Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (20 page)

‘I can’t bear the idea that she should get away with it. At the moment, the villagers have dropped the idea that either James or myself did it, but I met the horrible Mrs Boggle in
the village shop the other day, and she sneered at me darkly about “some folks can get away with murder”. If the case isn’t solved, then who knows? Everyone might start to think
that way again.’

‘I’ll let you know anything I can,’ said Bill.

‘How are things?’ asked Agatha. ‘I mean with you.’

‘Maddie? Oh, that’s finished. My mother is quite pleased, and so is Dad. I thought they would be disappointed, because they both hope to see me married.’

Agatha privately thought Mr and Mrs Wong would do anything in their power to drive off any female interested in their precious son, but did not say so, which went to show she had changed
slightly for the better. The old Agatha had been totally blind and deaf to anyone else’s feelings.

But she saw the pain at the back of Bill’s eyes and felt a surge of hatred for Maddie.

‘So what happens now with you two?’ asked Bill.

There was an awkward silence and then Agatha said brightly, ‘We’ll soon be back to normal – me in my small cottage and James in his. We can wave to each other over the
fence.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll sort something out,’ said Bill. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve given up investigating murders, Agatha. Not that you weren’t a
help in the past, but mostly because of your blundering about and making things happen.’

Agatha looked at him, outraged. ‘You can go off people, you know.’

‘Sorry. Just my joke. But you’ve nearly got yourself killed in the past. Don’t do it again.’ His face beamed. ‘I’d hate to lose you.’

Agatha smiled suddenly. ‘There are times when I wish you were much older, Bill.’

He smiled back. ‘And there are times I wish I were, Agatha.’

‘Do you want coffee, Bill?’ asked James sharply.

‘What? Oh, no, I’ve got to be going.’

Agatha followed him to the door. ‘Don’t stay away too long. When I’m back in my own place, come for dinner.’

‘That’s a date. And nothing microwaved either.’

He kissed her on the cheek and went off whistling.

‘Oh, God,’ said Agatha, coming back into the living-room, where James was moodily kicking at the rug in front of the fireplace. ‘I’ve just remembered. We’re hosting
the Ladies’ Society from Ancombe. I’d better get along to the village hall. I know what. I’ll see if Mrs Hardy wants to come.’

‘Do what you want,’ muttered James.

Agatha stared at him. ‘What’s got into you?’

‘I haven’t been writing,’ he said. He went and sat down in front of the computer and switched it on.

Agatha shrugged and went upstairs. Love sometimes came in waves, like flu, but she was temporarily free of the plague and hoped to make it permanent.

She came back downstairs whistling the same tune she had heard Bill whistling when he left. James was glowering at the screen of the computer.

‘I’m off,’ said Agatha brightly.

No reply.

‘It was nice of Bill to call.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I sometimes wonder why he bothers with me.’

‘He comes,’ said James acidly, ‘to get a tan from the light that shines from the hole in your arse.’

Agatha stared at James, her mouth dropping. James turned bright red.

‘You’re jealous,’ said Agatha slowly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. The thought of you and a man as young as Bill Wong is disgusting.’

‘But definitely intriguing,’ said Agatha. ‘See you later.’

She went out feeling an unaccustomed little surge of power.

Mrs Hardy was at home, and after a certain show of reluctance said she would accompany Agatha to the village hall.

‘What’s in store?’ asked Mrs Hardy.

‘I don’t really know,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m usually very much part of the arrangements, but with all the frights and running around, I’ve had nothing to do with
this one. But whatever it is, you’ll enjoy it.’

Agatha’s heart sank when they entered the hall and she learned from Mrs Bloxby that the Carsely Ladies’ Society were giving a concert.

‘How can we do that?’ hissed Agatha. ‘I didn’t think we had anyone who could perform anything.’

‘I think you’ll be surprised,’ said Mrs Bloxby blandly and moved away to help the grumbling Mrs Boggle out of her wraps.

Mrs Hardy and Agatha were handed printed programmes.

The first performer was to be Miss Simms, the society’s secretary, who was billed to sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

But the opening number was a line-up of the village ladies performing a Charleston, dressed in twenties outfits. Agatha blinked. Where on earth had the portly Mrs Mason come by that beaded
dress? Mrs Mason, she remembered, had threatened to leave the village after her niece had been found guilty of murder, but she had finally elected to stay and no one ever mentioned the murder. The
ladies did quite well, apart from occasionally bumping into one another on the small stage.

