Iris Murdoch - The Bell

There was a commotion in the station yard. Dora looked round and saw that the Land-Rover had just drawn up outside. Out of it tumbled Mark Strafford, Mrs Mark, Sister Ursula, Catherine, and Toby. The train roared into the station.

Paul was busy finding himself an empty first-class compartment near the front with a corner seat facing the engine. Mrs Mark bustled Catherine straight through on to the platform, followed by Sister Ursula. Mark and Toby went to the booking-office. Mrs Mark saw Dora and piloted Catherine in the opposite direction. Mark followed his wife and gave her some tickets. Toby emerged, saw Dora, looked away, turned back, and waved half-heartedly, then got into the nearest carriage by himself. Mark and Mrs Mark spent some time finding a suitable carriage for Catherine. They found it and Mrs Mark pushed Catherine in and got in herself. They shut the door, and Sister Ursula stood by on the platform, talking smilingly to them through the window. Mark went back to look for Toby, discovered where he was, opened the door a little, and stood with one foot on the footboard, talking.

Paul had stowed his things, opened the window, and leaned there frowning at Dora. He said, “I expect you at Knights-bridge tomorrow about three o’clock. I shall be there waiting for you.”

“All right,” said Dora.

“You understood all my instructions about the packing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, good-bye,” said Paul. “I won’t go through the farce of kissing you.”

“Oh Paul, don’t be so beastly,” said Dora. The tears spilled on to her cheek. Do say something nice to me before you go.”

Paul looked at her with cold eyes. “Yes,” he said,“you want me to comfort you now when you’re in trouble. But last March, when I came home and found that you’d left me, there was no one to comfort me then, was there? Just you think it over. No, don’t paw me. I’m not sexually attracted to you at this moment. I sometimes wonder whether I ever will be again.”

“Close all the doors, please,” shouted the porter, who had once been as far as Paddington.

Mark stepped back, shut the door, and stood laughing loudly at something he had just said to Toby.

“Paul, I’m so sorry,” said Dora.

“How absolutely not enough that is!” said Paul. “I advise you to do some serious thinking, if you’re capable of it.”He fumbled in his wallet. “Here”, he said, “is something you might think about. Bring it back to me in London. I always carry it with me.” He handed her an envelope. The whistle blew. The train began to move.

Paul pulled up his window at once and disappeared. Dora stood watching the carriages go by. She saw Toby sitting well back in his corner, his face twisted and anxious. As the carriage passed Dora waved, but he pretended not to see. Catherine and Mrs Mark were in one of the last carriages, and the train was moving fast by the time they reached Dora. Mrs Mark was looking at Catherine. Catherine looked at Dora, a quick peering unsmiling look with almost closed eyes. Then she was gone.

Dora turned towards the exit. Mark and Sister Ursula were just going back into the booking-hall. Before they disappeared they turned and smiled at her vaguely, evidently unable to decide whether to call her to join them. They went out and Dora heard the engine of the Land-Rover start up. It idled quietly. They were probably waiting for her to emerge.

Dora sat down again on the seat and regarded the yellow mustard field and the distant view of pale stubble and dark trees. It was less misty now. The engine continued to idle. Then the note rose, and she heard the wheels of the Land-Rover scraping the gravelly yard as Mark turned it sharply round. It roared away, out of the gate and down the road.

Dora got up and began to leave the station.

The station was just outside the village on the Imber side. A lane with high overgrown hedges wound away across the fields, and the footpath to Imber left it a quarter of a mile further on. Dora wondered whether to cross the line and go into the village. But there was no point in it, since the pubs would not be open yet. She turned into the dark tunnel of the lane. The sound of the train and the car had died away. A murmur accompanied her steps, which must come from a tiny stream invisible in the ditch. She walked on, her hands in her pockets.

Her hand encountered the envelope which Paul had given her. She drew it out fearfully. It would have to be something unpleasant. She opened it.

It contained two brief letters, both written by herself. The first one, which she saw dated from the early days of their engagement, read as follows:

Dear dear Paul, it was so wonderful last night and such absolute pain to leave you. I lay awake fretting for you. I can’t wait for tonight, so am dropping this in at the library. It’s agony to go away from you, and so wonderful to think that soon soon we shall be so much more together. Wanting to be with you always, dearest Paul, ever ever ever your loving Dora.

Dora perused this missive, and then looked at the other one, which read as follows:

Paul, I can’t go on. It’s been so awful lately, and awful for you too, I know. So I’m leaving – leaving you. I can’t stay, and you know all the reasons why. I know I’m a wretch and it’s all my fault, but I can’t stand it and I can’t stay. Forgive this scrappy note. When you get it I’ll be finally gone. Don’t try to get me back and don’t bother about the things I’ve left, I’ve taken what I need. Dora.

P.S. I’ll write again later, but I won’t have anything else to say than this.

This was the note Dora had left at Knightsbridge on the day she departed. Shaken, she reread both letters. She folded them up and walked on. So Paul carried them always in his wallet and wanted to have them back to go on carrying them. So much the worse for Paul. Dora tore the letters into small fragments and strewed them along the hedge.

SINCE the events of the previous morning, Michael had been occupied. He had summoned the doctor to Catherine and interviewed him when he came and when he left and when he came again. He had spent some time, with Margaret Strafford, by Catherine’s bedside. He had had speech with the Bishop and seen him off with such dignity as was possible in the circumstances. With Peter, he had investigated the wooden section of the causeway and discovered that two of the piers had been sawn through just below the water level. He had made arrangements by telephone with a firm of contractors who had agreed to come at once to repair the causeway and to recover the bell from the lake. He had interviewed the foreman who had arrived with tiresome promptness. He had answered some twenty telephone calls from representatives of the press, and talked to half a dozen reporters and photographers who appeared on the spot. He had visited Dora. He had taken decisions about Catherine.

In so far as Michael was thinking about anything during that day he was thinking about Catherine. The revelation made to him in the scene by the lake had surprised him so profoundly that he was still unable, in his mind, to pick the matter up at all. He was left, still, gaping over it, horrified, shocked, full of amazement and pity. He had, in spite of himself, a reaction also of disgust. He shivered when he remembered Catherine’s embrace. At the same time, he reproached himself, distressed that he had never guessed, or tried to guess, what really went on in Catherine’s mind, and that when now some part of it had been made plain there was so little he could do. He tried to make his thought of her a constant prayer.

That Catherine had been in love with him, was in love with him, was something in every way outside the order of nature. Michael did not know how to put it to himself, the usual phrases seeming so totally inappropriate. He told himself, but could not feel, that there was no reason why Catherine should not attach herself to him as much as to anyone else; he told himself too that, although the attachment was untimely, it was a privilege to be so chosen. He was not sure whether it made things better or worse to suggest that since Catherine appeared to be deranged her love was in a sense made null.