The Bell

CHAPTER 6

MICHAEL MEADE was awakened by a strange hollow booming sound which seemed to come from the direction of the lake. He lay rigid for a moment listening anxiously to the silence which had succeeded the sound, and then got out of bed and went to the open window. His room faced the Abbey. It was a bright moonlit night and he could see as he looked out, intent and nervous, the great expanse of the lake, and the Abbey wall opposite to “him, clearly revealed in the blazing splendour of the moon which was well risen above the market garden. Everything looked familiar and at the same time rather eerie. He looked further along, his eyes following the wall towards the place where it ended and the Abbey grounds stretched unwalled to the edge of the water, descending to a wide pebbly strand. Here to his surprise Michael saw with extreme clarity that a number of figures were gathered. Several nuns were standing close beside the lake. He could see their black shapeless habits swaying as they moved and the sharp outline of the blue shadows which the moon cast behind them, and by some trick of the light they seemed strangely near. They were leaning down now over something which they were drawing slowly out of the water. It was something large and heavy at which several of them were awkwardly grasping and pulling. He thought he could hear the thing grating upon the pebbles. Then he realized with a thrill of terror that the long limp object which they were pulling out onto the shore was a human body. They were taking a corpse out of the lake. Michael stood chilled and paralysed, not knowing what to do, and wondering what strange disaster it was of which he was witnessing the final scene. Who was the drowned person whose form lay now quite still upon the farther shore? The fantastic thought came to him suddenly that it was someone whom the nuns themselves had murdered. The scene was so unutterably sinister and uncanny that a suffocating fear came upon him and he pulled desperately at the neck of his pyjamas while trying in vain to utter a cry of alarm.

He turned about and found himself still in bed. The early morning light filled the room. He sat up in bed, still wrenching at his throat, his heart pounding violently. He had been dreaming; but so powerful was the experience that he sat there dazed for a minute, not sure if he was really awake, still overwhelmed by the horror of what he had seen. It was that evil dream again. That was the third time now that he had dreamt more or less the same thing, the scene at night with the nuns pulling the drowned person out of the lake, and with it the conviction that it was their own victim that lay at their feet upon the strand. Each time the dream was accompanied by an overwhelming sense of evil; and each time too Michael had the strange impression that the booming sound which preceded the dream was not a dream sound, but a sound which sleeping he had really heard and which had stirred him towards waking.

His watch said twenty minutes to six. He got up now and crossed to the window, half expecting to see something odd. Everything was as usual, with the derelict and deserted look of the early morning. On the clipped grass near the house a number of blackbirds were running about, following the mysterious activities of newly risen birds. Nothing else stirred. The lake was bland and unbroken, brimming with the pale diffused light of the sun which was risen in a thick haze. It would be another hot day. Michael looked across to where the Abbey wall ended and the lake water lapped among bulrushes along the shore. There was no pebbled strand, and no figures to be seen. Michael wondered what his dream could signify and what it was in the depths of his mind which made him attribute something so terrible to those innocent and holy nuns. He had this thought with an intimation, not so much of the pressure of dark forces upon him, as of the reality within himself of some active and positive spring of evil. He shook his head and knelt down at the open window, still looking towards the scene of the dream, and began wordlessly to pray. His body relaxed. His prayer was no struggle, but the surrender of himself, with all the ill that he contained, to the Ground of his being. Gradually his serenity returned and with it a calm joy, the renewal of the certainty that there existed truly that living God in whom all pain is healed and all evil finally overcome.

It was too late now to go to bed again, so Michael sat down for a while with his Bible. Then he addressed himself to the problems of the day. He remembered with a little distress that it was Saturday, and the weekly Meeting of the community was to take place during the morning. This week there was a rather troublesome agenda. The Meeting was fairly informal and Michael himself usually prepared just beforehand a list of topics to be discussed; and members of the Meeting could then raise their own topics if they wished. He began now to jot down on a piece of paper: mechanical cultivator, financial appeal, squirrels, etc. arrangements, for bell. His pencil paused as he mused over the list. He glanced at his watch. Still twenty minutes before it was time to go to Mass.

