The Bell (42 page)

‘Well,' said Paul, ‘have you read it all?'

‘Yes,' said Dora.

‘And are you pleased with your achievement?'

‘Not very.'

‘Not very? You mean you're a little pleased?'

‘I'm not pleased at all.'

‘I suppose you realize you've probably done permanent damage to these excellent people?'

‘Yes.'

‘Whose idea was it? Gashe's? Or Spens's?'

‘Mine.'

‘And you still say you had nothing to do with what happened to the new bell?'

‘Nothing.'

‘I wonder why I ask you questions when I never believe what you say.'

‘Oh, do stop, Paul,' said Dora. Her eyes filled with unshed tears.

‘I can't understand you,' said Paul. ‘I'm beginning to wonder whether you aren't mentally ill. Perhaps you'd better see a psychiatrist in London.'

‘I won't see a psychiatrist,' said Dora.

‘You will if I decide you will,' said Paul.

The distant sound of the train vibrated on the still air. They both turned and looked down the line. The train was coming into view, a long way off. Paul got up and lifted his suitcase and advanced towards the edge of the platform.

There was a commotion in the station yard. Dora looked round and saw that the Land-Rover had just drawn up outside. Out of it tumbled Mark Strafford, Mrs Mark, Sister Ursula, Catherine, and Toby. The train roared into the station.

Paul was busy finding himself an empty first-class compartment near the front with a corner seat facing the engine. Mrs Mark bustled Catherine straight through on to the platform, followed by Sister Ursula. Mark and Toby went to the booking-office. Mrs Mark saw Dora and piloted Catherine in the opposite direction. Mark followed his wife and gave her some tickets. Toby emerged, saw Dora, looked away, turned back, and waved half-heartedly, then got into the nearest carriage by himself. Mark and Mrs Mark spent some time finding a suitable carriage for Catherine. They found it and Mrs Mark pushed Catherine in and got in herself. They shut the door, and Sister Ursula stood by on the platform, talking smilingly to them through the window. Mark went back to look for Toby, discovered where he was, opened the door a little, and stood with one foot on the footboard, talking.

Paul had stowed his things, opened the window, and leaned there frowning at Dora. He said, ‘I expect you at Knightsbridge tomorrow about three o'clock. I shall be there waiting for you.'

‘All right,' said Dora.

‘You understood all my instructions about the packing?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, good-bye,' said Paul. ‘I won't go through the farce of kissing you.'

‘Oh Paul, don't be so beastly,' said Dora. The tears spilled on to her cheek. ‘Do say something nice to me before you go.'

Paul looked at her with cold eyes. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘you want me to comfort you now when you're in trouble. But last March, when I came home and found that you'd left me, there was no one to comfort
me
then, was there? Just you think it over. No, don't paw me. I'm not sexually attracted to you at this moment. I sometimes wonder whether I ever will be again.'

‘Close
all
the doors, please,' shouted the porter, who had once been as far as Paddington.

Mark stepped back, shut the door, and stood laughing loudly at something he had just said to Toby.

‘Paul, I'm so sorry,' said Dora.

‘How absolutely not enough that is!' said Paul. ‘I advise you to do some serious thinking, if you're capable of it.' He fumbled in his wallet. ‘Here', he said, ‘is something you might think about. Bring it back to me in London. I always carry it with me.' He handed her an envelope. The whistle blew. The train began to move.

Paul pulled up his window at once and disappeared. Dora stood watching the carriages go by. She saw Toby sitting well back in his corner, his face twisted and anxious. As the carriage passed Dora waved, but he pretended not to see. Catherine and Mrs Mark were in one of the last carriages, and the train was moving fast by the time they reached Dora. Mrs Mark was looking at Catherine. Catherine looked at Dora, a quick peering unsmiling look with almost closed eyes. Then she was gone.

Dora turned towards the exit. Mark and Sister Ursula were just going back into the booking-hall. Before they disappeared they turned and smiled at her vaguely, evidently unable to decide whether to call her to join them. They went out and Dora heard the engine of the Land-Rover start up. It idled quietly. They were probably waiting for her to emerge.

Dora sat down again on the seat and regarded the yellow mustard field and the distant view of pale stubble and dark trees. It was less misty now. The engine continued to idle. Then the note rose, and she heard the wheels of the Land-Rover scraping the gravelly yard as Mark turned it sharply round. It roared away, out of the gate and down the road.

Dora got up and began to leave the station.

The station was just outside the village on the Imber side. A lane with high overgrown hedges wound away across the fields, and the footpath to Imber left it a quarter of a mile further on. Dora wondered whether to cross the line and go into the village. But there was no point in it, since the pubs would not be open yet. She turned into the dark tunnel of the lane. The sound of the train and the car had died away. A murmur accompanied her steps, which must come from a tiny stream invisible in the ditch. She walked on, her hands in her pockets.

Her hand encountered the envelope which Paul had given her. She drew it out fearfully. It would have to be something unpleasant. She opened it.

It contained two brief letters, both written by herself. The first one, which she saw dated from the early days of their engagement, read as follows:

Dora perused this missive, and then looked at the other one, which read as follows:

This was the note Dora had left at Knightsbridge on the day she departed. Shaken, she reread both letters. She folded them up and walked on. So Paul carried them always in his wallet and wanted to have them back to go on carrying them. So much the worse for Paul. Dora tore the letters into small fragments and strewed them along the hedge.

