Fault in the Structure

CHAPTER 5

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And they go silently away

Saying nothing for fear of betrayal

‘Well, what of the day?’ said Dame Beatrice when Laura, in dressing-gown and slippers, came to say goodnight. ‘I had the impression that at the sight of the Vice-Chancellor you fled.’

‘It wasn’t the Vice-Chancellor. It was the heat. I spotted a cedar tree on the other side of the wall and made a bee-line for its grateful shade – rather a nice example of transferred epithet, that. It was I who was grateful, and was I! What is more, I was waited upon by nymphs and regaled with some of the best ‘real’ lemonade I’ve ever tasted, cakes direct from the College kitchen and, although I was not fed with apricocks and dewberries, with purple grapes, green figs and mulberries, I did get a plate of the finest English strawberries together with as much fresh cream as even I could eat.’

‘After which you vanished from the scene, only to reappear at dinner.’

‘I had no intention of being rude or unsociable, but, except for you, whom one couldn’t get near because of the crush, I didn’t know a soul and I couldn’t imagine that a soul would wish to know me, so I went exploring around and about and had a swim.’

‘You are always so enterprising. How did you manage that?’

‘I found Parsonesses’ Pleasure, or whatever it’s called in these parts. It’s a bathing-place in a backwater of the river, clear of weed and perfectly lovely. You know – lush banks on either side, with meadowsweet, dog-daisies, tall grasses, purple loosestrife, water forget-me-not and monkey flower.’

‘Monkey flower?’

‘You’re certain to have seen it. Once a foreigner, now naturalised. Biggish, deep-yellow flowers with red spots and a long lower lip to the corona, Latin name Mimulus guttatus. Well, I enjoyed myself no end. I swam a goodish way upstream and found that there is a wire mesh across the water to bar boating strangers, I suppose, from witnessing Beauty bathing by a spring. I swam about a mile the other way, too, and encountered a similar barrier. There’s a boathouse by the dressing-sheds, so I suppose the girls have about two miles of river-water all to themselves for swimming and rowing. I didn’t appear again at the garden-party because I had to get my hair dry and fixed before I could meet the company at dinner.’

‘But how did you get yourself dry?’

‘The sun did most of it and I finished up on the enormous pocket-handkerchief I keep in my handbag in case a tourniquet or sling is suddenly required. Incidentally, did you know this place is supposed to be haunted?’

‘I have heard tales to that effect.’

‘One of the students thinks she has seen a monk dragging a sack. She wanted me to ask you whether she could come for psychiatric treatment but of course I fobbed her off.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you don’t run a private practice any more. I explained she’d have to go to London and attend your clinic, but that, even if she did, she wouldn’t see you.’

‘What is her name?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t going to ask, anyway, but, as soon as I’d given her the bird, a surge of strawberry-seekers rolled up and I saw no more of her. It was after that that I explored around a bit and had my swim.’

‘I am interested in this girl because Miss Peterson, the Senior Tutor, told me the same story.’

‘So the girl had been to her for help and consolation?’

‘Oh, no, nothing like that. I meant that she herself has seen the ghost. Only being older and more sceptical she regards him merely as a prowler, so now, at nights, the College is under police protection.’

‘Well, in a women’s college, I suppose a prowler is even more worrying than a ghost. You hear some pretty lurid tales these days about nurses’ homes, women’s hostels, single girls’ bedsitters and the like. What did the Senior Tutor think she saw? Somebody at dinner mentioned a monk.’

‘The Senior Tutor, more reasonably, thought it was a man wearing a white anorak with the hood pulled over his head.’

‘Is this fairly recent?’

‘Apparently. There are other stories, though. It seems that there is what may be called a permanent wager offered among the students. Did you visit the cloister on your perambulations?’

‘Yes. Not a place in which I should care to spend much time. It’s the sort of set-up immortalised in La Belle au Bois Dormant, all overgrown with unpruned rambler roses. It’s dark and smells damp and if there is a ghost here, that’s where I’d say it walks.’

‘You would be right, I daresay. This wager to which I referred…’

‘…Is to walk widdershins three times slowly round the cloister at the witching hour of midnight on All Hallows Eve. I was hearing about it at dinner. One of the dons told me that she took on the bet once when she was a student, but didn’t win it because after the first time round she turned and fled. She said she didn’t actually see anything, but she felt that something was following her all the time.’

‘Another student playing a trick on her, I imagine.’

‘She said nobody would do such a thing. She added that she wouldn’t take on the bet again for a thousand pounds. But what about the Senior Tutor? You said she saw something, too.’

‘Yes, indeed she did, but it had disappeared before she could decide whether it was real or some trick of the moonlight.’

‘If it’s really a Peeping Tom they ought to form a posse, waylay him and chuck him in the river.’

‘He would pollute the water, perhaps. We are not to leave tomorrow until after lunch so if you set eyes on your worried student during the morning, you might waylay her and ask her to talk to me.’

Apart from the High Mistress’s Lodging, the refectory and the chapel, the only other remains of the mediaeval buildings to be in daily use were the Senior Common room and its buttery. These, as they had once been part of the abbess’s lodging, were conveniently situated in that members of the Senior Common room did not need to cross the grounds to attend Hall or chapel unless they were in their own rooms in the new buildings; also the Senior Commonroom gave direct access to the Fellows’ garden.

It was not from the Senior Commonroom, however, that Miss Peterson claimed to have seen the prowler, but from the same part of the new buildings as, it turned out, the student had seen what she claimed to be the ghost of a monk.

