Christian life -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; England -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction
Anthony kept on the house in Bruton Square. It was larger than they
wanted now the Tetteridges were gone, but he liked the old-fashioned
square with its ancient rookery among the tall elms. He let the big
classroom for an office to a young architect who had lately come to
Millsborough. His aunt was delighted with the change. She had hated
Mrs. Tetteridge, who had disapproved of her sitting on sunny afternoons
on a Windsor chair outside the front door. It had always been her
habit. And why what was harmless in Moor End Lane should be sinful in
Bruton Square she could not understand. She was growing feeble. It was
want of work according to her own idea, which was probably correct. As
a consequence she was looking forward to heaven with less eagerness.
“I used to think it would be just lovely,” she confessed to Anthony
one day, “sitting about and doing nothing for ever and ever. It sounds
ungrateful, but upon my word I’m not so sure that I’ll enjoy it.”
“Uncle did believe in God,” said Anthony. “I had a talk with him
before he died. ‘There must be somebody bossing it all,’ he said. His
hope was that God might think him of some use and find him a job.”
“He was a good man, your uncle,” answered his aunt. “I used to
worry myself about him. But perhaps, after all, the Lord ain’t as
unreasonable as He’s made out to be.”
Mr. Mowbray was leaving the business more and more to Anthony. As a
compensation for denial in other directions he was allowing himself
too much old port and the gout was getting hold of him. Betty took him
abroad as much as possible. Travelling interested him, and, away from
his old cronies, he was easier to manage. He had always adored his
children, and Betty, in spite of his failings, could not help being
fond of him. Anthony knew that so long as her father lived she would
never marry. Neither was he in any hurry. The relationship between
them was that of a restful comradeship; and marriage could have made
but little difference. Meanwhile the firm of Mowbray and Cousins was
prospering. The private business was almost entirely in the hands of
old Johnson, the head clerk. It was to his numerous schemes for the
building up of Millsborough that Anthony devoted himself. The port of
Millsborough was already an accomplished fact and its success assured.
A syndicate for the construction of an electric tramway running from
the docks to the farthest end of the densely populated valley had
already got to work. A yet more important project was now in Anthony’s
mind. Hitherto Millsborough had been served by a branch line from a
junction fifteen miles away. Anthony wanted a new track that should
cross the river to the west of the new lock and, skirting the coast,
rejoin the main line beyond the moor. It would bring Millsborough on
to the main line and shorten the distance between London and the north
by over an hour. It was the name of Mowbray that figured upon all
documents, but Millsborough knew that the brain behind was Mowbray’s
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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