the dim vaulting that hung overhead. Had it been possible for the company to levitate to this region and conduct their post-prandial civilities while hovering thirty feet above the floor, it was conceivable that quite a cosy hour might have been the result. As it was, Mrs Minton’s household and her guests became progressively numb and dumb. Perhaps, Gadberry thought, a certain amount of conversation was actually being produced, only to be congealed at the point of utterance. Perhaps, as in Baron Münchausen’s narrative, a thaw would one day release it, and there would be a babble of inane chatter in the empty room.
Meantime, he had leisure to continue to picture himself as fled into the storm. There appeared to be no reason why he could not make a quick end of the whole business. If he simply vanished, he supposed, it might be assumed that he had met with some misadventure or accident, and a vexatious pursuit might ensue. But why shouldn’t he, in his character as Nicholas Comberford, leave a note saying that he couldn’t stand the place, and that if Mrs Minton wanted an heir she must try again? If he’d really had as much as he could take, or if he was prompted to act decisively in terms of that obscure recurrent alarm occasioned in him by a sense of unknown factors in his situation, then giving mortal offence in this fashion was undoubtedly the easiest way out. Mrs Minton, one could be sure, far from attempting to recall him, would never mention the name of her great-nephew Nicholas again.
But the trouble about this was that it really wouldn’t be a nice thing to do. Aunt Prudence was in various ways an intolerable old person, but as far as he himself was concerned there was no denying that she deserved well of him. If she liked anybody in the world, it was clearly the young man who was in fact sheltering beneath her roof (if sheltering, indeed, it could be called in this temple of the winds or palace of ice) as a consequence of gross imposture. To bolt – certainly to bolt after having left some nasty message as a parting shot – would be to do rather more than simply let Aunt Prudence down. It would be to bite the hand that fed him, and that had just made the gesture of proposing to feed him a great deal more.
Confronted with this paradox of his situation, Gadberry felt a good deal discouraged. His chronic sense of the perplexing character of the moral universe descended upon him heavily. Moreover there was the awkward fact that, just as he had only a vaguely massive notion of the threat he wanted to bolt from , so he had no clear idea of any prospect he could now bolt to . He could, indeed, take money with him, so that he would be all right for a time. But what about after that? He would once more be George Gadberry, but he wasn’t very sure that he could live as George Gadberry had lived. He was like a wild creature which, after even a short period of captivity, has no clear memory of what wild nature feels like.
The party dragged on for a further gloomy half-hour, after which the Pollocks got up to go away. So thick was the snow outside, however, that their actual departure was delayed while one of the outdoor servants fitted certain clanking mediaeval contraptions, known as the chains, to the back wheels of their car. The operation was unfamiliar to Gadberry, who nevertheless felt that he must superintend it with an air of rural expertise, so that in the result he was blue and shivering by the time the doctor and his wife departed into the blizzard. Then Grimble had to be fed into the fly, the fly’s driver dug out of the kitchens to which he had repaired, and the fly’s motive power to be lashed and cajoled into a sufficient state of equine animation to trundle the conveyance down the drive. By the time these evolutions were concluded Gadberry felt fit for nothing but bed.
He returned to the drawing-room, however, if only with the idea of making sure that the place wasn’t going to be burnt down –
Meantime, he had leisure to continue to picture himself as fled into the storm. There appeared to be no reason why he could not make a quick end of the whole business. If he simply vanished, he supposed, it might be assumed that he had met with some misadventure or accident, and a vexatious pursuit might ensue. But why shouldn’t he, in his character as Nicholas Comberford, leave a note saying that he couldn’t stand the place, and that if Mrs Minton wanted an heir she must try again? If he’d really had as much as he could take, or if he was prompted to act decisively in terms of that obscure recurrent alarm occasioned in him by a sense of unknown factors in his situation, then giving mortal offence in this fashion was undoubtedly the easiest way out. Mrs Minton, one could be sure, far from attempting to recall him, would never mention the name of her great-nephew Nicholas again.
But the trouble about this was that it really wouldn’t be a nice thing to do. Aunt Prudence was in various ways an intolerable old person, but as far as he himself was concerned there was no denying that she deserved well of him. If she liked anybody in the world, it was clearly the young man who was in fact sheltering beneath her roof (if sheltering, indeed, it could be called in this temple of the winds or palace of ice) as a consequence of gross imposture. To bolt – certainly to bolt after having left some nasty message as a parting shot – would be to do rather more than simply let Aunt Prudence down. It would be to bite the hand that fed him, and that had just made the gesture of proposing to feed him a great deal more.
Confronted with this paradox of his situation, Gadberry felt a good deal discouraged. His chronic sense of the perplexing character of the moral universe descended upon him heavily. Moreover there was the awkward fact that, just as he had only a vaguely massive notion of the threat he wanted to bolt from , so he had no clear idea of any prospect he could now bolt to . He could, indeed, take money with him, so that he would be all right for a time. But what about after that? He would once more be George Gadberry, but he wasn’t very sure that he could live as George Gadberry had lived. He was like a wild creature which, after even a short period of captivity, has no clear memory of what wild nature feels like.
The party dragged on for a further gloomy half-hour, after which the Pollocks got up to go away. So thick was the snow outside, however, that their actual departure was delayed while one of the outdoor servants fitted certain clanking mediaeval contraptions, known as the chains, to the back wheels of their car. The operation was unfamiliar to Gadberry, who nevertheless felt that he must superintend it with an air of rural expertise, so that in the result he was blue and shivering by the time the doctor and his wife departed into the blizzard. Then Grimble had to be fed into the fly, the fly’s driver dug out of the kitchens to which he had repaired, and the fly’s motive power to be lashed and cajoled into a sufficient state of equine animation to trundle the conveyance down the drive. By the time these evolutions were concluded Gadberry felt fit for nothing but bed.
He returned to the drawing-room, however, if only with the idea of making sure that the place wasn’t going to be burnt down –
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