footsteps in future. He told me the exact amount of his commission, of the possibility of serial rights, and publication in America, of dramatic rights, and all sorts of unlikely things (or so it seemed to me). It was quite an impressive lecture. I placed myself in his hands, unreservedly, and left his office with a sigh of relief. I felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

  That was the beginning of a friendship which has lasted for over forty years.

  An almost unbelievable thing then occurred. I was offered £500 by The Evening News for the serial rights of The Mystery of the Mill House. It was no longer The Mystery of the Mill House: I had rechristened it The Man in the Brown Suit, because the other title seemed too like Murder on the Links. The Evening News proposed to change the title yet again. They were going to call it Anna The Adventuress–as silly a title as I had ever heard, I thought; though I kept my mouth shut, because, after all, they were willing to pay me £500, and though I might have certain feelings about the title of a book, nobody could be bothered about the title of a serial in a newspaper. It seemed the most unbelievable luck. I could hardly believe it, Archie could hardly believe it, Punkie could hardly believe it. Mother, of course, could easily believe it: any daughter of hers could earn £500 for a serial in The Evening News with the utmost ease–there was nothing surprising about it.

  It always seems to be the pattern of life that all the bad things and all the good things come together. I had my stroke of luck with The Evening News, now Archie was to have his. He received a letter from an Australian friend, Clive Baillieu, who had long before suggested Archie might join his firm. Archie went to see him and was offered the job he had been yearning for for so many years. He shook off the dust of his present job, and went in with Clive Baillieu. He was immediately, wonderfully, completely happy. Here at last were sound and interesting enterprises, no sharp practice, and proper entry into the world of finance. We were in the seventh heaven.

  Immediately I pressed for the project that I had cherished for so long, and about which Archie had hitherto been indifferent. We would try to find a small cottage in the country from which Archie could go to the City every day, and in the garden of which Rosalind could be turned out to grass, as it were, instead of having to be pushed to the park or confined to activities on the grass strip between the flats. I longed to live in the country. If we could find a cheap enough cottage we decided we would move.

  Archie’s ready agreement to my plan was mostly, I think, because golf was now occupying more and more of his attention. He had been recently elected to Sunningdale Golf Club, and our weekends together of going off by train and making expeditions on foot had palled. He thought of nothing but golf. He played with various friends at Sunningdale, and now lesser and minor courses were treated by him with scorn. He could get no fun out of playing with a rabbit like me, so little by little, though not aware of the fact yet, I was becoming that well-known figure, a golf widow.

  ‘I don’t mind living in the country,’ said Archie. ‘Indeed, I think I’d quite like it, and of course it would be good for Rosalind. Site likes the country, and I know you do. If so, there is really only one possible place where we can live, and that is Sunningdale.’

  ‘Sunningdale,’ I said with slight dismay, for Sunningdale was not quite what I meant by the country. ‘But surely that is terribly expensive, isn’t it? It’s all rich people who live there.’

  ‘Oh, I expect we could find something,’ said Archie, optimistically. A day or two later he asked me how I was going to spend my £500 from The Evening News. ‘It’s a lot of money,’ I said. ‘I suppose–’ I admit I spoke grudgingly, with no conviction: ‘I suppose we ought to save it for a rainy day.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we need worry too much about that now. In with the Baillieus I shall have very good prospects, and you seem to be getting on with your writing.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I could spend it–or spend some of it.’ Vague ideas of an new evening dress, perhaps gold or silver evening shoes instead of black ones, something rather ambitious like a fairy cycle for Rosalind. Archie’s voice broke into these musings. ‘Why don’t you buy a car?’ he asked.

  ‘Buy a car?’ I looked at him with amazement. The last thing I dreamed of was a car. Nobody I knew in our circle of friends had a car. I was still imbued with the notion that cars were for the rich. They rushed past you at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour, containing people with their hats tied on with chiffon veils, speeding to impossible places. ‘A car?’ I repeated, looking more like a zombie than ever.

  ‘Why not?’ Why not indeed? It was possible. I, Agatha, could have a car, a car of my own. I will confess here and now that of the two things that have excited me most in my life the first was my car: my grey bottle-nosed Morris Cowley. The second was dining with the Queen at Buckingham Palace about forty years later. Both of those happenings, you see, had something of a fairy-tale quality about them. They were things that I thought could never happen to me: to have a car of my own, and to dine with the Queen of England.

  Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?

  I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.

  It was almost as good as having been born the Lady Agatha!

  Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there?

