charms of that hard adolescent body and fresh uncertain face. But the excitement of Toby’s brief embrace was swallowed up in her larger concern about the bell. She felt herself to be a priestess, dedicated now to a rite which made mere personal relations unimportant.
The scuffle in the barn had ended abruptly at the intervention of the bell. Neither of them could make out, having been absorbed in their activities of the moment before, how loud the sound had been. They decided it was probably not very loud, a mere murmur, and not to be compared with the full voice of the bell. All the same, a murmur from such a source was noise enough, and they waited anxiously in ths silence that followed for any sound from the direction of the Court. As none came, they set to work at once on the next part of the operation which was carried out with a speed and efficiency which did Toby great credit. His only regret, which he expressed to Dora, was that she could have no idea how difficult what they had just successfully done had been. Ths bell now hung suspended by the second hawser a few feet from the ground. The hawser passed over the beam, out of the barn door, and its ringed end, pierced by a crowbar, was secured in the fork of a beech tree. The two conspirators had disguised the scene as best they could with twigs and creepers, and prepared to return to their beds. As they went, together this time, along the concrete road towards the Court Dora had taken Toby’s hand in hers. Parting at the edge of the wood they faced each other in the moonlight. Trembling with nervous exultation, Toby took Dora by the shoulders and turned her until the moon shone upon her face. Amazed and delighted by her consenting passivity he contemplated her, and then took her in his arms, twisting her violently to receive his kiss and almost falling with her to the ground.
After these romantic adventures the next day had dawned somewhat soberly for Dora. Paul, who had searched for her in vain, and got his hand full of prickles from a gorse bush in the process, was not pleased with her when he returned to find her in bed; nor was he pleased when, after a brief sleep, they awoke at morning. He knew his wife’s tastes well enough to suspect that she was not normally given to solitary communion with nature, especially at night, and he made no secret of finding her story of a moonlight ramble unconvincing. Nor did he hesitate to mention names in framing an alternative theory. Browbeaten before breakfast, Dora was in tears, genuinely sorry for Paul’s distress, feeling herself for once unjustly accused, but unable to explain. More upsetting still, Paul then insisted on spending the morning with her: took her out for a walk which was a torment to both of them, and generally behaved to her as if she were his prisoner. This made it impossible for Dora to make contact with Toby, with whom, in the sweetness of their farewell last night, she had fqrgotten to make a precise rendezvous for the night to come. It also made it impossible for her to visit the bell, which she had intended to devote part of the day to cleaning, in readiness for its forthcoming dramatic appearance. The only time during the morning when Dora was left alone was for ten minutes when Paul was having a thorn removed from his finger by Mark Straf-ford. But Dora did not dare to look for Toby in that brief interval, and sat dejectedly in the common-room until Paul returned, still black with irritation and smelling strongly of Dettol.
Lunch went drearily. Everyone seemed to be on edge. Toby, who had clearly become aware of the waves of suppressed fury emanating from Dora’s husband, looked subdued and avoided everyone’s eye. Mrs Mark was fretting about the bishop’s arrival. Michael looked ill. Mark Strafford had been cast into a melancholy by the announcement of the auditor’s visit, to take place next week. Catherine seemed more nervy than usual, and Patchway was cross because the wind had blown down all the runner beans. Only James lifted to the company a serene and cheerful face, diffused an atmosphere of robust and energetic confidence, listened with devout attention to Mrs Mark’s reading from Francois de Sales, and seemed quite unaware that everyone else was not as carefree as himself.
