I walked toward both of them and bobbed in an abbreviated curtsy. Looking up from the floor into Mummy’s face first and then the gentleman caller’s, I realized with a start that it was not the naval officer I expected. It was the man from the Chudleigh ball—Archibald Christie.
Astonished, I didn’t speak at first. I hadn’t heard from him in the seven days since the ball, and I had begun to think I never would. Most gentlemen would have expressed their interest in a girl within one or two days of a ball—never seven.
Mummy cleared her throat and finally said, “Agatha, this young man—Lieutenant Christie, I believe—tells me that you two met at Chudleigh.”
Collecting myself, I answered, “Yes, Mummy. This is Lieutenant Christie, who is in the Royal Field Artillery. He is stationed at the garrison at Exeter, and I did indeed meet him at the ball given by the Cliffords at Chudleigh.”
She looked him up and down. “You’re quite a ways from Exeter, Lieutenant Christie.”
“Yes, ma’am. I happened to be driving my motorbike through Torquay, and I remembered that Miss Miller lived here. I inquired of a local I passed on the road, and here I am.”
“Here you are.” She sighed. “What a coincidence that you should happen to find yourself in Torquay.”
No one could miss the sarcasm and disbelief in my mother’s voice, and I found it surprising that my gentle, adoring Mummy could be so sharp with a stranger. What had he done to her in the span of a quarter of an hour alone to elicit this unusual reaction? Was it simply that he wasn’t Reggie? I glanced over at Lieutenant Christie, whose cheeks shone bright red. I felt badly for him and rushed in to save him.
“I remember you mentioned at the Cliffords’ ball that you might have an errand in Torquay, Lieutenant Christie. Of an official nature, that is.”
An expression of relief passed over his face, and he grasped at my proffered excuse. “Indeed, Miss Miller. And you had very kindly suggested that I call when in the neighborhood.”
This exchange did not fool Mummy, but it did return to Lieutenant Christie a modicum of his dignity. It also provided my mother with license to leave the drawing room. Unlike the continent, it was the custom in England for unmarried men and women to be left alone, as long as chaperones were in the vicinity or the unmarried people were busy dancing. “Well, I must see Mary about the dinner menu. It was a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant—” She feigned forgetfulness, telegraphing her opinion of this young man.
“Christie, ma’am.”
“Lieutenant Christie,” she said as she left the room.
I fancied that we simultaneously exhaled when Mummy left the room. Determined to lighten the mood, I said, “Why don’t we take a walk in the gardens? The day is cool, but our grounds hold some interest. And I’d love to see your motorbike.”
“That would be lovely, Miss Miller.”
After the servant helped us on with our coats—a longer walk required more warmth than a cardigan could provide—we trundled outside. Passing by the kitchen garden, I explained to Lieutenant Christie that we would not be stopping behind its high walls because its sole allure was its abundance of seasonal raspberries and apples. I directed him instead to the garden proper.
Watching Lieutenant Christie squirm under my mother’s scrutinizing gaze made me bold with him. With a broad smile, I teased, “Can I trust you with the secrets of my garden?”
He did not smile back. Instead, he fixed his bright-blue eyes on mine and said, “I hope you can trust me with all your secrets.”
His intensity left me a bit flustered, but after showing him the familiar ilex, cedar, and Wellington trees, as well as the two firs previously claimed by Madge and Monty, my nerves calmed. “Here is my particular favorite, the beech tree. It’s the largest in the garden, and when I was a girl, I used to gorge myself on its beechnuts.” I ran my hand along its trunk, remembering all the girlish days I spent in its branches, days now gone.
“I understand why the garden is special to you. It’s lovely,” he said, then pointed ahead to a thick copse of trees in the distance. “Are those your woods as well?”
His eyes were bright and full of awe. I supposed he thought we were rich; Ashfield and its grounds were impressive, if one squinted to blur out the spots of decay and peeling paint. While we had been wealthy during my early years, financial worries set in when I was about five, and my father—who’d been born the son of a rich American man and never worked a day in his life, expecting that his money would last—struggled to keep the family afloat. Only by renting Ashfield and living on that income abroad, where it was comparatively cheap, did we maintain some semblance of our lifestyle. The unfamiliar stress of these concerns affected his health and led to the decline of my poor, sweet papa, who died ten years ago. Now Mummy and I limped along on the benevolence of our friends and family as well as a small income, recently reduced when the investment firm from which we derived a portion of our meager draw liquidated.
“Yes,” I answered as I led him on the path through the ash trees. “But its trees are more common and provided less magic for a young girl. Not to mention the path leads to the tennis and croquet lawns, which I never much enjoyed.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I lived more in the world of the imagination as a child than the world of sport,” I said, but Lieutenant Christie did not respond as he examined the croquet and tennis lawns with interest and satisfaction. He couldn’t know how decidedly unathletic my performance had been there, despite my valiant efforts; only in the realm of simple badminton did I experience a modicum of success. Having witnessed too many heartbreaking attempts, Mummy, ever supportive, directed my enthusiasm toward music, drama, and writing instead. In that realm, I flourished, particularly during my years of schooling in France, although recently I had abandoned hope of undertaking piano or singing professionally on the advice of the esteemed pianist Charles Furster and my London voice coaches. Writing, however, had remained a passion and became my habit, much as my friends might dabble in embroidery or landscape painting. But I always understood that my writing must remain a trifle, something to pass the time only, and that my Fate stemmed from my husband. Whoever he might be. Whenever he might surface.
When Lieutenant Christie continued to study the croquet and tennis lawns without a word, I asked, “Did you have a special place when you were a child?”
His brow furrowed, casting a shadow over his eyes. “I spent my early years in India where my father was a judge in the Indian Civil Service. As soon as my family returned to England, he fell from a horse and died. We stayed with my mother’s family in southern Ireland until she remarried William Hemsley, a schoolmaster from Clifton College, after which I went to Clifton. So you can see, I moved around, never really had any special place as a child—no place to call my own anyway.”