"Lovely Mr. Haverford is going to show us the crypt!" Jane's rapturous exclamation, combined with a sharp pinch, drew Letty's attention back to the blushing curate.
"It's really no place for ladies," said the curate hesitantly, looking at the elaborate flounces at the hem of Jane's dress, and the ribbons fluttering from the brim of her bonnet. His voice was a soft tenor, more Oxbridge than Ireland. "It's very damp."
Just over the cleric's shoulder, the blue-painted panels of the church door settled silently shut.
Releasing Letty, Jane clapped her gloved hands together in girlish glee.
"Oh, how splendid! Just like The Castle of Otranto! Or was it The Children of the Abbey? Oh, never mind, whichever it was, the crypt was positively drippy. Oh, please, do tell me that there are bones scattered about the floor!"
The curate cleared his throat uncomfortably, and tugged at his clerical collar as Jane fluttered her lashes at him. "I'm afraid all our bones are properly put away in their, er, respective coffers."
"Oh, well." Jane did a marvelous impression of someone nobly striving to overcome a grave disappointment. "We will contrive to manage, I suppose, as long as it is very, very damp and gloomy."
"Oh, very damp and gloomy!" replied the curate, his head bobbing up and down, grateful to be able to please in something.
"Excellent!" Miss Gwen took command of the curate's arm. "You shall escort us. Now, where is this crypt of yours?"
"It's not mine, precisely…."
"Sirrah!" A sharp rap of the parasol indicated that Miss Gwen would brook no shilly-shallying, even from a man of the cloth.
Suitably chastened, the curate said meekly, "It's around the south side of the church. If you will come this way…"
With Miss Gwen's arm so firmly latched onto his that it was hard to discern whether he was leading or being dragged, the curate led the way around the sanctuary, leaving Letty and Jane to follow in his wake. The curate did attempt to glance longingly back at Jane, but a sharp poke from Miss Gwen's parasol reclaimed his attention, and made a deep reddish stain spread between his collar and the downy fringe of hair on the back of his neck.
As they rounded the side of the church, picking their way along the uneven passage, Miss Gwen's imperious voice floated back. "You, I take it, are a student of scripture. How do you reconcile 'Blessed are the meek' with 'God helps those who help themselves'?"
"I'm afraid the latter isn't actually in the scriptures, Mrs. Grimstone," said the curate very apologetically.
"Nonsense! You must not have been looking hard enough." Miss Gwen glanced impatiently around her as the party drew to a halt beneath two arched windows covered with grilles. "Why are we stopping?"
"This is the vault, Mrs. Grimstone."
"Where?" demanded Miss Gwen, craning her neck as though a mausoleum might magically materialize for her convenience.
"I believe he means this," said Letty, pointing down. The entrance was little more than a hole in the ground, covered by a sturdy wooden trapdoor with an iron ring set in one end.
Inserting the point of her parasol through the ring, Miss Gwen tugged. The trapdoor opened easily; either, thought Letty, the wood was much lighter or Miss Gwen much stronger than she had thought. Letty suspected the latter. In the resulting gap, Letty could just make out the top of a flight of stone stairs.
Miss Gwen peered disdainfully into the depths. "That is your crypt?"
"I did say it was no place for ladies," hedged the curate, falling back a step beneath the force of Miss Gwen's formidable glower, and even more formidable parasol.
Jane fluttered into action. "How romantic!" she breathed, with a warning look at her chaperone. "Why, it's just like the subterranean passageway in The Horrors of Alfonso!"
"I'm afraid I haven't read that work," admitted the curate.
"Nor the Bible, either, apparently," sniffed Miss Gwen.
Letty wondered what Lord Pinchingdale was doing back in the sanctuary, and whether her companions would notice if she abandoned them to slip back inside. She glanced briefly back over her shoulder at the narrow alleyway they had just walked down, little tufts of grass sprouting along the sides of trodden dirt. The stone of the sanctuary walls blotted any sound from within.
"Darling Mrs. Alsdale!" Letty was learning to loathe her assumed name. Jane propelled Letty forward with a light push. "Would you do the honors?"
"All right." Yielding to the inevitable, Letty gathered her skirts up. She placed one booted foot on the top step, worn at the middle from generations of feet carrying their funereal burdens. A slight flicker of light lurked in the depths. Picking her way down, Letty was grateful to whomever had thought to keep a torch burning below. There was no rail to cling to, just the uneven stone wall, as slick and damp as any distressed heroine might wish for. Atmospheric, perhaps, but it was wreaking havoc with the palms of Letty's gloves.
Behind her, Letty could hear the slight brush of a slipper against the step, the whisper of fabric on stone, as Jane started down after her, effectively cutting off any retreat.
As the illumination below grew more conspicuous, she asked the curate, "Do you always keep a light lit?"
"A light?" The curate was, from the sound of it, lumbered with Miss Gwen. "I'm afraid the, er, inhabitants have little need for one."
"Unless," pronounced Miss Gwen in sepulchral tones, "they choose to walk."
"I don't believe they have terribly much choice in the matter," said the confused curate. "They're quite stationary."
"Some people have no imagination," snapped Miss Gwen.
Letty was beginning to think she had too much imagination. But that was quite definitely a light ahead of her, no matter what the curate said, and not just reflected light from the opening above. Stepping gratefully down from the last stair onto packed earth, Letty withdrew her stained gloves from the wall and peered forward, into the crypt.
The curate hadn't been dissembling; the vault was just as gloomy as any aficionado of horror novels might have desired. Despite the warm July day, the space beneath the vaulted stone arches was as chill as October, with a curious scent to it, a combination of damp earth, mold, and wet stone that repulsed any whiff of the outside world. Rows of columns supported the heavy stone arches like trees in a strange, subterranean forest.
It was impossible to believe that just above their heads were the clean classical lines of the church. Somewhere directly above them, Lord Pinchingdale was in the sanctuary…doing what? Letty doubted he was indulging in a spot of sacral meditation, unless he was praying for release from their unfortunate marriage—and it was a bit late for that. From her post at the base of the stairs, Letty could just make out the shapes of the promised sepulchers, and she wondered whether one of them did belong to a Lord Edward Fitzgerald, or if Lord Edward, like the rest of the story, had been merely a fabrication to keep her occupied.
Even if it had, there was no getting out of the expedition now—or challenging Jane about it in the presence of the bemused curate.
Reluctantly, Letty moved forward, into the interior of the crypt. The light from the trapdoor, balked by the bodies of Letty's companions, made it no farther than the base of the steps. Letty would have been feeling her way by touch from column to column if not for the torch that someone had stuck through a ring on the wall. For all its size, the massive torchiere provided only a reluctant, smoky light in the heavy atmosphere of the crypt, a small, orange ball of flame, like a demon in an alchemist's furnace, trailing a long tail of black soot behind it. A shadow on the wall, darker than the stone itself, attested to the presence of previous visitors and previous torches.