Anna of the Five Towns | Page 6

year, but no visitor had crossed their
doorsteps except the minister, once, and such poor defaulters as came,
full of excuse and obsequious conciliation, to pay rent overdue.
'Business, I suppose?' she said, and prayed that he might not be
intending to make a mere call of ceremony.
'Yes, business,' he answered lightly. 'But you will be in?'

'I am always in,' she said. She wondered what the business could be,
and felt relieved to know that his visit would have at least some
assigned pretext; but already her heart beat with apprehensive
perturbation at the thought of his presence in their household.
'See!' said Agnes, whose eyes were everywhere. 'There's Miss Sutton.'
Both Mynors and Anna looked sharply round. Beatrice Sutton was
coming towards them along the terrace. Stylishly clad in a dress of pink
muslin, with harmonious hat, gloves, and sunshade, she made an
agreeable and rather effective picture, despite her plain, round face and
stoutish figure. She had the air of being a leader. Grafted on to the
original simple honesty of her eyes there was the
unconsciously-acquired arrogance of one who had always been
accustomed to deference. Socially, Beatrice had no peer among the
young women who were active in the Wesleyan Sunday-school.
Beatrice had been used to teach in the afternoon school, but she had
recently advanced her labours from the afternoon to the morning in
response to a hint that if she did so the force of her influence and
example might lessen the chronic dearth of morning teachers.
'Good afternoon, Miss Tellwright,' Beatrice said as she came up. 'So
you have come to look at the Park.'
'Yes,' said Anna, and then stopped awkwardly. In the tone of each there
was an obscure constraint, and something in Mynors' smile of salute to
Beatrice showed that he too shared it.
'Seen you before,' Beatrice said to him familiarly, without taking his
hand; then she bent down and kissed Agnes.
'What are you doing here, mademoiselle?' Mynors asked her.
'Father's just down below, near the lake. He caught sight of you, and
sent me up to say that you were to be sure to come in to supper to-night.
You will, won't you?'
'Yes, thanks. I had meant to.'

Anna knew that they were related, and also that Mynors was constantly
at the Suttons' house, but the close intimacy between these two came
nevertheless like a shock to her. She could not conquer a certain
resentment of it, however absurd such a feeling might seem to her
intelligence. And this attitude extended not only to the intimacy, but to
Beatrice's handsome clothes and facile urbanity, which by contrast
emphasised her own poor little frock and tongue-tied manner. The mere
existence of Beatrice so near to Mynors was like an affront to her. Yet
at heart, and even while admiring this shining daughter of success, she
was conscious within herself of a fundamental superiority. The soul of
her condescended to the soul of the other one.
They began to discuss the Park.
'Papa says it will send up the value of that land over there enormously,'
said Beatrice, pointing with her ribboned sunshade to some building
plots which lay to the north, high up the hill. 'Mr. Tellwright owns most
of that, doesn't he?' she added to Anna.
'I dare say he does,' said Anna. It was torture to her to refer to her
father's possessions.
Of course it will be covered with streets in a few months. Will he build
himself, or will he sell it?
'I haven't the least idea,' Anna answered, with an effort after gaiety of
tone, and then turned aside to look at the crowd. There, close against
the bandstand, stood her father, a short, stout, ruddy, middle-aged man
in a shabby brown suit. He recognised her, stared fixedly, and nodded
with his grotesque and ambiguous grin. Then he sidled off towards the
entrance of the Park. None of the others had seen him. 'Agnes dear,' she
said abruptly, 'we must go now, or we shall be late for tea.'
As the two women said good-bye their eyes met, and in the brief
second of that encounter each tried to wring from the other the true
answer to a question which lay unuttered in her heart. Then, having
bidden adieu to Mynors, whose parting glance sang its own song to her,
Anna took Agnes by the hand and left him and Beatrice together.

Chapter 2
THE MISER'S DAUGHTER
Anna sat in the bay-window of the front parlour, her accustomed place
on Sunday evenings in summer, and watched Mr. Tellwright and Agnes
disappear down the slope of Trafalgar Road on their way to chapel.
Trafalgar Road is the long thoroughfare which, under many aliases,
runs through the Five Towns from end to end, uniting them