After lunch Paul continued with maniac alertness to supervise his wife. Dora was by now thoroughly anxious about the night’s arrangements. Retiring to the lavatory, she contrived to write a short note to Toby, which she put in a plain envelope and concealed in her pocket, saying:
This they were now engaged in doing. The new bell, set upon its trolley, was standing on the gravel outside the refectory. The refectory doors stood open, revealing the tables, decked for once with cloths, and laid for the buffet tea which the uncertain weather made it impossible to have, as Mrs Mark had originally pictured it, out of doors. With the help of members of what James called Patchway’s village harem quite a creditable spread was toward. The bell had by this time been inspected and admired by everyone. Parked in the middle of the terrace, its smooth and highly polished bronze glowing in the intermittent sunshine like gold, it looked extremely strange, and yet charged with authority and significance. Its surface was plain, except for a band of arabesques which circled it a little above the rim, and the inscription, contributed by that zealous antiquarian, the Bishop:
Over the bell, fitting it fairly close, was a garment of white silk. This garment had been fashioned by Mrs Mark out of some remnants of war surplus parachute material which she had in what she called her rag bag, a miscellany of vast dimensions. The material was heavy and slightly shiny. A cotton fringe, now frilled out upon the trolley, had been tacked to its lower end. At the top of the bell the white canopy, meeting at a point, turned out again and cascaded back down the sides of the bell in innumerable white ribbons which were to be tacked down, in a series of generous loops, and finally tied to each other at the bottom to form a scalloped border. Thus was simulated a bridal or first communion dress. If indeed the bell was being thought of as a postulant entering the Abbey, it was by modern standards somewhat overdressed; but at least it was customary for postulants to wear white. Dora, who thought Mrs Mark’s confection had the coy demureness of a smart nightdress, noticed with relief that the garment was all of one piece and could easily be pulled off without disturbing its frills and flounces. Beside the bell stood a table with a damask cloth, to serve as an impromptu altar. Heavy stones kept the cloth in place. A considerable quantity of white wild flowers, collected by the village children, and which no one had had time to make into garlands, lay in a pile nearby, ready to be heaped onto the trolley at the last moment, their petals meanwhile being whisked off by the wind.
The ribbons were proving more troublesome than Mrs Mark had foreseen. The weather was partly to blame. The strands of satin, attached so far at the top only, streamed gaily away, flapping against themselves and each other with almost whip-like cracks, and gave to the bell more the appearance of a maypole than of a bride. Gradually the recalcitrant ribbons were being attached to the silk, following the design of tiny crosses inscribed the night before in pencil by Mrs Mark, but even when attached the fluttering loops gave so much purchase to the wind that hasty tacking, especially if it was the work of Dora, was often pulled undone again. James had suggested pushing the trolley into the stable yard where it would be more sheltered, but Mrs Mark, now thoroughly in a panic and expecting the Bishop to arrive at any moment, preferred to have it left where it was, well in view upon the terrace.
Dora, more than usually butter-fingered with anxiety, fumbled with a ribbon. She had already had to undo it once all the way up to the top because of having inadvertently got it twisted. The ribbon was becoming slightly grey in her perspiring hands. The letter for Toby was still in her pocket and she would have excused herself from Mrs Mark for a moment in order to deliver it if she could have found out where Toby was; but this, in the hurly-burly, no one seemed to know. There was no sign of the boy. Dora trusted that he would surely turn up for the baptism service; and trusted equally that Paul, immersed in his studies, forgetting the time, would not, or at least would be late. As Dora kept looking up from her work to watch for Toby and Mrs Mark kept looking up to watch for the Bishop, things went ahead pretty slowly.
As they worked Mrs Mark was talking to Dora. It did not take Dora long, little as she attended to what was being said, to realize that she was being got at. Mrs Mark, on her own account or put up to it by somebody, was set to deliver a series of admonitions, and after a rather indirect beginning was now becoming positively frank. At another time Dora would have been furious. At present, however, the heavy responsibilities of her vatic role sufficiently distracted her, and a consciousness of innocence lent her detachment. It was true that she had let Toby embrace her, but the embrace had been incidental to a larger enterprise; and the implied charge of having actually pursued the young man did little justice to Dora’s concern with higher matters. Virtuously indignant, Dora lent half an ear to Mrs Mark’s clumsy and rather arch attempts, to make a moral point.
“I hope you won’t mind my saying these things,” said Mrs Mark. “After all, it isn’t as if we were all just on holiday here. I know you aren’t used to this sort of atmosphere. But one must remember that little escapades which
