Laura seated herself in a deck-chair, and was soon approached by a student wearing a backless sun-suit, enormous dark-glasses and open-toed sandals.
‘Gracious!’ said Laura. ‘You look more comfortable than I feel!’ She removed her festive and detested hat and, grateful for the shade of the cedar which made the hat unnecessary, she hung the redundant lid on a projection at the back of her deck chair.
‘We agreed to do our waitress act so long as we could dress as we liked,’ said the student. ‘The Bursar thought it was all right so long as we didn’t turn out in bra and panties or in bikinis. The trouble is to keep old Doctor Giddie at bay. Giddie by name and giddy by nature is that old goat. What would you like? It’s all free.’
Laura laughed and opted for iced lemonade. When the girl brought it she was accompanied by another who carried a tray laden with cakes and strawberries.
‘I say,’ said this second girl, who was somewhat more decorously clad than her companion in that her frock, although backless, was almost knee-length, albeit her feet were bare, ‘didn’t I see you come in with Dame Beatrice? Do you know her?’
‘I am her dogsbody. I type, drive the car, chase away unwelcome visitors, answer letters, look up references, bark, balance lumps of sugar on my nose, jump through hoops at the word of command and sometimes join Dame B in pastoral dances by the lee light of the moon,’ Laura replied.
‘Could you ask if I can consult her after Hall tonight?’
‘Consult her? She’s here as a visitor,’ said Laura, becoming serious.
‘Oh, I know, but, you see, I need a psychiatrist and I can’t afford the fare to London as well as paying her fee.’
‘Oh, you plan to be a cash customer? What’s the trouble?’
‘I’ve been seeing the College ghost, a monk dragging a sack. I need help and – well – is it true that she charges according to one’s means?’
‘A foolish practice for which I have often upbraided her. All the same, if you want a psychiatrist, well, she’s no longer in regular practice, you know. Even if you did attend her London clinic, you wouldn’t get her. You’d get one of the three doctors who now run it. She visits every now and again, but that’s all.’
‘I see.’ The two girls left her table, for a stream of visitors suddenly cascaded into the Fellows’ garden, so Laura finished her cake, lemonade and strawberries and relinquished her seat in the shade to a plump, blonde woman who was feeling the effects of the sun. Then she wandered around the grounds. She discovered the cool silence of the cloister and noticed that on the side opposite the church an open archway led into a pleasantly secluded little garden and that this, again, opened on to the main quadrangle and the enclosure formed by the twentieth-century College annexe.
An archway between two blocks led to an acreage of grass which Laura deduced must be part of the College playing fields and she was delighted and surprised to see that one boundary of this area was formed by a backwater of the river. She wandered down to it. As it could be crossed by a wooden bridge which had no gate at either end, she assumed that the land on the other side was also College property.
There was a boathouse on her side of the water. Laura studied the stream, noted that it was clear of weed and, as there were dressing-boxes alongside the boat-house, she realised that she was looking at the College bathing-place.
‘Lucky devils!’ thought Laura. She tried the first of the cubicles. It was open. In two minutes, naked as a mermaid, she was in the water.
Four tables were set for dinner in Hall that evening. Dame Beatrice sat at the high table with the High Mistress and the more distinguished of the guests, two tables below the dais accommodated the remainder of the invited, and at the end of the long room sat an unusually muted gathering at a table to themselves, the students who were staying up.
Laura found herself seated between two of the reverend signiors referred to by the High Mistress in her letter. One of them asked her whether her husband was a member of the University.
‘No, he’s a policeman,’ Laura replied.
‘Ah, yes, I remember. I knew the name meant something to me. Assistant Commissioner Robert Gavin, isn’t it? I think I met him once. Tell me, does he still believe in ghosts?’
‘I don’t know that he ever did.’
‘This place is haunted, you know. Oh, yes, it’s a fact.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s a scandal, too. The ghost is that of a monk, and the monks were not necessarily or even usually, in early monastic times, ordained priests. I conclude, therefore, that he had no right to visit a convent.’
Laura, who disliked what she called ‘sniggery little men,’ said calmly, ‘The custom of ordaining monks to be priests was begun I believe, by the Augustinian canons who founded houses in England from towards the end of the eleventh century, but the Benedictines and even the Cluniacs, who followed the Benedictine rule but with considerably greater austerity, were slow to follow suit.’
‘I see that you have studied your subject,’ said her partner, slightly taken aback. ‘Anyway, to revert to the frivolous topic of the ghost, you will admit that he had no business in a convent of nuns.’
‘Oh, he had business all right,’ said Laura’s other neighbour whom she knew, from the place-names at table, to be the apparently notorious Doctor Giddie.
‘I believe he’s been seen quite recently,’ said Laura. ‘One of the students who is staying up claims to have seen him.’
‘Where?’
‘She didn’t say. Incidentally, as I said, I don’t think my husband has ever believed in ghosts. I wonder what made you think he did?’
‘All Scotsmen, if they’re Highlanders, believe in ghosts,’ said the don.
Someone opposite contested this and the argument turned on to kelpies, water-horses and the Loch Ness monster, a conversation in which Laura, who was well informed on all these matters, was able to distinguish herself.
‘Are you a Catholic?’ her partner enquired when, coffee having been served, the guests were standing around waiting to bid their hostess goodnight before departing to their homes.
‘No. Why? Oh, you mean because of monasteries. I’ve always been interested in monastic life and not so very long ago I helped Dame Beatrice to investigate a murder which took place in the grounds of a convent.’
‘Oh, I see. Does Dame Beatrice believe in ghosts? You see, I’m a member of a local society for psychical research and we’d very much like to investigate the story of the monk who haunts this College, but, so far, the High Mistress won’t give permission.’
‘Not even during the Long Vacation when the last of the students has gone down and the College is empty?’
‘No, because there is still a skeleton staff of maids in residence. She says they would be so much alarmed by an investigation that they would leave. And in these days, when it’s so difficult to get good, reliable domestic help, she cannot take the risk. I thought perhaps Dame Beatrice might persuade her. The ghost of the monk is well authenticated.’
‘She wouldn’t persuade anybody to risk losing servants,’ said Laura. They passed out of Hall and the don took his leave and went out through the Fellows’ garden. This was now bespangled with fairy lights hanging from the apple trees and placed around the coping of the well. All were of a sinister shade of blue.
Laura shivered. It seemed to her that the summer night struck suddenly chill. She thought of blue-papered, blue-brocaded rooms in haunted houses. An owl screeched. The trees rustled and talked.