soon as Havers shows up.”
As if in reply, the doorbell shrilled a second time that morning.
Set into two hundred acres partially hewn from St. Leonard’s Forest in West Sussex, Bredgar Chambers appeared to provide the ideal environment for serious students. There were absolutely no external distractions. Cissbury, the nearest village, was three quarters of a mile away, and it boasted nothing more than a cluster of houses, a post office, and a pub; there was no major thoroughfare within five miles of the campus, and the country lanes that surrounded it were largely untravelled; although there were several isolated cottages in the vicinity, they were inhabited almost entirely by retired people who had no special interest in the life of the school. Nearby were vast fields, rolling hills, several farms, and extensive woodland. But beyond the combined stimulation of eternally fresh air and generally blue sky, there was nothing. Thus the school could in good faith promise hopeful parents that their children would be exposed to a monastic existence in which education, manners, moral fibre, and religious training were inculcated into them.
Bredgar Chambers was not in itself, however, an inherently ascetic environment. A surfeit of beauty prevented this. Access to the school was gained by means of a long serpentine drive that passed a neat porter’s lodge and curved beneath ancient beech and ash trees whose spring growth furled in tight specks of green. On either side of this drive, manicured lawns, broken by scattered copses of fir, pine, and spruce, swept to the flintstone walls that served as the school’s formal boundaries. The buildings themselves were not typical to a district of the country in which knapped flint was generally used for construction. Rather, they were made of honey-coloured Ham stones, named for the village in Somerset near which they had been quarried, and they were roofed in slate. No vines grew upon them, and in the morning sun, palpable warmth seemed to exude from their ashlar walls.
Lynley had felt Sergeant Havers’ disapproval the moment they passed the porter’s lodge. She didn’t wait long to voice it.
“Lovely,” she remarked, stubbing out her cigarette. She’d been smoking like a fiend ever since they’d left the city. The interior of his Bentley smelled like the aftermath of a conflagration. “I always did want to see where rich nits send their little buggers to learn how to say pater . La-di-da.”
“I imagine it’s a bit more Spartan on the inside, Havers,” he replied. “These places usually are.”
“Quite. Oh, yes.”
Lynley parked in front of the main school building. Its front door stood open, acting as frame for the lovely picture of a grassy quad beyond it and more importantly, no doubt, for the statue that stood at the quad’s centre. Even from a distance, Lynley recognised the regal profile of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, later Henry VII and the putative founder of Bredgar Chambers.
Although it was nearly nine, no one appeared to be out on the grounds, an odd circumstance in a school claiming an enrollment of six hundred. But as they got out of the car, they heard the swelling notes of an organ, followed by the opening of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” sung by a well-practised congregation.
“Chapel,” Lynley said in explanation.
“It’s not even Sunday,” Havers muttered.
“I’m sure an exposure to prayer won’t corrupt our secular sensibilities, Sergeant. Come along. Try to look suitably devout, will you?”
“Right, Inspector. It’s one of my better acts.”
They followed the sounds of organ and singing through the school’s main door, where they found themselves in a cobbled vestibule off which the chapel opened, taking up half the eastern quarter of the quad. They entered quietly. The singing continued.
Lynley saw that the chapel was typical of those found in independent schools throughout the country, with pews facing into
As if in reply, the doorbell shrilled a second time that morning.
Set into two hundred acres partially hewn from St. Leonard’s Forest in West Sussex, Bredgar Chambers appeared to provide the ideal environment for serious students. There were absolutely no external distractions. Cissbury, the nearest village, was three quarters of a mile away, and it boasted nothing more than a cluster of houses, a post office, and a pub; there was no major thoroughfare within five miles of the campus, and the country lanes that surrounded it were largely untravelled; although there were several isolated cottages in the vicinity, they were inhabited almost entirely by retired people who had no special interest in the life of the school. Nearby were vast fields, rolling hills, several farms, and extensive woodland. But beyond the combined stimulation of eternally fresh air and generally blue sky, there was nothing. Thus the school could in good faith promise hopeful parents that their children would be exposed to a monastic existence in which education, manners, moral fibre, and religious training were inculcated into them.
Bredgar Chambers was not in itself, however, an inherently ascetic environment. A surfeit of beauty prevented this. Access to the school was gained by means of a long serpentine drive that passed a neat porter’s lodge and curved beneath ancient beech and ash trees whose spring growth furled in tight specks of green. On either side of this drive, manicured lawns, broken by scattered copses of fir, pine, and spruce, swept to the flintstone walls that served as the school’s formal boundaries. The buildings themselves were not typical to a district of the country in which knapped flint was generally used for construction. Rather, they were made of honey-coloured Ham stones, named for the village in Somerset near which they had been quarried, and they were roofed in slate. No vines grew upon them, and in the morning sun, palpable warmth seemed to exude from their ashlar walls.
Lynley had felt Sergeant Havers’ disapproval the moment they passed the porter’s lodge. She didn’t wait long to voice it.
“Lovely,” she remarked, stubbing out her cigarette. She’d been smoking like a fiend ever since they’d left the city. The interior of his Bentley smelled like the aftermath of a conflagration. “I always did want to see where rich nits send their little buggers to learn how to say pater . La-di-da.”
“I imagine it’s a bit more Spartan on the inside, Havers,” he replied. “These places usually are.”
“Quite. Oh, yes.”
Lynley parked in front of the main school building. Its front door stood open, acting as frame for the lovely picture of a grassy quad beyond it and more importantly, no doubt, for the statue that stood at the quad’s centre. Even from a distance, Lynley recognised the regal profile of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, later Henry VII and the putative founder of Bredgar Chambers.
Although it was nearly nine, no one appeared to be out on the grounds, an odd circumstance in a school claiming an enrollment of six hundred. But as they got out of the car, they heard the swelling notes of an organ, followed by the opening of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” sung by a well-practised congregation.
“Chapel,” Lynley said in explanation.
“It’s not even Sunday,” Havers muttered.
“I’m sure an exposure to prayer won’t corrupt our secular sensibilities, Sergeant. Come along. Try to look suitably devout, will you?”
“Right, Inspector. It’s one of my better acts.”
They followed the sounds of organ and singing through the school’s main door, where they found themselves in a cobbled vestibule off which the chapel opened, taking up half the eastern quarter of the quad. They entered quietly. The singing continued.
Lynley saw that the chapel was typical of those found in independent schools throughout the country, with pews facing into
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