The door closed. Well, well, thought Agatha. That was easy. Must be a pair of free-loaders, which means my quiche stands a good chance.
She strolled back through the village, mechanically smiling and answering the greetings of
'Mawning' from the passers-by. So there were worms in this charming polished apple, mused Agatha. The majority of the villagers were working and lower-middle class and extremely civil and friendly. If Mrs. Barr and Mrs. Cummings-Browne were anything to go by, it was the no doubt self-styled upper class of in comers who were rude. A drift of cherry blossom blew down at Agatha's feet. The golden houses glowed in the sunlight. Prettiness did not necessarily invite pretty people. The in comers had probably bought their dinky cottages when prices were low and had descended to be big fish in this small pool. But there was no impressing the villagers or scoring off them in any way that Agatha could see. The in comers must have a jolly time being restricted to trying to put each other down. Still, she was sure that, if she won the competition, the village would sit up and take notice.
That evening, Agatha sat in the low-raftered dining-room of the Feathers at Ancombe and covertly studied her guests. Mr. Cummings-Browne 'Well, it's Major for my sins but I don't use my title, haw, haw, haw' was as tanned as his wife, a sort of orangy tan that led Agatha to think it probably came out of a bottle. He had a balding pointed head with sparse grey hairs carefully combed over the top and odd jug like ears. Mr. Cummings-Browne had been in the British Army in Aden, he volunteered. That, Agatha reflected, must have been quite some time ago. Then it transpired he had done a Tittle chicken farming', but he preferred to talk about his army days, a barely comprehensible saga of servants he had had, and chap pies in the regiment. He was wearing a sports jacket with leather patches at the elbow over an olive-green shirt with a cravat at the neck. His wife was wearing a Laura Ashley gown that reminded Agatha of the bedspreads in her cottage.
Agatha thought grimly that her quiche had better win, for she knew when she was being ripped off and the Feathers was doing just that. A landlord who stood on the wrong side of the bar which ran along the end of the dining-room drinking with his cronies, a pretentious and dreadfully expensive menu, and sullen waitresses roused Agatha's anger.
The Cummings-Brownes had, predictably, chosen the second-most-expensive wine on the menu, two bottles of it. Agatha let them do most of the talking until the coffee arrived and then she got down to business. She asked what kind of quiche usually won the prize. Mr. Cummings-Browne said it was usually quiche lorraine or mushroom quiche.
Agatha said firmly that she would contribute her favourite spinach quiche.
Mrs. Cummings-Browne laughed. If she laughs like that again, I really will slap her, thought Agatha, particularly as Mrs. Cummings-Browne followed up the laugh by saying that Mrs. Cartwright always won.
Agatha was to remember later that there had been a certain stillness about Mr. Cummings-Browne when Mrs. Cartwright's name was mentioned, but for the present, she had the bit between her teeth. Her own quiche, said Agatha, was famous for its delicacy of taste and lightness of pastry. Besides, a spirit of competition was what was needed in the village. Very bad for morale to have the same woman winning year in and year out. Agatha was good at emanating emotional blackmail without precisely saying anything direct. She made jokes about how dreadfully expensive the meal was while all the time her bearlike brown eyes hammered home the message: 'You owe me for this dinner.'
But journalists as a rule belong to the kind of people who are born feeling guilty. Obviously the Cummings- Brownes were made of sterner stuff. As Agatha was preparing to pay the bill notes slowly counted out instead of credit card to emphasize the price her guests stayed her hand by ordering large brandies for themselves.
Despite all they had drunk, they remained as sober-looking as they had been when the meal started. Agatha asked about the villagers. Mrs. Cummings-Browne said they were pleasant enough and they did what they could for them, all delivered in a lady-of-the-manor tone. They asked Agatha about herself and she replied briefly. Agatha had never trained herself to make social chit-chat. She was only used to selling a product or asking people all about themselves to soften them up so that she could eventually sell that product.
