Agatha Raisin 12-The Day the Floods Came

by Beaton, MC

  At the end of the service it took ages to get out of the church. So many wanted to chat to the curate, now stationed on the porch. At last, it was Agatha’s turn. Tristan gazed into her eyes and held her hand firmly.

  “Beautiful sermon,” gushed Agatha.

  He smiled warmly at her. “I am glad you could come to church,” he said. “Do you live far away or are you from the village?”

  “I live here. In Lilac Lane,” gabbled Agatha. “Last cottage.”

  John coughed impatiently behind her and Agatha reluctantly moved on.

  “Isn’t he incredible?” exclaimed Agatha as they walked to the local pub, the Red Lion, where they had agreed earlier to have lunch.

  “Humph” was John’s only reply.

  So when they were seated in the pub over lunch, Agatha went on, “I don’t think I have ever seen such a beautiful man. And he’s tall, too! About six feet, would you say?”

  “There’s something not quite right about him,” said John. “It wasn’t a sparkling sermon, either.”

  “Oh, you’re just jealous.”

  “Believe it or not, Agatha, I am not in the slightest jealous. I would have thought that you, of all people, would not fall for a young man simply because of his looks like all those other silly women.”

  “Oh, let’s talk about something else,” said Agatha sulkily. “How’s the new book going?”

  John began to talk and Agatha let his words drift in and out of her brain while she plotted about ways and means to see the curate alone. Could she ask for spiritual guidance? No, he might tell Mrs. Bloxby and Mrs. Bloxby would see through that ruse. Maybe dinner? But she was sure he would be entertained and fêted by every woman in not only Carsely, but in the villages around.

  “Don’t you think so?” she realized John was asking.

  “Think what?”

  “Agatha, you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said I think I’ll write a book and call it Death of a Curate.”

  “I’ve got a headache,” lied Agatha. “That’s why I wasn’t concentrating on what you were saying.”

  Agatha felt restless and discontented when she returned home. She had started to make up her face again and wear her most elegant clothes. Surely her meetings with the curate were not going to be confined to one-minute talks on a Sunday on the church porch.

  The doorbell rang. Ever hopeful, Agatha checked her hair and make-up in the hall mirror before opening the door. Miss Simms, the secretary of the ladies’ society, stood there.

  “Come in,” urged Agatha, glad of any diversion.

  Miss Simms teetered after Agatha on her high heels. Because of the heat of the day, she was wearing the minimum: tube top, tiny skirt and no tights. Agatha envied women who were able to go around in hot weather without stockings or tights. When she went barelegged, her shoes rubbed her heels and the top of her feet and raised blisters.

  “Isn’t he gorgeous,” gasped Miss Simms, flopping down on a kitchen chair. “I saw you in church.”

  “The curate? Yes, he’s quite something to look at.”

  “He’s more than that,” breathed Miss Simms. “He’s got the gift.”

  “What gift? Speaking in tongues?”

  “Nah! Healing. I had this terrible pain in me back and I met him in the village and told him about it. He took me back to his place and he laid his hands on my back and I could feel a surge of heat.”

  I’ll bet you could, thought Agatha, sour with jealousy.

  “And the pain had gone, just like that!”

  “What about your gentleman friend in bathroom fittings?”

  Miss Simms giggled. “He wouldn’t have to know. Anyway, he’s married.”

  The normally pushy Agatha was beginning to feel out classed. Besides, Tristan was young—well, maybe thirtysomething, and Miss Simms was in her late twenties.

  When Miss Simms had left, Agatha nervously paced up and down. She jerked open a kitchen drawer and found herself looking down at a packet of cigarettes. She took it out, opened it and lit one. Glory be! It tasted marvellous. The hypnotist’s curse had gone. She hung on to the kitchen table until the first wave of dizziness had passed. Think what you’re doing to your health, your lungs, screamed the governess in her head. “Shove off,” muttered Agatha to the inner voice.

  There was another ring at the doorbell. Probably some other woman come to gloat about a laying-on of hands by the curate, thought Agatha sourly.

  She jerked open the door.

  Tristan stood there, smiling at her.

  Agatha blinked at the vision in blue shirt and blue chinos. “Oh, Mr. Delon,” she said weakly. “How nice.”

