'Beddy-byes,' said Roy. 'Which train should we catch tomorrow?'
Agatha roused herself. Trains might not be very good on a holiday Monday. I'll run you to Oxford and take you both for lunch and you can get the train from there.'
She had thought she would be glad to see the last of the pair of them, but when she finally stood with them on Oxford station to say goodbye, she suddenly wished they weren't going.
'Come again,' she said. 'Any time.'
Roy planted a wet kiss on her cheek. 'We'll be back, Aggie. Super weekend.'
The guard blew his whistle, Roy jumped aboard to join Steve, and the train moved out of the station.
Agatha stood forlornly for several minutes, watching the train disappearing round the curve, before trailing out to the car-park. She felt slightly frightened and wished she had been able to go to London with them. Why had she ever left her job?
But home was waiting for her in Carsely, down in a fold of the Cotswold Hills, Carsely where she had disgraced herself, where she did not belong and never would.
Chapter Five.
Agatha loaded up the car with the toby jugs, pewter mugs, fake horse brasses and bits of farm machinery the next day and drove the short distance to the vicarage.
Mrs. Simpson was busy cleaning the cottage. Agatha planned to talk to her over lunch. Perhaps it was because of the poisoning, but Mrs. Simpson called Agatha Mrs. Raisin and Agatha felt compelled to call her Mrs. Simpson, not Doris. The cleaner was efficient and correct but exuded a certain atmosphere of wariness. At least she had not brought her own lunch.
Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, answered the door herself. Frightened of a rebuff, Agatha gabbled out that she had brought some items she hoped the church might be able to sell to benefit some charity.
'How very good of you,' said Mrs. Bloxby. 'Alf,' she called over her shoulder, 'Mrs. Raisin has brought us some items for charity. Come and lend a hand.' Agatha was startled. Vicars should not be called plain Alf but something like Peregrine, Hilary, or Aloysius. The vicar appeared wearing an old gardening shirt and corduroy trousers.
All three carried the boxes into the vicarage living-room. Agatha took out a few of the items. 'My dear Mrs. Raisin,' exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby, 'are you sure? You could sell this stuff yourself for quite a bit of money. I don't mean the horse brasses, but the jugs are good and the farm-machinery pieces are genuine. This' she held up a shiny instrument of torture ' a genuine mole trap. You don't see many of those around today.'
'No, I'll be happy if you get some money. But try to choose some charity which won't spend it all on cocktail parties or politics.'
'Yes, of course. We're very keen on supporting Cancer Research and Save the Children,' said the vicar. 'Perhaps you would like a cup of coffee, Mrs. Raisin?'
'That would be nice.'
'I'll leave my wife to look after you. I have Sunday's sermons to prepare.'
'Sermons?'
'I preach in three churches.'
'Why not use the same sermon for all?'
'Tempting, but it would hardly show a sign of caring for the parishioners.'
The vicar retreated to the nether regions and his wife went off to the kitchen to make coffee. Agatha looked about her. The vicarage must be very old indeed, she thought. The window-frames sloped and the floor sloped. Here was no fitted carpet such as she had in her own cottage but old floor-boards polished like black glass and covered in the centre by a brightly coloured Persian rug. Logs smouldered in the cavernous fireplace. There was a bowl of potpourri on one small table.
A vase of flowers stood on another, and there was a bowl of hyacinths at the low window. The chairs were worn, with Agatha shifted her bottom experimentally feather cushions. In front of her was a new coffee-table of the kind you buy in Do-It-Yourself stores and put together, and yet, covered as it was with newspapers and magazines, and the beginnings of a tapestry cushion-cover, it blended in with the rest of the room. Above her head were low beams black with age and centuries of smoke. There was a faint smell of lavender and wood-smoke mixed with the smells of hyacinths and potpourri.
Also, there was an air of comfort and goodness about the place. Agatha decided that the Reverend Bloxby was a rare bird in the much-maligned aviary of the Church of England a man who believed what he preached.
For the first time since she had arrived in Carsely, she felt un threatened and, as the door opened, and the vicar's wife appeared, filled with a desire to please.
'I've toasted some tea cakes as well,' said Mrs. Bloxby. 'It's still so cold. I do get tired of keeping the fires burning. But of course you have central heating, so you don't have that problem.' 'You have a beautiful home,' said Agatha.
'Thank you. Milk and sugar?' Mrs. Bloxby had a small, delicate, lined face and brown hair threaded with grey. She was slim and fragile with long, delicate hands, the sort of hands that portrait painters used to love to give their subjects.
'And how are you settling in, Mrs. Raisin?' 'Not very well,' said Agatha. 'I may have to settle outt'
'Oh, because of your quiche,' said Mrs. Bloxby tranquilly. 'Do try a tea cake I make them myself and it is one of the few things I do well.
Yes, a horrible affair. Poor Mr. Cummings-Browne 'People must think I am a dreadful person,' said Agatha.
'Well, it was unfortunate that wretched quiche should have cow bane in it. But a lot of cheating goes on in these village affairs. You're not the first.'
Agatha sat with a tea cake dripping butter and stared at the vicar's wife. 'I'm not?'
'No, no. Let me see, there was Miss. Tenby five years ago. An in comer Set her heart on winning the flower- arranging competition. She ordered a basket of flowers from the florist over at St. Anne's. Quite blatant about it. It was a very pretty display but the neighbours had seen the florist's van arriving and so she was found out. Then there was old Mrs. Carter. She bought her strawberry jam and put her own label on it and won. No one would ever have known if she had not got drunk in the Red Lion and bragged about it. Yes, your deception would have occasioned quite a lot of comment in the village, Mrs. Raisin, had it not all happened before, or, for that matter, if the judging had been fair.'
'Do you mean Mr. Cummings-Browne cheated?' Mrs. Bloxby smiled. 'Let us say he was apt to give prizes to favourites.'
'But if this was generally known, why do the villagers bother to enter anything at all?'
'Because they are proud of what they make and like to show it off to their friends. Besides, Mr. Cummings- Browne judged competitions in neighbouring villages and it is estimated he had only one favourite in each. Also, there is no disgrace in losing. Alf often wanted to change the judge, but the Cummings-Brownes did give quite a lot to charity and the one year Alf was successful and got someone else to judge, the judge gave the prize to his sister, who did not even live in the village.'
Agatha let out a long slow breath. 'You make me feel less of a villain.'
'It was all very sad. You must have had a frightful time.'
To Agatha's horror, her eyes filled with tears and she dabbed at them fiercely while the vicar's wife looked tactfully away.
'But be assured' the vicar's wife addressed the coffeepot ' your deception did not occasion all that much comment. Besides, Mr. Cummings-Browne was not popular.'
'Why?'
The vicar's wife looked evasive. 'Some people are not, you know.'
Agatha leaned forward. 'Do you think it was an accident?'
'Oh, yes, for if it were not, then one would naturally suspect the wife, but Vera Cummings-Browne was a most devoted wife, in her way. She has a great deal of money and he had very little. They have no children. She could have walked off and left him any time at all. I had to help comfort her on the day of her husband's death. I have never seen a woman more grief-stricken. It is best to put the whole matter behind you, Mrs. Raisin. The Carsely Ladies' Society meets tonight here at the vicarage at eight o'clock. Do come along.'
'Thank you,' said Agatha humbly.
'Have you got rid of that dreadful woman?' asked the vicar ten minutes later when his wife walked into his