  I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

  I had no chance of frightening any mouse under Queen Elizabeth II’s chair, but I did enjoy my evening. So small, and slender, in her simple dark red velvet gown with one beautiful jewel–and her kindness and easiness in talking. I remember she told us one story of how they used a small drawing-room one night, and in the middle of the evening a terrific fall of soot came down the chimney and they had to rush out of the room. It is cheering to know that domestic disasters happened in the highest circles.

  PART VII

  THE LAND OF LOST CONTENT

  I

  While we were looking for our country cottage, bad news came from Africa of my brother Monty. He had not featured largely in any of our lives since before the war when he had a scheme to run cargo boats on Lake Victoria. He sent Madge letters from various people out there, all enthusiastic about the idea. If she could just put up a little capital…My sister believed that here was something that Monty might succeed in. Anything to do with boats he was good at. So she paid his fare to England. The pla
n was to build a small boat in Essex. It was true that there was a great opening for this type of craft. There were no small cargo boats on the Lake at that time. The weak part of the scheme, however, was that Monty was to be the Captain, and nobody had any confidence that the boat would run to time, or the service be reliable.

  ‘It’s a splendid idea. Lots of oof to be made. But good old Miller–suppose he just didn’t feel like getting up one day? Or didn’t like a fellow’s face? I mean he’s just a law unto himself.’

  But my sister, who was of a perennially optimistic nature, agreed to invest the greater part of her capital in getting the boat built.

  ‘James gives me a good allowance, and I can use some of that to help with Ashfield, so I shan’t miss the income.’

  My brother-in-law was livid. He and Monty disliked each other intensely. Madge, he felt certain, would lose her money.

  The boat was taken in hand. Madge went down to Essex several times. Everything seemed to be going well.

  The only thing that worried her was the fact that Monty was always coming up to London, staying at an expensive hotel in Jermyn Street, buying quantities of luxurious silk pyjamas, a couple of specially designed Captain’s uniforms, and bestowing on her a sapphire bracelet, an elaborate petit point evening bag, and other charming and expensive presents.

  ‘But, Monty, the money is for the boat–not to give me presents.’

  ‘But I want you to have a nice present. You never buy anything for yourself.’

  ‘And what’s that thing on the window sill?’

  ‘That? It’s a Japanese dwarf tree.’

  ‘But they’re terribly expensive, aren’t they?’

  ‘It was £75. I’ve always wanted one. Look at the shape. Lovely, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh Monty, I wish you wouldn’t.’

  ‘The trouble with you is that living with old James you’ve forgotten how to enjoy yourself.’ The tree had disappeared when she next visited him.

  ‘Did you take it back to the shop?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Take it back to the shop?’ said Monty horrified. ‘Of course not. As a matter of fact I gave it to the receptionist here. Awfully nice girl. She admired it so much, and she’d been worried about her mother.’ Words failed Madge.

  ‘Come out to lunch,’ said Monty.

  ‘All right–but we’ll go to Lyons.’

  ‘Very well.’ They went through to the street. Monty asked the doorman for a taxi. He hailed one that was passing by, they got in, Monty handed him a half a crown, and told the driver to go to the Berkeley. Madge burst into tears.

  ‘The truth of it is,’ said Monty to me later, ‘that James is such a miserably mean chap that poor old Madge has got her spirit completely broken. She seems to think of nothing but saving.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better begin to think, of saving? Suppose the money runs out before the boat’s built?’ Monty grinned wickedly.

  ‘Wouldn’t matter. Old James would have to fork up.’ Monty stayed with them for a difficult five days, and drank enormous amounts of whisky. Madge went out secretly, bought several more bottles, and put them in his room, which amused Monty very much. Monty was attracted by Nan Watts, and took her out to theatres and expensive restaurants.

  ‘This boat will never get to Uganda,’ Madge would say sometimes in despair. It might have done. It was Monty’s own fault that it didn’t. He loved the Batenga as he called it. He wanted it to be more than a cargo boat. He ordered fittings of ebony and ivory, a teak-panelled cabin for himself, and specially-made brown fireproof china with the name Batenga. All this delayed its dispatch. And so–the war broke out. There could be no shipping of the Batenga to Africa. Instead it had to be sold to the Government at a low price. Monty went back to the Army–this time to the King’s African Rifles. So ended the saga of the Batenga. I still have two of the coffee cups. Now a letter came from a doctor. Monty had, as we knew, been wounded in the arm in the war. It seemed that during his treatment in hospital, the wound had become infected–carelessness of a native dresser. The infection had persisted, and had recurred even after he was discharged. He had continued with his life as a hunter, but in the end had been picked up and taken to a French hospital run by nuns, very seriously ill. He had not wished at first to communicate with any of his relations, but he was now almost certainly a dying man–six months was the longest he could hope to live–and he had a great wish to come home to die. It was also possible that the climate in England might prolong his life a little. Arrangements were quickly made for Monty’s passage from Mombassa by sea. My mother started making preparations at Ashfield. She was transported with joy–she would look after him devotedly–her dearest boy. She began to envisage a mother-and-son relationship which I felt quite sure was entirely unrealistic. Mother and Monty had never really got on together harmoniously. In many ways they were too much alike. They both wanted their own way. And Monty was one of the most difficult people in the world to live with.

