A better strong female character

I had forgotten how much I enjoy Agatha Christie’s writing, especially the way she draws her characters. Even the bit players are vivid and true to life, and the way that she describes people is so insightful into what makes them tick.

That’s why she was such a great (albeit somewhat infuriating) mystery writers.

I’ve been reading 4:50 from Paddington, and Lucy Eyelesbarrow has quickly rocketed to the top of my favorite Christie characters.

The name of Lucy Eyelesbarrow had already made itself felt in certain circles.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow was thirty-two. She had taken a First in Mathematics at Oxford, was acknowledged to have a brilliant mind and was confidently expected to take up a distinguished academic career.

But Lucy Eyelesbarrow, in addition to scholarly brilliance, had a core of good sound common sense. She could not fail to observe that a life of academic distinction was singularly ill rewarded. she had no desire whatever to teach and she took pleasure in contacts with minds much less brilliant than her own. In short, she had a taste for the people, all sorts of people–and not the same people the whole time. She also, quite frankly, liked money. To gain money one must exploit shortage.

Lucy Eyelesbarrow hit at once upon a very serious shortage–the shortage of any kind of skilled domestic labour. To the amazement of her friends and fellow-scholars, Lucy Eyelesbarrow entered the field of domestic labour.

Her success was immediate and assured. By now, after a lapse of some years, she was known all over the British Isles. It was quite customary for wives to say joyfully to husbands, “It will be all right, I can go with you to the States. I’ve got Lucy Eyelesbarrow!” The point of Lucy Eyelesbarrow was that once she came into a house, all worry, anxiety and hard work went out of it. Lucy Eyelesbarrow did everything, saw to everything, arranged everything. She was unbelieveably competent in every conceivable sphere. She looked after elderly parents, accepted the care of young children, nursed the sickly, cooked divinely, got on well with any old crusted servants there might happen to be (there usually weren’t), was tactful with impossible people, soothed habitual drunkards, was wonderful with dogs. Best of all she never minded what she did. She crubbed the kitched floor, dug in the garden, cleaned up dog messes, and carried coals!

One of her rules was never to accept an engagement for any long length of time. A fortnight was her usual period–a month at most under exceptional circumstances. For that fortnight you had to pay the earth! But, during that fortnight, your life was heaven. You could relax completely, go abroad, stay at home, do as you pleased, secure that all was going well on the home front in Lucy Eyelesbarrow’s  capable hands.

Naturally the demand for her services was enormous. She could have booked herself up if she chose for about three years ahead. She had been offered enormous sums to go as a permanency. But Lucy had no intention of being a permanency, nor would she book herself for more than six months ahead. And within that period, unknown to her clamouring clients, she always kept certain free periods which enabled her either to take a short luxurious holiday (since she spent nothing otherwise and was handsomely paid and kept) or to accept any position at short notice that happened to take her fancy, either by reason of its character, or because she “liked the people.” Since she was now at liberty to pick and choose amongst the vociferous claimants for her services, she went largely by personal liking. Mere riches would not buy you the services of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. She could pick and choose and she did pick and choose. She enjoyed her life very much and found in it a continual source of entertainment.

Now, leaving aside the fact that Lucy Eyelesbarrow is a very convenient character to have on hand for this book (I hope she will have a very integral role to play in solving the mystery, otherwise the Mary Sue-factor is too large to ignore), there are a few things that I quite like about her:

1. She’s not conceited. Yes, she’s smart, but she chose to do something that she genuinely enjoyed, that entertained her, and that made her money, instead of taking the expected career path.
2. She’s her own dog, which is something I’m working on. Her schedules are made on her terms, she took vacations whenever she wanted, and booked the clients that she liked.
3. Her business model. Find a shortage of something, and then be the best at it.
4. Competence competence competence
5. It’s rare to find a 30-something single lady in a book of a certain age without some reference to the fact that she’s single. I like that, since it’s pretty irrelevant to the plot, Christie left it out.

Basically she’s Mary Poppins but without the weird Mary Poppins contradictions and the timelord magic. She’s the type of lady (real or fictional) that I admire greatly, and I’ll be contemplating how I can apply these (fictional) ideas to my own business ideas.