The Imber community in its present form had existed for just under a year. Its beginnings, in which Michael had played a crucial part, had been casual, and its future was uncertain. Imber Court itself had been for several generations the home of Michael’s family, but Michael himself had never lived there, and the house, too expensive to keep up, had mostly been let, and during the war and for a few years after was used as offices by a Government department. Then it became empty and the question had arisen of its being sold. Michael, who had always been profoundly attracted by the place, avoided it for this reason. He hardly ever went there, and retained only a vague conception of the house and the estate. As a younger man he had intended to become a priest, but had failed to do so, and had spent a number of years as a schoolmaster. Although he had kept his sense of a religious vocation he had never until very recently made any visit to Imber Abbey; the taboo which rested for him upon the Court had included the Abbey also. It now seemed to him, looking back, as if this ground had been kept sacred, forbidden to him until the time when it should be the scene of decisive changes in his life. He visited the Court in the course of business, when the question of its sale was in the air, and, because it seemed proper, asked to pay his respects to the Abbess. The future destiny of the Court would naturally be of keen interest to the Abbey. Michael was also curious, and now that he was at last close by, very anxious to make the acquaintance of the Benedictine community of whose holiness he had heard so much.

His encounter with the Abbess changed his life and his plans completely. With an ease which at first surprised him and which later seemed part of an inevitable pattern, the Abbess imparted to Michael the idea of making the Court the home of a permanent lay community attached to the Abbey, a “buffer state”, as she put it, between the Abbey and the world, a reflection, a benevolent and useful parasite, an intermediary form of life. There were many people, she said, and Michael was but too ready to credit her since he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are a kind of sick people, whose desire for God makes them unsatisfactory citizens of an ordinary life, but whose strength or temperament fails them to surrender the world completely; and present-day society, with its hurried pace and its mechanical and technical structure, offers no home to these unhappy souls. Work, as it now is, the Abbess argued with a kind of realism which surprised Michael at the time, can rarely offer satisfaction to the half-contemplative. A few professions, such as teaching or nursing, remain such that they can readily be invested with a spiritual significance. But although it is possible, and indeed demanded of us, that all and any occupation be given a sacramental meaning, this is now for the majority of people almost intolerably difficult; and for some of such.people, “disturbed and hunted by God”, as she put it, who cannot find a work which satisfies them in the ordinary world, a life half retired, and a work made simple and significant by its dedicated setting, is what is needed. Our duty, the Abbess said, is not necessarily to seek the highest regardless of the realities of our spiritual life as it in fact is, but to seek that place, that task, those people, which will make our spiritual life most constantly grow and flourish; and in this search, said the Abbess, we must make use of a divine cunning. “As wise as serpents, as harmless as doves.”

Michael, who recognized spiritual authority when he saw it, listened eagerly to the Abbess, coming back day after day to the parlour to sit, his chair tilting forwards, his hands gripping the bars of the grille, to look upon that old pale face, ivory-coloured under the shadow of the white cowl, worn by long-forgotten sacrifices and illuminated by joys of which Michael had no conception. It was an aspect of Michael’s belief in God, and one which although he knew it to be dangerous he could never altogether reject, that he expected the emergence in his life of patterns and signs. He had always felt himself to be a man with a definite destiny, a man waiting for a call. His disappointment concerning the priesthood had been the more intense. Now when the Abbess spoke to him in terms which, without any confession on his part, seemed so accurate a diagnosis of his own condition, he took her words immediately as a command. Michael knew the futility of his recent years, eaten by an ennui which he had tried to picture to himself as an insatiable thirst for the good. But now the pattern was at last emerging, the call had come.

Michael was made a little sad by the fact that once die plan had been decided on and the arrangements set in train the Abbess ceased to see him. She had never asked him about his past, and through all the excitement, of the new project Michael had been waiting for the moment when he could give to her that full account, which he had never yet offered to another human being, of his so far unprofitable and disorderly life. He had reason to believe that the Abbess knew from other sources the salient facts. But it would have eased his heart to have told her everything himself. Yet out of some inscrutable wisdom the Abbess did not ask for the confession which he was so anxious to make, and after a while Michael wryly accepted his enforced silence as something to be offered quietly and as a sacrifice since it was the will of that remarkable lady who certainly knew his desire to tell as well as she doubtless knew all that he had to tell, and more. Since the community had actually been in existence Michael had seen the Abbess only three times, summoned on each occasion by her to discuss matters of policy. All other details which concerned the Abbey had been dealt with in discussion with Mother Clare, or through the intermediary offices of Sister Ursula.

