Dora began to run now, passing under the Abbey walls and away diagonally across the grass towards the Lodge. When she got near it she slowed down, avoiding the crunchy gravel of the drive and approached cautiously, laying her sodden feet quietly on the wet grass. She saw that the light came from the living-room of the Lodge; there was no light in Toby’s room. She came cautiously up toward the window; it was a modern casement window set with small leaded panes and it was slightly open. Dora heard a murmur of voices. She fell on her hands and knees and crawled toward the window until she was almost underneath it. The voices could be heard clearly now, together with a clink of glasses.
“It would be hard to say whether or not it’s supposed to be a joke,” Nick’s voice was saying. He sounded drunk.“With people like that you can never tell.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Fawley, but I still don’t understand,” said another voice.
Chilled as she was Dora went a degree colder. The voice was Noel’s. Incautiously she lifted her head to the level of the sill. Noel and Nick were sitting together at the table with the whisky between them. There was no one else in the room. Amazed and horrified Dora sank back and settled herself on a cushion of wet grass.
“You see,” Noel went on, “this is in the technical sense such a good story that it would be a pity not to get it absolutely correct. And in any case I have a certain preference for getting things right. Even we newspaper men have our morals, Mr Fawley. Thanks, I will, just a little.”
“I’ve told you all I can,” said Nick. “As for getting it right, who ever gets any story right? All you can do is mention a few facts, I don’t suggest any more than that. What will happen tomorrow is anyone’s guess. All I can promise you is a spectacle. I hope you’ve got a camera with you?”
“I’m sorry to keep on bothering you,” said Noel in the slow patient voice of a sober man talking to a drunk, “and I know you must be frightfully tired, but do you mind if we go over it again? I’d like to check the notes I’ve made. You say that two members of the community, identity not disclosed, have found an old bell which used to belong to the convent long ago. And these two are planning what you call a miracle – the substitution of the old bell for the new bell. But what do they expect to achieve by this? After all, this is England, not Southern Italy. It sounds more like a practical joke.”
“Who knows what they expect to achieve?” said Nick.“I’m sure they don’t know themselves. Publicity perhaps. I told you this place was appealing for funds. And if you think it sounds mad, it’s no more mad than believing that Jesus Christ was God and died to redeem our sins.”
“I can’t agree,” said Noel. “Belief is a highly selective business. And people will believe that who otherwise don’t part company with common sense. But never mind, let’s get on with the story. You say that the plan won’t now be carried out?”
“Unfortunately not,” said Nick. “It was a beautiful plan, but one of the parties has lost his nerve.”
“I must say, you intrigue me,” said Noel. “As you may have guessed, I feel no sympathy with an outfit like this. I don’t think these peoples are consciously insincere, but they’re just born to be charlatans malgré eux. I’m sure there are all sorts of little feuds and delusions in this crackpot community and I’ve certainly no objection to reporting them, without comment. If people want to stop being ordinary useful members of society and take their neuroses to some remote spot to have what they imagine are spiritual experiences I’m certain they should be tolerated but I see no reason why they should be revered. But as I say, I want to report and not to malign. What I was wondering, if I may ask it off the record, is what your motives are in telling me all this. Thanks yes. But fill up yourself.”
“There are moments”, said Nick, “when one wants to tell the truth, when one wants to shout it around, however much damage it does. One of these moments is upon me. And now I shall go to bed. I advise you to do the same. You will have a strenuous and amusing day tomorrow.”
Noel began to reply. Dora got up hastily and started to run back the way she had come. The rain, heavier now, deadened the sound of her footsteps as she squelched through the grass. When she was nearly at the causeway she looked back. There seemed to be no one emerging from the Lodge; but as it was hard to see or hear anything except the rain she couldn’t be certain. She ran across the causeway gasping for breath and turned along the lakeside path towards the barn. As she slowed to a walk she began to think. There was no mystery about how Noel was led to the Lodge and into the clutches of Nick Fawley. Her own letter had brought him there. As for how Nick knew about the bell, there need be no mystery about that either: she arid Toby had made so much noise on the previous night, anyone might have heard, though in their excited optimism they had reckoned it as unlikely. Nick was, in any case, as she might have remembered, a bad sleeper and a night wanderer. He could easily have found bis way to the barn and overheard herself and Toby running over the details of the plan just before they left the scene. Or he might just have seen Toby creeping out and followed him out of sheer curiosity. All that made sense; and by now it was hardly news to her that the plan would fail because one of the parties had lost his nerve. What appalled her was the idea, coming to her now fully for the first time, that this abortive fantasy would be reported, or misreported, in the newspapers and perhaps do great harm to the community.
Dora knew that if she had reflected more carefully on her plan she would have seen that it was bound to get publicity and bound to look, to the outsider, ludicrous or sinister. Its triumphant witch-like quality existed for her alone. Even Toby, she realized, had cooperated to please her rather than because he liked the plan. How could such a thing be understood by the outside world? Dora had become used to thinking of Imber as utterly remote, utterly cut off and private. Imber had retired from the world, but the world could still come to Imber to pry and mock and judge.
Dora reached the barn. She looked and listened. All was silent, all was as she had left it. She switched the torch on to the bell. It hung there, huge and portentous, motionless with its own weight. She switched the light off again and waited, wondering what to do. She came near to the bell which seemed now more and more like a living presence. She put her hand on its rim and felt again the rough encrusted surface and the strange warmth in it. She drew her hand up on to the squares, trying to tell by the feel which picture she was touching. Toby would not come. Should she carry out the plan by herself? She could not do it alone, and in any case her desire to do it had vanished. The enterprise now seemed as cheap to her as it would shortly seem to the readers of the sensational press: at best funny in a vulgar way, at worst thoroughly nasty. Dora’s heart swelled with remorse and rage. Why did Noel have to come here? The story would “come out” in any case, but Noel’s presence on the spot would ensure that it would be misreported in thoroughly picturesque detail. Dora knew what Noel could make of a story. She knew too the evasive mockery with which Noel would meet any plea for silence. More obscurely she grieved that Noel had been foolish enough to pursue and intrude in a way which seemed now to make it impossible for her to regard him as a place to escape to. In London his judgement of Imber had eased her heart. Here it was he who was under judgement.