Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

church and then quilting. She checked the TV guide she had brought with her. There was nothing much on. And, she realized, she was lonely.

She locked up and walked round to the church in time for evensong. To her amazement, in these godless days, the church was full. The vicar's sermon dealt with faith as opposed to superstition, and Agatha's mind drifted back to those lights. There was a closed, inbred anachronistic feel to this village. All across the world raged fire and floods and famine. Yet here in Fryfam, hatted ladies and suited gents raised their voices in 'Abide With Me' as if nothing existed outside their safe English world governed by the changing seasons and the church calendar: Michaelmas, Candlemas, Harvest Festival, Advent, Christmas.

She waited in the churchyard. Harriet approached her surrounded by the three others she had met earlier. They were wearing the same clothes but had put on hats--Harriet a felt pudding basin, Amy a straw, Polly Dart a tweed fishing hat and Carrie sporting a baseball cap.

Agatha, who had changed into a tailored trouser suit and silk blouse, felt almost overdressed.

'Right,' said Harriet. 'Off we go!'

A couple passed their group, arguing acrimoniously. 'Don't be such a bore Tolly,' said the woman. A waft of Gucci's Envy reached Agatha's nostrils. She paused, looking after the couple. The woman had what Agatha thought of as the 'new' beauty, meaning others admired it. She had blond hair worn down to her shoulders. She was wearing a well-tailored tweed suit, the skirt of which had a slit up one side, revealing a well- shaped leg clothed in a ten-denier stocking--stockings, not tights, for the slit was long enough to show a flash of stocking top. Her eyes were pale blue and well set apart. She had high cheek-bones, but her nose was set too close to her mouth and her long mouth too close to her square chin. He was older, small, plump and choleric, with thinning hair and a high colour.

'Come on, Agatha,' ordered Harriet.

'Who are they? That couple?'

'Oh, that's our squire, self-appointed, made his money out of bathroom showers, and his wife, Lucy. The Trumpington-Jameses. Funny, isn't it,' said Harriet, her voice carrying across the churchyard. 'Not so long ago a double-barrelled name denoted a lady or gentleman. Now it means it's some lower-middle-class parvenu.'

'Are you being a bit snobby?' asked Agatha.

'No,' said Harriet. 'They're quite awful, as you'll find out.'

'How will I find out?'

'They'll think it their squire-archical duty to welcome the newcomer. You'll see.'

'Where are we going?'

'My place.'

Harriet's place was on the far side of the green, a square early Victorian house.

Leading the way into a large, if gloomy, sitting-room, Harriet switched on the lamps and said, 'Anyone for a drink first?' And before a grateful Agatha could ask for a gin and tonic, Harriet said, 'I know, we'll have some of Carrie's elderberry wine.'

Agatha looked about her. The room had long windows and a high ceiling but was crowded with heavy pieces of furniture. The walls were painted a dull green and hung with dingy paintings of horses or dead game.

Amy was getting blankets and boxes of cloth and sewing implements out of a large chest in the comer.

'I think you should share a quilt with Carrie,' said Amy. 'You work on the one end and she'll work on the other. If you sit side by side, you can spread the blanket out between you.'

Harriet returned with a tray of glasses full of elderberry wine. Agatha sipped hers cautiously. It was very sweet and tasted slightly medicinal.

'Are we all widows here?' asked Agatha, looking around. 'No husbands?'

'My husband's in the pub with Amy's and Polly's,' said Harriet. 'Carrie's divorced.'

'I thought the pub was closed on Sundays. I went round at lunch-time and it was closed.'

'Opens Sunday evenings.' Harriet drained her glass and put it back on the tray. 'We'd best get started.'

It should be simple, thought Agatha, as Carrie handed her a little pile of squares of cloth. Just stitch them on.

'Not like that,' said Carrie, as Agatha stabbed a needle into the edge of one. 'You hem it first and then stitch it on and unpick the hem.' Agatha scowled horribly and proceeded to try to hem a slippery little square of silk. Just as soon as it got a stitch in it, the silk frayed at the edges. She surreptitiously dropped it on the floor and picked out a piece of coloured wool. She glanced sideways at Carrie, who was placing neat little, almost invisible, stitches, rapidly in squares of material.

She decided to start up a conversation to try to distract the others from her amateur sewing. 'Mrs. Wilden at the pub treated me to an excellent meal last night. She's quite stunningly beautiful.'

'Pity she's got the morals of a tom-cat,' snapped Polly, biting a thread with strong yellow teeth.

'Oh, really?' said Agatha, looking around curiously at the set faces. 'I found her rather sweet.'

'Good thing you're not married.' Amy sounding almost tearful.

'When did your husband die, Agatha?' asked Carrie.

'A while back,' said Agatha. 'I don't want to talk about it.' She did not want to tell them her husband had been murdered right after he had surfaced from the past to stop her marrying James Lacey. 'I'm still wondering about those lights,' she went on. She noticed with surprise that because of the distraction of talking she had actually managed to hem a square of cloth.

'Have you seen them again?' asked Harriet.

'No.'

'Well, there you are. You were probably tired after the long drive and thought you saw them.'

Agatha gave up on the subject of the lights. She was sure these women probably gossiped easily among themselves. She was the outsider, not yet accepted, and that was putting the brakes on any conversation.

She felt she was being let out of school when Harriet said after an hour, 'Well, that's it for tonight.'

As Agatha was leaving, she stopped to admire an arrangement of autumn leaves in a vase in the hall. Harriet lifted out the bunch of leaves and thrust it at Agatha. 'Take it,' she said. 'I dip the leaves in glycerine so they should last you the winter.'

Agatha walked homewards bearing the leaves. She remembered there was a large stone jar on the floor by the fireplace in the sitting-room. She let herself into the cottage, glad that she had brought her cats for company as Hodge and Boswell undulated about her ankles.

She walked through to the kitchen and put the bunch of leaves on the kitchen counter. She looked out the window and the dancing lights were there again.

Agatha unlocked the door and walked down the garden. The lights had disappeared.

Muttering to herself, she walked back to the house. Something funny was going on. She had not imagined those lights and there was nothing wrong with her eyesight.

She walked through to the sitting-room to get that vase. It was no longer there. Agatha began to wonder if she had imagined it. She took the inventory out of the kitchen drawer. Yes, there it was under 'Contents of Sitting- Room'--one pottery vase.

Agatha suddenly felt threatened. She checked the doors were locked and went up to bed. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she had not had any dinner, but the thought of going downstairs again frightened her. She bathed and undressed and crawled under the duvet and pulled it over her head to shut out the terrors of the night.