Ngaio Marsh Her Life in Crime
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The Christmas tree party was at Roses and Mike Greene’s that year. Just a small one, with Helen Holmes and her second husband Hamish, Marjorie Chambers and Anita Muling, Jean Esquilant (a friend of Ngaio’s and the Rhodeses), Olivia Spencer Bower, and Sylvia. ‘Ngaio was in great form & looking marvellous in her Chinese coat.’
She battled on with Light Thickens until it was finished and in the post on 7 January 1982. She dedicated the book to James Laurenson, the thane, and Helen Thomas (Holmes), his lady, in ‘the University Players’ third production of Macbeth’. The manuscript was sent with the most diffident note that had ever accompanied one of her scripts. She was not sure she had pulled it off. ‘I don’t know what you will think of the result,’ she wrote to Elizabeth Walter. ‘If you feel it really is unsatisfactory may be we just scrap it?’ For the first time, Dorothy Olding considered turning it down, but in the end decided she could not. ‘I’ve had a cable from my U.S. agent: “Little Brown very pleased with Light Thickens same terms as last…congratulations & much love”.’
Ngaio was delighted, but still hovered for a response from Collins. It was a relief, though, to know that publication would go ahead in the States. The renovations had cost her ‘$40,195’. She needed to pay the bill, but did not ‘begrudge a penny’. Marton Cottage now had the perfect study lined with books, and a lift, which meant she could stay in the house. She began organizing her diary for the year. John Dacres-Mannings was planning a visit at Easter—and Jonathan Elsom, too. ‘Well, my sweetie-pie, I do hope you will be walking in, come April, & will like to stay here,’ she wrote. The aerogramme was sealed and sent by a friend. It was probably the last letter she wrote.
On 18 February, ‘Helen Holmes rang up to say Ngaio had died, which was a terrible shock,’ recalls Gerald Lascelles. She had lunch, then vomited. Mrs Berens and Helen Holmes called the doctor, who could see that the end was near and decided not to admit her to hospital; he called ambulance men to help carry her to her room. She died peacefully in her own bed two hours later. Lascelles arrived soon afterwards and rang the undertaker: ‘I thought, God, after a life of distinction, to end up in a black plastic bag’, but this was the only way of carrying her out of the house and safely down the precipitous steps.
‘The days leading up to the funeral were very demanding…particularly for Helen who did a magnificent stage managing job,’ wrote Jean Esquilant to Jonathan Elsom. It was a sad, but strangely wonderful, experience of friends together remembering old times: Helen, Jean Esquilant, Roses Greene, Gerald Lascelles, Simon Acland, ‘who was to take the funeral service, and Sylvia. ‘There is going to be a very big gap for many of us,’ Roses Greene wrote to Elsom. ‘I realise it very physically everyday I sit at the desk with the empty armchair opposite.’ The funeral was delayed until 26 February so that John Dacres-Mannings and his son could travel from Sydney. Jonathan Elsom was in England, and work commitments meant that he was unable to attend.
Christchurch Cathedral was packed, and Simon Acland began a eulogy that would have warmed even the blustering, dyspeptic heart of proud atheist Henry Marsh. He talked of the paradox of Ngaio Marsh, of a private, shy woman with a ‘chaste reticence’ who had become a public figure and touched so many lives. He talked of her contribution on the world stage and to literature, and to theatre in New Zealand, to which she had given vast amounts of time and money. The detective fiction she wrote allowed her to do this. Her gift was unstinting. ‘Publicly, in her own right, Ngaio Marsh was a great person. Privately I believe she was an even greater one.’ She was overwhelming in both generosity and loyalty to friends. Acland also spoke of the mystery of Ngaio’s age. It was only when she died that it was discovered she was four years older than most people cconsidered her to be. But this was not Ngaio’s only secret. There were others she would almost certainly take to her grave.
She spent her life writing cosy whodunits, but there is no criminal in the frame or detective to tidy up the ends in her story. Her private life remained private. Who she was physically intimate with and how she constructed and expressed those relationships will remain a mystery. The consummate crime writer is the best person in the world to destroy incriminating evidence, to litter their life with red herrings and escape detection. Ngaio wrote according to the rules of Detection Club fiction, but she lived a richly complex life that is open to diverse interpretations or readings, and embraced flux, cultural diversity, sexual ambiguity and multiple truths.
Only one person had an overview of Ngaio, and that was Sylvia Fox. She knew and loved Ngaio as no one else did. The people of Ngaio’s own generation in her intimate circle were women: Nelly Rhodes, Doris McIntosh, Anita Muling, Marjorie Chambers, Olivia Spencer Bower—and Sylvia. Her private world was female, and many of the men she felt particularly drawn to were homosexual. But although Ngaio was constant in her affections and friendships, she was never exclusive. She moved between hemispheres, cultural mores, passionate relationships, artistic, literary and theatrical circles, giving something of herself to everyone, but never enough for anybody to put her in a cosy and close the book.
