The Bell (40 page)

Dora was so astounded, so almost annihilated at the wonder of it, and by the sheer noise, that she was oblivious of everything except her task of keeping the bell ringing. She did not hear the sound of approaching voices and stood dazed and vacant when some twenty minutes later a large number of people came running into the barn and crowded about her.

CHAPTER 23

BY THE TIME DORA ARRIVED the first part of the ceremony was over and the procession was about to start. It was about twenty minutes past seven. The rain had stopped and the sun shone through a thin curtain of white cloud, diffusing a chilly pale golden light. A white mist curled upon the surface of the lake, concealing the water, the top of the causeway just visible above it.

Dora had slept. Hustled back to the Court by Mrs Mark she had fallen into bed and become instantly unconscious. She woke again about seven and immediately remembered the procession. As she listened she could hear the distant sound of music. Things must have begun already. Paul was not to be seen. She dressed hastily, scarcely knowing why she felt it so very important to be present. Her memories of the night were confused and dreadful, like drunken memories. She recalled being dazzled by the light of torches, and seeing the bell, still swinging, revealed in their beams. A lot of people had surrounded her, pulling her, questioning her. Someone had put a coat over her shoulders. Paul had been there too, but he had said nothing to her, he was too transported at seeing the bell. He had not come back to their bedroom, so she assumed that he was still in the barn. They had divided the night's vigil between them.

Dora felt stiff and unspeakably hungry and miserable in a blank exhausted way. The air smelt of disaster. She put on her warmest clothes and went out onto the landing from which a window on the front of the house would command a view of the proceedings. An astonishing scene awaited her. Several hundred people, all completely silent, were standing in front of the house. They covered the terrace, crowded on the steps and balcony, and lined several deep the path towards the causeway. They had the expectant silence which falls during a ceremony when singing or speaking has momentarily stopped. They stood there silent in the early morning, giving to the scene that sense of drama which is always present when many people are ceremonially gathered in the open air. They were all looking towards the bell.

The Bishop, dressed in full regalia, with mitre and crook, faced the bell which was still in place on the terrace. Behind him a number of little girls, clutching recorders, were trying to get out of the way of a number of little boys, wearing surplices, who were being hustled forward by Father Bob Joyce. The Bishop stood with evident patience, like a kindly man interrupted, and without turning round while the silent scuffle continued. The Bishop, as it turned out afterwards, knew nothing of the night's events. With his good ear plunged deep in the pillow he had not been rousted by the clangour, nor had anyone chosen to tell him, so early in the morning, so improbable a story.

The little boys had by now successfully ousted the little girls, who were scattered along the edge of the crowd, casting anxious glances at their teacher. The situation of the Morris dancers was, however, even less to be envied. They had pressed forward in the wake of the choir under the impression that this was their moment. Complete with hobby-horse, tophatted Fool, and fiddler, armed with sticks and handkerchiefs, their legs decorated with bells and ribbons, they were conspicuous and self-conscious, not yet liberated and made triumphant by the Morris music and the dance. They had been told to start dancing shortly before the procession moved off and accompany it still dancing down to the causeway. But the great crowd had not been foreseen, and it was now plain that there was no room to dance on the terrace, nor could a space be cleared without asking several elderly ladies, who were pinned against the balustrade, to climb over and jump on to the grass. The Fool pressed forward through the choir boys to consult Father Bob. Father Bob smiled and nodded, and the fiddler who was standing at the back and reduced to a frenzy already by feeling that everyone was waiting for him immediately struck up with Monks' March. Some of the dancers began to try to dance, while others cried sssh! Father Bob frowned and shook his head and the fiddle music tailed away. The Fool fought his way back and gave some instructions, evidently discouraging ones, to his men. Father Bob tapped the Bishop, now looking more patient than ever, upon the shoulder, and the Bishop began to speak.

Dora could not hear what he said. Desperately anxious not to be left out she ran down the stairs and came out on to the balcony which was already black with spectators. She pushed her way towards the steps and managed to find a place from which she could see. The Bishop had stopped talking, and very slowly the bell was beginning to move. The trolley was pulled from the front and controlled from the back by two pairs of workmen, the men who had come with the bell and who would be permitted to enter the Abbey to put it up. They pulled solemnly on ropes which by an afterthought Mrs Mark had whitened with whitewash. The bell began to move across the terrace towards the slope that led down to the causeway. Immediately after the bell walked Michael and Catherine, followed by the Bishop, and then by the choir. Next, materializing from here and there in the crowd, came members of the brotherhood, all, as Dora observed, looking extremely haggard. After them came the disgruntled Morris dancers, walking not dancing, their bells jingling and white handkerchiefs trailing. After them came the recorder band with their teacher. After them the Girl Guides and after them the Boy Scouts. The tail of the procession was taken up by one or two minor dignitaries of the village church, who felt it their duty to process, and by those members of the general crowd who preferred the privilege of being in the procession to the excitement of seeing it. As they moved off people were clambering on to the balustrade or struggling up the steps to take photographs, cannoning into those who were rushing down the steps, or jumping off the terrace so as to get good places on the slope or the edge of the lake from which to see the next stage of the proceedings.

