by M C Beaton
He rose and walked up the main street. So many shops containing so many things he could now buy if he wanted. He stood outside a men's outfitter's and then stared at his dim reflection in the shop window. His suit was shabby and the material cheap.
Again he thought of the money. He should really share it with the few relatives he had. But he would put it off until the funeral.
He bought himself fish and chips, went home and switched on the television set and lost himself in the moving coloured pictures until midnight.
He rose early next morning and with a new feeling of adventure went to the local Marks & Spencer and bought a blazer, trousers, striped shirt and silk tie. Then he went to the jeweller's. He would need to buy a ring for Maggie. At first as he looked at the engagement rings, he thought that anything simple might do. But at last he shook his head and refused them all. Maggie was doing him a great favour. Why not buy her a ring that she could keep, something more original?
He went into an antique shop where he knew they had a case of jewellery. With great care he finally selected a Victorian heavy gold ring, with a large square-cut emerald. The price made his eyelids blink rapidly. He paid cash, but with a dark little worm of doubt again plaguing his brain. Where had the money come from? He banished the thought and retired home and changed into his new clothes. He was beginning to feel like a totally different person.
Maggie was nervously waiting outside the striped awning of the restaurant, which was in an old Georgian mansion beside the river in the castle gardens. Fell would never know what pains Maggie had gone to with her appearance. She was wearing a long biscuit-coloured linen skirt, a tailored jacket and a lemon silk blouse. Fell only saw reassuringly familiar Maggie.
They went into the restaurant. The restaurant, although very grand, did not intimidate Fell. He was armoured in his new clothes. He had left shabby Fell behind.
They were given a table by the French windows which opened onto the terrace.
"You order for me," whispered Maggie. "I eat anything."
Fell ordered a simple meal of cucumber soup, followed by poached salmon and salad, and then with great daring also ordered a bottle of champagne. When the waiter had gone off with his order, he produced the jeweller's box and handed it to Maggie. "It's for you," he said. "You may as well look the part."
Maggie opened the box. The emerald blazed up at her. She caught her breath. She was suddenly intensely aware of everything, of the sunlight sparkling off the cutlery, of the peppery smell of the geraniums in pots on the terrace, of the chuckling sound of the river.
"It's beautiful," she said. "Is it real?"
"I hope so."
"I'll give it back to you."
"No, don't do that. I wanted to give you something special, something you could keep."
Maggie gave a shaky laugh. "It matches my eyes."
Fell looked at her, puzzled.
"See?" She removed her heavy glasses. Her eyes were very large and green with flecks of gold.
"You have beautiful eyes," said Fell. "You should wear contact lenses."
Those eyes filled with tears. "What's the matter?" asked Fell quickly.
Maggie took out a handkerchief and dried her eyes and put her glasses firmly back on. "I'm just tired, Fell, that's all. You know what it's like. The last customers didn't leave until one in the morning. Now, first I had to tell my mother about our engagement. She doesn't know it's a pretend engagement and wants to meet you. I told her you were too grief-stricken, and then afterwards I can tell her it's all off."
"I hate making you lie for me."
"I always lie to my mother anyway. It's a form of selfprotection. My father's dead. Mother always says I'll never get a man, so from time to time I invent a boyfriend. They never jilt me, you know, they either die or go abroad. Anyway, enough about me. What do you want to talk to me about?"
Fell had meant to tell her only about the inheritance. But somehow, under her sympathetic eyes, he found himself beginning at the beginning. He told her everything-about his childhood, about his relief at his mother's death, about his guilt, and about the mysterious money in the cash box.
M.C. Beaton, the Scottish-born author of nine previous Agatha Raisin novels as well as the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, lives in a village in the English Cotswolds.
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