A typed copy of Light Thickens arrived at Collins on the day she died, so Elizabeth Walter never had time to respond. Perhaps that was a good thing, because as it stood the manuscript was unpublishable. Embedded in the text was an essay on the direction of Macbeth, which needed to be cut so that it was less intrusive. Walter worked hard to reshape it and offered her revisions to Little, Brown. ‘I’m just delighted to be able to take advantage of your fine work,’ the senior editor, William Phillips, responded. ‘Lord knows, the book can use it. I think we all agree this is one of Ngaio’s least efforts, but ironically it may be the most commercially successful.’ He urged Walter to send the changes immediately because there was ‘already a major book club interest’. Ironically, he was right.
Light Thickens came out in England in September 1982, to excellent reviews and record sales. ‘I am delighted about this and feel the hard work on the book was well justified,’ Walter wrote to Pat Cork at Hughes Massie, ‘although I would have done it anyway for Ngaio Marsh.’
Light Thickens was Ngaio’s final curtain.
Epilogue
After the funeral arrangements for Ngaio were made, Sylvia Fox never went inside Marton Cottage again. Deborah Walton, who lived in the still-furnished house as a tenant, used to invite her over, but she never came and Walton went through the hedge to visit her. There were too many memories that Sylvia wanted to keep untouched, and of course there was the empty armchair opposite the desk. Sylvia sold her house in December 1985, and moved into a flat at Karitane Mews in Cashmere.
About a week before Sylvia died, Richard and Ginx Fox received a telephone call from Jean Esquilant to say that the end was close and that they needed to come down to Christchurch if they wanted to be with her. She died with her family around her on 6 October 1992.
Sylvia’s funeral was held at St Augustine’s Anglican church in Cashmere, and Elric Hooper gave a moving and amusing tribute. He told them how he used to say to his actors in rehearsal: ‘Now, remember, that seat in the front is Miss Fox’s, and she will be sitting there watching you.’ Sylvia’s nieces Sarah and Amanda were among her pallbearers, and as they carried the casket down the aisle they saw ‘a beautiful black cat sitting in one of the pews and the cat got up and led Sylvia out’.
‘She was really worried about where she was going to be buried…It was Simon [Acland and his sister-in-law Rosemary] who reassured Sylvia that yes, of course, when she died, she could be buried where Ngaio was out at the little church at Peel Forest.’ Sylvia’s ashes were carried out to Peel Forest by Richard, Ginx and a group of old friends, and Rosemary Acland took the committal service.
Sylvia’s headstone is beside Ngaio’s in the graveyard of the Church of the Holy Innocents. They were the closest of friends, companions and neighbours in life and will be for eternity.
Play Productions
1913 Sep The Moon Princess by Ngaio Marsh, and directed by Hele
n Burton, at the St Michael’s School Hall, Christchurch
1922 Little Housebound by Ngaio Marsh. Toured to Hastings and Havelock North (performed in Christchurch in 1924 and 1931)
1923 Sep Belinda by A.A. Milne, and The Little Stone House by George Calderon at Coral Hall
1924 Oct Bluebell in Fairyland by Seymour Hicks for Unlimited Charities at Theatre Royal
1924 Oct Little Housebound by Ngaio Marsh for Wauchop School of Drama at the Caledonian Hall
1925 Jul The Sleeping Beauty for Unlimited Charities at Theatre Royal
1935 Oct Exit Sir Derek by Ngaio Marsh and Henry Jellett for Canterbury University College Drama Society (CUCDS) at the Little Theatre
1938 Sep A Man’s House by John Drinkwater for Dunedin Repertory at His Majesty’s Theatre in Dunedin and in Christchurch at Radiant Hall
1938 Nov The Late Christopher Bean by Emlyn Williams for Dunedin Repertory at His Majesty’s Theatre in Dunedin
1939 Mar The Anatomist by James Bridie for Dunedin Repertory at His Majesty’s Theatre in Dunedin
1940 Aug The Last Hour by Charles Bennett for Ashburton Repertory at Radiant Hall
1941 Jul Outward Bound by Sutton Vane for CUCDS at Little Theatre
1941 Nov The Soul of Nicholas Snyders by Jerome K. Jerome for Ashburton Repertory at Radiant Hall
1942 Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward for Canterbury Repertory at Radiant Hall (Aug) and Wellington Repertory Theatre Society, Wellington (Dec)
1943 The Corn is Green by Emlyn Williams for Wellington Repertory, Wellington
1943 Aug Hamlet by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Little Theatre
1943 Nov Hamlet by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Little Theatre
1944 Jul Othello by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Little Theatre
1944 Oct Distant Point by Alexander Afinogenev for Canterbury Repertory at Radiant Hall