The idea of the market-garden had arisen naturally enough. There was good land surrounding the Court, and the working of it would be the proper and primary activity of the inhabitants of the house. The garden could be begun on a small scale, and grow with the membership of the community. Other types of work could possibly be introduced later. At present it was impossible to foresee the pattern things would take, and undesirable to attempt to plan more than a little way ahead. The nucleus of the community had been Michael himself and Peter Topglass. Peter was an old friend of Michael’s from College days, a naturalist, and a man of quiet and undemonstrative piety. Between two jobs he had come to give Michael a hand with his new undertaking. He had settled down at once, doing more than his share of the hard work, and introducing his paraphernalia of bird and animal study into the garden. To Michael’s great pleasure he decided, for a while at least, to stay. The next arrivals were the Straffords, whose marriage had been on the point of breaking up. Sent along by the Abbess, they dug themselves in with determination. Catherine had come next and her brother later. Catherine had been for a long time an adherent of the Abbey, and more lately a prospective novice; and the Abbess had judged it profitable, both for the community and for the girl herself, that she should make her entrance to the Abbey by way of the Court. The arrival of Patchway had been unforeseen but as it turned out extremely fortunate. He was a local farm labourer who had appeared soon after Michael had installed himself, and announced that he was going to “do the garden”. Michael was not sure at first whether Patchway was not under a misapprehension about Michael’s return to the Court. Patchway’s father, it appeared, had been a gardener at the Court as a boy, in former and far other days. However, undismayed and perhaps unsurprised by explanations, Patchway had determinedly stayed on, working like a carthorse and seeming to have at his disposal an invaluable pool of casual female labour from the village. He even made occasional appearances at Mass. Mother Clare had laughed over Michael’s account of him and declared that he was perhaps in the true sense of the word a “godsend”, and must be allowed to stay. The latest and most important acquisition to the community was James Tayper Pace.

James was the younger son of an old military family. His higher education took place upon the hunting field, and he subsequently became known as an accomplished yachtsman, and served with distinction in the Guards during the war. He had had from childhood a strong and simple Anglican faith. The custom whereby in certain families religious faith survived as part of the life of a country gentleman, deeply connected with all the rituals of existence, was for James no empty form. It was fruitful of a deep and unquestioning spiritual life which led him at a more mature age, without any sudden crisis or any emotional rejection of his earlier pursuits, to devote himself more wholeheartedly to the call of religion. He began to train as a missionary, but various encounters and further experience led him to decide that his task lay at home. He went to live in the East End of London where he eventually ran a highly successful settlement and a number of boys’clubs. This excellent venture came to an end when he had a serious breakdown in health owing to overwork. His doctor advised him, and his bishop urged him, to find occupation in the country, preferably in the open air; and it was shortly after this that the Abbess, whose information service had brought her news of James’s situation, beckoned him to Imber.

Michael took an immediate and strong liking to James. Indeed some ingenuity would have been required to dislike him, he was a character of such transparent gentleness. Michael was also, and more uneasily, aware in himself of a certain clannish affinity with James, something nostalgic, crystallizing at a moral level distinctly below that at which he aimed at present to live, and tending to exclude the others. His converse with James was easy and laconic, and Michael did his best not to find it pleasing for the wrong reasons. James himself was however touched by no such atavistic memories and his simple and open behaviour soon disposed of Michael’s problem. The arrival of James also raised for Michael, as none of the previous arrivals had done, the question of leadership at Imber. When James had come the community immediately took shape as a corporate body. Previously it had been a collection of individuals over whom Michael naturally exercised such authority as was necessary in virtue of his peculiar situation and his priority upon the scene. Michael at once recognized in James a man who was in almost all relevant qualities his superior, and he would have been very happy to be second to such a first. James however was surprisingly supported by the Abbess in a refusal, which his plea of ill-health made conclusive, to allow Michael to retire from his position of unofficial leader; and Michael, with some uneasiness, accepted his role.

Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed. Michael had not particularly cherished these hopes; yet he was sorry to find himself so immediately placed in the position of one who by force of personality holds a difficult team together. Michael had always held the view that the good man is without power. He held to this view passionately although at times he scarcely knew what it meant, and could connect it with his daily actions only tenuously or not at all. It was in this sense that he understood, when he understood it, his call to the priesthood. For a creature such as himself the service of God must mean a loss of personality such as could perhaps come about through the named office of a servant or the surrender of will in an unquestioning obedience. Yet these ideals were still for him, while strongly beckoning, remote and hard to interpret. He was aware that, paradoxically, one of the most good people that he knew was also one of the most powerful: the Abbess. He lacked still the insight which would show him in what way exactly her exercise of power differed from his own. He felt himself compelled to remain in a region where power was evil, and where he could not honourably find the means to strip himself of it completely. His lot was rather the struggle from within, the day-to-day attempt to be impersonal and just, the continual mistakes and examinations of conscience. Perhaps this was after all his road; it was certainly aroad. But he was irked by a sense of the incomplete and ill-defined nature of his role. Thoughts of the priesthood returned to him more and more frequently.

