The Bell - Iris Murdoch [128]
Dora was wearing a mackintosh and a scarf, but she was already wet through. Her sandalled feet were cold and muddy and the water had splashed up over the end of her dress which now clung damply to her knees, impeding her movements. She stood shivering in the barn, frightened by the darkness and the close blanket of the rain, awed by the proximity of the bell, and feeling increasingly sure now that Toby would not come. She wondered whether she should go and look for him at the Lodge.
It had not escaped Dora that Noel Spens must obviously have imagined that the letter which she had dropped was intended for him; indeed its contents were perfectly framed to sustain this illusion. It was therefore probable that Noel would present himself near the Lodge at two; and this thought had deterred Dora from going earlier to search for Toby. By now, however, Noel would have got tired of waiting and gone to bed. It was surely safe to go to the Lodge; and in any case anything was better than hanging round in the barn frightened out of her wits and chilled to the marrow. Dora set out along the path.
The moon was obscured and the path was full of obstacles, but Dora knew her way pretty well by now and was indifferent to the briars and brambles which dragged at her legs. She could feel the warmth of blood about her ankles. When she emerged from the wood she did not go. round the house to the ferry but turned right across the causeway. The two lights were still on; and as she looked ahead of her across the water she saw that there was a light in the Lodge too. This made her extremely uneasy.
Dora began to run now, passing under the Abbey walls and away diagonally across the grass towards the Lodge. When she got near it she slowed down, avoiding the crunchy gravel of the drive and approached cautiously, laying her sodden feet quietly on the wet grass. She saw that the light came from the living-room of the Lodge; there was no light in Toby's room. She came cautiously up toward the window; it was a modern casement window set with small leaded panes and it was slightly open. Dora heard a murmur of voices. She fell on her hands and knees and crawled toward the window until she was almost underneath it. The voices could be heard clearly now, together with a clink of glasses.
'It would be hard to say whether or not it's supposed to be a joke,' Nick's voice was saying. He sounded drunk. 'With people like that you can never tell.'
'I'm sorry, Mr Fawley, but I still don't understand,' said another voice.
Chilled as she was Dora went a degree colder. The voice was Noel's. Incautiously she lifted her head to the level of the sill. Noel and Nick were sitting together at the table with the whisky between them. There was no one else in the room. Amazed and horrified Dora sank back and settled herself on a cushion of wet grass.
'You see,' Noel went on, 'this is in the technical sense such a good story that it would be a pity not to get it absolutely correct. And in any case I have a certain preference for getting things right. Even we newspaper men have our morals, Mr Fawley. Thanks, I will, just a little.'
'I've told you all I can,' said Nick. 'As for getting it right, who ever gets any story right? AD you can do is mention a few facts. I don't suggest any more than that. What will happen tomorrow is anyone's guess. All I can promise you is a spectacle. I hope you've got a camera with you?'
'I'm sorry to keep on bothering you,' said Noel in the slow patient voice of a sober man talking to a drunk, 'and I know you must be frightfully tired, but do you mind if we go over it again? I'd like to check the notes I've made. You say that two members of the community, identity not disclosed, have found an old bell which used to belong to the convent long ago. And these two are planning what you call a miracle - the substitution of the old bell for the new bell. But what do they expect to achieve by this? After all, this is England, not Southern Italy. It sounds more like a practical joke.'
'Who knows what they expect to achieve?' said Nick. 'I'm sure they