by M C Beaton
The leader of them was a rangy middle-aged woman in a sleeveless padded jacket over a checked shirt. She was wearing corduroy trousers which bagged at the knee. "I'm Harriet Freemantle," she said. "I've brought you a cake. We all belong to the Fryfam Women's Group. Let me introduce you. This is Amy Worth." A small, faded woman in a droopy dress smiled shyly and handed Agatha a jar of chutney. "And Polly Dart." Large tweedy county woman with beetling eyebrows and an incipient moustache. "Brought you some of my scones," she boomed. "I'm Carrie Smiley." The last to come forward was youngish, about thirty-something, with dark hair, dark eyes, good figure in T-shirt and jeans. "I've brought along some of my elderberry wine."
"Come in, please," said Agatha. She led the way into the kitchen.
"They've done old Cutler's place quite nicely," said Harriet, as she and the others put their presents on the kitchen table.
"Cutler?" said Agatha, plugging in the kettle.
"An old man who lived here for ages. His daughter rents it," said Amy. "The cottage was a terrible mess when he died. He never threw anything away."
"I'm surprised the daughter didn't just sell it. Must be difficult to rent."
"Don't know about that," said Harriet. "You're the first."
"Coffee, everyone?" asked Agatha. There was a chorus of assent. "And perhaps we'll have some of Mrs. Freemantle's cake."
"Harriet. It's all first names."
"As you probably already know, I'm Agatha Raisin. I belong to a ladies' society in my home village of Carsely."
"A ladies' society?" exclaimed Carrie. "Is that what you call it?"
"We're a bit old-fashioned," said Agatha. "And we call each other by our second names." Harriet was efficiently cutting a delicious chocolate cake into slices and arranging the slices on plates. I'll put on pounds if I'm not careful, thought Agatha. First that enormous meal at the pub and now chocolate cake.
When the coffee was poured, they all took their cups and plates through to the sitting-room. "Should I light the fire?" asked Agatha.
"No, we're all warm enough," said Harriet without consulting the others.
"I think they might at least have had some sort of central heating," complained Agatha. "The rental was expensive enough without having to pay for wood."
"Oh, but you've plenty of wood," said Polly. "There's a shed at the bottom of the garden full of logs."
"I didn't see it. But it was dark when I arrived. Oh, by the way, I saw these odd lights dancing about at the bottom of the garden."
There was a silence and then Carrie asked, "Is anything missing?"
"I'm just in the middle of checking the inventory, so I don't know. Why?"
There was another silence.
Then Harriet said, "We wondered whether you would like to be an honorary member of our woman's group while you're here. We're quilting."
"What's that?" mumbled Agatha, her mouth full of cake. Why wouldn't they talk about those lights?
"We're making patchwork quilts. You know, we sew squares of coloured cloth onto old blankets."
Competitive as ever, Agatha Raisin would not admit she could not sew. "Sounds like fun," she lied. "Might drop in sometime. It is so very kind of you all to bring me all those presents."
"Tonight," said Harriet. "We meet tonight. I'll come and pick you up at seven o'clock, right after evening service. Are you C of E?"
"Yes," said Agatha, who wasn't really anything but felt that her friendship with Mrs. Bloxby qualified her for membership in the Church of England.
"Oh, in that case, I'll see you in church this evening and we'll go on from there," said Harriet.
Agatha was just about to lie and say she was feeling too poorly to go anywhere, when Polly said abruptly, "Well, go on. Tell us about your broken heart."
Agatha reddened. "What are you talking about?"
"When we heard you were coming," said Harriet, "and that you lived in a village in the Cotswolds, we wondered why you would want to rent in another village and so we decided you had man trouble and wanted to get away."
I'm going off you lot rapidly, thought Agatha. She smiled round at them all, that shark-like smile which meant Agatha Raisin was about to tell a whopping lie.
"Actually I'm writing a book at the moment," she said. "I wanted somewhere to write and have peace and quiet. You see, old friends from London keep dropping down on visits and I don't have enough time for myself. I'll go along with you to-night, but I am afraid I'm going to be a bit of a recluse."
"What are you writing?" asked Amy.
"A detective story."
"What's it called?"
"Death at the Manor," said Agatha, improvising wildly.
"And who's your detective?"
"A baronet."
"You mean you're doing another sort of Lord Peter Wimsey?"
"Do you mind if I don't talk about my work anymore?" said Agatha. "I don't like discussing it."
"Just tell us," said Amy, leaning forward. "Have you had any published?"
"No, this is my first attempt. I am a real-life detective, so I thought I may as well fictionalize some of my adventures."
"You mean you work for the police?" asked Harriet.
