In Sad Cypress Let Me Be Laid... The First Novel in the Read Christie Challenge 2023

Title: Sad Cypress

Author: Agatha Christie

Genre: Crime

Date Published: 1940

Country: United Kingdom

Published by: Collins Crime Club (UK)

Dodd Mead and Company (USA)

January has passed and we have long completed the first novel in the Read Christie Challenge for this year, Agatha Christie's very moving Sad Cypress. We have to say that as the opener to this challenge, we were very impressed with this choice - a novel we'd never read before. And of course it didn't stop there as we just had to go on to listen to the radio play... as well as watch the TV episode from 2003 starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Elisabeth Dermot Walsh, and the great David Suchet as the formidable Poirot.

PLOT

A love triangle leads to murder - as well as the unearthing of buried secrets including that of an illegitimate daughter. But is the murderous poisoner really who everyone thinks it is?

HOW THE STORY GOES...

When Elinor Carlisle receives an anonymous letter claiming that someone is cosying up to her ailing, wealthy aunt, Laura Welman who had suffered a stroke, her fiancé (and cousin through marriage - if that's even a thing!) Roddy Welman insist that they head over to their aunt's estate in Hunterbury to find out exactly what is going on. While partly concerned about their aunt's health and who might be taking advantage of her, as Elinor is Laura's only known surviving relative, the couple are also desperate to protect their inheritance. Despite living the high life, and Elinor frequently appearing the papers as a socialite girl about town, neither of them earn much and are reliant on the inheritance that they believe they will be left when Elinor's ailing, wealthy aunt, Laura Welman, passes away.

While neither of them know who sent the letter, Elinor immediately suspects that the person the writer is refering to is the lodgekeeper's daughter Mary Gerrard who has indeed been spending a lot of time with her aunt. And it is on arrival at Hunterbury, that Elinor and Roddy meet up with Mary again. While Elinor and Mary's paths have crossed from time to time in the intervening years due to Elinor's visits to her aunt at Hunterbury, it's the first time that Roddy has seen Mary since childhood, and he instantly becomes smitten with her - something that isn't lost on the other characters as Roddy's infatuation with Mary continues to grow. This causes a heartbroken Elinor to break of their engagement while feeling an intense rage towards Mary, even wishing she were dead.

Just before Laura passes away, she instructs Elinor to contact the solicitor so that after her death, Mary might also be provided for. This leads Elinor to believe that her Aunt Laura made a will but she hadn't - Laura died intestate. But despite her hatred of Mary, Elinor decides to do the right thing by her aunt, and leaves Mary with two thousand pounds which she readily accepts. Mary knows that this money will be life changing for her and plans to start training as a nurse - like her namesake, her mother's sister, Mary who lives in New Zealand.

Shortly after Laura's death, Mary's father Bob also passes away. The two appeared to have a very volatile relationship with Bob being very cruel and belittling to Mary, feeling that due to her level of education, Mary has ideas above her station. As Elinor has decided to sell her late aunt's estate, she writes to Mary asking her to clear her late father's belongings from the lodge. Mary does so with help from her friend, the district nurse, Jessie Hopkins. Despite not being on the warmest of terms with the two women, Elinor invites them to lunch seeing as they're all at Hunterbury, and the two women accept. At the impromptu luncheon, Elinor serves up a platter of fish paste sandwiches while Nurse Hopkins made a pot of tea which Elinor politely declined. Not long after lunch, Mary feels ill and is later found dead. It is eventually disvovered that she died of morphine poisoning. Suspicion immediately falls on the only person who'd have a motive to kill her - Elinor, who is promptly arrested.

Before Mary's death, a vial of morphine had gone missing at Hunterbury - something that greatly worried both Nurse Hopkins and Laura Welman's nurse, Nurse Eileen O'Brien. However the two women came up for a plausible excuse for the missing vial... Until Elinor Carlisle's arrest. Laura Welman's body is then exhumed, and despite having suffered a second stroke, which was believed to be the cause of death, tests revealed that Mrs. Welman had also died of morphine poisoning just like Mary did. Once again, Elinor had motive as she was to be the sole beneficiary.

