The Christie Affair

Sunny. Proves rich or poor doesn’t matter, if you ask me. Some people are just born happy. I think that’s the luckiest thing. If you’re sunny inside, you never have to worry about the weather.

Love and reason have never been well acquainted.

If you’re sunny inside, you never have to worry about the weather.

Sometimes a life is so entirely disrupted, on such a large and ungraspable scale, all one can do is face the ruined day.

An emotional sort. As if there is any other kind of human.

Thirty-six is an age one looks back on as young. But at the time, living in thirty-six-year-old skin, it doesn't feel young. Women start believing themselves old so soon, don't they? Agatha didn't realize it was her youth that allowed her to sit for hours in that comfortless rock of a chair, staring at her pages without need of spectacles, nary a twinge from the small of her back. One day far into the future she would look back on this time in her life and understand she had not been old, or even middle-aged, but young, with the bulk of her life ahead of her, not to mention the best of it.

There’s a Chinese legend called Yuè Lǎo, have you heard it? When we’re born, the gods tie an invisible thread around our little finger, which connects us to our one true love. No matter what forces try to keep us apart.

The English love of tea as solution to life’s ills does make us easy to poison.

I see the kind of determination you only recognize if you’ve felt it yourself. Determination born of desperation transformed into purpose.

Archie had broken rules with passion as his excuse, and she was asked to rationally pick up the pieces.

We both know you can’t tell your own story without exposing someone else’s.

Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.” —HERCULE POIROT

Do you think she's beautiful?" Agatha asked. "That...girl." She'd been on the brink of using a different word, Chilton could tell. He answered with a lack of propriety and a wealth of honesty, because both seemed to be what she needed: "Not as beautiful as you." For a moment, based on the fervency that held every one of Agatha's features absolutely quiet, he thought she might lean over and kiss him.

Obedience seemed the safest plan. I hadn’t learned yet. In this world it’s the obedient girls who are most in danger.

People can certainly be beastly about the things that affect them least, can’t they?

Perhaps a woman has a different kind of measuring stick. For when it might be acceptable, or even necessary, to commit a murder.

Among Agatha’s enviable qualities, perhaps the most significant was her ability to thrive in this man’s world. Following the rules but managing also to rise above them.

Harm could be wrought by inaction as much as action. And

Nothing in life unfolds the way you think it will, does it?

The age of disappearing women. It had been going on forever. Thousands of us vanished, with not a single police officer searching. Not a word from the newspapers. Only our long absences and quiet returns. If we ever returned at all.

It's only that the world's changed too much, in ways it shouldn't. And so it's changed how time passes. The trenches were yesterday, or an hour ago.

There are too many women in the world helping men with their dirty work. But so many more taking one another’s side in unexpected moments.

I suppose I'll have to get a confession out of Nan." "You'll do no such thing." But, Agatha. This is murder we're talking about, not a game." "What some call murder, others might call justice." Chilton stopped walking but Agatha continued, with firm and determined footsteps. He put his hands in his pockets - first hoisting the useless one - and thought of the killing he'd done in the War. The bodies beneath his feet as he ran though no-man's-land. All of it sanctioned, in fact demanded, by the world. Perhaps a woman has a different kind of measuring stick. For when it might be acceptable, or even necessary, to commit a murder.

Who would have known it was possible to make love so rapturously and still entertain so many thoughts?

Nan's not cruel. Tell her you can't live without him." "But I think perhaps I can live without him. You can live without her, too." "I know I can. I've done it all this while, haven't I. But I don't want to. Agatha, don't you want your husband anymore?" "I can't say that I do. Not entirely.

Do you know, I thought earlier, for a moment, when you were looking at me so intently, I almost believed you were about to kiss me." "I haven't kissed a man other than my husband in years. Not since the day we met." "You've been a good wife." Agatha nodded vigorously. It made her furious to think what a good wife she'd been. To Chilton she looked breathlessly young and full of thoughts he couldn't read. It reminded him of his girl, Katherine, before the War. He felt is mind start to reach, by habit, for the next dark idea to follow, the bitter side of the world. And stopped himself. "Mrs. Christie." "Call me Agatha." She closed the distance between them and kissed him, a tentative but time-consuming kiss. Chilton didn't dare lift an arm to her waist. He was afraid if he moved at all, she'd realize what she was doing and it would end - her soft lips on his, her hands resting ever so lightly on his chest. Both their mouths open just enough to inhale each other's breath. She tasted like roses and spring grass.

I'm afraid your husband is downstairs in one of the bedrooms with another lady. I do hate to be the bearer of such unfortunate news." Finally she released her pen, placing it on the bedside table with the exhalation of someone whose concentration has been truly and unwelcomely wrecked. "Let's not play games. You know very well he's not my husband.

Irresistible?" Noel was not above prurient interest, though as far as I know he was always true to Ursula, to the extent any man can be. Oh! The cynicism of that remark. To the extent any man can be. It doesn't bear out the way I feel, and what I believe, deep down in my heart.

A young person can't know her life, what it will be or how it will unfold. When you grow older, you gain a sense that hardships occupy particular moments in time, which by and by will pass. But when you're young, a single moment seems like the whole world.