Mrs Inglethorpe Recites A War Poem

Mrs Emily Inglethorpe of Styles Court, Essex stands at the front of the village hall. As she clears her throat and clasps her hands, rows and rows of cheap-hatted locals gaze up at her, their faces pinking in the heat. They’ve endured the music and the speeches. They’ve mourned the absence of refreshments. They’re used to this, on account of the War. They’ve been waiting all night on stiff-backed chairs for Mrs Inglethorpe to recite her poem. The war poem, presented by the lady from the big house, will be the highlight of the evening’s entertainment. It should be noted, this village is rather small and provincial.

The locals are hoping Mrs Inglethorpe will recite The Charge of the Light Brigade. She did this poem last year, with great aplomb. She has the perfect voice for it, which is to say plummy and terribly English, like someone you’d hear on the wireless. It’s such a familiar piece and also rousing, just the ticket for a sweltering evening, late into an equally sweltering War. For God’s sake, the locals are now thinking, don’t let the old dame attempt anything avant garde. These modern young poets, with their dreadfully modern takes on war, are an affront to the boys they’ve sent away: the sons, the brothers and occasionally husbands, who may or may never return from the Front. They needn’t worry. The year is 1917, possibly even late 16. Owen and Sassoon, (the worst offenders), have only recently met in the corridors of Craiglockhart. Their poems are not yet widely read. They’re only just beginning to strip the glory out of war.

Mrs Emily Inglethorpe, formally Cavendish, scans the room in front of her. Though she’s anxious in herself, and already thinking of changing her will, she doesn’t know that this is to be her penultimate night on Earth. Which begs the question, does it not, if a woman like Mrs Inglethorpe were to be offered a glimpse into the immediate future -the betrayals, the poisoning, the slow and excrutiatingly painful death- would she choose to spend her last free evening reciting a dusty war poem in a provincial village hall? Or, would she perhaps, be better served, dancing and drinking neat little nips of port and whiskey served in cutglass tumblers by uniformed serving girls, cursing God or cursing those gods of English peerage who enjoy nothing better than planting a bad seed in every branch of the family tree? Would it be a better use of Mrs Inglethorpe’s time to spend one last night with her very young husband, rolling round the very same bed where she’ll die tomorrow of strychnine poison, administered by his hand?

Perhaps. One can never quite know the inner workings of those characters who cruelly disappear from a novel’s pages less than three chapters in. Still, reciting a war poem at a charitable entertainment, seems an awfully lame way to make an exit from this mortal stage. Besides, what exactly does Mrs Inglethorpe know of war? She is a woman after all. She knows little beyond her family. Would she not be better, before they have the chance to kill her, to gather the bastards in the library and recite, with signature aplomb, how each in their own peculiar way has been a shame, a horror, and an abomination; a kind of death she’s had to endure.

Based on Agatha Christie’s 1920 novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”

Dropped at Terminal 2 Departure Lounge, Dublin Airport on January 2nd 2020

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