They had crossed to the Abbey side of the terrace and were going down some stone steps, much riddled by long dry grasses, which descended to a path leading to the causeway. Dora, exasperated, kept silent.
The lake water was very quiet, achieving a luminous brilliant pale blue in the centre and stained at the edges by motionless reflections. Dora looked across at the great stone wall and the curtain of elm trees behind it. Above the trees rose the Abbey tower, which she saw in daylight to be a square Norman tower. It was an inspiring thing, without pinnacles or crenellations, squarely built of grey and yellowish stone, and decorated on each face by two pairs of round-topped windows, placed one above the other, edged with zigzag carving which at a distance gave a pearly embroidered appearance, and divided by a line of interlacing arches.
“A fine example of Norman work,” said Mrs Mark, following Dora’s gaze.
They went on down to the causeway. This crossed the lake in a series of shallow arches built of old brick which had weathered to a rich blackish red. Each arch with its reflection made a dark ellipse. Dora noticed that the centre of the causeway was missing and had been replaced by a wooden section standing on piles.
“There was trouble here at the time of the dissolution, the dissolution of the monasteries, you know,” said Mrs Mark, “and that piece was destroyed by order of the nuns themselves. It didn’t help them, however. Most of the Abbey was burnt down. After the Reformation it became derelict and when Imber Court was built the Abbey was a deserted ruin, a sort of romantic feature of the grounds. Then in the late nineteenth century, after the Oxford movement, you know, the place was taken over by the Anglican Benedictines – it was formerly a Benedictine Abbey, of course – and was rebuilt about nineteen hundred. They acquired the manuscripts that interest your husband at about the same time. There’s very little of the old building left now except for the refectory and the gateway and of course the tower.”
They stepped onto the causeway. Dora felt a tremor of excitement. “Will we be able to go to the top of the tower?” she asked.
“Well, you know, we’re not going inside,”said Mrs Mark, slightly scandalized. “This is an enclosedorder of nuns. No one goes in or comes out.”
Dora was stunned by this information. She stopped.“Do you mean”, she said, “that they’re completely imprisoned in there?”
Mrs Mark laughed. “Not imprisoned, my dear,” she said. “They are there of their own free will. This is not a prison. It is on the contrary a place which it is very hard to get into, and only the strongest achieve it. Like Mary in the parable, they have chosen the better part.” They walked on.
“Don’t they ever come out?” asked Dora.
“No,” said Mrs Mark. “Being Benedictines, they take a vow of stability, that is they remain all their lives in the house where they take their first vows. They die and are buried inside in the nuns’ cemetery.”
“How absolutely appalling!” said Dora.
“Quiet now, please,” said Mrs Mark in a lowered voice. They were reaching the end of the causeway.
Dora saw now that the high wall, which had seemed to rise directly out of the lake, was in fact set back more than fifty yards from the edge of the water. From the lake shore there ran two roughly pebbled paths, one up to the great gateway, whose immense wooden door stood firmly shut, and the other away to the left alongside the Abbey wall.
“This door”, said Mrs Mark, pointing to the gateway and still speaking softly, “is never opened except for the admission of a postulant: a rather impressive ceremony that always takes place in the early morning. Well, yes, it will also be opened in a week or two. When the new bell comes it will be taken in this way, as if it were a postulant.”
They turned to the left along the path which ran midway between the wall and the water. Dora saw a long rectangular brick building with a flat roof which seemed to be attached as an excrescence to the outside of the wall.
“Not a thing of beauty, I’m afraid,” said Mrs Mark.“Here are the parlours where the nuns occasionally come to speak to people from outside. And at the end is the visitors’ chapel where we are privileged to participate in the devotional life of the Abbey. The nuns’ chapel is the large building just here on the other side of the wall. You can see a bit of the tiled roof there through the trees.”
They went in through a green door at the end of the brick building. A long corridor stretched ahead with a row of doors leading off it.
“I’ll show you one of the parlours,” said Mrs Mark, almost whispering now. “We won’t disturb your husband just yet. He’s down at the far end.”
They entered the first door. Dora found herself in a small square room which was completely bare except for two chairs and the shiny linoleum upon the floor. The chairs were drawn up at the other side of the room against a great screen of white gauze which covered the upper half of the far wall.
Mrs Mark went forward. “The other half of the room,”she said, “on the other side, is within the enclosure.” She pulled at the wooden edge of the gauze screen and it opened as a door, revealing behind it a grille of iron bars set about nine inches apart. Behind the grille and close up against it was a second gauze screen, obscuring the view into the room beyond.
“You see,” said Mrs Mark, “the nun opens the screen on the other side, and then you can talk through the grille.” She closed the screen to again. It all seemed to Dora quite unbelievably eerie.
“I wonder if you’d like to talk to one of the nuns?”said Mrs Mark. “I’m afraid the Abbess is certain to be too busy. Even James and Michael only manage to see her now and then. But I’m sure Mother Clare would be very glad to see you and have a little talk.”
Dora could feel her bristles rising with alarm and indignation. “I don’t think I would have anything to talk to the nuns about,” she said, trying to prevent her voice from sounding aggressive.
“Well, you know,” said Mrs Mark, “I thought it might be nice for you to talk things over. The nuns are wise folk and you’d be surprised at what they know of how the world goes on. Nothing shocks them. People often come here to make a clean breast of their troubles and get themselves sorted out.”
“I have no troubles which I care to discuss,” said Dora. She was rigid with hostility, shuddering at these phrases. She’d see the place in hell before she’d let a nun meddle with her mind and heart. They retreated into the corridor.
“Think it over anyway,” said Mrs Mark. “Perhaps it’s the sort of idea that takes some getting used to. Now we’ll call on Paul. He works down there in the last parlour.”
Mrs Mark knocked and opened the door revealing a room similar to the first one, only furnished with a large table at which Paul was working. The gauze screen was closed.
Paul and Dora were glad to see each other. Paul looked up from the table and fixed a beaming smile upon his wife. His delight whenever she found him at his studies had always struck Dora as childish and touching. She was pleased now to see him so importantly at work, and immediately felt proud of him, regaining her vision of him as a distinguished man, how obviously superior, she felt, to Mark Strafford and those other drearies. Dora’s capacity to forget and to live in the moment, while it more frequently landed her in grave trouble, made her also responsive without calculation to the returning glow of kindness. That she had no memory made her generous. She was unrevengeful and did not brood; and in the instant as she crossed the room it was as if there had never been any trouble between them.