TheBell

November 6, 1848, written by Annabel Sorge.

     On the morning following his death, I arose and discovered Mortimer's body hunched over a document, his lace cuffs spread across his desk, his pen and ink still clutched in his hands, and his head had fallen between them. Fearing the content of the document, I refused to bury him for some days, but finally, as the body began to show signs of putrefacation, Pastor Engler was able to convince me to do the Christian thing and return his remains to the earth, that her may have his eternal rest.
     I now regard these final words of his as the result of hallucinations due to the delirium of death, but I shall save this document as a warning to those who may be inclined to allow the pursuit of folly to control them, for such obsessions obscure the mind even in those final earthly moments which should be spent in the contemplation of the Lord.
     How many times have I yearned for those happy months we spent immediately following our wedding! Ours was an arranged marriage, and were it not so, I rather doubt that Mortimer would ever have created the leisure time to go courting. Such was his obsession. Yet in those early months, he seemed so pleased. Truly content, he was. He adored it when I coddled him, wrapping his scarf about his neck, or greeting him with a bowl of hot soup as he returned from a winter stroll.
     I was, however, living within th fragile walls of a castle of glass, and eventually a stone would be hurled with enough force to shatter my deceivingly protective fortress.
     That stone was hurled after one year and a fortnight of blissful marriage. I remember it with striking clarity, as it was indeed the most horrid night of my life. We had been expecting our first child, and all was joyful, until this night.
     I awoke in time to hear the clock chime two, and I felt dreadful --- a ghastly sickness. Immediately I noticed the blood, and I knew my ailment: our child was dead. The other evidence for this, which I do not intend to describe here, followed, and I was too weak to summon any assistance in the sorrowful delivery. When it was over, I could not move, save the shaking from my weeping, but, finally, gathering up my physical and emotional strength, I rose and stumbled into Mortimer's bed chamber.
     "Darling," I said, tear-streaked, depending on the bed post to hold me up as I gently shook him awake. "I'm dreadfully ill. I . . . the child . . . Oh, Mortimer, the child is gone!"
     As he awakened, at first he looked sad, as I had expected, but quickly his expression turned to one of anger --- indeed, one might call it rage --- and he said the most puzzling thing I had ever heard to issue from his mouth:
     "I'll find it," he said, "damn it. I'll find it."
     Of course I was taken aback. He had mentioned the bell before, but certainly I did not expect it to emerge amidst a conversation of this nature. Naturally, I assumed that his intent was to find the lost child, which was indeed an enigma to my tortured mind.
     I was injured by his profanity in this hour of sorrow, and by his lack of concern for my own well being, but my weakness prevented further examination of these things: I fainted.
When I waoke, I was back in my own chamber, being watched over by Allison, my Irish nanny who came with me to Sorge Hall when I was married. Thank the Lord for Allison.
     "Are ye feelin' at all well, Miss Annie?"
     "Certainly better than last night," I replied. "Is Mortimer about yet?"
     "'E left jest after 'e summoned me, mum. Run off int' th' dark, 'e did. If ye don't mind me sayin', Ay think 'tis shameful, a man runnin' off like that as 'is wife lays bleedin'. Shameful."
     "Oh, Allie, he acted so strangely. As if he were angry with me. As if he had a right to be angry with me. As if the child could yet be saved! I do wish I knew where he went."
     "'E was mumblin' 'bout th' bell, if that's of any 'elp. 'Wake ye,' 'e said, 'wake ye an' go nurse Annabel. She's ill. Ay've got t' find th' bell.'"
     The bell. It's mere mention left me chilled. He had been intent upon finding it long before our marriage. I did not know what the bell represented but it did not seem to matter because he seemed to forget this quest on our wedding day. Needless to say, I was quite disconcerted at the resurgence of this unnnamed desire. Why, suddenly, was the bell reclaiming its past glory of prominence in Mortimer's mind?
     "Ay can't say Ay knew a tall what 'e meant," Allie continued, "or why th' bell would 'ave 'im speakin' so, but Ay did as 'e told me. 'Tisn't a business o' mine t' be askin' th' master 'is reasons fer doin' as 'e does. Come, now, ye need yer rest. Ye look flushed. Let me wipe yer bow. Ay'm truly sorry, mum. 'Tis a sad day."
     "Yes. It is."
     As the days passed, I became weaker and weaker, and finally fell into a period of delirium during which, I am told, I called for Mortimer incessantly. He never came.
     Eventually, I recovered from the miscarriage, but our marriage did not. Mortimer was obsessed with this mysterious bell. He would not tell me his reasoning, or even where he heard of this bell.
     "No, love," he would say, "I can not raise your hopes so high, for fear that I may not obtain my goal. It is indeed a terrible fear, this fear of disappointment."
     For the twenty-one years that were to follow the miscarriage, my husband was no longer recognizable to either my eyes or my heart.
     His search took him away from me, both physically and mentally. Even when he was home, he spoke only of his search for this object of which I knew nothing. He seemed, in some morbid way, to still love me, but I could not love him. This was not the Mortimer I had married.
     I wished so to knoe what this bell represented to him, and why it had replaced me in his heart, but his father had recently died, and I could think of no other to whom I might direct such a question. I was, therefore, forced to live in ignorance.
     How fortunate I had felt to be in love with the man my parents had chosen for me! How bitter it is to lose such love so completely. I had needed him so much when the child was lost. He, however, seemed to need the bell more than me. How could this quest ever conquer the greif of losing a child?
     Oh! and the change in his physiognomy was ghastly! His skin grew pallid, and his eyes bacame dark and tired. His cheek bones protruded with a fierce sharpness they had never had before, and it brought tears to my eyes to look upon the face of this creature which had once been the man I loved.
     His demeanor, too, underwent a great change: as his search progressed, he became increasingly dictatorial and arrogant. He began. I think, to regard himself as intellectually superior to those around him. How I yearned to know what power this bell had to transform Mortimer in such a horrid manner.
     I did not know, until the morning I found his body and these final words. These are the words that made me so afraid to bury my husband.