Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell Read Online Free Page A

if you complain a lot and you are not prepared to compromise on anything. I know you have been a confirmed bachelor, but you are married now, and must make certain allowances. Why are you so angry and touchy?’
    There was a long silence and then James gave a sigh. ‘There’s something else. I have been having these recurring headaches, so I got a scan. It says I have a brain tumour. I have to go in soon for treatment.’
    ‘Oh, you poor man. It is operable?’
    ‘They are going to try chemotherapy first.’
    ‘Mrs Raisin must be distressed.’
    ‘She does not know and you are not to tell her.’
    ‘But you must tell her. That is what marriage is all about, sharing the bad times as well as the good.’
    ‘I feel if I tell her, then somehow there will be no hope for me. It will make the brain tumour very, very real. I must get through this on my own.’
    ‘But I can see the whole thing is putting you under a great deal of stress. In fact, you are ruining your marriage by not telling Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘You must not tell her! You must promise me you will not tell her!’
    ‘Very well. But I beg you to reconsider. Mrs Raisin does not deserve the treatment you have been meting out to her. Tell her.’
    He shook his head. ‘It is my cross and I must bear it alone. Agatha is very independent. Why, she even still uses her old married name, as if mine isn’t good enough for her. You even call her Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘That’s because she asked me to. You see, she might have listened to you if you had only complained about that one thing, but you do seem to have criticized her a great deal.’
    ‘It’s her fault,’ said James stubbornly. ‘I’d better go.’
    ‘Please stay a moment longer. You must be terribly frightened and worried.’
    James, who had half risen from his chair, sank back again and buried his head in his hands.
    ‘Mrs Raisin would be a great help,’ said Mrs Bloxby gently.
    ‘I should never have married her,’ muttered James.
    ‘I assume you were in love with her.’
    ‘Oh, yes, but she’s so messy and infuriating.’
    ‘I think you are very hard on her because you are frightened and ill.’
    James got to his feet. ‘I’ll think about it.’
    As he walked home, he thought guiltily that he had seemed to go on and on too much about Agatha’s faults. All he had to do was tell her what was up with him. But when he turned into Lilac Lane, he recognized the car outside Agatha’s cottage. Sir Charles Fraith. And still there! So Agatha had gone back to her old ways. Two could play at that game!
     
Chapter Two
    The fact that Agatha and her new husband were living in separate cottages, not speaking to each other, spread round the village like wildfire. Mrs Bloxby kept quiet about James’s revelation about his brain tumour. She did not even tell her husband, the vicar, Alf Bloxby, who, on hearing the news of the breakdown of Agatha’s marriage, merely remarked sourly, ‘Don’t know how anyone could live with that woman.’
    James was often seen with Melissa Sheppard, Agatha with Charles.
    This miserable state of affairs might have gone on forever had not James had a change of heart. He was afraid of dying. He did not want to depart the world and leave bitterness and misery behind. He wanted to be missed. He wanted to be mourned.
    He bought a large bunch of red roses and presented himself on Agatha’s doorstep a week after what was known in the village as The Great Scene in the Pub.
    Agatha answered the door and stood for a moment looking at him and then at the bouquet he held in his hand. ‘Come in,’ she said, and walked off to the kitchen without waiting to see whether he was following her or not.
    ‘Sit down,’ she said, leaning on the kitchen counter. ‘Why have you come?’
    The correct answer, the sensible answer would have been, ‘Agatha, I have a brain tumour, and I think I am going to die,’ but instead James remarked, ‘You look terrible.’
    Agatha had deep pouches under her