  “Call me Tristan,” he said. “I noticed you at church on Sunday. And I heard that you used to live in London. I’m still a city boy and still out of my depth in the country. This is very last minute, but I wondered whether you would be free to have dinner with me tonight?”

  “Yes, that would be lovely,” said Agatha, wishing she had put on a thicker layer of make-up. “Where?”

  “Oh, just at my place, if that’s all right.”

  “Lovely. What time?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “Fine. Won’t you come in?”

  “Not now. On my rounds. See you this evening.”

  He gave her a sunny smile and waved and walked off down the lane.

  Agatha retreated to the kitchen. Her knees were trembling. Remember your age, snarled the voice in her head. Agatha ignored it and lit another cigarette while she planned what to wear. No more sensible clothes. She did not stop to consider what gossip the curate had heard that had prompted him to ask her to dinner. Agatha considered herself a very important person, which was her way of lacquering-over her feelings of inferiority.

  By the time she stepped out into the balmy summer evening some hours later in a gold silk dress, the bedroom behind her in the cottage was a wreck of discarded clothes. The dress was a plain shirt-waister, Agatha having decided that full evening rig would not be suitable for dinner in a village cottage.

  She kept her face averted as she passed the vicarage and knocked at Mrs. Feathers’s door. She had not told Mrs. Bloxby about the invitation, feeling that lady would not approve.

  Old Mrs. Feathers answered the door. She was grey-haired and stooped and had a mild, innocent face. “Just go on upstairs,” she said.

  Agatha mounted the narrow cottage stairs. Tristan opened a door at the top. “Welcome,” he said. “How nice and cool you look.”

  He ushered Agatha into a small room where a table had been laid with a white cloth for dinner.

  “We’ll start right away,” he said. He opened the door and shouted down the stairs, “You can start serving now, Mrs. Feathers.”

  “Doesn’t she need some help?” asked Agatha anxiously.

  “Oh, no. Don’t spoil her fun. She likes looking after me.”

  But Agatha felt awkward as Mrs. Feathers subsequently appeared carrying a heavy tray. She laid out two plates of pate de foie gras, toast melba, a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses. “Just call when you’re ready for your next course,” she said.

  Agatha sat down. Mrs. Feathers spread a large white napkin on Agatha’s lap before creaking off.

  Tristan poured wine and sat down opposite her. “Now,” he said, “tell me what brings a sophisticated lady like yourself to a Cotswold village?”

  Agatha told him that she had always had a dream of living in a Cotswold village. She left out the bit about taking early retirement because she did not want to refer to her age. And all the time she talked and ate, she admired the beauty of the curate opposite. He had the face of an angel come to earth with his cherubic, almost androgynous face framed by his gold curls, but his athletic, well-formed body was all masculine.

  Tristan rose and called for the second course. Mrs. Feathers appeared bearing tournedos Rossini, new potatoes and salad.

  “Isn’t Mrs. Feathers an excellent cook?” said Tristan when they were alone again.


  “Very,” said Agatha. “This steak is excellent. Where did you buy it?”

  “I leave all the shopping to Mrs. Feathers I told her to make a special effort.”

  “She didn’t pay for all this, I hope?”

  “Mrs. Feathers insists on paying for my food.”

  Agatha looked at him uneasily. Surely an old widow like Mrs. Feathers could not afford all this expensive food and wine. But Tristan seemed to take it as his due and he continued to question her about her life until the steak was finished and Mrs. Feathers brought in baked Alaska.

  “I’ve talked about nothing but myself,” said Agatha ruefully. “I don’t know a thing about you.”

  “Nothing much to know,” said Tristan.

  “Where were you before you came down here?”

  “At a church in New Cross in London. I ran a boys’ club there, you know, get them off the streets. It was going well until I was attacked.”

  “What on earth happened?”

  “One of the gang leaders felt I was taking his members away. Five of them jumped me one night when I was walking home. I was badly beaten up, cracked ribs, all that. To tell the truth, I had a minor nervous breakdown and I felt a spell in the country would be just what I needed.”

  “How awful for you,” said Agatha.

  “I’m over it now. These things happen.”

  “What made you want to join the church?”

  “I felt I could help people.”