They finally went out into the soft dark night. The wind had died and the air held a promise of summer to come. Mr. Cummings-Browne drove his Range Rover slowly through the green lanes leading back to Carsely.
A fox slid across the road in front of the lights, rabbits skittered for safety, and bird cherry, just beginning to blossom, starred the hedgerows. Loneliness again gripped Agatha. It was a night for friends, for pleasant company, not a night to be with such as the Cummings-Brownes. He parked outside his own front door and said to Agatha, 'Find your way all right from here?'
'No,' said Agatha crossly. The least you could do is to run me home.'
'Lose the use of your legs if you go on like this,' he said nastily, but after giving an impatient little sigh, he drove her to her cottage.
I must leave a light on in future, thought Agatha as she looked at her dark cottage. A light would be welcoming. Before getting out of the car, she asked him exactly how to go about entering the competition, and after he had told her she climbed down and, without saying good night, went into her lonely cottage.
The next day, as instructed, she entered her name in the quiche-competition book in the school hall. The voices of the schoolchildren were raised in song in some classroom: To my hey down-down, to my ho down-down.' So they still sang
'Among the Leaves So Green-O', thought Agatha.
She looked around the barren hall. Trestle-tables were set against one wall and there was a rostrum at the far end. Hardly a setting for ambitious achievement.
She then got out her car and drove straight to London this time, much as she loathed and dreaded the perils of the motor ways She parked in the street at Chelsea's World's End where she had lived such a short time ago, glad that she had not surrendered her resident's parking card.
There had been a sharp shower of rain. How wonderful London smelled, of wet concrete, diesel fumes, petrol fumes, litter, hot coffee, fruit and fish, all the smells that meant home to Agatha.
She made her way to The Quicherie, a delicatessen that specialized in quiches. She bought a large spinach quiche, stowed it in the boot of her car, and then took herself off to the Caprice for lunch, where she ate their salmon fish cakes and relaxed among what she considered as 'my people', the rich and famous, without it ever crossing her mind that she did not know any of them. Then to Fenwick's in Bond Street to buy a new dress, not print (heaven forbid!) but a smart scarlet wool dress with a white collar.
Back to Carsely in the evening light and into the kitchen. She removed the quiche from its shop wrappings, put her own ready printed label, 'Spinach Quiche, Mrs. Raisin', on it, and wrapped it with deliberate amateurishness in thin clear plastic. She surveyed it with satisfaction. It would be the best there. The Quicherie was famous for its quiches.
She carried it up to the school hall on Friday evening, following a straggling line of women bearing flowers, jam, cakes, quiches and biscuits. The competition entries had to be in the school hall the evening before the day of the competition, for some of the women worked at the weekends. As usual, a few of the women hailed her with 'Evening. Bit warmer. Maybe get a bit o' sun.' How would they cope with some horror like an earthquake or a hurricane? Agatha wondered.
Might shut them up in future as the mild vagaries of the Cotswolds weather rarely threw up anything dramatic or so Agatha believed.
She found she was quite nervous and excited when she went to bed that night. Ridiculous! It was only a village competition.
The next day dawned blustery and cold, with wind tearing down the last of the cherry blossom from the gardens and throwing the petals like bridal showers over the villagers as they crowded into the school hall.
A surprisingly good village band was playing selections from My Fair Lady, ages of the musicians ranging from eight to eighty. The air smelt sweetly from the flower arrangements and from single blooms set proudly in their thin vases for the flower competition: narcissi and daffodils. There was even a tea-room set up in a side-room with dainty sandwiches and home-made cakes.
'Of course Mrs. Cartwright will win the quiche competition,' said a voice near Agatha.
Agatha swung round. 'Why do you say that?'
'Because Mr. Cummings-Browne is the judge,' said the woman and moved off to be lost in the crowd.
Lord Pendlebury, a thin elderly gentleman who looked like an Edwardian ghost, and who had estates on the hill above the village, was to announce the winner of the quiche competition, although Mr. Cummings-Browne was to be the judge.