Dora stayed where she was. She could see well enough from there, especially now the balcony had emptied. She looked down at the still crowded terrace on which people were milling to and fro and saw that Noel had mounted on top of one of the stone lions at the foot of the staircase and was taking a photograph. This done he jumped off and started to run along by the side of the procession. The Girl Guides, who had been formed up near the gates to the stable yard, were just struggling through with a vigour which did credit to the quasi-military qualities of their organization, and it was difficult at this point to distinguish the procession from the crowd that surrounded it. Noel looked up and saw Dora. He beamed. Then he waved his camera case rhythmically to and fro and clapped his hands. Dora stared at this pantomime. Then it occurred to her that of course Noel was referring to last night. He must have been there; and that was how he felt about it. Dora smiled wanly and waved a feeble hand. Noel was pointing towards the lake. He wasn't going to miss his chance of another picture. Dora shook her head and he charged off through the mob. She could see him, head and shoulders above the others, outdistancing the Girl Guides and catching up with the head of the procession which was now nearing the causeway. The sun was beginning to break through its white veil and long scurrying shadows appeared on the grass. The choir burst into song. At the far end of the causeway Dora could see the great gates of the Abbey opening slowly.

She was alone now on the balcony. The crowd were mostly collected along the banks of the lake on either side of the causeway. The bell, moving slowly and smoothly, was going up the very slight slope from the bank to the causeway and came more fully into view. The sun shone, gilding its white canopy and gilding the white robes of the Bishop. The wind, less boisterous now, fretted the satin ribbons and ruffled the pale flowers with which the trolley was heaped. The Bishop walked stiffly, head a little bowed, leaning on his crook. The white surplices of the choir boys fluttered about them as they importantly raised their sheets of music. The bell was now on the causeway, moving more slowly over the slightly uneven stones. The other figures were following. The mist lay quiet over the water, still reaching to the top of the causeway, so that the procession, as they strung out on to the lake, looked as if they were walking on air. Dora leaned well forward to see better.

The choir broke into song. The more ambitious music was being reserved for the climax at the Abbey gate. Meanwhile, Father Bob's wishes had been over-ridden by local sentiment:

The singing continued. The Morris dancers, walking gingerly two by two, had by now left the shore, and the little girls were following, looking very cold in their white satin dresses. The bell was moving very slowly indeed and had almost reached the middle of the causeway where the wooden section was set in, commemorating the brave nuns of the sixteenth century. Dora's glance strayed to the crowd. She could not see Noel now. She spotted Patchway, who had declined to join the procession, and was standing stolidly at the back of the crowd in a place where he obviously couldn't see. Then something began to happen. Dora looked back quickly to the centre of the scene. A quick sigh went up. The choir boys' song faltered. The bell had stopped on the wooden boarding in the middle of the causeway and the workmen seemed to be scuffling round it. The Bishop had motioned the choir to move back. The procession was at a standstill. Raggedly the music ceased; and then in the murmur that followed a loud grinding sound was heard. The bell seemed to be tilting slightly to one side. An excited buzz arose from the crowd. Then very slowly the wooden supports sagged, the wooden surface sloped, the trolley inclined, and the bell, poised for a moment at an almost impossible angle, plunged sideways into the lake, taking the trolley with it.

The thing happened so quickly that Dora could hardly believe her eyes. There was the procession, still standing strung out on the causeway in the sun. There was the sagging hole in the centre, with two of the workmen marooned on the far side of it. The invisible water could be heard surging and gurgling. The bell had utterly vanished. A cry went up from the crowd which was half a groan and half a cheer. Those who had come for a show were getting their money's worth.

Dora ran down the steps and on towards the lake. Father Bob Joyce was hustling the procession back off the causeway, while at the shore end dozens of people were trying to push their way on. Someone, Dora could not see who, had fallen in. Shouts arose, and one of the choir boys was crying. The Bishop, conspicuous in the sun, was still standing where the bell had been, looking down into the water and talking to one of the workmen. The mist was clearing a little and the lake could be seen still churning away under the wooden piers, strewn with a circle of white flowers. Nothing of the bell or the trolley was visible above the surface. Several people by now had pushed past the Bishop and jumped the gap to survey the scene from the other side. The Abbey gates were unobtrusively closing once more.

Dora was fairly near to the lake by now, on the right-hand side of the causeway. At what had happened she felt intense horror mingled with excitement. She felt partly as if she must be responsible for this new disaster, and partly as if its magnitude made her own escapade pardonable by comparison. She came to the back of the crowd, watching her chance to get a nearer view. Then someone pushed very roughly past her. Dora said later that if it had not been for that violent shove she would not have paid attention and not have started to wonder. She looked to see who the rude person was who had pushed her and saw that it was Catherine. Having got past her and out into the open Catherine began to walk away along the path that led beside the lake towards the wood. Dora looked back to the spectacle on the causeway. Then she turned thoughtfully to stare after Catherine who was some distance away by now and walking fast. No one had paid any attention to her departure.

It was very unusual, to say the least of it, for Catherine to push people out of her way; and what Dora had seen of Catherine's face was also rather unusual. Naturally she would be upset; but she had looked strange and distracted beyond measure. Dora hesitated. She was surrounded by people but no one that she knew was within sight. After a moment she began to pick her way back across the grass and followed along the path which Catherine had taken, keeping her in sight. Catherine quickened her pace and plunged into the wood. Dora began to run. Catherine had certainly looked very odd. All the same it was no business of Dora's. Yet she felt anxious and wanted to be sure that all was well.

Once in the wood she began to catch up. The path was thickly strewn with twigs and branches brought down by the storm. Catherine could be seen stumbling on ahead. Then she fell heavily, and by the time she had got up Dora was almost beside her. Dora called ‘Catherine, wait for me. Are you all right?'

Catherine was wearing an old-fashioned tennis dress, now scored with dirty marks from her fall. She brushed it down and began to walk on more slowly, ignoring Dora. She seemed to be crying. Dora, unable to walk abreast of her on the narrow path, followed, plucking at her arm and asking her if she was all right.

After a moment or two Catherine, brushing Dora off, paused and half-turning said ‘I am all right alone.' Her face had an odd staring look.