Noon Rung Twice

Wren of the Bell had rung the hours at Cloudbreak for six weeks and had a complaint ready for every one of them. The six o’clock came before breakfast. The nine o’clock came just as the tea was right. The noon was the heaviest, because the rope ran through a wheel with opinions. And in fog, Wren said, the bell sounded as if it had just been told off.

Fog did a particular thing at the Bell Gate. Most days it lay under the harbor, on top of the cloud, and stayed there. But when it came up, the cloud began to answer the bell. It caught every stroke and rang it back a beat late and a little softer, like somebody saying “all right, all right” after being told. So in fog the harbor heard every hour twice. The harbor had long ago agreed to count only the first one. It was polite about the second, and let it finish.

On the foggiest morning of the year, the fog came right up over the quays and the decks and the stairs. It came up the road to the gate and stood in the lodge doorway like a big wet dog waiting to be let in. Wren looked at it and said it was exactly the weather a person would order, if a person wanted to see how a new ringer managed.

Wren meant to manage. Wren meant to ring noon at noon, alone, with no help and no fuss. A new ringer who needed help in the first big fog got talked about all down the quays. The next thing anyone knew, people would be bringing soup.

On the lodge table, under Wren’s mug, was a note from June at the Wayside. It was the third. Supper tonight. Only supper. I have planned nothing else. J. Wren had missed the first two suppers, because a bell does not ring itself, and Wren did not ask other people to ring it. Wren put the mug back on the note, which is where the other two notes had ended up as well.

At eleven minutes to noon, Wren took hold of the bell rope. The rope had been drinking fog all morning. It had gone fat and dark and cold and swelled tight in its wheel, and when Wren pulled, it did not move at all.

What happened in the next eleven minutes was told that evening at the lodge table. It was told more than once, because nobody at that table would let a thing be told just the once.

* * *

June came down from the Wayside at dusk with a covered basket, because supper had been ready since five, and Wren had not come down to it, and soup does not walk.

The lodge was full. Hatch the pie-man had been there since breakfast. The fog had been too thick to get his barrow down the quay stairs, so he had sold pies at the gate all day. Now his brazier stood under the bell rope, and the rope hung over it, steaming. Dilly, a ferry hand, had been there since a quarter to noon. No ferry went out in fog like this, so Dilly had come up to wait for it to lift, and stayed for the pies.

June set the bowls out on the lodge table. There were four people and six bowls. Nobody asked about the other two.

“I said only supper,” June said, taking the cloth off the pot. “This is only supper. It’s just here instead of there.”

“This is exactly what I said would happen,” Wren said.

“Soup?”

“A fuss.”

“It’s barley,” June said. “Sit down.”

Hatch was first to the table. “Has anybody told June about noon?”

“There’s nothing to tell about noon,” Wren said. “It was noon. I rang it.”

“There’s my peel to tell,” Hatch said.

So Wren told it, fast and between spoonfuls, the way a ringer tells anything: on the beat and no longer than it needs.

“Eleven minutes to go, and the rope’s stuck in the wheel. So I pulled on it.”

“Hung off it,” Dilly said.

“Pulled on it. With my whole weight.”

“Both feet off the ground,” Hatch said. “Kicking.”

“One foot,” Wren said. “Briefly.”

Dilly did not look up from the soup. “The first one, Hatch.”

That is what the ferry crews say in fog, when anybody starts counting the cloud along with the bell. It worked just as well on Hatch. June laughed, and Hatch said he only meant it had been a very good try.

“It didn’t work,” Wren said. “Seven minutes. I needed the rope to slide, so I asked Hatch for butter.”

“The good butter,” Hatch said.

“The butter in the tin.”

“The tin is for the good butter. That butter does the tops.”

“I rubbed it in where the rope goes into the wheel,” Wren said, “and I pulled, and it came an inch. One inch. Then it stuck again, and smelled of pies.”

“Still does,” Dilly said.

