'No, we won't. That would be great,' said Agatha.
They sat in the punt dripping wet, faces red with mortification as the Japanese towed them back to the landing-stage. A group of English students were waiting to greet these Japanese friends and they laughed and clapped as Roy and Agatha, bedraggled and miserable, were helped from the punt.
They walked together up the High, a yard apart, and people turned to stare at them.
'I am taking you straight to the station,' said Agatha when they got in the car. 'You've got your luggage. You can change in the station loo.'
'I'm really, really sorry,' said Roy meekly. 'It was something I'd always wanted to do.'
Agatha drove in grim silence.
'Look, Aggie. I left school at fifteen, never went to university. We all have dreams. Punting at Oxford was one of mine.'
Agatha slowed down.
'I tell you what we'll do,' she said. 'Dry yourself and change at the station. Then take a cab up to Marks and Spencer and buy me some dry clothes and then I'll change. I'll take you for tea at the Randolph.'
Three hours later, Agatha made her way back to Carsely wearing a new outfit of blouse and skirt, along with the new underwear underneath and a pair of new flat shoes which were extremely comfortable. Roy had enjoyed his tea and they had begun to laugh helplessly over their exploits on the river. Agatha smiled reminiscently. She could not remember laughing so hard in such a long time.
As she drove down the winding country lane which led to the village of Carsely under the arching tunnel of green, green trees, she felt like some sort of animal heading homeward to a comfortable burrow.
And since her fall in the river, she hadn't thought of James, not once.
That evening she went to a meeting of the Carsely Ladies' Society at the vicarage. Mrs Bloxby served tea and sandwiches in the vicarage garden. Mrs Darry was not present and Agatha entertained the rest of them with a highly embroidered tale of her punting adventure.
The meeting then got down to business. The society had decided to put on a concert. Agatha groaned. The concerts were a nightmare of boredom. Not one of them had a bit of talent and yet so many were delighted to get up on the stage and sing in cracked voices.
And yet they attended other concerts in other villages and the performances were just as awful. Mrs Bloxby had explained to her gently that everyone secretly wanted to perform on the stage and this was a chance for them all to get their moment in the sun. Agatha noticed, however, that the vicar's wife, like herself, never performed.
Conversation after the official meeting turned to the murders in Ancombe. 'I've got all the members of the parish council coming to a garden party at my place,' said Agatha. 'I haven't invited any of you because the water company is paying for it and it's public relations business.'
'They're a funny lot,' said Miss Simms, the secretary. She was wearing white stiletto-heeled sandals, the heels digging into the smooth vicarage lawn like tent pegs. 'I never complain,' Mrs Bloxby had said. 'It aerates the lawn.'
'I mean,' went on Miss Simms, 'they've been at each other's throats for years. I think the reason none of them resign is that they don't want to give the others the satisfaction. I'm sorry for you, Mrs Raisin. Sounds like the garden party from hell.'
But James was back in Agatha's mind along with worries about what to wear to dazzle him.
The day of the garden party was perfect. Clear blue skies and hot sun.
Agatha, in a fine gown of delicately flowered silk and with a wide shady straw hat bedecked with large silk roses, supervised the caterers and took a last look around the garden. Then she went upstairs to check her make- up.
The sound of cars in the lane below her window made her look down. They all seemed to have arrived at once. Mary Owen was wearing a shirtwaister of striped cotton and flat-heeled shoes, and Angela Buckley white cotton trousers and a blue cotton top. Jane Cutler had on a simple Liberty print dress.
Feeling suddenly ridiculously overdressed, Agatha whipped off her hat and gown and put on a cotton skirt and a plain white blouse, and then ran downstairs to meet them.
James was now out in the garden with the caterers. He was wearing faded blue jeans and an open-necked shirt. Agatha realized with a pang that he must have let himself in with the key to her cottage that she had given him in happier times. She braced herself for her visitors.
The men, Bill Allen, Andy Stiggs and Fred Shaw, as if to make up for the informal dress of the women and James, were all wearing blazers, collars and ties. Bill Allen's blazer had a large gold-embroidered crest on the pocket.
Champagne was poured all round. Agatha raised her glass. 'Here's to goodwill,' she said. 'We've all had our differences, but I think we should all be friends.'
'Why?' demanded Mary Owen.
'Because it's more pleasant that way.'
Angela Buckley looked at Agatha suspiciously. 'You don't belong to one of those mad religious sects, do you?'
'I should think it's therapy,' said Mary Owen. 'People who indulge in therapy groups are always wanting chummy get-togethers. Any moment now we'll all have to sit in a circle and talk about the nasty thing that happened to us in the wood-shed all those years ago.'
'That's a good one,' said Bill Allen and gave a great horse-laugh.
'I'm not surprised you go around murdering each other,' said James in a cold, carrying voice.
'Here now. None of that,' said Andy Stiggs, red in the face above a tie which seemed to be strangling him. 'We're all respectable citizens, and if you ask me, that water company's behind these murders.'
'That's what I think,' said Bill Allen.
Muscular Fred Shaw was sweating. 'You lot don't know how to think, that's my opinion. You hated Robina like poison, Mary, and so did you, Angela.'
'I didn't hate her,' said Mary. 'She was one of those dreary little fluffy women of small brain.'
Between the acrimonious exchanges, all were drinking champagne, an efficient waiter making sure all the glasses were kept topped up.
'You and Angela could have learned something about femininity from Robina,' said Fred. 'She was all woman, not a leathery trout like you two.'
'A common little man like you wouldn't know a feminine woman even if she leaped out of your soup and bit you on the bum,' said Angela.
'How do you lot ever get anything done for the parish if you snipe at each other like this?' demanded James. 'Aren't any of you curious to know why Robert Struthers and Robina Toynbee were murdered, and by whom? It could have been one of you.'
There was a shocked silence.
'What's this?' demanded Fred Shaw. 'One of us? Why?'
'Why not?' said Mary Owen. 'You were up at Robina's cottage the evening before she was murdered, Fred. She would have told you about how she planned to make that speech from her garden wall.'
'I'm the only one of you that liked Robina.' Fred wrenched off his tie. Then he took off his blazer and rolled up his shirt sleeves. 'I often went round there, and so did Bill and Andy. It was you and Angela that always had it in for her.'
'Nonsense.' Angela looked at the buffet table. 'Are we going to eat that stuff or not? I'm starving.'
There was a temporary lull while they collected plates of food. Although Agatha had put out chairs in the garden, Angela and Mary sat down on the grass, a sensible move, since it meant they did not have to balance plates of food on their knees. The others joined them.
James began to ask them what they felt about the proposed bypass around Ancombe. Soon Fred Shaw was dedaiming it was a disgrace because it would ruin shopkeepers like himself if the through traffic was taken away, and Bill Allen, who ran the garden centre, agreed with him.
