The vicar turned to face him. He was bitterly disappointed.
“You mean that, Oliver? You won’t give it another trial, on the lines I advise? Mind, I don’t mean I want you to have no friends, no outside interests.... Look at Traherne, now; he’s full of them.... I only want, for your own sake and our people’s, that your heart should be in your job.”
“I had better go,” said Eddy, knowing it for certain. He added, “Please don’t think I’m going off in a stupid huff or anything. It’s not that. Of course, you’ve every right to speak to me as you did; but it’s made my position quite clear to me. I see this isn’t really my job at all. I must find another.”
The vicar said, holding out his hand, “I’m very sorry, Oliver. I don’t want to lose you. Think it over for a week, will you, and tell me then what you have decided. Don’t be hasty over it. Remember, we’ve all grown fond of you here; you’ll be throwing away a good deal of valuable opportunity if you leave us. I think you may be missing the best in life. But I mustn’t take back what I said. It is a definite choice between two ways of life. They won’t mix.”
“They will, they will,” said Eddy to himself, and went to bed. If the vicar thought they wouldn’t, the vicar’s way of life could not be his. He had no need to think it over for a week. He was going home for Christmas, and he would not come back after that. This job was not for him. And he could not, he knew now, be a clergyman. They drew lines; they objected to people and things; they failed to accept. The vicar, when he had mentioned Datcherd, had looked as Datcherd had looked when Eddy had mentioned Father Dempsey and the mission; Eddy was getting to know that critical, disapproving look too well. Everywhere it met him. He hated it. It seemed to him even stranger in clergymen than in others, because clergymen are Christians, and, to Eddy’s view, there were no negations in that vivid and intensely positive creed. Its commands were always, surely, to go and do, not to abstain and reject. And look, too, at the sort of people who were of old accepted in that generous, all-embracing circle....
CHAPTER VI.
THE DEANERY AND THE HALL.
EDDY was met at the station by his sister Daphne, driving the dog-cart. Daphne was twenty; a small, neat person in tailor-made tweeds, bright-haired, with an attractive brown-tanned face, and alert blue eyes, and a decisively-cut mouth, and long, straight chin. Daphne was off-hand, quick-witted, intensely practical, spoilt, rather selfish, very sure of herself, and with an unveiled youthful contempt for manners and people that failed to meet with her approval. Either people were “all right,” and “pretty decent,” or they were cursorily dismissed as “queer,” “messy,” or “stodgy.” She was very good at all games requiring activity, speed, and dexterity of hand, and more at home out of doors than in. She had quite enough sense of humour, a sharp tongue, some cleverness, and very little imagination indeed. A confident young person, determined to get and keep the best out of life. With none of Eddy’s knack of seeing a number of things at once, she saw a few things very clearly, and went straight towards them.
“Hullo, young Daffy,” Eddy called out to her, as he came out of the station.
She waved her whip at him.
“Hullo. I’ve brought the new pony along. Come and try him. He shies at cats and small children, so look out through the streets. How are you, Tedders? Pretty fit?”