Not that the Imber community, as it so far existed in embryo, was exceptionally problematic. On the surface it was peaceful and reasonably efficient. Yet there were certain stresses of which Michael was continually conscious, he hoped without irritation. James and Margaret Strafford worked too hard, Mark Strafford not hard enough. The tension between Mark and his wife, though muted, remained. Mark Strafford was sarcastic, nervous, and inclined to make much of difficulties. Michael, who did not agree”with Kant that feelings of affection cannot be demanded of us as a duty, did his best to like Mark, so far without conspicuous success. The bearded and ostentatiously virile appearance of his colleague was a constant annoyance. James Tayper Pace, without meaning to be so, was inevitably a second centre of authority, and Michael noticed a tendency in both the Straf-fords to take their orders from James, without consulting him. James, who believed that authority should melt in brotherly love, as would have been the case in a community composed of persons like himself, was careless of such matters. This led to some confusion. Peter Topglass did not improve things by being blindly, and sometimes aggressively, loyal to Michael. There was a faint appearance of two parties.

Michael, who thought that James was often obtuse about the subtler questions of organization, was aware too of serious moral differences between them which had so far scarcely made themselves evident. James was a man of more confident faith and more orthodox and rigid moral conceptions. Michael was not sure how far these things were in him, or ought anywhere to be, connected; but he suspected that James, who was no fool and could judge as well as love those who surrounded him, saw his leader as a man with “ideals but no principles”. The presence in the community of Catherine, with her highly strung spirituality and her imminent departure, was an inspiration to all; yet it was also undoubtedly a centre of obscure emotional tension, and Michael hoped that he was entirely charitable in his wish to see her soon and securely stowed“inside”. Then there was the, for him especially, appalling problem of her twin brother.

Michael was called from his meditations by the bell for Mass. After breakfast he repaired as usual to the estate office to cast an eye over the day’s correspondence. He enjoyed this part of the morning, during which he could see, as it were, the wheels of his small enterprise turning, and take the numerous minor policy decisions which kept the market garden from day to day a going concern. Although for other and perhaps higher reasons he had wished to give place to James, he was glad to find himself, in the more purely business side of his work, remarkably efficient. He planned the expanding project delicately, lovingly, like a military operation, and was surprised to discover in himself, after his undistinguished career as a schoolmaster, such a talent for this kind of work. Meticulous timing, careful disposition of labour, quick changes of plan were necessary if the garden with its small and largely unskilled personnel were to yield its best; and Michael found himself experiencing again the curious satisfaction which planning of this kind had given him during his service as a soldier during the war. As a platoon commander, and later a company commander, in a battalion of the local county regiment, he had been conscientious and even, to his surprise, enthusiastic and moderately successful. To his great regret he was never sent overseas. The métier of soldiering, with its absolute requirements and its ideals of exactness and devotion had caught his imagination, and when on training exercises he had taken an almost boyish delight in dispatching his men to comfortable beds in the nearest village while he remained by some darkening roadside, to pore over the map with his flashlight and spend the night with his sleeping bag and greatcoat underneath the lorry.

By the time Michael had read the correspondence, made some telephone calls to clients in Pendelcote, and had a word with Mark Strafford who acted in the estate office as his secretary and accountant, it was nearly ten o’clock, the hour of the weekly Meeting. Michael had had no further time to reflect upon the agenda, and sought rather guiltily in his pocket for the scrap of paper on which he had written the items. He wondered who would be present on this occasion. Michael had always taken the view that the Meeting was a regrettable necessity, should be brief and businesslike and attended only by full members of the community. James however had maintained that the Meeting should be an open gathering attended by any guests who happened to be present at the Court and who wished to see the brotherhood in action. Michael had declared that he had no taste, even in so would-be charitable an atmosphere, for washing dirty linen in public. James had replied that the community was not likely to have any dirty linen, and if perchance it had it ought to wash it in public. James, it sometimes seemed to Michael, believed that truthfulness consisted in telling everybody everything, whether it concerned them or not, and regardless of whether they wanted to know. This position had however a certain moral force about it. Michael, finding a majority against him, did not care to argue his own more complex views, and gave way. The somewhat tiresome compromise was adopted that visitors, of whom so far there had been very few, were told they might attend, without being given any clear guidance, as to whether they would be welcome.

