Agatha Raisin and The Potted Gardener

Bill's narrow eyes filled with humour as he looked at Agatha. 'Never tell me you're going in for serious gardening?'

'Might try my hand. I've joined the horticultural society.'

Bill raised his hands in mock horror. 'Don't tell me someone is going to be murdered. Don't tell me you will be going in for any competitions.'

'Why not?' asked Mary in surprise. 'That's part of the fun. We have the annual show and it's a very friendly affair, I gather.'

'You haven't had Agatha in the society before,' said Bill.

'How's your book coming along?' Agatha had turned to James, feeling that if Bill went on he might reveal how she had once cheated in the village baking competition.

'Slowly,' said James. 'I try to knuckle down to it and all the while I'm praying for the phone to ring or someone to call to distract me. Are you going to use the greenhouse right away, Agatha?'

'Yes, I'm going to get some seed boxes and plant some things.'

'Tell you what,' said James, 'I'll go to the nursery with you and help you to choose something.'

Agatha brightened but Mary said, 'We'll all go.'

'Let me know, anyway.' James got to his feet.

'I'd best be going as well.' Mary picked up her coat. 'Lovely coffee. Probably see you later at the Red Lion. Come along, James.'

James immediately felt like sitting down again, but he went off with Mary. Agatha slammed the door behind them with unnecessary force and went back to join Bill.

'Handsome couple,' commented Bill maliciously.

'Drink your coffee,' said Agatha sourly.

'I'm teasing you. He actually doesn't like her.'

'But I gather they've been an item!'

'They might have been. But not any more. Take things easy, Agatha. Relax. If you behave in a quiet, friendly way to him, he'll come around.'

'I've decided I'm not interested any more. I mean, if he fancied someone like Mary Fortune, I don't think I want to know.'

Bill shook his head. 'You don't know much about him. There's your doorbell again.'

Agatha ran to the door. Perhaps he had come back. But it was the men with the greenhouse.

Bill took his leave with promises to return and left Agatha with the workmen.

By the end of that day a small new greenhouse glittered at the end of Agatha's garden. She restrained an impulse to rush next door to ask James to come with her to a nursery the following day. He might just remind her that Mary wanted to come along as well.

So instead she went to the Red Lion. It was one of these odd evenings when the pub was thin of company. She talked to a few of the locals, her eyes always straying to the door, waiting for the tall figure of James Lacey to appear.

She made her way home finally, slightly tipsy, and went disconsolately to bed.

The following day she felt bloated, old and downright plain. She sadly took herself off to a local nursery to ask their advice and returned home with packets of seeds, seed trays and instructions which she had written down. She worked busily, planting trays of chrysanthemum, Coltness Mixture and Rigoletto. Then she planted trays of Arctotis hybrida, or African daisy. By evening she had finished her work with trays of hibiscus, a variety called Disco Belle. The hibiscus and the chrysanthemums were supposed to be sown in February and planted out in May, but she had been told to sow the African daisies in March. But, thought Agatha, the work was so soothing and it was nearly the end of February anyway. All of them would then be planted out in May.

Next door, James could see Agatha bent over her work in the greenhouse. He felt disappointed that she had not asked for his help.

Three

As a reluctant spring crept over the Cotswolds, Agatha's mind often turned to Wilson's offer of a job. At last he phoned her himself and she told him that she might be ready to start work in the autumn, because by the autumn the gardening days would be over. Mary had become a friend, despite Agatha's initial reluctance. She was always claiming, always ready to help, and her close relationship with James Lacey appeared to be at an end.

Daffodils shone in the gardens of the village, and then came the cascades of wisteria and heavy lilac blossoms. It was such a miserable spring that it seemed incredible that anything could blossom at all in the slashing rain and gusts of chilly wind. Agatha intended to plant out her seedlings on the first of May. She had bought more trays of seedlings from the nursery and they lay alongside the 'home-grown' products in her greenhouse waiting for the big day.

She had promised Mrs Bloxby to help at the tombola stand on May Monday, which was when all the village celebrations were to take place. Sunday was to be May the first.

It was on Friday the twenty-ninth of April, that James decided he had been too hard on Agatha. She had in the past made him countless cups of coffee and brought him cakes. They had shared many adventures together. It nagged at his mind that he had taken Mary Fortune out for several dinners while Agatha had been away, and yet he had never asked Agatha out. He had at one time, he admitted, thought that Agatha was keen on him and he had shied away from the thought. But the woman had been all that was normal. In fact, she had never called on him.

So on Friday morning he went and rang her doorbell and asked a flustered Agatha - flustered because she was still in her dressing-gown - out to dinner at a new restaurant in Moreton, the Game Bird.

Gardening forgotten for once, Agatha passed the day in a daze of preparation, finding to her delight that gardening, along with a moderate diet, definitely had its compensations, for all her dresses now fitted her beautifully. She winced at the sight of a green dress. Definitely not green. Mary never wore anything else. She wondered vaguely about the mentality of a woman who always wore one colour. She took herself off to Oxford and got her hair cut and shaped. She bought new cosmetics. She bought new high heels and then, when she returned from Oxford, realized she had only left herself an hour to get ready, and she had originally planned to take two hours beautifying herself.

The doorbell rang just as she had finished. Thinking James was ten minutes early, she went to answer it. Mary stood there wearing the inevitable green; green blouse, green jacket, green slacks, green leather high-heeled sandals. She blinked a little at the sight of the new Agatha Raisin in little black dress, gold jewellery, and with her short brown hair gleaming in the light over the door.

'Coming to the pub?' asked Mary.

'Can't,' said Agatha cheerfully. 'James is taking me out for dinner.'

Mary's blue eyes went quite blank and then she said with a little laugh. 'Tomorrow then?'

'I'll meet you there at seven,' said Agatha. Mary waited, but no, Agatha was not going to spoil this golden meeting by inviting Mary in and risking having Mary include herself in the invitation when James arrived. 'See you,' said Agatha brightly and slammed the door.

She then waited in the hall in a frenzy of impatience. What if Mary should now call on James? What if they both came back together?

What if James said, 'Mary's going to join us'? What if...?

The doorbell rang, making her jump. Crossing the fingers of one hand, she opened the door with the other and let out a sigh of relief to see James there on his own, wearing a well-cut dark suit and looking heart- wrenchingly handsome.

'Whose car are we taking?' asked Agatha. 'Which one of us is going to do without drink?'

'Neither,' he said with a smile. He looked down the lane. 'Our taxi is just arriving.'

Agatha, made shy by happiness, sat very upright in the back seat of the taxi with James. Mrs Mason stopped