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Authors: Michael Innes
Tags: A Change of Heir
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Comberford again?
This extraordinary question sprang up in Gadberry’s mind just as he was getting to his feet for the purpose of making his way to Mrs Minton’s drawing-room. It seemed entirely senseless – but there it was. Suppose that Comberford had been acting in furtherance of some plot quite other than his declared one, and that this entailed his vanishing for ever? And suppose Comberford’s existence – as an entity, so to speak, distinct from George Gadberry – was unprovable? Suppose this to be so, and that Gadberry himself for some reason wanted to stop being Comberford? Suppose his conscience troubled him, so that he tried to confess ? Would he be believed? Or would it just be taken for granted that poor Nicholas Comberford had gone mad, and had better be shut up in an asylum where he could scream his head off to the effect that he was really somebody called Gadberry?
Needless to say, Gadberry hadn’t taken ten paces down the corridor before he was able to assure himself that all this was utter nonsense, and that now he had better pull himself together. If he wanted to go not to an asylum, but to jail tomorrow in his own authentic character there was certainly nothing to stop him. He had only to ring up the local police and tell them the truth. But, of course, he wanted to do nothing of the sort. He was – he assured himself – enjoying the whole thing, and it was only the very fact of his pursuing his imposture so successfully that had perversely started these bizarre ideas in his head. Still, he saw that they were ideas which had, so to speak, a psychological basis. He had been so readily taken for Nicholas Comberford, the mantle was now so securely enfolding him, that he was in danger of succumbing to some primitive and irrational sense that he was being deprived of his own identity. There was insecurity in the very fact of his having – in another sense – achieved security so easily.Yes, that was it. A little steadied by this piece of self-analysis, Gadberry made his way to his dinner.
8
There had been a certain exaggeration in Comberford’s statement that Bruton Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in a very nice state of preservation. It was true, however, that it incorporated substantial parts of the actual fabric of such a place, and that this had certain curious architectural consequences. Gadberry’s quarters, having been in fact the Abbot’s lodging, were connected with the main building only by a long corridor of excessive gloom. Off this there opened on one side a series of cells. And they really were cells. Recalcitrant monks had been accommodated in them – presumably so that they could be suitably disciplined at any time under the personal supervision of their superior. The whole place, Gadberry thought, must have been like a nightmarish sort of public school. That was certainly why nineteenth-century Mintons had preserved it so carefully; it was an ideal setting for the virtuous discomfort which that era judged good for the soul. There was, no doubt, a certain amusement in having a drawing-room in which the stone benches of the original chapter house were still incorporated – as there was, too, in keeping guns and fishing rods in a particularly chilly calefactory. But what used to be called the Gothic Taste had surely had its day. If he ever really had to take Bruton in hand – which of course he wouldn’t have to do – he would begin operations by simply knocking it down. If, that was to say, it could be knocked down. For the whole place seemed as massive as the British Museum or St Paul’s Cathedral.
Boulter was lurking in the murkily glassed-in cloister. He considered it part of his duties to apprise Gadberry of any company to be encountered in the drawing-room.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘You will find that the old Sunday custom obtains.’
This was a new one; Gadberry hadn’t heard it before. Nevertheless the Memoirs enabled him to get on top of it
This extraordinary question sprang up in Gadberry’s mind just as he was getting to his feet for the purpose of making his way to Mrs Minton’s drawing-room. It seemed entirely senseless – but there it was. Suppose that Comberford had been acting in furtherance of some plot quite other than his declared one, and that this entailed his vanishing for ever? And suppose Comberford’s existence – as an entity, so to speak, distinct from George Gadberry – was unprovable? Suppose this to be so, and that Gadberry himself for some reason wanted to stop being Comberford? Suppose his conscience troubled him, so that he tried to confess ? Would he be believed? Or would it just be taken for granted that poor Nicholas Comberford had gone mad, and had better be shut up in an asylum where he could scream his head off to the effect that he was really somebody called Gadberry?
Needless to say, Gadberry hadn’t taken ten paces down the corridor before he was able to assure himself that all this was utter nonsense, and that now he had better pull himself together. If he wanted to go not to an asylum, but to jail tomorrow in his own authentic character there was certainly nothing to stop him. He had only to ring up the local police and tell them the truth. But, of course, he wanted to do nothing of the sort. He was – he assured himself – enjoying the whole thing, and it was only the very fact of his pursuing his imposture so successfully that had perversely started these bizarre ideas in his head. Still, he saw that they were ideas which had, so to speak, a psychological basis. He had been so readily taken for Nicholas Comberford, the mantle was now so securely enfolding him, that he was in danger of succumbing to some primitive and irrational sense that he was being deprived of his own identity. There was insecurity in the very fact of his having – in another sense – achieved security so easily.Yes, that was it. A little steadied by this piece of self-analysis, Gadberry made his way to his dinner.
8
There had been a certain exaggeration in Comberford’s statement that Bruton Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in a very nice state of preservation. It was true, however, that it incorporated substantial parts of the actual fabric of such a place, and that this had certain curious architectural consequences. Gadberry’s quarters, having been in fact the Abbot’s lodging, were connected with the main building only by a long corridor of excessive gloom. Off this there opened on one side a series of cells. And they really were cells. Recalcitrant monks had been accommodated in them – presumably so that they could be suitably disciplined at any time under the personal supervision of their superior. The whole place, Gadberry thought, must have been like a nightmarish sort of public school. That was certainly why nineteenth-century Mintons had preserved it so carefully; it was an ideal setting for the virtuous discomfort which that era judged good for the soul. There was, no doubt, a certain amusement in having a drawing-room in which the stone benches of the original chapter house were still incorporated – as there was, too, in keeping guns and fishing rods in a particularly chilly calefactory. But what used to be called the Gothic Taste had surely had its day. If he ever really had to take Bruton in hand – which of course he wouldn’t have to do – he would begin operations by simply knocking it down. If, that was to say, it could be knocked down. For the whole place seemed as massive as the British Museum or St Paul’s Cathedral.
Boulter was lurking in the murkily glassed-in cloister. He considered it part of his duties to apprise Gadberry of any company to be encountered in the drawing-room.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘You will find that the old Sunday custom obtains.’
This was a new one; Gadberry hadn’t heard it before. Nevertheless the Memoirs enabled him to get on top of it
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