In the sitting-room I encountered poor James, intent upon his task of nailing some considerable pieces of wood across the windows looking out upon Broad Street. I waited in sympathy while he grunted and heaved through his exertions. Such a flush as overspread the young man's countenance, and such beads of perspiration as shone upon his face! For he must support the wood with one hand, while hammering with the other, and the exercise was decidedly an awkward one. I considered suggesting he call for Jenny, and petition her aid; but fearful of exciting his contempt, in questioning the manliness of his strength and vigour, I stood mildly by and waited until he should have done.

“There, miss,” he said, rising to his full six feet, and easing his powerful shoulders; “that should please the missus.”

“Indeed,” I said, “as every form of kindness you exert on our behalf has done. We are indebted to you, James, for such labour freely offered, and with such good humour.”

He blushed furiously, and cast his eyes about the rug, and was made so clearly ill at ease by my praise, that I hastened to give him opportunity for diversion.

“I wonder, James, if you are acquainted with the Widow Tibbit.”

“Old Maggie?” he ejaculated, with an air of surprise. “Whatever d'you want with Maggie Tibbit?” Then, as if recollecting his place, he blushed once more. “Leastways, it's none of my business, beggin’ your pardon, miss. You'll have your reasons, I expect, as I don't need the knowing of.”

“But you do know Mrs. Tibbit, then?”

“All of Lyme knows Maggie,” he said, with something of a smirk. “She lives down in Hull cottage, along the river.”

“The River Buddie?”[64]

He nodded, curiosity in his eyes. The River Buddie district is a famous place in Lyme, and not for charitable reasons.

“Miss Crawford was so good as to think of the Tibbit children,” I said, with a casual air, “and gathered some clothes among her tenants. I offered to take them to the widow, with our sympathies and compliments.”

“Then you'll be giving Old Maggie more consideration nor half the town,” James declared, “but that's like your ways, miss, if you don't mind my sayin' “A zample to us all, so Jenny was sayin”; and I'm of her mind.”

A zample, indeed.

Chapter 15

By the Buddie's Noisome Banks

20 September 1804, cont.

THE RIVER BUDDIE — WHICH I SHOULD SOONER CALL A STREAM — begins in the sweet grass of the high downs above Up Lyme, and ends in the salt freshness off the Cobb; but its narrow banks are crowded with a huddle of housing, and the district bears a very ill reputation. So much I had already known; but more salacious details were imparted to me by Miss Crawford, when I called upon that lady in the guise of charity, to solicit clothing for the bereaved Tibbits — for I should not like to appear in the neighbourhood without a clear purpose, lest my visit to the widow excite local speculation.

“Maggie Tibbit?” Miss Crawford said, peering at me over her spectacles as I sat in the Darby drawing-room. “If the woman had been possessed of sense, she should have married anyone but the man she did; and having committed that folly, she should have determined to bear fewer children. There are no less than five, you will understand, and all of them decidedly ill-favoured.”

“But deprived, nonetheless, of the support of a fa-ther,” I had rejoined mildly. “Winter is coming on, Miss Crawford, and the condescension of the ladies of St. Michael's could hardly be better bestowed. Consider what Mrs. Tibbit's anxieties must be — and how slim the wretched woman's resources — with so many pitiful mouths to feed!”

“Aye, Maggie's resources are slim enough,” Miss Crawford rejoined with a snort of contempt. “She has but one, as I'm sure you'll observe, do you persist in this foolish errand.”

I made no reply, but awaited the outcome of Miss Crawford's benevolence; and in an instant, she had tidied her needlework with an air of decision, and bestowed upon her visitor another withering look.

“I will turn over some part of the clothing we hold in store, against the needs of such pathetic objects, but I cannot undertake to pay the call in your stead, Miss Austen,” she told me severely. “I truly cannot. It would appear to countenance such behaviour as Mrs. Tibbit pursues, with the church's approbation. Soon all of Lyme's degraded women will be knocking at our doors.”

“Indeed,” I replied, with a demure look and inward rejoicing; for I had no wish for Miss Crawford's company, nor the discovery of her sharp ears, as I plied my questions. It but remained to follow her creaking black skirts into Darby's offices, and to have her turn over a quantity of clean linen, dutifully mended by the dutiful Lucy Armstrong (now returned to Bath in the company of her parents), and to enquire of Miss Crawford the approximate ages and sex of the Tibbit progeny. Despite her disinclination to involve herself in Maggie Tibbit's affairs, that charitable dame revealed herself well-acquainted with them. She could recite with dispatch the intelligence I required. I paused but to wonder what knowledge of my life she had amassed all unbeknownst; and then with the profusest of thanks and my bundle of clothing, I was handed into my hack chaise, and sent speedily on my way.

THE STENCH OF THE BUDDIE EMBRACED ME WELL BEFORE I encountered its ramshackle cottages; for the river here is little more than an open sewer, that churns all manner of refuse and human waste along its course, to end in the beaches and the sea. The odours that arise from its banks must be overwhelming in the stagnant heat of summer; but I was preserved from the most unhealthful effects, by a brisk breeze and the application of a kerchief, liberally doused with lavender-water, to my nose. I had wisely donned a simple and sturdy gown — my old grey muslin, of a military cut, with the charcoal braid — my brown wool being quite sandy about the hems, the result of my Charmouth adventure, and possessed of a great slit in its backside, acquired somehow in the course of that midnight wandering. The Leghorn straw I had left behind, as too fashionable and frivolous for a charity errand; a sober closed bonnet I had adopted instead, which afforded the added benefit of shielding my features.

The cobbles of the street were few, and gaping holes pocked its surface; I saw where last week's storm had carved a rut along the verge, and the soil was much eroded. Picking my way with care, therefore, I searched about for a not unfriendly face, intending to ask the way. Several fellows lounging in doorways I swiftly discarded, as bearing too fearsome an aspect, or appearing too befuddled by drink to answer any enquiry with sense; but at last I espied a matron, with a market-basket over her arm and a cap upon her head, and an apron both tidy and white despite the squalor of her environs; and deemed her a suitable guide.

“Excuse me, madam,” I said, with a bow at once stately and condescending, as befit my role, “would you be so good as to direct me to the Tibbit lodgings?”

The woman halted in her course, and stared at me with outrage; and then, depositing a mouthful of phlegm on the paving stones at my feet, continued along her way with a sweep of skirts.

I stared after her, all amazement, then glanced swiftly about the street. We undoubtedly had been observed; and yet, the faces of the Buddie's intimates bore a carefully-shuttered ignorance. Whatever could such behaviour mean? And how was I to discover the valuable Maggie, if her neighbours proved so taciturn and hostile?

“If ye be wan tin’ the Tibbits, ye've not far to go, miss. The voice came at my very feet; and with a start of surprise, I looked down upon the bent back of a cripple, in truth not above the middle age, but from his rough appearance and apparent ill-health, seeming as ancient as a relic of Shakespeare's time. He leered up at me, head craned at an awkward angle, his gnarled fingers gripping a stave. Involuntarily, I took a step backwards, and clutched tighter at my basket of clothing — for I should not like to be taken unawares by a footpad in just such a caricature, who would leave off his martyred stance and turn his cudgel upon my head.