The Bell - Iris Murdoch [95]
She stood at the far corner of the balcony dejected, apprehensive, wondering what to do. She supposed she ought to go up to their bedroom and wait for Paul; but the prospect of this gloomy vigil was so appalling that she could not bring herself to mount the stairs. She wandered down again to the terrace and began to walk slowly along the path that led to the causeway. The moon was just rising and there was enough light to see where she was going. The silhouette of the Abbey trees and the tower could be seen, as on her first night at Imber. She reached the lake which seemed to glimmer blackly, not yet fully struck by the rays of the moon.
As she looked back towards the house she was alarmed to see that there was a dark figure following her down the path. She felt sure it must be Paul, and her old deep fear of him suddenly made the whole night scene terrifying. She was ready to run; but she stood still, her hand at her breast, as if to take a physical shock. The figure came nearer, hurrying soundlessly along the grassy track. When it was quite near she saw it was Toby.
'Oh, Toby,' said Dora with relief. 'Hello. You came out of the music.'
'Yes,' said Toby. He seemed breathless. 'I came out before the last movement.'
'Do you like that music?' said Dora.
'Not terribly, actually,' said Toby. 'I was going to come out anyway. Then I saw you through the window.'
'Did you say I was back?' said Dora.
'No, I thought I'd better not talk between the movements. I just slipped out. They're good for another three-quarters of an hour in there,' he added.
'Ah well,' said Dora. 'It's a nice night.'
'Let's walk along a bit,' said Toby.
He seemed pleased to see her. Thank heavens somebody was. They walked along the path beside the lake opposite the Abbey walls. The moon, risen further, was spreading a golden fan across the surface of the water. Dora looked at Toby and found that he was looking at her. Dora was glad to be with Toby. She felt a natural complicity with him which convinced her of the abiding strength and wholeness of her youth. Here was one who was not concerned to enclose or judge her. The rest of them, however, she gloomily reflected, Paul in one way and the brotherhood in another, would make her play their role. A few hours ago she had felt free and she had come back to Imber of her own free will, performing a real action. Yet they would make of it the guilty enforced return of an escaped prisoner. Contemplating the inevitability, whose nature she scarcely understood, of their superiority over her, and the impossibility of ever getting even with them, Dora was beginning to regret that she had come back.
They walked on, exchanging a word or two about the moonlight, until the path entered the wood. The cavern of darkened foliage covered them, illuminated here and there by glimpses of the gilded water. Toby plunged on confidently and Dora followed, finding silence easy in his company. She had decided to let the three-quarters of an hour which Toby had said they were 'good for' elapse, and then a little more time, to allow the company to disperse to their rooms; then she could be sure of finding Paul alone.
'Why, here we are!' said Toby.
'Where?' said Dora. She came up beside him. The trees stood back from the water and the moonlight dearly showed a grassy space and a sloping stone ramp leading down into the lake.
'Oh, just a place I know,' said Toby. 'I swam here once or twice. No one comes here but me.'
'It's nice,' said Dora. She sat down on the stones at the top of the ramp. The lake seemed quite still and yet made strange liquid noises in the silence that followed. The Abbey wall with its battlement of trees could be seen on the other side, some distance away to the left. But opposite there was only the dark wood, the continuation across the water of the wood that lay behind. It seemed to Dora that the wide moonlit circle at the edge of which she sat was apprehensive, inhabited. An owl called. She looked up