CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Stamford, the wife of the Squire of the parish, stood before the mantelpiece awaiting the arrival of the new Vicar. She was a tall, spare woman, and her garments always seemed to cling to her, not because they couldn’t come off, but because they dared not. Even in repose, Mrs. Stamford always looked as if she had that moment finished doing something energetic, or were just about to start again.
“Pleased to see you, Mr. Deane,” she said, when Andy, very flat and shining about the head, was ushered in. “Only got back a day or two since, or we should have looked you up before. Have you got settled down? How d’you like Gaythorpe?”
She fired these remarks with such directness that Andy could not help feeling as if some one had thrown something at him.
“I like it immensely.” Then, after a moment’s pause, and with a good deal of effort, “I am more than grateful to you and Mr. Stamford——”
“Oh, that’s all right; we’ll take that as read,” interrupted Mrs. Stamford with a short laugh so exactly like that of William the parrot that Andy could not help having a bewildered feeling that she would next begin to draw corks as well. However, she looked towards the door behind her guest instead, and remarked in a voice which she kept for that one topic—
“Here is my son, Dick.”
A tall young fellow, very like his mother, but somehow indefinably weaker, came forward and shook hands without effusion.
“Got settled down yet?”