  ‘It will be different now,’ said my mother. ‘You forget how ill the poor boy is.’ I thought that Monty ill would be just as difficult as Monty well. People’s natures don’t change. Still, I hoped for the best. Mother had a little difficulty in reconciling her two elderly maids to the idea of having Monty’s African servant in the house also.

  ‘I don’t think, Madam–I really don’t think that we could sleep in the same house with a black man. It’s not what me and my sister have been accustomed to.’ Mother went into action. She was a woman not easy to withstand. She talked them round to staying. The lure she held out to them in the end was the possibility that they might be able to convert the African from Mohammedanism to Christianity. They were very religious women.

  ‘We could read the Bible to him,’ they said, their eyes lighting up. Mother, meanwhile, prepared a self-contained suite of three rooms and a new bathroom. Archie very kindly said he would go to meet Monty’s boat docked at Tilbury. He had also taken a small flat in Bayswater for him to go to with his servant. As Archie departed from Tilbury, I called after him: ‘Don’t let Monty make you take him to the Ritz.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said “Don’t let him make you take him to the Ritz”–I’ll see that the flat is all ready, and the landlady alerted and plenty of stores in.’ ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

  ‘I hope so. But he might prefer the Ritz.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have him all settled in before lunch.’ The day wore on. At 6.30 Archie returned. He looked exhausted.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ve got him settled in. It was a bit of a job getting him off the boat. He wasn’t packed up or anything–kept saying there was plenty of time–what was the hurry? Everybody else was off the ship, and he was holding things up–but he didn’t seem to care. That Shebani is a good chap–very helpful. He managed to get things moving in the end.’ He paused, and cleared his throat.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t take him to Powell Square. He seemed absolutely set on going to some hotel in Jermyn Street. He said it would be much less trouble to everyone.’

  ‘So that’s where he is.’

  ‘Well–yes.’ I looked at him.

  ‘Somehow,’ said Archie, ‘it seemed so reasonable the way he put it.’ ‘That is Monty’s strong point,’ I informed him. Monty was taken to a specialist in tropical diseases to whom he had been recommended. The specialist gave full directions to my mother. There was a chance of partial recovery: good air–continual soaking in hot baths–a quiet life. What might prove difficult was that, having considered him almost certainly a dying man, they had kept him under drugs to such an extent that he would find it difficult to break the habit now. We got Monty and Shebani into the Powell Square flat after a day or two, and they settled down quite happily–although Shebani created quite a stir by dropping into neighbouring tobacconists, seizing a packet of fifty cigarettes, saying, ‘For my master’, and leaving the shop. The Kenya system of credit was not appreciated in Bayswater. Then, aft
er the London treatments were over, Monty and Shebani moved down to Ashfield–and the mother-and-son ‘ending his days in peace’ concept was tried out. It nearly killed my mother. Monty had his African way of life. His idea of meals was to call for them whenever he felt like eating, even if it was four in the morning. This was one of his favourite times. He would ring bells, call to the servants, and order chops and steaks.

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean, mother, by “considering the servants”. You pay them to cook for you, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes–but not in the middle of the night.’

  ‘It was only an hour before sunrise. I always used to get up then. It’s the proper start to the day.’ It was Shebani who really succeeded in making things work. The elderly maids adored him. They read the Bible to him, and he listened with the greatest interest. He told them stories of life in Uganda and of the prowess of his master in shooting elephants. He gently took Monty to task for his treatment of his mother.

  ‘She is your mother, Bwana. You must speak to her with reverence.’ After a year Shebani had to go back to Africa to his wife and family, and things became difficult. Male attendants were not a success, either with Monty or my mother. Madge and I went down alternately to try to soothe them down. Monty’s health was improving, and as a result he was much more difficult to control. He was bored, and for relaxation took to shooting out of his window with a revolver. Tradespeople and some of mother’s visitors complained. Monty was unrepentant. ‘Some silly old spinster going down the drive with her behind wobbling. Couldn’t resist it–I sent a shot or two right and left of her. My word, how she ran!’ He even sent shots all round Madge one day on the drive, and she was frankly terrified.