However, Mrs. Welman's doctor, Dr. Peter Lord, isn't at all convinced of Elinor's guilt even though most people believe that she's behind the deaths of Mary and Laura. Secretly in love with Elinor and terrified that she will be hanged for two murders she didn't commit, Dr. Lord knows that he needs to get help for her and fast...

...Enter a certain Belgian detective, Monsieur Poirot...

THE LOVE TRIANGLE

The main focus of Sad Cypress was the Elinor-Roddy-Mary love triangle. We enjoyed this main plot, which many of us believed gave us the motive for Mary's murder, because it allowed us to focus on just a few well developed characters, plus it added the drama and tension to the storyline. It appeared to us that the relationship between Roddy and Elinor was very one-sided, with her being madly in love with him, but the feeling being not quite so mutual. While it's evident that Roddy cared for Elinor, it wasn't with the same level of passion that he had for Mary. Even Aunt Laura seemed to be aware of the one-sidedness of their relationship.

While a lot of readers were not fans of 'Rodelinor,' we have to admit that for a while, we had hoped that Roddy would realize that Elinor was the woman for him and push past his infatuation with Mary Gerrard but as we got further into the story, we could see that someone as fickle as Roddy really wasn't worthy of a strong, formidable woman like Elinor, so we're glad that they didn't get back together. And while Elinor's last appearance in the Sad Cypress was rather heart-rending, there was also hope that she might get her happy ending... Possibly with Dr. Lord?

A STRONG MORAL COMPASS, ANYONE?

There's also the inevitable theme of morality (which comes through in all Agatha Christie novels of course given the subject matter) and doing what's right. The opening chapter may have given the reader the impression that Elinor and Roddy were only interested in their inheritance, but it becomes evident as the story progresses that Elinor really does care about her aunt. Roddy does too but he's rather an inactive, self-centred man who leaves most of the Aunt Laura's care to Elinor (probably because he's too busy chasing after Mary!) And it's also quite touching that Roddy refuses to accept, showing that he does have some moral character and doesn't take advantage of Elinor's kind nature. Elinor in turn shows her ability to do the right thing, in offering to share her inheritance with Roddy - which was something they'd agreed on when they were engaged - as well as doing the right thing by Aunt Laura, by giving Mary Gerrard, a woman she hated intensely, the money Laura wanted her to have.

It was interesting how Elinor felt guilty after Mary's death because she had wished Mary dead. It was almost as though she believed that she had somehow caused Mary's death purely through the power of thought! Her private guilty thoughts were almost a self-admission of guilt to a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with just because she hated Mary and was jealous of her. Our sympathies lay with Elinor. Not only did she lose a man she was madly in love with, but she was also arrested for a murder she didn't commit. It was also terrible that the real murderer was happy for Elinor to take the blame, knowing that should she be found guilty, her fate would have meant a one-way trip to the gallows.

MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND...

We can't talk about Sad Cypress without mentioning the very prevalent theme of money, and by the time we reach the end of the novel we discover the real importance of this theme. The opening chapter tells us that both Elinor and Roddy are relying on the inheritance that will be left to either one of them by their Aunt Laura - and the fact that they're getting married means that it doesn't matter who inherits the money as they will both be gaining financially. It gives the reader the impression that perhaps their impending inheritance was the real reason for their marriage rather than an overarching sense of love and romance. Perhaps the ultimate reason for their future marriage was practicalities, sensibilities, ad economics. While we believe Elinor to have been madly in love with Roddy, it was quite common for marriages at this time to be based on practical decisions rather than romantic feelings.