Then Miss Simms walked forward and adjusted the microphone. She was still wearing the skimpy flapper dress she had worn for the opening number. She opened her mouth. Her voice was thin and
reedy, screeching on the high notes and disappearing altogether in the low notes. Agatha had never realized before what a very long song it was. At last it was mercifully over. Fred Griggs then
took up a position on the stage in front of a table full of rings and scarves. Fred fancied himself as a conjurer. He got so many things wrong that the kindly village audience decided he was doing
it deliberately and laughed their appreciation. The only person not joining in the laughter was Fred, who grew more and more anguished. At last a large box like a wardrobe was wheeled on the stage,
and Fred nervously asked for a volunteer for the vanishing-lady trick.

Mrs Hardy walked straight up the aisle and climbed on the stage.

Fred whispered to her and she went into the box and he shut the door.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Fred. ‘I will now make this lady vanish.’

He waved his stick and two schoolchildren turned the box round and round.

Then Fred, with a flourish, opened the door. Mrs Hardy had vanished.

Warm applause.

Fred beamed with relief and signalled to the schoolchildren, who revolved the box again.

‘Viola!’ cried Fred. He meant
‘Voilà,’
thinking French some magical language. He opened the door. His face fell and he slammed it shut again and muttered
something to the schoolchildren. The box was revolved again.

Again Fred cried, ‘Viola!’ and opened the door.

No Mrs Hardy.

It must be part of the act, thought the audience, as Fred, with his face red and sweating, began to search inside the box.

‘You couldn’t even find my cat,’ shouted Mrs Boggle. ‘No wonder you can’t find that woman. Can’t even find your brains on a good day, Fred.’

Fred glared down at her. Then he bowed. Schoolchildren ran forward to clear his props from the stage and a villager called Albert Grange came on and began to play the spoons.

Agatha slipped out of her seat and went quickly out of the village hall. She hurried towards Lilac Lane. She was beginning to wonder if something awful had happened to Mrs Hardy.

And then, as she turned the corner into Lilac Lane, she saw the stocky figure of Mrs Hardy in front of her.

‘Mrs Hardy!’ called Agatha.

She swung round.

‘Whatever happened?’ asked Agatha, coming up to her.

‘It was such a boring, awful affair,’ said Mrs Hardy with a grin, ‘that I just walked out of the back of the box and out of the back of the hall.’

‘But poor Fred,’ protested Agatha.

‘Why bother? He’d got everything else so mucked up that I reckoned another failure wouldn’t matter.’

Agatha looked at her doubtfully. ‘It seems a bit cruel to me.’

‘I can’t make you out,’ said Mrs Hardy. ‘I know you used to run a successful business and yet here you rot, wasting your time and energy going to a dreadful affair like
that. How can you bear it? I’ve never met such a dreary bunch of yokels in my life before.’

‘They’re not dreary! They are very kind and warm-hearted.’

‘What? People like that smelly old Boggle woman? Those pathetic village women cavorting around in the Charleston? Get a life!’

Agatha’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was beginning to think you were all right. But you’re not. I’m glad you’re leaving Carsely. You don’t belong here.’

‘No one whose brains haven’t turned into mush belongs here.’

‘There are brilliant people living in the Cotswolds! Writers.’

‘Middle-aged menopausal women churning out Aga sagas about naughty doings in the vicarage? Ancient, creaking geriatrics making arrangements out of dried flowers and painting bad
watercolours and all pretending to be upper-class?’

‘Mrs Bloxby is a good example of all that is fine about village life.’

‘The vicar’s wife? A sad creature who lives through other people because she has no life of her own. Oh, don’t let’s quarrel. You like it. I don’t. I’ll see
you later.’

Agatha went slowly back to the village hall. A woman she only knew slightly was at the microphone singing ‘Feelings’. Mr and Mrs Boggle had fallen asleep.