CHAPTER 25

SINCE THE EVENTS OF THE previous morning, Michael had been occupied. He had summoned the doctor to Catherine and interviewed him when he came and when he left and when he came again. He had spent some time, with Margaret Strafford, by Catherine's bedside. He had had speech with the Bishop and seen him off with such dignity as was possible in the circumstances. With Peter, he had investigated the wooden section of the causeway and discovered that two of the piers had been sawn through just below the water level. He had made arrangements by telephone with a firm of contractors who had agreed to come at once to repair the causeway and to recover the bell from the lake. He had interviewed the foreman who had arrived with tiresome promptness. He had answered some twenty telephone calls from representatives of the press, and talked to half a dozen reporters and photographers who appeared on the spot. He had visited Dora. He had taken decisions about Catherine.

In so far as Michael was thinking about anything during that day he was thinking about Catherine. The revelation made to him in the scene by the lake had surprised him so profoundly that he was still unable, in his mind, to pick the matter up at all. He was left, still, gaping over it, horrified, shocked, full of amazement and pity. He had, in spite of himself, a reaction also of disgust. He shivered when he remembered Catherine's embrace. At the same time, he reproached himself, distressed that he had never guessed, or tried to guess, what really went on in Catherine's mind, and that when now some part of it had been made plain there was so little he could do. He tried to make his thought of her a constant prayer.

That Catherine had been in love with him, was in love with him, was something in every way outside the order of nature. Michael did not know how to put it to himself, the usual phrases seeming so totally inappropriate. He told himself, but could not feel, that there was no reason why Catherine should not attach herself to him as much as to anyone else; he told himself too that, although the attachment was untimely, it was a privilege to be so chosen. He was not sure whether it made things better or worse to suggest that since Catherine appeared to be deranged her love was in a sense made null.

Her present condition certainly gave cause for deep anxiety. She had passed part of the day asleep. The rest of the time she lay on her bed weeping, addressing Michael whether he was present or not, reviling herself for various crimes which were never made clear, and raving about the bell. Nick, who had been told by the Straffords, came to her room soon after she was brought in. The doctor was already there and he had to wait. When he was admitted he sat dumbly beside his sister holding her hand, a dazed and stricken look upon his face, finding little to say. She for her part clung almost automatically to his hand or his sleeve, but paid him little direct attention, addressing to him her few sane remarks, which concerned opening or closing the window and fetching pillows. He was, perhaps, too much a part of herself to be, at that time, either a support or a menace. He spent a large part of the day with her, retiring only when she was asleep or when some other visitor was present, when he would walk alone round the garden near the house. He seemed profoundly upset but spoke to nobody; and indeed nobody had time, in the busy rush of that disorganized day, to speak to him. Michael passed him several times, and on the first occasion uttered some words of regret. Speaking to Nick was hideous; Catherine seemed to lie between them like a corpse. Nick nodded in reply to Michael's speech and went on his way.

It was late at night before the arrangements had finally been made for Catherine to go to London. Mrs Mark was to go with her, and stay with some friends nearby so that she could see her daily, if this was thought desirable, at the clinic. She promised to telephone Imber as soon as there was any news at all. When it was clear that it was really best for Catherine to go, Michael felt a craven relief. He wanted more than anything, at the present moment, that Catherine might go away and be looked after somewhere else. Her presence near him filled him with fear and with a sense of guilt which was vague and menacing, full of as yet unspoken indictments.

Falling exhausted into bed, Michael had soon discovered yet other worries to postpone his sleep. On the following morning, Imber would be in the headlines. However the story was told, Michael had no illusions about how the brotherhood would come out of it. After these catastrophes, to appeal for money would be, in the nearer future, impossible. Whether the whole enterprise was not now destroyed Michael tried to prevent himself from wondering. Time would show what could be salvaged and Michael was not without hope. What more occupied him now that he had contrived to remove to some distance the overwhelming thought of Catherine, was the overwhelming thought of Nick.

Peter Topglass had been the first to suspect that the descent of the bell into the lake had been no accident. He made his own investigations and then drew Michael's attention to the way in which the wooden supports had been tampered with. Michael and Peter mentioned their discovery to no one, but the reporters seemed to get on to it somehow. Michael was amazed at what Peter showed him; but once convinced that the thing was indeed no accident he knew for certain who had been responsible for it. He even, in some obscure way, and with an intuition which belonged to his present state of shock, guessed at Nick's motives. If Nick had wished to interfere with his sister's vocation he had probably been more successful than he expected.

The thought of Nick, once it came fully upon him, began to eat up Michael's consciousness; and about three a.m. he almost got out of bed to set out for the Lodge. He resolved to see Nick early the next day. With a sort of relief which at a deeper level was almost pleasure he felt that the catastrophes of the last days had as it were opened the pathway between him and Nick. At moments it almost seemed as if they had been designed to do that. To be able now so dramatically to see Nick both as criminal and as afflicted made it essential at last to destroy the barrier between them. Praying for him now, Michael felt once more the elusive sense that God held them both, and held in some incomprehensible way the twisted strands of their concern for each other. Michael knew now that he
must
talk to Nick. In this extremity he must act fully the part of what he was, Nick's only friend at Imber. After so much that was appalling, no harm could now come of this, and the simple duty of speaking frankly and openly to Nick was finally set before him. Michael asked himself uneasily whether this duty had not in fact been set before him for some time if only he had used his eyes; but he left the question unanswered, and suddenly secure, relieved, positively glad at the thought of speaking with Nick tomorrow he fell into a sweet sleep.