With a naturalness so absolute did the Amazon with the daffodil-colored mane stoop to assist her cavalier to retrieve the fragments of the shattered umbrella, that it seemed almost to the onlookers that she had mistaken the central aisle of Saint Sepulchre’s at 11:15 a.m. on the second Sunday in May for the middle of Exmoor.
“My aunt!” said the cool and youthful tones, “the gal’s tophole.”
“Sssh, Archibald!” said the sibilant whisper. “Dear me, what loud manners! Sssh, Archibald! don’t speak during the Confession.”
Caroline Crewkerne and her gentlewoman had been kneeling devoutly upon their hassocks for at least two minutes by the time Cheriton and Miss Perry arrived at the second pew from the chancel. Cheriton bore in his right hand a fragment of ivory; in the left the decapitated body of his umbrella. Somehow his expression of rue did not seem to be quite so sincere as the circumstances and the surroundings warranted. In the right hand of Miss Perry was a prayer-book; in the left two fragments of ivory. The gravity of her demeanor was enough to satisfy the most sensitive beholder.
After the service, as Caroline Crewkerne’s party was moving out of the church, it was joined by no less a person than George Betterton. Like Caroline herself, he was an infrequent worshiper at Saint Sepulchre’s.
“Hallo, George!” said Cheriton. “What the dooce has brought you to church?”
Cheriton was not sincere in his inquiry. He knew perfectly well what had brought George to church. The responsibility for his appearance there was his entirely.
“The weather, Cheriton,” growled George solemnly. “Fine mornin’ to hear a good sermon.”
“I don’t approve of candles on the altar,” said Caroline Crewkerne in a voice that all the world might heed. “Far too many Roman practices have crept into the service lately.”
“You are perfectly right, Caroline,” said Cheriton. “That is my opinion. I intend to lodge a complaint with the Vicar.”