“It’s a very fine example of a sixteenth-century hall,” Godmother agreed. “There’s the minstrels’ gallery opposite us, you see, where no doubt the musicians played their best when Queen Elizabeth was here to listen to them.”
“I don’t know which I like best, the Chapel we’ve just seen, or this Hall, or the Library, or the pretty Gardens where ‘the Brethren’ are walking or sitting,” Betty declared. “What a lovely place for them to have. I’m so glad Sir Thomas Sutton left it to be a home always for poor gentlemen. But what a pity that the boys have all gone!”
“Yes, it’s sad, but even the present Charterhouse boys, who have, of course, never lived in this old place at all (because it’s fifty years since the school was moved to Godalming), are very proud of this ancient dwelling which they feel still belongs to them. Did you notice that new marble tablet in the stone passage or cloister, as it is called, leading to the Chapel? On it are written the names of Charterhouse boys who fell a year or two ago in the Great War and are commemorated in the old school-house. Many famous men have been educated here, of whom you’ll learn something when you know more about the literature and history of our country. But there’s one of whom you may have heard. He was a boy here and afterwards wrote a celebrated novel in which Charterhouse plays a part.”
“Thackeray wrote about it in The Newcomes, I know! and I’ve just read it!” Betty exclaimed. “In the book, Colonel Newcome comes here and is one of the poor brothers. Thackeray was alive not so very long ago, wasn’t he?”
“It seems to me a very little while ago,” Godmother answered, “but it’s considerably over fifty years since he died, as I discovered just now by looking at the tablet to his memory in the Chapel Cloister.”
“Oh! I’m so glad I’ve seen this place,” Betty said as they were leaving, and she turned at the gate to look back at a sunny courtyard with a glimpse of green lawn beyond. “I shall read The Newcomes again now, and imagine old Colonel Newcome walking just here. I had no idea there were such beautiful places in London, Godmother—even without the magic, I mean,” she added.
“Thousands of people live in this wonderful city of ours and never find them—never even take any trouble to know of their existence,” was Godmother’s reply. “And that seems strange to me, and also a great pity. They lose much pleasure.”
Betty would gladly have lingered in Smithfield, and was full of questions about various buildings which attracted her attention, but Godmother hurried her away even from the great beautiful church of St. Bartholomew near the Charterhouse.
“We must visit that another time,” she declared. “We’ve done enough for the present. But before next Saturday,” she added, “go to the London Museum. You will find all sorts of things in it to interest you if you keep in mind what we’ve seen to-day. Go to the gallery in the basement and look at the model of London in the sixteenth century. You will see the bridge with the quaint houses clinging to it, and recognize some of the buildings we saw on our magic visit. Then look at the big model of the Tower in another room. Because it was more or less like that model in Elizabeth’s day, and indeed except for the water in the moat, it has nearly the same appearance now.