"I occasionally work with the police," said Agatha grandly. She proceeded to brag about her cases. To her irritation, just as she had got to the exciting bit of one of them, Harriet rose and said abruptly, "Sorry, we've got to go."
Agatha saw them out. She walked with them down to the garden gate and waved them goodbye. She stayed leaning on the gate, enjoying the sunshine.
Harriet's voice travelled back to her ears. "Of course she was lying."
"Do you think so?" Amy's voice.
"Oh, yes. Not a word of truth in any of it. Woman probably can't write a word."
Agatha clenched her fists. Jealous cow. She would show her. She would write a book. Writing was writing and she had written enough press releases in her days as a public relations officer. She had brought her computer and printer with her. She began to feel quite excited. When her name topped the bestseller list, then James would sit up and take notice.
On her road back to the house, she peered over the hedge at the driveway at the side of the house where her car was parked. What had they meant by asking if anything was missing?
She opened the kitchen door and went down to the bottom of the garden, finding a shed behind a stand of trees. It was full of logs. She returned to the kitchen with the cats scampering at her heels. At least they're happy with the place, she thought. She fed them and returned to checking the inventory, but all the while wondering about her visitors. Did they have husbands? They couldn't all be widows.
After she had finished ticking off everything on the inventory, she scraped out the contents of Genuine Bengali Curry into a pot. She would need to buy a microwave. She ate the hot mess and then decided to get down to writing that book.
She set up the computer on the kitchen table, typed in "Chapter One," and then stared at the screen. She found that instead of writing that book, she was beginning to write down excuses to get out of quilting. "I suffer from migraine." No good. They'd all call around with pills. "Something urgent has come up." What? She decided to spend a useful day unpacking the rest of her stuff.
The gardener called during the afternoon and asked her if there was anything in particular she would like done. Agatha said she would like him to sweep the leaves, mow the lawn and keep the flower-beds tidy. He was a young man, muscled and tattooed, with a thick thatch of nut-brown hair. He said his name was Barry Jones and he would call round on the next day. Agatha thanked him and as he turned to go, she said, "Do you know anything about odd lights? I saw odd little lights dancing around at the bottom of the garden last night."
He did not even turn around. "Reckon I don't know nothing about that," he said and walked away with a rapid pace.
There's something odd about those lights, thought Agatha. Maybe it's some wretched poisonous insect and the locals don't want to put off visitors to the v
illage by telling them about it.
She went back to her housekeeping duties, wondering as she hung away clothes whether the log fires would be enough to keep the house warm in a cold spell. The estate agent should have warned her.
When she realized it was nearly six o'clock, she began to wonder whether she should get out of going to church and then quilting. She checked the TV guide she had brought with her. There was nothing much on. And, she realized, she was lonely.
She locked up and walked round to the church in time for evensong. To her amazement, in these godless days, the church was full. The vicar's sermon dealt with faith as opposed to superstition, and Agatha's mind drifted back to those lights. There was a closed, inbred anachronistic feel to this village. All across the world raged fire and floods and famine. Yet here in Fryfam, hatted ladies and suited gents raised their voices in "Abide With Me" as if nothing existed outside their safe English world governed by the changing seasons and the church calendar: Michaelmas, Candlemas, Harvest Festival, Advent, Christmas.
She waited in the churchyard. Harriet approached her surrounded by the three others she had met earlier. They were wearing the same clothes but had put on hats--Harriet a felt pudding basin, Amy a straw, Polly Dart a tweed fishing hat and Carrie sporting a baseball cap.
Agatha, who had changed into a tailored trouser suit and silk blouse, felt almost overdressed.
"Right," said Harriet. "Off we go!"
A couple passed their group, arguing acrimoniously. "Don't be such a bore Tolly," said the woman. A waft of Gucci's Envy reached Agatha's nostrils. She paused, looking after the couple. The woman had what Agatha thought of as the "new" beauty, meaning others admired it. She had blond hair worn down to her shoulders. She was wearing a well-tailored tweed suit, the skirt of which had a slit up one side, revealing a well-shaped leg clothed in a ten-denier stocking--stockings, not tights, for the slit was long enough to show a flash of stocking top. Her eyes were pale blue and well set apart. She had high cheek-bones, but her nose was set too close to her mouth and her long mouth too close to her square chin. He was older, small, plump and choleric, with thinning hair and a high colour.
"Come on, Agatha," ordered Harriet.
"Who are they? That couple?"
"Oh, that's our squire, self-appointed, made his money out of bathroom showers, and his wife, Lucy. The Trumpington-Jameses. Funny, isn't it," said Harriet, her voice carrying across the churchyard. "Not so long ago a double-barrelled name denoted a lady or gentleman. Now it means it's some lower-middle-class parvenu."