Miss Peterson had left College in her car immediately after the dinner following the garden-party, and so could not be questioned further, but the student, whose name was Runmede, was waylaid by Laura as she came out from breakfast and invited to stroll with Dame Beatrice in the grounds.

‘I am told that you are psychic,’ said Dame Beatrice, when they met, ‘and that you wished to tell me of your experiences.’

‘I only want to be sure I’m not going mad,’ said the girl. ‘There has always been something mystical about moonlight and one does remember that the word lunatic comes from luna. Besides, moonlight and magic are closely connected, aren’t they? By moonlight Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson. Then, of course, there is Oberon’s contention that he and Titania were ill-met by moonlight. Also, it’s rather easy to fall in love by moonlight.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘It was seeing him the second time that worried me,’ went on the student, ‘because that time it wasn’t any trick of shadows; he was there, out in Bessie’s Quad, right in the open, and he only existed down to his waist.’

‘As somebody once said of Mr Rochester.’

‘He was dragging something heavy in a sack,’ said the student, ignoring the slur on the hero of Jane Eyre.

‘How tall did he seem?’ asked Dame Beatrice.

‘I couldn’t say. My room is on the top floor of New Building, so, as I was looking down, I can’t say how tall he was. Anyway, as I was trying to tell you, he had no legs. He was in white, with his cowl drawn over his head, and then, from the waist downward, he simply didn’t exist. It was very frightening. Then he disappeared. That’s how I know I saw a ghost. He just disappeared.’

‘Both times?’

‘Yes.’

‘Later on perhaps you will be good enough to show me the spot at which he vanished. By the way, did you think he might have come from the river?’

‘The river? Well, I suppose he could have done, but I don’t really think so, because each time he was coming from the direction of Bessie’s Quad, and that doesn’t suggest the river, does it?’

‘And he had his back to you both times?’

‘No, he was sideways on, in profile, only I couldn’t see a face because of his hood, but whether he was subjective or objective, well, I’d be ever so relieved if you could tell me.’

‘Oh, I can tell you that you weren’t seeing things, as the vulgar express it. The Senior Tutor, Miss Peterson, is your witness. She also saw the ghost, although she prefers to call him a prowler.’

‘Oh, dear! That’s not very nice, either. I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather he were a ghost,’ said Miss Runmede, looking very much alarmed. Dame Beatrice reassured her.

‘Have no fear. Miss Peterson made a report and the grounds are patrolled every night. What a very pleasant quadrangle this is.’

‘Yes, the flowers in the borders are agreeable, but have you seen the little secluded garden we call the Abbess’s Walk? I think it’s the most charming spot of all. Do let me show you.’ It seemed that Dame Beatrice’s words had had a heartening effect on the student. She spoke blithely.

The Abbess’s Walk was indeed a charming spot. It was only about forty yards long and fifteen yards wide, but its intriguing little stone-flagged paths were bordered by lavender, antirrhinums, foxgloves and larkspur and there was a background of grey stone walls. As well as the cottage-garden flowers there were white, yellow and red roses whose scent out-vied the lavender in filling the enclosed air with fragrance; but what intrigued Dame Beatrice more than the old-world garden itself, delightful though she found it, was the fact that it communicated at one end, by means of a wicket-gate, with the main quadrangle and, at the other, with no barrier of any kind, with the cloister.

‘I wonder whether we might perambulate the cloister?’ she suggested.

‘Yes, of course. There’s nothing much to see except the roses and they’re all over the place. The cloister is hardly ever used, so I suppose the gardeners don’t pay it all that much attention. They’ve plenty of other things to do in the quads and in the High Mistress’s and the Fellows’ gardens. There’s been talk of training back the roses and of putting a lily-pond in the middle of the cloister garth and last term the digging was begun, but I don’t think they’ve touched it this summer.’

The cloister, as Laura had discovered, was dark and damp. The unglazed, fourteenth-century openings which, on all four sides, overlooked the untidy, grassy square of the cloister garth, were indeed smothered and almost covered up by the roses whose growth had become out of hand. There was only one way of leaving the cloister itself— to walk out on to its garth, but this opening must have been almost impassable because of the roses except that recently some secateurs had been at work on the more obstinate and choking of the stems so that a way through could be made.

Risking a scratched face and hands, Dame Beatrice pushed past the formidable trails and approached an excavation in the centre of the untidy square of grass. The student followed her.

‘Hullo,’ she said. “The workmen must have been here again and partly filled in the hole they dug. I wonder what made them do that?’

‘Yes, they have now made it much too shallow for the purpose of sinking a pool for water-lilies and other aquatic plants,’ commented Dame Beatrice, studying the excavation. She glanced at her watch. ‘Dear me! I must go and get ready for lunch. I wonder whether you would do one more thing for me if you can spare the time this afternoon?’

‘Of course, Dame Beatrice.’

‘Show me your room and the window from which you saw the ghost, and also perhaps you would indicate, as exactly as you can, where the prowler made his appearances. On which floor would Miss Peterson’s room be, I wonder?’

‘The dons and Fellows occupy the ground floor.’

‘So Miss Peterson may have had a better view of this nocturnal visitor than you had. May I ask why you were up so late when you saw what you took to be the ghost?’

‘The first time it was because I couldn’t sleep. I’d been crossed in love. The second time it was because I was sublimating by writing a poem about my miseries. That always seems to make one feel better about things, I find.’

‘Ah, yes, I quite understand,’ said Dame Beatrice.