As he left the estate office Michael wpndered if Paul Greenfield and his wife would take it into their heads to come along. One or two of the topics for discussion were delicate ones, and he rather hoped to be left in the privacy of his brothers to discuss them. Michael quite liked Paul Greenfield. He was a year or two younger than Michael, who had known him slightly at Cambridge, where he had found Paul’s blend of aestheticism and snobbery thoroughly distasteful; and when a strange chance had brought Paul to Imber on the track of the manuscripts Michael had been far from pleased and had wished his old acquaintance could have chosen some less crucial moment for his visit. However, he found Paul much improved or himself less puritanical; possibly both. Paul, who had perhaps had a similar pleasant surprise, showed some tendency to unburden himself to Michael about his matrimonial troubles. But Michael had been too busy for more than the occasionaltête-à-tête and had gained only a confused impression of the situation. He had been genuinely delighted at the unexpected announcement of Mrs Greenfield’s imminent arrival; and had been astonished, unprepared as he was by Paul’s descriptions to which he had paid little attention, at her appearance. He could not yet see, though he found himself interested to know, how Paul could have got himself married to so apparently unlikely a lady.

As Michael entered the common-room he was relieved to hear Margaret Strafford telling Peter that Paul and Dora had gone out for a walk. She had, she said, advised them about a route which should not prove too tiring for Mrs Greenfield. Why, she wondered, had that young woman not brought a single pair of sound shoes with her? Those pretty sandals would be worn out in a few days.

Michael sank into the armchair by the fireplace which was by custom the chairman’s position, and took a quick look round as the rest of the community were settling themselves down. There was no sign of Nick. Michael hoped every week that he might come, but he never did. Everyone else was now present. Michael saw young Toby sidling in through the door and looking about shyly for a seat. He smiled at the boy and pointed him out a chair. He felt he could have done without Toby’s presence; and yet, he thought, as he looked at the boy’s face, taut and round-eyed with a sort of warm eagerness, half-smiling as he looked about at his companions, where could be the harm or embarrassment of having such a witness. Perhaps after all there was something in James’s theory that privacy has a tendency to corrupt. He saw the boy curl himself into his chair, tucking his long legs under him. He noted his grace.

“All present, I think, with the usual exception,”said James briskly.

The community was disposed in a half circle facing Michael, with James well in the front. The Straffords were beside him. Peter and Patchway made the second row, with Toby. Catherine was on the window-seat, sitting sideways to look out, her thin cotton skirt pulled well down towards her ankles and her hands clasped about her knees. Sister Ursula, who always attended the meetings as a liaison officer, sat by the door, her stoutly clad feet protruding squarely from the habit, her lively and critical eyes fixed upon Michael. He smiled at them all, feeling suddenly at ease and pleased with his crew.

“I’ve made the usual little list,” he said. Proceedings were quite informal. “Let me see, what shall we take first.”

“Something nice and easy,” said James.

“There isn’t anything easy this week,” said Michael.“And I’m afraid there are one or two old favourites. For instance, the mechanical cultivator question.”

There was a general groan.

Peter said, “I think we hardly need to have the discussion again. We all know what everyone thinks. I suggest we just put it to the vote.”

“I’m against voting as a general rule,” said Michael, “but we may just have to here. Would anyone like to say anything before we vote?”

Michael had for some time been in favour of buying a mechanical cultivator, an all-purpose machine with a small engine which could be used for superficial digging, and also, with various appliances attached, for hoeing, mowing, and spraying. The purchase of this machine, which was light and easily operated even by an unskilled worker, seemed to him an obvious next step in the development of the market garden. He had been amazed to find himself opposed by James and the Straffords on a curious point of principle. They had maintained that the community, having set themselves apart from the world to follow Adam’s trade of digging and delving, should equip themselves only with tools of minimal simplicity and should compensate by honest and dedicated effort for what they had chosen to lack in mechanization. Michael regarded this view as an absurd piece of romanticism, and said so. After all, they were engaged in a particular piece of work and should do it, to God’s glory, as well as the fruitful discoveries of the age would allow. He was answered that they had all of them withdrawn from the world to live a life which was, by ordinary standards, not a “natural” one in any case. They had to determine their own conception of the “natural”. They were not a profit-making concern, so why should efficiency be their first aim? It was the quality of the work which mattered, not its results. As there was something symbolic, and indeed sacramental, in their withdrawal from the world, so their methods of work should share that quality. Honest spades were to be permitted. Even a plough. But none of these new-fangled labour-saving devices. “Good heavens!” Michael had exclaimed, “we shall be weaving our own clothes next!” – and had thereby mortally offended Margaret Strafford whose cherished plan for a craft centre at Imber did in fact include weaving. It was certainly a question with wide implications.