1944-1945 Hamlet and Othello toured by Dan O’Connor
1944 Dec His Majesty’s Theatre, Dunedin
1945 Jan Town Hall Concert Chamber, Auckland
1945 Jan Town Hall, Wellington
1945 Feb Radiant Hall, Christchurch
1945 Jul A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Radiant Hall
1945 Dec Henry V by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Little Theatre
1946 Jul Macbeth by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Radiant Hall
1947 Jan Macbeth toured by Dan O’Connor
Jan Concert Chamber, Auckland
Jan Concert Chamber, Wellington
1947 Sep The Anatomist by James Bridie for CUCDS at Radiant Hall
1948 Sep Six Characters in Search of an Author (Act One) by Luigi Pirandello for CUCDS (private performance for The Old Vic Company at Little Theatre)
1949 Six Characters and Othello toured Australia by Dan O’Connor
Jan Conservatorium, Sydney
Jan Albert Hall, Canberra
Feb Union Theatre, Melbourne
1950 Nov Six Characters at Embassy Theatre, Swiss Cottage
1951 British Commonwealth Theatre Company tour of Australia and New Zealand (The Devil’s Disciple by G.B. Shaw; Twelfth Night by Shakespeare; and Six Characters)
1952 Nov A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry for CUCDS at Repertory Theatre
1953 Jul Julius Caesar by Shakespeare for CUCDS in the Great Hall
1956 Aug King Lear by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1957 Jul Henry Vby Shakespeare for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1958 Jul Hamlet for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1959 Jul Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1962 Jul Macbeth for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1963 Jul Henry IV, Part 1 by Shakespeare for the CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1964 Jul Julius Caesar by Shakespeare for CUCDS at Civic Theatre
1965 Apr Two’s Company for Canterbury Repertory at the Provincial Council Chamber
1967 Jun Twelfth Night for CUCDS at the Ngaio Marsh Theatre
1969 Jun A Midsummer Night’s Dream for CUCDS at the Ngaio Marsh Theatre
1970 Nov The Magistrate by Arthur Pinero for Canterbury Repertory
1972 Oct Henry V inaugural production in the James Hay Theatre for the opening of Christchurch Town Hall
1975 Dec Sweet Mr Shakespeare by Ngaio Marsh and Jonathan Elsom at the Court Theatre
Selected Bibliography
ATL Alexander Turnbull Library
Works by Ngaio Marsh
NOVELS
A Man Lay Dead, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1934; New York, Sheridan, 1942.
Enter a Murderer, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1935; New York, Sheridan, 1942.
The Nursing-Home Murder (with Henry Jellett), London, Geoffrey Bles, 1935; New York, Sheridan, 1941.
Death in Ecstasy, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1936; New York, Sheridan, 1941.
Vintage Murder, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1937; New York, Sheridan, 1940.
Artists in Crime, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1938; New York, Furman, 1938.
Death in a White Tie, London, Collins, 1938; New York, Furman, 1938.
Overture to Death, London, Collins, 1940; New York, Furman, 1940.
Death at the Bar, London, Collins, 1940; Boston, Little, Brown, 1940.
Death of a Peer, Boston, Little, Brown, 1940; published as Surfeit of Lampreys, London, Collins, 1941.
Death and the Dancing Footman, Boston, Little, Brown, 1941; London, Collins, 1942.
Colour Scheme, London, Collins, 1943; Boston, Little, Brown, 1943.
Died in the Wool, London, Collins, 1945; Boston, Little, Brown, 1945.
Final Curtain, London, Collins, 1947; Boston, Little, Brown, 1947.
Swing, Brother, Swing, London, Collins, 1949; published as A Wreath for Rivera, Boston, Little, Brown, 1949
Opening Night, London, Collins, 1951; published as Night at the Vulcan, Boston, Little, Brown, 1951.
Spinsters in Jeopardy, Boston, Little, Brown, 1953; London, Collins, 1954; published as The Bride of Death, New York, Spivak, 1955.
Scales of Justice, London, Collins, 1955; Boston, Little, Brown, 1955.
Death of a Fool, Boston, Little, Brown, 1956; published as Off With His Head, London, Collins, 1957.
Singing in the Shrouds, Boston, Little, Brown, 1958; London, Collins, 1959.
False Scent, London, Collins, 1960; Boston, Little, Brown, 1960.
Hand in Glove, London, Collins, 1962; Boston, Little, Brown, 1962.
Dead Water, Boston, Little, Brown, 1963; London, Collins, 1964.
Killer Dolphin, Boston, Little, Brown, 1966; published as Death at the Dolphin, London, Collins, 1967.
Clutch of Constables, London, Collins, 1968; Boston, Little, Brown, 1969.
When in Rome, London, Collins, 1970; Boston, Little, Brown, 1971.
Tied Up in Tinsel, London, Collins, 1972; Boston, Little, Brown, 1972.
Black As He’s Painted, London, Collins, 1974; Boston, Little, Brown, 1974.
Last Ditch, London, Collins, 1977; Boston, Little, Brown, 1977.