Iris Murdoch - The Bell

Her present condition certainly gave cause for deep anxiety. She had passed part of the day asleep. The rest of the time she lay on her bed weeping, addressing Michael whether he was present or not, reviling herself for various crimes which were never made clear, and raving about the bell. Nick, who had been told by the Straffords, came to her room soon after she was brought in. The doctor was already there and he had to wait. When he was admitted he sat dumbly beside his sister holding her hand, a dazed and stricken look upon his face, finding little to say. She for her part clung almost automatically to his hand or his sleeve, but paid him little direct attention, addressing to him her few sane remarks, which concerned opening or closing the window and fetching pillows. He was, perhaps, too much a part of herself to be, at that time, either a support or a menace. He spent a large part of the day with her, retiring only when she was asleep or when some other visitor was present, when he would walk alone round the garden near the house. He seemed profoundly upset but spoke to nobody; and indeed nobody had time, in the busy rush of that disorganized day, to speak to him. Michael passed him several times, and on the first occasion uttered some words of regret. Speaking to Nick was hideous; Catherine seemed to lie between them like a corpse. Nick nodded in reply to Michael’s speech and went on his way.

It was late at night before the arrangements had finally been made for Catherine to go to London. Mrs Mark was to go with her, and stay with some friends nearby so that she could see her daily, if this was thought desirable, at the clinic. She promised to telephone Imber as soon as there was any news at all. When it was clear that it was really best for Catherine to go, Michael felt a craven relief. He wanted more than anything, at the present moment, that Catherine might go away and be looked after somewhere else. Her presence near him filled him with fear and with a sense of guilt which was vague and menacing, full of as yet unspoken indictments.

Falling exhausted into bed, Michael had soon discovered yet other worries to postpone his sleep. On the following morning, Imber would be in the headlines. However the story was told, Michael had no illusions about how the brotherhood would come out of it. After these catastrophes, to appeal for money would be, in the nearer future, impossible. Whether the whole enterprise was not now destroyed Michael tried to prevent himself from wondering. Time would show what could be salvaged and Michael was not without hope. What more occupied him now that he had contrived to remove to some distance the overwhelming thought of Catherine, was the overwhelming thought of Nick.

Peter Topglass had been the first to suspect that the descent of the bell into the lake had been no accident. He made his own investigations and then drew Michael’s attention to the way in which the wooden supports had been tampered with. Michael and Peter mentioned their discovery to no one, but the reporters seemed to get on to it somehow. Michael was amazed at what Peter showed him; but once convinced that the thing was indeed no accident he knew for certain who had been responsible for it. He even, in some obscure way, and with an intuition which belonged to his present state of shock, guessed at Nick’s motives, if Nick had wished to interfere with his sister’s vocation he had probably been more successful than he expected.

The thought of Nick, once it came fully upon him, began to eat up Michael’s consciousness; and about three a.m. he almost got out of bed to set out for the Lodge. He resolved to see Nick early the next day. With a sort of relief which at a deeper level was almost pleasure he felt that the catastrophes of the last days had as it were opened the pathway between him and Nick. At moments it almost seemed as if they had been designed to do that. To be able now so dramatically to see Nick both as criminal and as afflicted made it essential at last to destroy the barrier between them. Praying for him now, Michael felt once more the elusive sense that God held them both, and held in some incomprehensible way the twisted strands of their concern for each other. Michael knew now that he must talk to Nick. In this extremity he must act fully the part of what he was, Nick’s only friend at Imber. After so much that was appalling, no harm could now come of this, and the simple duty of speaking frankly and openly to Nick was finally set before him. Michael asked himself uneasily whether this duty had not in fact been set before him for some time if only he had used his eyes; but he left the question unanswered, and suddenly secure, relieved, positively glad at the thought of speaking with Nick tomorrow he fell into a sweet sleep.

The next morning opened with a full programme of cares and anxieties. Michael left the dispatching of Catherine to the Straffords, assisted by James, while he coped with further telephone calls, including one from the Bishop, who had been reading the morning papers and who was anxious that Michael should draft a letter to The Times designed to remove certain misapprehensions. It was nearly eleven o’clock before Michael had a moment to raise his head. When at last he felt that he could escape he left his office and set off down the steps and across the terrace. Nick had declined to travel up with Catherine. He had in fact not been pressed to by Margaret Strafford, who held a theory that Catherine was better without her brother for the moment; but he had announced in rather vague terms that he would follow her very soon. Michael expected to find him at the Lodge, probably in the company of the whisky bottle. He did not imagine that Nick would have the resolution or the sheer powers of organization required to leave Imber quickly.

As he emerged on to the terrace and saw how blue the sky had once more become and how warm and colourful the sunshine, he felt a stirring of hope and a sense that the horrors through which they had all passed would be dissolved and blotted out. All would yet be well. And as this sense of hope and of a healing providence came upon him he recognized it, without any distress or misgiving, as inextricably mixed up with his old old love for Nick and the sheer joy of being once again upon the path that led towards him.

“Oh Michael, wait a moment!” said Mark Strafford from behind him.

Michael stopped and looked back, to see Mark leaning over the balcony above him.

“James wants to see you,” said Mark. “He’s in his office.”

Michael turned about. He had no wish to see James just now but with an almost automatic reaction he put first the claim of James’s summons. The other matter was already seeming to him like a self-indulgence, a piece, after all, of his own private business. He came back up the steps. James’s summons. As Michael climbed the stair to James’s office he reflected that it was unusual for James to summon him in this way. When James wanted to see him he usually looked for him and shouted his business out wherever Michael was to be found. He reached James’s door, knocked, and went in.

The room was not large and was practically empty of furniture. A rickety table of much scored oak was James’s desk, with two canvas garden chairs, one on each side. Letters and papers filled boxes on the floor. Behind the desk a crucifix hung on the wall. The floor was unstained and uncarpeted, and the ceiling webbed with cracks. The resonant autumn sunshine showed abundant dust.

James was standing behind the desk as Michael came in, and running his hands again and again through his jagged dark hair. Michael sat down opposite to him, and James slumped back into his canvas chair, making it groan and bulge.

“Catherine got off all right?” said Michael.

“Yes,” said James. He avoided Michael’s eye and fiddled with things on the desk.