Still, everybody agreed that though the contests were fun in their way they were not hockey, and the girls would much have preferred the playing-fields, however wet, to the gymnasium.
The girls in the hostel had the hour between four and five o’clock at their own disposal. They were not allowed to leave the College bounds, but they might amuse themselves as they pleased in the garden, playground, or gymnasium. In turns, according to the practising list, they had to devote the time to the piano, and a few even began their prep., though this was not greatly encouraged by Miss Burd, who thought a short brain rest advisable. One afternoon Ingred walked along the corridor with a big pile of music in her arms. Just outside the study she met Verity, and saluted her:
“Cheerio, old sport! Here’s Dr. Linton left his whole cargo behind him today. He rushed off in a hurry and forgot it, and I know he’ll be just raging. I’m going to ask Miss Burd if I may run over into the Abbey and leave it on the organ for him. He has a choir practice tonight, so he’s sure to find it. Will you come with me? Right-o! We’ll both go in and ask ‘exeats.’ ”
The College was erected upon a plot of land which had originally been part of the Abbey grounds. All the old buildings, formerly inhabited by the monks of St. Bidulph’s, and by the nuns in the adjoining convent of St. Mary’s, had long ago been swept away, and only a few ruined walls marked their sites. The nave of the Abbey, however, had escaped, and was still in use as a parish church, though the beautiful original chancel and transepts had been battered down by Henry the Eighth’s Commissioners. It was only a few hundred yards from the school to the Abbey, and Miss Burd readily gave the girls permission to take Dr. Linton’s music and leave it for him on the organ. It was the first time either of them had been inside the church when no service was going on, and they looked round curiously. The organ was locked, or Ingred would certainly never have resisted the temptation to put on the fascinating stops and pedals. She tried to lift the lid that hid the keyboards, but with no success.
“He might have left it open!” she sighed.
“But the verger would come fussing up directly you began to play,” said Verity.
“I don’t see the verger anywhere about.”
“Why, no more do I, now you mention it.”
“Perhaps he’s slipped across to his cottage to have his tea!”
“Perhaps. I say, Ingred, what a gorgeous opportunity to explore. Let’s look round a little on our own.”
There was nobody to forbid, so they started on a tour of inspection. The places they wanted to look at were those that ordinary churchgoers never have a chance of seeing. They peeped into the choir vestry, and Verity gave rather a gasp at the sight of an array of white surplices hanging on the wall like a row of ghosts. They went down a narrow flight of damp steps into a dark place where the coke was kept, they peered into a dusty recess behind the organ, and into a room under the tower, where spare chairs were stored. All this was immensely interesting, but did not quite content them. Verity’s ambition soared farther. Very high up on the wall, above the glorious pillars, and just under the clerestory windows, was a narrow passage called the Nuns’ Ambulatory. It had been built in the long-ago ages to provide exercise for the sisters in the adjoining convent, to which a covered way had originally led.
“Just think of the poor dears parading round there on wet days when they couldn’t walk in their own garden!” said Verity, turning her head almost upside down in her efforts to scan the passage. “I wonder if they ever felt giddy.”
“There’s a balustrade, of course, but I prefer our modern gym. I believe there’s a walk all over the roof too. Athelstane went up once. He said it was like being on the top of a mountain, and you could look all over the town.”
“What’s that queer stone box thing on the wall?” asked Verity, still gazing upwards.
Ingred followed the line of her friend’s eye to a point above the pillars but below the Nuns’ Ambulatory. Here, built out like an oriel window, was a curious closed-in-gallery of stone, pierced in places by tiny frets. It seemed to have nothing to do with the architecture of the Abbey, and indeed to be a sort of excrescence which had been added to it at some later date. It spoilt the beauty of line, and would have been better removed.
“Oh, that’s the peephole!” said Ingred, lowering her head, for it was painful to stretch her neck in so uncomfortable a position. “It was put up in the seventeenth century, when the whole place was full of those old-fashioned high pews. People were very dishonest in those days, and thieves used to come to church on purpose to pick pockets. So they always used to keep somebody stationed up there, looking down through the holes over the congregation to see that no purses were taken during the service. Nice state of things, wasn’t it?”
“Rather! But I’d love to go up there. I say, the verger’s still at his tea. Shall we try?”
“Right-o! I’m game if you are!”
By the north porch there was a small oak door studded with nails. Generally this was kept locked, but today, by a miracle of good fortune, it happened to be open. It was, of course, a very unorthodox thing for the verger to go away and leave the Abbey unattended, even for half an hour, but vergers, after all, are only human, and enjoy a