Michael thought that the argument came particularly ill from Mark Strafford, who always discovered urgent work in the office whenever some hard digging was to be done; but he recognized it as a strong one, having more than a merely romantic appeal. They had set themselves outside the bounds of ordinary convention, but without adopting any clear traditional mode of life. They had to invent their own norms. Michael felt sure that his own view was the right one; to be eclectic to this extent about methods of work was a sort of idiotic aestheticism. Yet he found it hard to argue the point clearly, and was distressed to find how emotional he soon became about it. Everyone else seemed ready to become emotional too, and by now the excitement had gone on long enough. In driving the matter to a vote instead of quietly dropping it Michael knew that he was trying to impose his own conception of how the community should develop. It seemed important to him to outlaw nonsense of this kind from the start; but he found his role in doing so a distasteful one.

A silence followed Michael’s invitation to speak. It was a subject on which the interested parties had already said rather too much. James shook his head and looked down, indicating that he would make no more speeches.

Patchway said in a tone which was half statement and half question, “That don’t make no difference about the plough.”Patchway had been one of those who looked askance at the cultivator, but for different reasons. He regarded it as an amateur’s toy.

“No, of course not,” said Michael. “This thing won’t replace the plough. We’ll need that anyway for the heavy work, such as ploughing up that bit of pasture in the autumn.” They had a standing arrangement to borrow a plough from a nearby farmer.

More silence followed, and Michael called for the vote. For the cultivator were Michael, Peter, Catherine, Patch-way and Sister Ursula. Against it, James and Mark. Margaret Strafford abstained.

Trying not to sound pleased, Michael said “I think that’s a sufficient majority to act on. May I be empowered to go and buy the cultivator?” A murmur empowered him. Michael felt that there was something to be said for being a leader after all.

Margaret Strafford spoke in a high nervous voice. She was timid of speaking, even in such an informal gathering, “I don’t suppose this is the moment to raise the question about the pottery. But I’d just like to ask people to keep it in mind. I’ll raise it again later on.” Margaret was anxious that, even if mechanization should triumph on the agricultural front, at least the Simple Life should be available in other forms.

Michael said “Thank you, Margaret. You understand that this arts and crafts problem will have to wait until we have more people here and have our finances on a sounder footing. But we certainly won’t forget it. And that conveniently raises my next item, which is the financial appeal. Perhaps you could take this one, Mark?”

“I think everyone knows about this item too,” said Mark. The point is, we need capital. We’ve lived so far from hand to mouth, and depended long enough on the generosity of one or two individuals. It seems perfectly reasonable and proper, to get ourselves well started, to make an appeal for funds to a limited circle of persons whom we know te be interested. The only questions are the exact wording of the thing, the list of clients, or should I say victims, and the time-table.”

“Bell!” said James.

“Yes,” said Mark. “There’d be no harm done if we could synchronize the appeal with the arrival of the new bell, and got a little innocent publicity.”

“I suggest we appoint a sub-committee to deal with the details,” said Michael. A sub-committee was appointed consisting of Mark, James, and Michael.

“Might I raise the subject of the bell now?” said James. “It seems to come up. As you know, dear friends, the Abbey has existed since its second foundation without a bell. Now at last, Deo gratias, it is to have one. The bell is cast, and should be delivered sometime later this month, in fact in about a couple of weeks from now. The Abbess has expressed the wish, dear Sister Ursula will correct me if I’m wrong, that the whole business be conducted quietly and without undue ceremony. However, since we have this privileged role of camp followers to the Abbey, I think a little merrymaking on our behalf would be proper to celebrate the entry of the bell into the Abbey. And as I hinted just now, the tiniest bit of publicity might be welcome for other and more worldly reasons!”

