Iris Murdoch - The Bell

Dora gave up her shouting and said to Catherine, Do come back to the house now, please do.”

Catherine, without looking round, pushed Dora away from her, and said in a clear voice, “For Christ’s sake leave me alone.”

Dora, who was beginning to be a little incensed as well as alarmed, said Took here, Catherine, you’re being silly. You come along with me.”

Catherine turned back at her, grinning suddenly with a smile that resembled the harsh unfading smiles her brother used. She said to Dora, “God has reached out His hand. A white garment cannot conceal a wicked heart. There is no passing through that gate. Good-bye.”

They had passed the ramp now and reached a place where the path was very close to the edge, fringed on the lake side by tall rushes. An area of mud and green weeds lay between the bank and the clear water. Catherine turned away from Dora and began to walk into the lake.

She moved so quickly, plunging directly through the wall of rushes, that Dora was left standing, staring at the place where she had disappeared from view. A loud squelching sound came from beyond the rushes. Dora gave a scream and followed. Without hesitation she plunged through the greenery and gave another scream as she felt the ground give way beneath her. She sank in mud almost to her knees. Catherine had managed to take another two steps and was farther out. Almost with deliberation, like a timid bather, she subsided into the gluey mess of weeds and muddy water, struggling to get farther from the shore. She lay sideways, the shoulder of her dress still strangely clean and white above the surface.

Dora called to Catherine, and then screamed again. But who would hear? Everyone was so busy and so far away. She reached out, trying to reach Catherine, lost her balance, and fell forward into the deeper water. The water splashed up over her face. Frenziedly struggling to keep her head up, she felt the slimy weeds dragging at her limbs. With a frantic effort she managed to draw her feet under her and sit in the mud with the water almost to her neck. Ahead of her Catherine was splashing. She had now sunk well into the water and seemed to be caught in the weeds, whose strands could be seen bound round one of her flailing arms. Dora reached forward and managed to catch Catherine by the hand. She shouted her name over and over again, and then screamed as loudly and piercingly as she could. She tried to pull Catherine back towards her.

The next moment she found herself being dragged forward. Catherine, resisting her grip, was pulling her out into the deeper water. Dora let go, but it was too late. She was now well way from the bank. Her feet trampled vainly in a bottomless morass of watery mud and weed. She beat the surface with her hands, shrieking and swallowing water, her head thrown back, her arms half entangled. Something dark was unravelling on the water before her. It was Catherine’s hair. As in a dream she saw Catherine’s shoulder disappearing in the black ooze, her staring eyes cast upward, her mouth open. Fear of death came upon Dora. She fought desperately, gasping for air, but the weeds held her, seeming to drag her down, and the water was at her chin.

Then she heard a distant cry. Dimly, across the surface of the lake, she saw a black figure standing by the wall at the corner of the Abbey grounds, which ended a little way to the left on the opposite bank. Dora, in the last throes of terror, called again. She saw the figure beginning to disrobe. The next moment there was a splash. Dora saw no more; her own fight was near its end. Water streamed into her gasping mouth and the weeds now held one arm pinioned beneath the surface. Her feet trampled deeper in the gluey mud. She uttered a moaning cry of despair. A black tunnel seemed to open below her into which she was slowly being drawn.

“Don’t struggle,” said a cool voice. “Keep quite still and you won’t sink any deeper. Try to breathe slowly and evenly.”

Dora saw, level with her face and strangely near, a head bobbing in the water, a boyish close-cropped head with a fresh freckled complexion and blue eyes. She stared at it, seeing it with a sort of mad clarity, and for the first moment she thought it really belonged to a boy.

Dora stopped struggling and found to her surprise that she was not sinking. The water lapped the bottom of her chin. She tried to breathe through her nose, but her mouth kept opening in terrified gasps. She saw with amazement, now that she was for a moment still, the two heads breaking the surface in front of her, the rounded head of the nun, who was swimming in the clearer water just beyond the weeds and cautiously edging in towards Catherine, and the head of Catherine, tilted over, her mouth and one cheek now submerged, her eyes glazed. With the same strange clarity Dora noticed that the nun’s face was almost dry.

The nun was speaking to Catherine and was now trying to get a hold on her shoulders from behind and pull her out beyond the weeds. Catherine did not struggle. She was limp, as if unconscious. Dora watched. Catherine was being turned on her back. Her chin rose above the surface, her hair floated out behind her, and the nun was thrusting a white arm through it to hold her more firmly. A ripple reached Dora’s mouth and she began to scream again. Her struggles recommenced, her breath came in staccato gasps. She was sinking now. The water seemed to pour into her, she began to suffocate.

She felt the warm muddy water rising upon her cheek. Then the next moment she heard voices, and two strong hands had seized her from behind. She was lifted from under the armpits. Rising a little from the water and turning, still struggling and gasping, she saw Mark Strafford’s face close above her. He hauled her landwards, waist deep himself in the mud. Other hands took her there. She lay exhausted on the ground, the water running from her mouth. The shouts continued, and sitting up a moment later she saw James and Mark, both struggling well out, keeping a footing somehow in the mud, and raising the form of Catherine between them. Helpers plunging, linked together, from the shore, dragged them all to land. There seemed to be half a dozen people now squelching about on the muddy verge. Further out the head of the nun could be seen bobbing. She had relinquished Catherine and propelled herself back into the open water. She shouted something and began to swim round towards the ramp.

Dora collapsed again, lying face downwards on the grass. She coughed, spluttered, and moaned quietly with relief. Someone was asking her if she was all right, but she was still in another world. She listened without thinking that she might be able to answer, absorbed in the wonder of finding herself alive. Suddenly someone leaned upon her and began pressing rhythmically on her back. Dora gurgled and sat upright. Giddiness overcame her and she covered her eyes, but remained sitting up, supported by one arm.

“She’s O.K.,” said Mark Strafford. He transferred his attention to Catherine, but someone was already giving her artificial respiration. As Dora watched, Catherine rolled over with a moan, pushing her benefactor away, and sat up too. Her eyes were vacant, her white dress clung transparently to her body, her long wet hair coursed down over her breasts. She looked about her.

A grotesque figure was pressing forward. Dora stared at it in amazement: a short-haired woman, apparently naked to the waist, and dressed in black from the waist down. Then she realized that it was the nun in her underclothing. The nun leaned over Catherine, asking how she was, and then turned to smile at Dora. She was totally unembarrassed and accepted with a polite nod the coat which Mrs Mark was offering her. She seemed a young woman. Her freckled face was still almost dry.

“This is Mother Clare,” said Mark. “You two seem destined to meet after all.”