June pointed with a spoon. “So Hatch helped.”

“Hatch lent me butter,” Wren said. “Asking for butter isn’t asking for help. It’s asking for butter.”

“Two minutes,” Hatch said, leaning in, because this was the best part and he wanted to get there.

“Two minutes,” Wren said. “So I went up the steps to the bell. Three steps, with a rail.”

“Four,” Dilly said.

“Three, and the top.”

“The top’s a step. I’ve stood on it.”

“And I took Hatch’s peel up with me.”

A peel, it should be said, is the long flat paddle a baker uses to slide things in and out of an oven. Hatch’s was iron, with a handle as long as Hatch.

“My good peel,” Hatch said. “That peel has been in my family three generations.”

“The first one,” Wren said.

Hatch thought about it. “I’ve had it since spring.”

“I held the rail with one hand,” Wren said, “and I swung the peel with the other, and I hit the bell on the side. Twelve times. The cloud gave every one of them back, and I counted the first ones.”

“Sparks,” Hatch said. “Sparks came off it.”

“The first one,” June said.

“There was very nearly a spark.”

“And ever since,” Wren said, “it’s been ringing a shade high. Like it’s surprised. It did the one o’clock surprised, and the two, and all afternoon. In fog it sounds told off. Now it sounds told off by a pie-man.” Wren put the spoon down. “Anyway. It was about noon. Near enough.”

“It was noon exactly,” June said.

“You weren’t here.”

“I was at the Wayside with eleven loaves in the oven.” June tore the bread and handed it round, a piece each and two for Wren. “They go in at your nine and come out at your noon. They have since your second week.”

“Why not my first week?”

“You were early the first week.”

“I was not early.”

“Two minutes,” Dilly said. “Tuesday.”

“Today they came out on the dot,” June said. “And I’ll tell you what it sounded like from up there. It sounded like a pan.”

“That was my peel,” Hatch said.

“It sounded,” June said, “like somebody hitting a very big pan with something they were proud of.”

Wren did not say anything for a moment, which at that table was news. Wren had rung forty-two noons at that gate and had pictured every one of them going out over the harbor and stopping somewhere above the cloud. It had never once crossed Wren’s mind that one of them went up the hill and opened an oven.

“Well, if we’re telling,” Hatch said. He dug in his apron and put his pocket watch on the table, face down. On the back, scratched with the point of a knife, was a W.

“What’s that for?” Wren said.

“Wren’s time,” Hatch said. “The old ringer ran three minutes slow. Eleven years. Eleven years I was three minutes late with the hot pies and never knew. Your first morning I heard you ring, and I moved the watch on three minutes, and I scratched that so I’d remember why.”

“Ferry too,” Dilly said. “Same morning.”

Nobody said “the first one”. There was only the one.

Wren turned the watch over and back again. “So now I can never be late,” Wren said. “Thanks very much.” Then, because that was not all of it: “I didn’t know anybody was listening. I’m glad you told me.”

“Everybody’s listening,” June said. “That’s what a bell is. And I missed you, which is the other reason for the basket. Eat that.”

* * *

By eight the fog had thinned to something a person could see a lamp through. The quay lamps showed below the gate in a long gold line on the blue. Hatch’s brazier had done its work. The rope had steamed itself back to its proper size, and when Wren took hold of it, it ran through the wheel as smooth as anything, smelling only a little of pies.

The rope came down beside the lodge door, so the whole table could watch. Wren rang eight properly, the way it is meant to be done. The bell came out a shade high, as if it had not quite got over the morning, and the cloud gave each stroke back a beat late. Everyone at the table counted out loud, and counted only the first ones, and stopped at eight together.

“There,” June said. “A supper at the gate counts as a visit.”

“Half,” Wren said, and took one of June’s spare bowls for a second helping.

And all down the harbor, and up the hill, people heard eight come in on the dot, counted the first one, and went to bed on Wren’s time.