"Are you being a bit snobby?" asked Agatha.
"No," said Harriet. "They're quite awful, as you'll find out."
"How will I find out?"
"They'll think it their squire-archical duty to welcome the newcomer. You'll see."
"Where are we going?"
"My place."
Harriet's place was on the far side of the green, a square early Victorian house.
Leading the way into a large, if gloomy, sitting-room, Harriet switched on the lamps and said, "Anyone for a drink first?" And before a grateful Agatha could ask for a gin and tonic, Harriet said, "I know, we'll have some of Carrie's elderberry wine."
Agatha looked about her. The room had long windows and a high ceiling but was crowded with heavy pieces of furniture. The walls were painted a dull green and hung with dingy paintings of horses or dead game.
Amy was getting blankets and boxes of cloth and sewing implements out of a large chest in the comer.
"I think you should share a quilt with Carrie," said Amy. "You work on the one end and she'll work on the other. If you sit side by side, you can spread the blanket out between you."
Harriet returned with a tray of glasses full of elderberry wine. Agatha sipped hers cautiously. It was very sweet and tasted slightly medicinal.
"Are we all widows here?" asked Agatha, looking around. "No husbands?"
"My husband's in the pub with Amy's and Polly's," said Harriet. "Carrie's divorced."
"I thought the pub was closed on Sundays. I went round at lunch-time and it was closed."
"Opens Sunday evenings." Harriet drained her glass and put it back on the tray. "We'd best get started."
It should be simple, thought Agatha, as Carrie handed her a little pile of squares of cloth. Just stitch them on.
"Not like that," said Carrie, as Agatha stabbed a needle into the edge of one. "You hem it first and then stitch it on and unpick the hem." Agatha scowled horribly and proceeded to try to hem a slippery little square of silk. Just as soon as it got a stitch in it, the silk frayed at the edges. She surreptitiously dropped it on the floor and picked out a piece of coloured wool. She glanced sideways at Carrie, who was placing neat little, almost invisible, stitches, rapidly in squares of material.
She decided to start up a conversation to try to distract the others from her amateur sewing. "Mrs. Wilden at the pub treated me to an excellent meal last night. She's quite stunningly beautiful."
"Pity she's got the morals of a tom-cat," snapped Polly, biting a thread with strong yellow teeth.
"Oh, really?" said Agatha, looking around curiously at the set faces. "I found her rather sweet."
"Good thing you're not married." Amy sounding almost tearful.
"When did your husband die, Agatha?" asked Carrie.
"A while back," said Agatha. "I don't want to talk about it." She did not want to tell them her husband had been murdered right after he had surfaced from the past to stop her marrying James Lacey. "I'm still wondering about those lights," she went on. She noticed with surprise that because of the distraction of talking she had actually managed to hem a square of cloth.
"Have you seen them again?" asked Harriet.
"No."
"Well, there you are. You were probably tired after the long drive and thought you saw them."
Agatha gave up on the subject of the lights. She was sure these women probably gossiped easily among themselves. She was the outsider, not yet accepted, and that was putting the brakes on any conversation.
She felt she was being let out of school when Harriet said after an hour, "Well, that's it for tonight."
As Agatha was leaving, she stopped to admire an arrangement of autumn leaves in a vase in the hall. Harriet lifted out the bunch of leaves and thrust it at Agatha. "Take it," she said. "I dip the leaves in glycerine so they should last you the winter."
Agatha walked homewards bearing the leaves. She remembered there was a large stone jar on the floor by the fireplace in the sitting-room. She let herself into the cottage, glad that she had brought her cats for company as Hodge and Boswell undulated about her ankles.
She walked through to the kitchen and put the bunch of leaves on the kitchen counter. She looked out the window and the dancing lights were there again.
Agatha unlocked the door and walked down the garden. The lights had disappeared.
Muttering to herself, she walked back to the house. Something funny was going on. She had not imagined those lights and there was nothing wrong with her eyesight.
She walked through to the sitting-room to get that vase. It was no longer there. Agatha began to wonder if she had imagined it. She took the inventory out of the kitchen drawer. Yes, there it was under "Contents of Sitting-Room"--one pottery vase.
Agatha suddenly felt threatened. She checked the doors were locked and went up to bed. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she had not had any dinner, but the thought of going downstairs again frightened her. She bathed and undressed and crawled under the duvet and pulled it over her head to shut out the terrors of the night.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 65faf33a-385c-4b58-9466-6b425370a36a
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 14.9.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.67, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
M.C. Beaton
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