“Pshaw! Most annoying!” he said, passing his hand over his offending head. Then he sat down and blew his nose nervously as the train glided into Millsby station.
“Morning, Mr. Deane. I suppose you are the Reverend Deane?” said a fat gentleman with black hair and a red face, approaching the carriage door.
“Yes. Thank you. How-do-you-do?” said Andy, rather jerkily.
“My name’s Thorpe,” said the fat man, with colossal repose. “I’m the churchwarden. Glad to welcome you to your new parish, though it’s only for a few hours.”
“You are very kind,” responded Andy, feeling sure that the porter, the stationmaster and three stragglers were listening, and anxious to be as like his late senior curate—who was tall, lean, and immensely impressive—as possible.
“I expect you’re going to see what you want in the way of furniture for the Vicarage?” said Mr. Thorpe, moving ponderously towards the gate.
“Yes,” said Andy breathlessly.
It is rather a breathless thing, of course, to stand finally on the summit of one’s desires.
“Cart’s waiting. No luggage this time, I s’pose?” said Mr. Thorpe, who economised words. “Come this way, then.” And to the stationmaster, who stepped forward, thin and alert: “This is the Reverend Deane, our new Vicar.”
Again the parson shook hands, but that was nothing; because an eternal handshaking is as essential a part of a clergyman’s life as putting on his trousers: it was the absence of the Andrew that went home to him. All his life he had been dogged by an undignified “Andy,” which was even more unclerical than the curls. Now he meant to drop it for ever. No one here had known him before at school or college—no one here was acquainted with the aunt by marriage and the cousins who had been his family since the age of sixteen—he would drop the boyish “Andy” into the limbo of the past.