OUR VERDICT

For us, the main players in this novel fell into two camps: those we liked and those we didn't. The 'don't likes' included Roddy Welman, Mary Gerrard and the two nurses who at time came across as awful.nd while Mary was a victim, we weren't fans of hers even though she wasn't a particularly horrid character. We just felt that she was a little one-dimensional and bland. We also got the feeling that she played the innocent, pretending not to notice Roddy Welman's intense feelings for her. Even the two nurses who she was good friends with told her she must have noticed. But we agree that she'd endured a sad life with a father who didn't seem to love her, and the sister of her adoptive mother plotting and scheming against her which ultimately led to Mary's death. But the biggest tragedy of all (apart from her death of course!) is that Mary never knew that the dear old lady who had paid for her schooling and gave her opportunities in life was actually her own mother. Had Mary known this it would have inevitably altered the course of her life.

The structure of Sad Cypress and the way it evolved was very interesting with the novel being divided into sections: we liked the separation of the trial, investigation and lead up to the crime. My favorite part was the investigation when Poirot was talking to each person individually. The story told mostly from Elinor's point of view; the interrogation of the suspects and the triaI enjoyed the court room scenes as seen through Elinor’s eyes. What was particularly interesting was that there were very few suspects I particularly enjoyed the part when Poirot interviewed the 'suspects' and you were with him as he tried to put the puzzle together. And I liked that it seemingly had such few suspects. Almost everything pointed to one culprit. It appeared that Elinor was the only person with a motive for wanting Mary dead.

Those of us who are huge Poirot fans - and we are - were delighted by the arrival of the Belgian detective. He didn't come into the novel immediately with most of the focus on Elinor Carlisle until then. But we knew that Poirot would be coming into the story, and we begin to look at the case through the investigative lens of a certain Monsieur Hercule Poirot! But as it's a while before he joins us in the story, we're not directly being influenced by his presence. And indeed Poirot doesn't factor so much in Sad Cypress as he has done in other novels. It appears that he is there to discover the clues; tie up the loose ends, and to help clear Elinor Carlisle's name. However, it has been argued that Poirot wasn't necessary to the telling of the story. Even Christie herself later said that she regretted including Poirot in this story. But how else would details have emerged that pointed towards the killer? I think maybe if she'd left Poirot out, she would have presented Dr. Lord in more of an investigator role, and that might have been good too.

We enjoyed the twist at the end. All throughout the novel, people and 'clues' weren't quite what they seemed (as is often the case with the suspense genre!) the motives and clues pointed to Elinor being the guilty party. Even Elinor thought she was the guilty party based on her hateful thoughts towards Mary hence why she didn't defend herself enough! But those of us who are suspense afficionados know that it's highly unlikely (though of course not impossible) for a novel to start with the real culprit being put on trial, so we suspected that Elinor was indeed innocent even though everything seemed to point to her guilt. The motive, we thought, was Elinor's jealousy, but it turned out to be the monetary greed of someone else.

While Sad Cypress is a lesser known novel out of all of Christie's work, it has all the ingredients you would expect from an Agatha Christie novel: love, betrayal, dark secrets and most of the seven deadly sins! Despite there being various subplots, by the time the novel reaches it's conclusion, they were all neatly interwoven without any loose ends. Sad Cypress is a very logical, easy-to-follow and relatable story about love, betrayal and jealousy. At some point in our lives, we've all experienced a similar situation to the characters in the novel. Many of us have loved and lost. A great deal of us have experienced some form of betrayal. We've all been insanely jealous of someone at least once in our lives. And show us one person who hasn't experienced the kind of anger that has us hoping that the person who has wronged us will get their comeuppance sooner rather than later! It's a story that all of us can relate to.

Admittedly, while we loved the structure, the storyline and many of the characters, we weren't huge fans of the ending. It just seemed to stop abruptly, and we felt that it could have done with a bit more drama during the trial. Having watched the TV episode, which we realize was not totally true to the novel - especially the ending, one thing that we did like was the high level of drama plus that it was Poirot who got to do the big reveal - something that did not happen in the novel, not even in the court room, where we would have loved for him to have done his usual speech as he puts together the pieces of the puzzle when pointing out the culprit. However Sad Cypress was an excellent read and it's a novel we're bound to pick up again in the future.

Photos: Angel Noire

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