As she looked back towards the house she was alarmed to see that there was a dark figure following her down the path. She felt sure it must be Paul, and her old deep fear of him suddenly made the whole night scene terrifying. She was ready to run; but she stood still, her hand at her breast, as if to take a physical shock. The figure came nearer, hurrying soundlessly along the grassy track. When it was quite near she saw it was Toby.
“Oh, Toby,” said Dora with relief. “Hello. You came out of the music.”
“Yes,” said Toby. He seemed breathless. “I came out before the last movement.”
“Do you like that music?” said Dora.
“Not terribly, actually,” said Toby. “I was going to come out anyway. Then I saw you through the window.”
“Did you say I was back?” said Dora.
“No, I thought I’d better not talk between the movements. I just slipped out. They’re good for another three-quarters of an hour in there,” he added.
“Ah well,” said Dora. “It’s a nice night.”
“Let’s walk along a bit,” said Toby.
He seemed pleased to see her. Thank heaven somebody was. They walked along the path beside the lake opposite the Abbey walls. The moon, risen further, was spreading a golden fan across the surface of the water. Dora looked at Toby and found that he was looking at her. Dora was glad to be with Toby. She felt a natural complicity with him which convinced her of the abiding strength and wholeness of her youth. Here was one who was not concerned to enclose or judge her. The rest of them, however, she gloomily reflected, Paul in one way and the brotherhood in another, would make her play their role. A few hours ago she had felt free and she had come back to Imber of her own free will, performing a real action. Yet they would make of it the guilty enforced return of an escaped prisoner. Contemplating the inevitability, whose nature she scarcely understood, of their superiority over her, and the impossibility of ever getting even with them, Dora was beginning to regret that she had come back.
They walked on, exchanging a word or two about the moonlight, until the path entered the wood. The cavern of darkened foliage covered them, illuminated here and there by glimpses of the gilded water. Toby plunged on confidently and Dora followed, finding silence easy in his company. She had decided to let the three-quarters of an hour which Toby had said they were “good for”elapse, and then a little more time, to allow the company to disperse to their rooms; then she could be sure of finding Paul alone.
“Why, here we are!” said Toby.
“Where?” said Dora. She came up beside him. The trees stood back from the water and the moonlight clearly showed a grassy space and a sloping stone ramp leading down into the lake.
“Oh, just a place I know,” said Toby. “I swam here once or twice. No one comes here but me.”
“It’s nice,” said Dora. She sat down on the stones at the top of the ramp. The lake seemed quite still and yet made strange liquid noises in the silence that followed. The Abbey wall with its battlement of trees could be seen on the other side, some distance away to the left. But opposite there was only the dark wood, the continuation across the water of the wood that lay behind. It seemed to Dora that the wide moonlit circle at the edge of which she sat was apprehensive, inhabited. An owl called. She looked up at Toby. She was glad she was not there alone.
Toby was standing quite near at the head of the ramp, looking down at her. Dora forgot what she was going to say. The darkness, the silence, and their proximity made her quite suddenly physically aware of Toby’s presence. She felt a line of force between his body and hers. She wondered if at this moment he felt it too. She remembered how she had seen him naked, and she smiled. The moon revealed her smile and Toby smiled back.
“Tell me something, Toby,” said Dora.
Toby, seeming a little startled, came down the ramp and squatted beside her. The cool weedy smell of the water was in their nostrils. “What?” he said.
“Oh, nothing in particular,” said Dora. “Just tell me something, anything.”
Toby sat back on the stones. After a pause he said,“I’ll tell you something very strange.”
“Go on,” said Dora.
“There’s a huge bell down there in the water.”
“What?” said Dora. She half rose, amazed, scarcely understanding him.
“Yes,” said Toby, pleased with the effect he had produced. “Isn’t it odd? I found it when I was swimming underwater. I wasn’t sure at first, but I came back a second time. I’m certain it’s a bell.”
“You saw it, touched it?”
“I touched it, I felt it all over. It’s only half buried in the mud. It’s too dark to see.”
“Had it carvings on it?” said Dora.
“Carvings?” said Toby. “Well, it was sort of fretted and worked on the outside. But that might have been anything. Why do you ask?”
“Good God!” said Dora. She stood up. Her hand covered her mouth.
Toby got up too. He was quite alarmed. “Why, what is it?”
“Have you told anyone else?” said Dora.
“No. I don’t know why, but I thought I’d keep it a secret till I’d visited it once again.”
“Well, look,” said Dora, “don’t tell anyone. Let it be our secret now, will you?” Dora, who felt no doubts either about Toby’s story or about the identity of the object, was suddenly filled with the uneasy elation of one to whom great power has been given which he does not yet know how to use. She clutched her discovery as an Arab boy might clutch a papyrus. What it was she did not know, but she was determined to sell it dear.
“All right,” said Toby, rather gratified. “I won’t utter a word. I suppose it is very odd, isn’t it? I don’t know why I wasn’t more thrilled about it. At first I wasn’t sure – and, well, a lot of other things distracted me since. Anyway, Imight be wrong. But you seem so specially excited about it.”
“I’m sure you’re not wrong,” said Dora. Then she told him the legend which Paul had told her, and which had so much seized upon her imagination, of the erring nun and the bishop’s curse.
By the end of the tale Toby was as agitated as she was. “But something like that couldn’t be true,” he said.
“Well, no,” said Dora, “but Paul said there’s usually some truth in those old stories. The bell probably did get into the lake somehow, and there it is.” She pointed at the smooth surface of the water. “If it is the medieval bell it’s very important for art and history and so on. Could we pull it out?”
“We, you mean you and me?” said Toby amazed. “We couldn’t possibly. It’s a huge thing, it must weigh an immense amount. And anyway, it’s sunk in the mud.”
“You said only half sunk,” said Dora. “You’re an engineer. Couldn’t we do it with a pulley or something?”
“We might rig up a pulley,” said Toby, “but we haven’t any power. At least, I suppose we might use the tractor. But what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Dora. Her face was cupped in her hands, her eyes shining. “Surprise everybody. Make a miracle. James said the age of miracles wasn’t over.”
Toby looked dubious. “If it’s important,” he said,“oughtn’t we just to tell the others?”