Agatha sat down and looked about her. Mrs Hardy’s words seeped like poison into her brain. How pathetic and shabby the village hall looked. Rain had begun to fall, blurring the high
windows. Surely there
was
more to life than this. Perhaps her loneliness had caused her to look at the whole thing through a pair of distorting, rose-tinted glasses. And what of her
non-relationship with James? A woman of any maturity, of any guts and courage would have given him up as a bad job. And what would married life with him have been like anyway? He was handsome and
clever, but so self-contained, so
cold,
that even if they were married, life would be pretty much the same. And what about sex? Didn’t he miss it? Didn’t he ever think of the
nights they had spent together?

It seemed to Agatha that he preferred to return to a life of celibacy, a celibacy broken by a few affairs.

She had never really given London a chance. Yes, she had been friendless there, but that was because of the way she had gone on. She had changed. She had invested the money from the sale of her
business very well. She would not need to work if she returned to London.

The concert mercifully drew to a close with the cast singing ‘That’s Entertainment’.

Then there was a general movement as chairs were drawn back and tables were set out for the lunch in honour of the Ancombe ladies. Agatha shivered. The hall was cold. Lunch turned out to be the
inevitable quiche and salad. There was not even any home-made wine to wash it down, as there usually was at these functions, only rather dusty tea.

Conversation was desultory. Agatha looked around. What have I done? she wondered. How could I ever have thought I would fit in here? I don’t really belong. I wasn’t born in a
village, I was born in a Birmingham slum, where trees and flowers were things you ripped out of the earth as soon as they dared to show a leaf. There was a lot to be said after all for anonymous
London. Perhaps Bill Wong would come up and visit her from time to time. Well, maybe Mrs Bloxby, too. As for James . . . well, she, Agatha Raisin, was worth better than James Lacey. She wanted a
man with red blood in his veins, a man capable of intimacy, warmth, affection.

‘Dark thoughts?’

The woman who had been sitting at one of the long tables next to Agatha had left. Mrs Bloxby had slid into her place.

‘I don’t really belong here,’ said Agatha, waving a hand about the room. ‘And do you know, I’m worth better than James. I want someone capable of intimacy. I
don’t mean sex. I mean warmth and affection.’

Mrs Bloxby looked at her doubtfully. ‘I have thought that perhaps the attraction James Lacey holds for you is because he lacks those things. By the very absence of them, the relationship
lacks proper commitment. It did cross my mind recently that you were more like two bachelors living together than man and woman. And I wonder how you would cope with a man who demanded intimacy and
love and affection from you, Mrs Raisin.’

‘Agatha.’

‘Yes of course, Agatha.’

‘I should think myself in seventh heaven.’

‘Why this sudden disgust at Carsely and all who sail in her?’

Agatha bit her lip. She was too proud to admit she had been influenced by Mrs Hardy.

‘I just thought of it,’ she said.

The vicar’s wife studied her averted face for a moment and then said, ‘I saw you leave the hall shortly after Mrs Hardy disappeared. Did you find her?’

‘Yes, she was heading home.’

‘Did she give any reason for humiliating Fred Griggs in that way?’

Agatha still did not want to repeat any of Mrs Hardy’s remarks about the village and villagers.

‘I think Mrs Hardy considered Fred had already humiliated himself and wanted to leave and saw a convenient way to do it.’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bloxby, ‘perhaps my first impression of her was right.’

‘That being?’

‘That she was an unkind and unhappy woman.’

‘Oh, no, I think she’s a bit like me, used to a faster pace of life.’

‘Is that what she tried to make you think?’

‘I am not influenced by what anyone says to me,’ said Agatha defiantly.

‘And yet you have appeared quite contented with all us rustics up till now.’

‘Perhaps it’s the cold in this hall and the weather, and that was a truly dreadful concert,’ said Agatha.

‘Yes, it was awful, wasn’t it? But then the Ancombe ladies’ concert was pretty dire as well.’

‘Why do they do it to each other?’

‘Everyone likes their moment on stage. There’s a bit of the failed actor in all of us. At these village affairs, everyone gets a chance to perform, no matter how bad they are. People
applaud and are kind, because all of them want their time in the limelight as well.’

The old steam radiators against the wall gave a preliminary rattle.

‘There you are,’ said Mrs Bloxby, ‘the heating has come on. And look, the Ancombe ladies have brought a case of apple brandy, so we can all have a drink during the speeches.
The atmosphere will soon lighten.’