close bonnet and with a basket of clothes depending from my arm; for at my mother's hearing that I intended visiting the church, she would charge me with delivering her contribution to the ladies’ auxiliary, and was only persuaded with difficulty against accompanying me herself.
St. Michael's is not a handsome edifice; and that may be attributed, perhaps, to it being two churches at once— a late Norman one, and the present building, which dates from the sixteenth century. It sits nobly upon a cliff, how-ever, and seems quite suited to the spirit of Lyme, with all its peculiarities. I should not wish a more regular building to take its place; it seems, indeed, to have been a part of this coast forever.
I stood a moment on the stoop of the church, and glanced back the way I had come; and shivered to think that I detected a figure lingering behind; but it must have been an effect of the sunlight, a chimera of sorts, for when I blinked to observe a second time, the figure was no more. I pushed open the church's heavy oak door, and stepped into the cool dimness of its vestibule.
All was hushed, and the few supplicants scattered amidst the pews, too bowed in prayer to attend to my arrival. I looked about for James's broad shoulders, and could not find them; and so, after a moment, I progressed up a side aisle and took my place among the reverent. The church bell tolled the hour.
After fifteen minutes of silent contemplation, I determined to search for James outside the church; and made my way once more to the vestibule. It was tliere I encountered Miss Crawford, as staunch as a general the afternoon of a batde. She stood to one side of the vestibule itself, in the Auxiliary's anteroom, in an imposing black cap arrayed with jet. Her nostrils were pinched as though in reception of a noisome odour, but her bony hands fairly flew among the ordered piles of cast-off clothing. She looked up as I hesitated on the iitde room's threshold, and under the command of Miss Crawford's gaze, I could not but drop a curtsey.
“Good afternoon, Miss Austen,” that lady said sharply over her spectacles. “I understand you were at Wootton Fitzpaine on Saturday. You should have informed me of your visit prior to having paid it, and I should have charged you with enquiring of Mrs. Barnewall when she intends to make her contribution to the ladies’ auxiliary. My brother tells me she is to leave the country soon; and it should be a very shabby thing, if in all the busde of making ready, St. Michael's were forgot. But no matter. I was not to know you were to go—and on such a foggy afternoon, too!—and so I shall have the trip to make over.”
“My apologies, Miss Crawford. I could not imagine you to have an interest in that quarter, and thus could not be expected to inform you of my plans.”
“Expected! Hardly. The young are never expected to treat anyone with consideration. But never mind. I see you have your mother's things in that basket”
“I do, and I send them with her compliments.”
Miss Crawford paused to examine a tiny nightdress, of fine cambric, overlaid with my mother's excellent satin stitch; and sniffed audibly. “The seams might have been straighter; but then, one never gives as much care to things for the poor, as for one's own; and I suppose her eyes are weak, at her age.”
“I shall inform her of your gratitude,” I said drily, and turned for the door.
“Do you remember, Miss Austen, to tell her of the ladies’ tea, to be held at Darby on Saturday,” Miss Crawford called sharply after me. “It is meant as a kindness to the good-hearted women who do so much for the unfortunates of the parish. It is a vast deal of trouble, to be sure, but I count it as nothing. It is the least that I may do. It is to be a very fine tea.”
“Though, perhaps inevitably, tealess,” I observed.
“Whatever do you mean to say, Miss Austen?”
“I had understood there was not a leaf to be had, in all of Lyme.”
“But that is hardly the case at Darby, I may assure you.” Miss Crawford spoke with an air of smug complacency. “My dear brother is never at a loss for tea—but then, we may consider him as having resources, that should be denied a mere visitor, such as yourself.”