An Autobiography. Agatha Christie

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СКАЧАТЬ through the hair at all. I wanted to explain to her that she must brush much harder, but of course it was impossible as I did not know the right words.

      How it came about that in less than a week Marie and I were able to converse I do not know. The language used was French. A word here and a word there, and I could make myself understood. Moreover, at the end of the week we were fast friends. Going out with Marie was fun. Doing anything with Marie was fun. It was the beginning of a happy partnership.

      In the early summer it grew hot in Pau, and we left, spending a week at Argeles and another at Lourdes, then moving up to Cauterets in the Pyrenees. This was a delightful spot, right at the foot of the mountains. (I had got over my disappointment about mountains now, but although the position at Cauterets was more satisfactory you could not really look a long way up.) Every morning we had a walk along a mountain path which led to the spa, where we all drank glasses of nasty water. Having thus improved our health we purchased a stick of sucre d’orge. Mother’s favourite was aniseed, which I could not bear. On the zigzag paths by the hotel I soon discovered a delightful sport. This was to toboggan down through the pine trees on the seat of my pants. Marie took a poor view of this, but I am sorry to say that from the first Marie was never able to exert any authority over me. We were friends and playmates, but the idea of doing what she told me never occurred to me.

      Authority is an extraordinary thing. My mother had it in full measure. She was seldom cross, hardly ever raised her voice, but she had only gently to pronounce an order and it was immediately fulfilled. It always was odd to her that other people had not got this gift. Later, when she was staying with me after I was first married and had a child of my own, I complained how tiresome some little boys were who lived in the next house and who were always coming in through the hedge. Though I ordered them away, they would not go.

      ‘But how extraordinary,’ said my mother. ‘Why don’t you just tell them to go away?’

      I said to her, ‘Well, you try it.’ At that moment the two small boys arrived and were preparing as usual to say, ‘Yah. Boo. Shan’t go,’ and throw gravel on the grass. One started pelting a tree and shouting and puffing. My mother turned her head.

      ‘Ronald,’ she said. ‘Is that your name?’

      Ronald admitted it was.

      ‘Please don’t play so near here. I don’t like being disturbed,’ said my mother. ‘Just go a little further away.’

      Ronald looked at her, whistled to his brother, and departed immediately.

      ‘You see, dear,’ said my mother, ‘it’s quite simple.’

      It certainly was for her. I really believe that my mother would have been able to manage a class of juvenile delinquents without the least difficulty.

      There was an older girl at the hotel in Cauterets, Sybil Patterson, whose mother was a friend of the Selwyns. Sybil was the object of my adoration. I thought her beautiful, and the thing I admired about her most was her budding figure. Bosoms were much in fashion at that time. Everyone more or less had one. My grandmother and great-aunt had enormous jutting shelves, and it was difficult for them to greet each other with a sisterly kiss without their chests colliding first. Though I took the bosoms of grown-up people for granted, Sybil’s possession of one aroused all my most envious instincts. Sybil was fourteen. How long should I have to wait until I, too, could have that splendid development? Eight years? Eight years of skinniness? I longed for these signs of female maturity. Ah well, patience was the only thing. I must be patient. And in eight years’ time, or seven perhaps, if I was lucky, two large rounds would miraculously spurt forth on my skinny frame. I only had to wait.

      The Selwyns were not at Cauterets as long as we were. They went away, and I then had the choice of two other friends: a little American girl, Marguerite Prestley, and another, Margaret Home, an English girl. My father and mother were great friends by now with Margaret’s parents, and naturally they hoped that Margaret and I would go about and do things together. As is usual in these cases, however, I had an enormous preference for the company of Marguerite Prestley, who used what were to me extraordinary phrases and odd words that I had never heard before. We told each other stories a good deal, and there was one story of Marguerite’s which entailed the dangers encountered on meeting a scarrapin which thrilled me.

      ‘But what is a scarrapin?’ I kept asking.

      Marguerite, who had a nurse called Fanny whose southern American drawl was such that I could seldom understand what she said, gave me a brief description of this horrifying creature. I applied to Marie but Marie had never heard of scarrapins. Finally I tackled my father. He had a little difficulty, too, at first, but at last realisation dawned on him and he said, ‘I expect what you mean is a scorpion.’

      Somehow the magic then departed. A scorpion did not seem nearly so horrifying as the imagined scarrapin.

      Marguerite and I had quite a serious dispute on one subject, which was the way babies arrived. I assured Marguerite that babies were brought by the angels. This had been Nursie’s information. Marguerite, on the other hand, assured me that they were part of a doctor’s stock-in-trade, and were brought along by him in a black bag. When our dispute on this subject had got really heated, the tactful Fanny settled it once and for all.

      ‘Why, that’s just the way it is, honey,’ she said. ‘American babies come in a doctor’s black bag and English babies are brought by the angels. It’s as simple as that.’

      Satisfied, we ceased hostilities.

      Father and Madge made a good many excursions on horseback, and in answer to my entreaties one day I was told that on the morrow I should be allowed to accompany them. I was thrilled. My mother had a few misgivings, but my father soon overruled them.

      ‘We have a Guide with us,’ he said, ‘and he’s quite used to children and will see to it that they don’t fall off.’

      The next morning the three horses arrived, and off we went. We zigzagged along up the precipitous paths, and I enjoyed myself enormously perched on top of what seemed to me an immense horse. The Guide led it up, and occasionally picking little bunches of flowers, handed them to me to stick in my hatband. So far all was well, but when we arrived at the top and prepared to have lunch, the Guide excelled himself. He came running back to us bringing with him a magnificent butterfly he had trapped. ‘Pour la petite mademoiselle,’ he cried. Taking a pin from his lapel he transfixed the butterfly and stuck it in my hat! Oh the horror of that moment! The feeling of the poor butterfly fluttering, struggling against the pin. The agony I felt as the butterfly fluttered there. And of course I couldn’t say anything. There were too many conflicting loyalties in my mind. This was a kindness on the part of the Guide. He had brought it to me. It was a special kind of present. How could I hurt his feelings by saying I didn’t like it? How I wanted him to take it off! And all the time, there was the butterfly, fluttering, dying. That horrible flapping against my hat. There is only one thing a child can do in these circumstances. I cried.

      The more anyone asked me questions the more I was unable to reply. ‘What’s the matter?’ demanded my father. ‘Have you got a pain?’ My sister said, ‘Perhaps she’s frightened at riding on the horse.’ I said No and No. I wasn’t frightened and I hadn’t got a pain. ‘Tired,’ said my father.

      ‘No,’ I said.

      ‘Well, then, what is the matter?’

      But I couldn’t say. Of course I couldn’t say. The Guide was standing there, watching me with an attentive and puzzled face. My father said rather crossly:

      ‘She’s СКАЧАТЬ