Free Fete Fatale by Robert Barnard Page A

feet scurrying away, I had no doubt where she was going: straight to the vicarage and Thyrza, to retail it, with many a tut-tut. But Father Battersby had moved blithely on, and just then Mr Horsforth reappeared, so that I could take the opportunity (as I realized I had to, on his rare visitations) of snatching a break.
    Outside the stuffy, sweaty tent, the atmosphere was pleasanter. True, I was unlucky enough to witness the arrival of Lady Godetia, even as I took my first breaths of fresh air. Lady Godetia did not open our fêtes (it was said because she was too lazy to get up that early, and spent too much time making herself up), but she closed them with a gracious speech of thanks to the helpers which I always tried hard to miss. Lady Godetia was chronically gracious, like royalty at the end of a particularly gruelling tour. She was our local gentry—in fact the widow of Sir Frank Peabody, who had been something in packaging, but also the daughter of some obscure Earl whose interests in life had been exclusively horticultural. She passed into the marquee, smiling a smile of weak honey, and I stood there, hoping that she would have got round to my stall and expended her graciousness on Mr Horsforth before I went back in.
    Otherwise it was lovely outside. The marquee was set fairly close to the river, and a breeze flowed welcomingly along with the stream. It was a regular place of resort on any sunny afternoon, and today there were many couples in swimsuits by it, some just lying, some bathing tentatively—for it flowed fast from the weir. Such as these were not likely to come into the marquee, but they were now and then tempted by the outdoor games, which were doing famously. Marcus was boyishly cock-a-hoop.
    â€˜Only three have rung the bell so far,’ he said, ‘so I didn’t do badly, for an old ‘un.’
    â€˜Such vanity,’ I said, ‘at your age.’
    â€˜It’s at my age that vanity sets in. How are things going in there? How is Father B. doing?’
    â€˜Splendidly, so far as I can judge. Meeting hundreds of people, and everyone pleased to meet him.’
    â€˜So whatever it was that Mary and Thyrza were planning, it hasn’t come off?’
    â€˜Mary and Thyrza,’ I said, in a mock-ominous voice, ‘have not yet arrived.’
    Back at my duty-station behind the junk stall, I parried Mr Horsforth’s reproachful look with a bright smile. After a moment or two of looking much-put-upon, he made a rapid departure with scarcely a mutter of apology. I soon understood why: Lady Godetia approached, in company with Franchita, the pair of them looking like a gracious yacht in the custody of a man-o’-war.
    â€˜ Awfully pleased to see you again,’ oozed Lady Godetia, with a brilliant, generalized smile. ‘Weren’t you running some kind of frightfully amusing and wicked game last year?’ (She kept us all card-indexed, I was convinced of it.) ‘And your husband is the terribly attractive vet who’s been out to see to my horses. Such a charming man—you should keep him under wraps if you don’t want him stolen! And what have you got this year? . . . Such an interesting jumble of stuff. What a delightful screen! You’re not going to let me have that cheap, I suppose?’
    Her greedy eye, peering through the piles of Max Factor, had alighted on a pretty little hand-embroidered screen placed among my better things.
    â€˜Fifteen pounds,’ I said.
    â€˜Ah well, no, I thought you wouldn’t . . . What an amusing collection you have here. Things you hardly ever see these days. Hatpins, for instance—you never see those.’
    â€˜Nonsense,’ said Franchita brusquely. ‘Depends on the hat. Damned useful in a high wind.’
    â€˜15p each,’ I said. ‘Six for 50p.’
    â€˜Ah well, then, I might,’ said Lady Godetia, who spread her patronage, like her graciousness,