User:HazelAB/sandbox/The Bell

Plot
The setting is Imber Court, a country house in Gloucestershire that is the home of a small Anglican lay religious community. It is situated next to Imber Abbey, a convent belonging to an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. The owner of Imber Court and the community's de facto leader is Michael Meade, a former schoolmaster in his late 30s. The community supports itself by a market garden.

The novel begins with the journey of Dora Greenfield from London to Imber by train. Dora is a young former art student who is married to the difficult and demanding Paul Greenfield, an art historian who is staying at Imber Court as a guest while studying fourteenth-century manuscripts belonging to the Abbey. Dora left her husband six months earlier, but he has persuaded her to return to him. On the same train are Toby Gashe, a 17-year old boy who has just finished school and is going to spend a few weeks as a guest at Imber Court before starting university, and James Tayper Pace, a community member who formerly ran a settlement house and led youth groups in the East End of London.

Among the community members is Catherine Fawley, a young woman who is preparing to enter the convent as a nun. Her twin brother, Nick, is living at Imber Court's lodge. Nick is a troubled and troublesome character, often drunk, who has been invited to Imber Court at the request of his sister in the hope that the spiritual surroundings will be of benefit to him. Fourteen years earlier Michael, then a schoolmaster with aspirations to the priesthood, had been in love with the teenaged student Nick. The attraction was unconsummated and apparently mutual, but Nick informed the school's headmaster. As a result Michael lost his job and did not see Nick again until he came to stay at Imber Court, where the two do not acknowledge having known each other in the past.

The Abbey, which is separated from the Court by a lake, has a bell tower but lacks a bell. Shortly after her arrival Paul tells Dora of a centuries-old legend that the original 12th century bell flew out of the bell tower and plunged into the lake after a nun broke her vows by receiving a lover in the Abbey. A new bell is being manufactured and will be arriving soon. It will be taken first to Imber Court for a christening ceremony to be performed by the Bishop, and then taken over a causeway across the lake to be installed in the Abbey.

After a few days Michael takes Toby with him to the nearby town of Swindon to pick up a mechanical cultivator which the community has purchased for use in the market garden. They have dinner in a pub, where Michael drinks too much cider, and on the drive back Michael realizes that he is physically attracted to Toby, whom he impulsively kisses when they arrive home. Toby is shocked, and Michael is remorseful and later apologizes to Toby, who agrees to say nothing about the incident. Toby, a keen swimmer and diver, discovers a large object submerged in the lake and concludes that it is a bell, although he has not heard the legend. When he tells Dora what he has found she decides that they should recover the bell and surreptitiously substitute it for the new one. She persuades Toby to go along with the plan, and he uses a tractor to pull the bell from the lake and hide it in an outbuilding in preparation for making the switch the night before the ceremony. However the plan fails, as Toby is prevented from meeting Dora by an encounter with Nick. Nick tells Toby that he saw Michael kiss him, and accuses him of flirting with both Michael and Dora. After winning a physical struggle between the two, Nick sends Toby to confess to James Tayper Pace.

As the new bell as being carried across the causeway for its ceremonial entrance into the Abbey, it falls into the lake. It is later discovered that the causeway has been sabotaged, and Nick is suspected. Catherine runs away and tries to drown herself in the lake. Dora tries to save her, but she cannot swim, and both women are rescued by a nun who has observed the incident from the Abbey side of the lake. When Michael arrives on the scene it becomes evident that Catherine is in love with him and is having a mental breakdown. The following day Catherine is taken to a clinic in London, James confronts Michael with the news of Toby's confession, and Nick commits suicide. In the aftermath of these events, the community is dissolved. Toby goes up to Oxford and Dora once again leaves Paul and resumes her her art studies.