Excerpt from Agatha's biography:
“They met at a dance, both were excellent dancers, there was an immediate attraction. A few days later, he borrowed a friend’s motorbike and called unexpectedly at Ashfield. Agatha was at the house of a friend, but she quickly responded to Clara’s anxious summons to come home at once. From the first moment, Clara was not to feel at ease with Archie, never wholly to like him or trust him. Archie was certainly good looking, and not doubt brave, but he had absolutely no money of his own and no immediate prospects of earning much. The bluntness, directness, and impetuosity, the sheer machismo of Archie, did nothing to reassure Clara, who feared for the happiness of her shy, introverted, romantic daughter as the wife of such a man. Clara was clear sighted about Archie in a way Agatha could not be. Agatha fell in love with Archie because he was different, other, a stranger whose mind she could not read. Clara, no doubt, did everything she could to prevent the marriage. But Agatha persisted in seeing the relationship between Archie and herself as a romance. They had no money. They had almost nothing in common. She was already engaged to someone else. He was very likely to be killed in the war then raging. Agatha’s beloved mother deeply distrusted Archie. Two years of tears, struggle, and separation followed, but at last passion prevailed and Archie and Agatha went out and were married on a day’s notice on Christmas Eve, 1914. "
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