“I’m nervous of publicity,” said Michael. “This community could so easily be made to look absurd in the press. I suggest we take the Abbess very literally. What do you think, Sister Ursula?”

“I think a little merry-making might be in order,” said Sister Ursula, smiling at James. “The Bishop is coming, you know, and he won’t want too Lenten a scene.”

“Gilbert White says”, said Peter, “that when they had a new ring of bells at Selborne the treble bell was up-ended on the village green and filled with punch and they were all drunk for days!”

“I don’t think we can quite emulate Selborne,” said James, “but then neither need we emulate the old man of Thermopylae who never did anything properly. We could organize a small festival and see to it that we got the sort of publicity we wanted. I gather the Bishop wants to revive the old ceremony of christening the bell. This could take place with just ourselves present on the evening of his arrival, and then we could have a little procession with some of the village people on the following day. The village seems quite excited about the whole business. As I think most of you know, the Abbess has the poetic idea that the bell should enter the Abbey early in the morning through the great gate as if it were a postulant.” He looked at Catherine.

“All right,” said Michael. “Another committee please. Perhaps a definite plan could be submitted to us next week. And, of course, Father Bob must be consulted about the music.”

“He’s got some ideas already,” said James. “He says he’s game for anything except ‘Lift it gently to the steeple’!”

A sub-committee to deal with the bell was appointed, consisting of James, Margaret Strafford, Catherine, and Sister Ursula. Father Bob was to be co-opted.

Michael looked at his notes. Squirrels etc. His heart sank and he was half tempted to leave this item over. He spoke up quickly. “The next thing, and I think we can’t put off discussing it any longer, is this question about shooting squirrels and pigeons.”

Everyone looked glum and avoided each other’s eyes. This problem had arisen early and was still unsolved. Soon after arriving at Imber, James Tayper Pace had produced his shotgun and made regular sorties to shoot pigeons, crows, and squirrels in the vicinity. He regarded this both as a normal country pursuit and as a proper part of any farmer’s duty; and it could not be denied that the pigeons especially were a menace to the crops. Encouraged by his example, Patchway also took to prowling the estate with a gun and proved singularly adept at slaughtering hares, some of which, it was suspected, went to adorn tables in the village. When Nick Fawley arrived, bringing a.22 rifle with him, he joined in the game, this being indeed the only service which he appeared to perform with any enthusiasm for the community.

Michael, who had had his first unpleasant shock on seeing James armed with a gun, had at last felt that the practice must be put an end to. Again, he felt surprisingly distressed and not able to put his arguments very clearly. It seemed to him improper that a community of this sort should kill animals. Three of its members, Catherine and the Straffords, were vegetarians on religious grounds, and it seemed, to say the least, in bad taste to confront them continually with the spectacle of slaughtered creatures. Michael knew that Catherine especially was thoroughly upset about it, and he found her once in tears over a dead squirrel. She had in any case an extreme horror of firearms. As time went on Michael began to feel far from democratic, and had at last forbidden gunfire upon the estate pending a full discussion. He realized that he was open to a charge of inconsistency. He advocated mechanization because it was natural in that it increased efficiency, but he opposed shooting as improper, although it too increased efficiency. But in this case he was even more sure of being in the right.

James said, “My view is this. We can’t afford to be sentimental. Animals that do serious damage ought to be shot. What we shoot and when and how might need discussing. But after all, as Michael observed a little while ago, we’re seriously in business as market-gardeners.” This was as near as James ever came to making a sharp point. He gave Michael a gentle deprecating look as he spoke, to soften the sharpness.

Patchway said, “A wood pigeon eats its own weight every day.”

Peter Topglass said, “I think the question is not one of efficiency. We’re agreed about that. The fact is that the shooting gives grave offence to some among us.”

Mark Strafford, turning round, said, “If it’s the feelings of the animals that are to be considered one might point out that much more distress is caused to a bird by trapping it and ringing it than by shooting it.” This was a piece of gratuitous polemic, since Strafford was in fact against the shooting too.

Michael, now thoroughly annoyed, said “It’s the feelings of the human beings we want to consider.”

“I don’t see why one side should monopolize the appeal to feeling,” said Mark. “James and I had very strong feelings about your cultivator.”

There was a disapproving silence. James said “Come, come,” to dissociate himself from the remark.

