The Bell - Iris Murdoch [30]
'This is the visitors' chapel,' said Mrs Mark, speaking now in such a low whisper that Dora could hardly hear her. 'What you see through the bars is the high altar of the nuns' chapel. The main body of the chapel faces the altar and can't be seen from here. By this arrangement we can participate in the services without ever seeing the nuns, which of course would be forbidden. There is a mass at seven every morning which visitors may attend. That's the gate the priest comes through to give communion to anyone who is in this chapel. When the nuns are receiving the sacrament these curtains are closed to cut this chapel off from the main one. This is the place where outsiders like us can come nearest to the spiritual life of the Abbey.'
A soft rustle came from somewhere in the distance, round the corner beyond the bars, and then the sound of a footstep.
'Is someone—?' whispered Dora.
'There is always a nun in the chapel,' murmured Mrs Mark. 'It is a place of continual prayer.'
Dora felt stifled and suddenly frightened and began to retreat towards the door. The rich exotic smell of the incense roused some ancestral terror in her Protestant blood. Mrs Mark genuflected, crossing herself, and followed. In a moment they were out in the bright sunlight. The tall grasses moved, mingling with the reeds at the water's edge, and the lake flickered quietly in the sun. The wide scene, with a slanting view of Imber Court and a hazy distance of parkland elms, was laid out under a cloudless sky. There was something incredible about the proximity of that dark hole and that silence. Dora shook her head violently.
'Yes, it is impressive, isn't it?' said Mrs Mark. 'There is a wonderful spiritual life here. One just can't help being affected by it.'
They began to walk back across the causeway.
'We'll take that little path to the left,' said Mrs Mark, 'and cut through behind the house to the market-garden.'
The path led them from the end of the causeway a little way along the shore, and then turned away to the right, skirting a thick wood. A glint of greenhouses was to be seen ahead. As they turned by the wood, leaving the edge of the lake, the thin tinkling of the hand bell followed them across the water.
Dora burst out, 'It's terrible to think of them being shut up like that!'
'It is true,' said Mrs Mark, 'that these women lay upon themselves austerities from which you and I would shrink in terror. But just as we think the sinner better than he is when we imagine that suffering ennobles him, so we do less than justice to the saint when we think that his sacrifices grieve him in the way they would grieve us. Indian file here, I think.'
Mrs Mark led the way along the narrow track which could still just be found in the middle of the encroaching grass, tall and bleached to a faded yellow. Long feathery plumes, brittle with dryness, leaned from either side, touching the shoulders of the two women as they passed. Still stirred and affected by what she had seen, Dora blundered on in her uncomfortable shoes, watching where she stepped, and seeing ahead of her through the undergrowth the intermittent flash of Mrs Mark's well-developed calves, healthily shining, burnished by the sun to a glowing golden brown. The back view of the Court could be seen on the right, from this side a long unbroken facade, with pillars set close into the wall to frame the impressive round-topped windows of the