The Bell - Iris Murdoch [129]
'I can't agree,' said Noel. 'Belief is a highly selective business. And people will believe that who otherwise don't part company with common sense. But never mind, let's get on with the story. You say that the plan won't now be carried out?'
'Unfortunately not,' said Nick. 'It was a beautiful plan, but one of the parties has lost his nerve.'
'I must say, you intrigue me,' said Noel. 'As you may have guessed, I feel no sympathy with an outfit like this. I don't think these people are consciously insincere, but they're just born to be charlatans malgré eux. I'm sure there are all sorts of little feuds and delusions in this crackpot community and I've certainly no objection to reporting them, without comment. If people want to stop being ordinary useful members of society and take their neuroses to some remote spot to have what they imagine are spiritual experiences I'm certain they should be tolerated but I see no reason why they should be revered. But as I say, I want to report and not to malign. What I was wondering, if I may ask it off the record, is what your motives are in telling me all this. Thanks yes. But fill up yourself.'
'There are moments,' said Nick, 'when one wants to tell the truth, when one wants to shout it around, however much damage it does. One of these moments is upon me. And now I shall go to bed. I advise you to do the same. You will have a strenuous and amusing day tomorrow.'
Noel began to reply. Dora got up hastily and started to run back the way she had come. The rain, heavier now, deadened the sound of her footsteps as she squelched through the grass. When she was nearly at the causeway she looked back. There seemed to be no one emerging from the Lodge; but as it was hard to see or hear anything except the rain she couldn't be certain. She ran across the causeway gasping for breath and turned along the lakeside path towards the barn. As she slowed to a walk she began to think. There was no mystery about how Noel was led to the Lodge and into the clutches of Nick Fawley. Her own letter had brought him there. As for how Nick knew about the bell, there need be no mystery about that either: she and Toby had made so much noise on the previous night, anyone might have heard, though in their excited optimism they had reckoned it as unlikely. Nick was, in any case, as she might have remembered, a bad sleeper and a night wanderer. He could easily have found his way to the barn and overheard herself and Toby running over the details of the plan just before they left the scene. Or he might just have seen Toby creeping out and followed him out of sheer curiosity. All that made sense; and by now it was hardly news to her that the plan would fail because one of the parties had lost his nerve. What appalled her was the idea, coming to her now fully for the first time, that this abortive fantasy would be reported, or misreported, in the newspapers and perhaps do great harm to the community.
Dora knew that if she had reflected more carefully on her plan she would have seen that it was bound to get publicity and bound to look, to the outsider, ludicrous or sinister. Its triumphant witch-like quality existed for her alone. Even Toby, she realized, had cooperated to please her rather than because he liked the plan. How could such a thing be understood by the outside world? Dora had become used to thinking of Imber as utterly remote, utterly cut off and private. Imber had retired from the world, but the world could still come to Imber to pry and mock and judge.
Dora reached the barn. She looked and listened. All was silent, all was as she had left it. She switched the torch on to the bell. It hung there, huge and portentous, motionless with its own weight. She switched the light off again and waited, wondering what to do. She came near to the bell which seemed now more and more like a living presence. She