Michael was now too angry to trust himself to continue. He said “Perhaps after all we had better postpone this question again. James has given us his view. Mine is that since a number of people here believe on religious grounds that animal life should be respected we ought, since we profess to be a religious community, to allow this view to prevail, as against a mere consideration of efficiency, even if certain other members don’t hold it. I might add that I also hold the view that members of the community ought not to possess firearms at all, and if I had my way I’d confiscate the lot!”

“Hear, hear!” said Catherine in a clear voice, speaking for the first time.

After a silence during which Michael had time to appreciate Catherine’s contribution and to regret his use of the word “confiscate”, James said “Well, well, you may even be right. I for one would like to think the matter over again. Perhaps we could discuss it in a week or two. And meanwhile no shooting.”

“Any other business?” said Michael. He felt tired now and not pleased with himself. He had been catching the eye of young Toby during the last outburst. He wondered what the boy was thinking of them all. How unwise of James to want outsiders at these meetings.

“I would like to remind everybody about the Bach record recital on Friday evening,” said Margaret Strafford. “I did put up a notice, but I’m afraid people don’t always remember to look at the board.”

With various other trivial admonitions the Meeting broke up. James came up to Michael and began to say placatory things. He was obviously regretting his little piece of controversy. Michael felt emotionally exhausted. He parted James on the shoulder, doing his best to reassure him. He could see from the corner of his eye Peter Topglass lying in wait for him. Peter would certainly have been upset by Mark Strafford’s attack on his bird-ringing. He was sensitive to this particular charge. Michael, wishing to be alone, excused himself from James, had a word with Peter, and walked out onto the balcony.

The good weather was holding. How very large and peaceful the scene was outside. Michael rested his eyes upon it with relief. The sky was a steady blue, washing paler towards the horizon, and a line of small rotund clouds was stretched above the trees which secluded the Abbey from view. The lake was a brilliant yet gentle colour of which it was hard to say whether it was a light blue or an extremely luminous grey. A slight warm breeze took the edge off the heat. To the left along the drive Paul and Dora Greenfield could be seen returning from their walk, Dora’s red dress conspicuous and bright against the grass. They waved. Margaret Strafford, who had been standing down on the gravel with her husband, turned away to go and meet them. Mark Strafford, without looking up, walked slowly the other way towards the estate office. Then suddenly from behind Michael young Toby erupted from the common-room and went past him and down the two flights of steps in three leaps. He set off straight ahead at a run towards the ferry and then slowed to a quick loping walk. He was probably too shy to dally.

Michael walked down the steps. He wanted to avoid the Greenfields who had now stopped and were talking to Mrs Strafford. He began to follow Toby along the path to the ferry. The boy skipped along with an irregular gait, sometimes taking a long jump, his arms swinging wildly. He was wearing his dark grey flannels and an open-necked shirt. His shirt sleeves, escaping from their tight roll, flopped gaily about his wrists. He seemed to Michael a graceful thoughtless animal, without self-knowledge, without sin. Michael quickened his step a little, hoping to come up with Toby before he reached the ferry; but the boy had a long start and had already jumped into the boat and punted violently off before Michael had covered half the distance to the lake. Michael slowed down to a more meditative step, not wishing Toby to think he was anxious to speak with him, for in fact he was not, and-had followed the boy half instinctively. Toby, turned now to face the house, waggling the oar vigorously at the back to propel the boat, waved to Michael. Michael waved back and came down to stand on the little wooden landing-stage. The trailing painter of the ferry-boat moved gently in the water at Michael’s feet, drooping from its iron ring. The boat itself came abruptly to land on the other side and Toby leapt out; his departing kick sent the boat bobbing away upon the ripples. Michael lifted the painter and began idly to pull it towards him.

A figure emerged from among the trees opposite and was coming to meet Toby across the open grass. Even at that distance there was no mistaking Nick Fawley. He walked with a characteristic stride of rather aimless determination, his dark head thrust well forward. Michael saw that he was carrying his rifle. The dog Murphy followed him from the shade of the trees and ran ahead towards Toby. The boy bent down to greet the dog, who pranced about him, and then walked on to greet its master.

As Nick came up to Toby he turned and saw Michael watching them from the other side. It was too far for speech, and even a shout would have been indistinct. Nick’s face was a distant blur. For a moment Michael and Nick looked at each other across the water. Then Nick raised his hand in a slow salute, solemn or ironical. Michael released the painter and began to wave back. But Nick had already turned and was leading Toby away. The boat came lazily to a standstill in the middle of the lake.