Read Online A Change of Heir by Michael Innes - Free Book Online Page B

in a moment.
    ‘Ah, yes,’ he replied easily. ‘The locals, eh?’
    ‘Precisely, sir. It was Mr Minton’s habit to set aside Sunday evenings for local society. The County would be entertained during the week.’
    ‘We don’t do much of that nowadays, do we?’
    ‘No, sir. I am afraid it must be a little quiet for you. Mrs Minton no longer feels an obligation to move much in her own circles. But there is an obligation, of course, in regard to the local people.’
    ‘The vicar, I suppose?’
    ‘Yes, sir – Mr Grimble. And Dr and Mrs Pollock.’
    ‘Well, that’s very pleasant.’ Gadberry moved towards the drawing-room door with an expression of mild good cheer. He didn’t in fact expect much entertainment from the society of either an elderly clergyman or an elderly sawbones and his wife. But unruffled good humour was his line at Bruton. Besides, such occasions did have what he supposed was a certain period charm.
    He entered the drawing-room, said the right thing to Aunt Prudence, went round shaking hands with the three guests, and then said the right things to Miss Bostock. Miss Bostock, being only a superior employee, came last – but, by the same token, had to be accorded particular courtesy. Some minutes of suitably constrained general conversation followed. And then Boulter announced that dinner was served.
    The dining-room at Bruton had been the refectory of the conversi or lay brethren. Although no longer three hundred feet long (much of it had disappeared) it would still have afforded a reasonably spacious setting for a City banquet. The six people now sitting down, therefore, would have presented to a dispassionate eye something of the effect of a small scurry of mice in a cathedral. It wasn’t warm; it wasn’t, in fact, other than exceedingly cold; but as snow was beginning to fall outside, this wasn’t altogether surprising. Gadberry found himself speculating a little apprehensively as to what the Abbey would be like when winter – a robust Yorkshire winter – really set in.
    Mrs Minton had motioned Dr Pollock to the place on her right, so Gadberry did the same by the doctor’s wife. That meant having Miss Bostock on his left. She could do most of her talking with Pollock, Gadberry decided, and that would leave Mrs Pollock for him. The Pollocks were very low down on his danger list; although fairly long-established in the district, they hadn’t been around back in the days when the young Nicholas Comberford used to visit Bruton. Grimble was another matter. The tenth son, or thereabout, of some deceased Yorkshire bigwig, he had held the living of Bruton since the first day it had been at all decent to induct him into it. Fortunately that was incredibly long ago, and Grimble was so far sunk in senile confusion that people seldom attended to what he said.
    ‘Mr Grimble,’ Mrs Minton was saying in what Gadberry thought of as her grand manner, ‘will you please say–’
    ‘ Benedictus benedicat .’ Grimble, who had a beard like an untidy bird’s nest, tumbled out the words, slumped into his chair, and grasped his soup spoon in a trembling hand. Nobody was surprised by this unbecoming conduct, since all had observed it in him before. Perhaps, Gadberry thought, he was systematically deprived of adequate nourishment by an unscrupulous housekeeper. More probably he was merely reverting to the first and uncorrected manners of his nursery. But now, not yet having been provided with anything upon which to begin blunting his appetite, Grimble was glancing impatiently up and down the table. His gaze fell on Gadberry – and stayed there.
    ‘Young man,’ Grimble said, ‘who are you? Who are you, I say?’
    Nobody attended to this except Gadberry. He told himself instantly that it meant nothing at all, but this didn’t prevent his feeling a nasty shock, all the same. For one thing, although it was polite for the others to appear not to have heard, it was polite in him to make a friendly and