  “And are you happy here?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Bloxby likes me. I think he’s a bit jealous.”

  “He’s a difficult man. I’m afraid he doesn’t like me either.” Both of them laughed, drawn together by the vicar’s dislike of them.

  “You were saying you had been involved in some detection. Tell me about that?”

  So Agatha bragged away happily over dessert, over coffee, until, noticing it was nearly midnight, she reluctantly said she should leave.

  “Before you go,” he said, “I have a talent for playing the stock exchange. I make fortunes for others. Want me to help you?”

  “I’ve got a very good stockbroker,” said Agatha. “But I’ll let you know.”

  Somehow, she expected him to offer to walk her home, but he led the way downstairs and then stood facing her at the bottom. “My turn next time,” said Agatha.

  “I’ll keep you to that.” He bent and kissed her gently on the mouth. She stared up at him, dazed. He opened the door. “Good night, Agatha.”

  “Good night, Tristan,” she said faintly.

  The door shut behind her. Over at the vicarage, Mrs. Bloxby’s face appeared briefly at an upstairs window and then disappeared.

  Agatha walked home sedately although she felt like running and jumping and cheering.

  It was only when she reached her cottage that she realized she had not set a date for another dinner. She did not even know his phone number. She searched the phone book until she found a listing for Mrs. Feathers. He would not be asleep already. She dialled. Mrs. Feathers answered the phone. Agatha asked to speak to Tristan and waited anxiously.

  Then she heard his voice. “Yes?”

  “This is Agatha. We forgot to set a date for dinner.”

  There was a silence. Then he gave a mocking little laugh and said, “Keen, aren’t you? I’ll let you know.”

  “Good night,” said Agatha quickly and dropped the receiver like a hot potato.

  She walked slowly into her kitchen and sat down at the table, her face flaming with mortification.

  “You silly old fool,” said the voice in her head, and for once Agatha sadly agreed.

  Her first feeling when she awoke the next day was that she never wanted to see the curate again. She felt he had led her on to make a fool of herself. A wind had got up and rattled through the dry thatch on the roof overhead and sent small dust devils dancing down Lilac Lane outside. She forced herself to get out of bed and face the day ahead. What if Tristan was joking with Mrs. Bloxby about her? She made herself her customary breakfast of black coffee and decided to fill up the watering cans and water the garden as the radio had announced a hose-pipe ban. She was half-way down the garden when she heard sirens rending the quiet of the village. She slowly put down the watering can and stood, listening. The sirens swept past the end of Lilac Lane and up in the direction of the church and stopped.

  Agatha dropped the watering can and fled through the house and out into the lane. Her flat sandals sending up spirals of dust; she ran on in the direction of the vicarage. Please God, she prayed, let it not be Mrs. Bloxby.

  There were three police cars and an ambulance. A crowd was gathering. Agatha saw John Fletcher, the landlord from the Red Lion and asked him, “Is someone hurt? What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  They waited a long time. Hazy clouds covered the hot sun overhead. The wind had died and all was still. Rumour buzzed through the crowd. It was the vicar, it was Mrs. Bloxby, it was the curate.

  A stone-faced policeman was on duty outside the vicarage. He refused to answer questions, simply saying, “Move along there. Nothing to see.”

  A white-coated forensic unit arrived. People began to drift off. “I’d better open up,” said the publican. “We’ll find out sooner or later.”

  Agatha was joined by John Armitage. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Agatha. “I’m terrified something’s happened to Mrs. Bloxby.”

  Then Agatha’s friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, came out of the vicarage accompanied by a policewoman.

  “Bill!” called Agatha.

  “Later,” he said. He and the policewoman went to Mrs. Feathers’s small cottage and knocked at the door. The old lady opened the door to them. They said something. She put a trembling hand up to her mouth and they disappeared inside and shut the door.

  “There’s your answer,” said John Armitage.

  “It’s the curate and he’s dead because that ambulance hasn’t moved!”

  AGATHA RAISIN AND THE THE DAY THE FLOODS CAME

  Copyright © 2002 by M. C. Beaton

  Excerpt from Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate © 2003 by M. C. Beaton.

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  eISBN 9781429901604

  First eBook Edition : February 2011

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002017141

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / July 2002

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / October 2003