Anna of the Five Towns | Page 7

as a river
might unite them. Ephraim Tellwright could remember the time when
this part of it was a country lane, flanked by meadows and market
gardens. Now it was a street of houses up to and beyond Bleakridge,
where the Tellwrights lived; on the other side of the hill the houses
came only in patches until the far-stretching borders of Hanbridge were
reached Within the municipal limits Bleakridge was the pleasantest
quarter of Bursley--Hillport, abode of the highest fashion, had its own
government and authority--and to reside 'at the top of Trafalgar Road'
was still the final ambition of many citizens, though the natural growth
of the town had robbed Bleakridge of some of that exclusive distinction
which it once possessed. Trafalgar Road, in its journey to Bleakridge
from the centre of the town, underwent certain changes of character.
First came a succession of manufactories and small shops; then, at the
beginning of the rise, a quarter of a mile of superior cottages; and lastly,
on the brow, occurred the houses of the comfortable-detached,
semi-detached, and in terraces, with rentals from 25l. to 60l. a year. The
Tellwrights lived in Manor Terrace (the name being a last reminder of
the great farmstead which formerly occupied the western hill side):
their house, of light yellow brick, was two-storied, with a long narrow
garden behind, and the rent 30l. Exactly opposite was an antique red
mansion, standing back in its own ground--home of the Mynors family
for two generations, but now a school, the Mynors family being extinct
in the district save for one member. Somewhat higher up, still on the
opposite side to Manor Terrace, came an imposing row of four new
houses, said to be the best planned and best built in the town, each
erected separately and occupied by its owner. The nearest of these four
was Councillor Sutton's, valued at 601. a year. Lower down, below
Manor Terrace and on the same side, lived the Wesleyan

superintendent minister, the vicar of St. Luke's Church, an alderman,
and a doctor.
It was nearly six o'clock. The sun shone, but gentlier; and the earth lay
cooling in the mild, pensive effulgence of a summer evening. Even the
onrush of the steam-car, as it swept with a gay load of passengers to
Hanbridge, seemed to be chastened; the bell of the Roman Catholic
chapel sounded like the bell of some village church heard in the
distance; the quick but sober tramp of the chapel-goers fell peacefully
on the ear. The sense of calm increased, and, steeped in this meditative
calm, Anna from the open window gazed idly down the perspective of
the road, which ended a mile away in the dim concave forms of ovens
suffused in a pale mist. A book from the Free Library lay on her lap;
she could not read it. She was conscious of nothing save the quiet
enchantment of reverie. Her mind, stimulated by the emotions of the
afternoon, broke the fetters of habitual self-discipline, and ranged
voluptuously free over the whole field of recollection and anticipation.
To remember, to hope: that was sufficient joy.
In the dissolving views of her own past, from which the rigour and pain
seemed to have mysteriously departed, the chief figure was always her
father--that sinister and formidable individuality, whom her mind hated
but her heart disobediently loved. Ephraim Tellwright was one of the
most extraordinary and most mysterious men in the Five Towns. The
outer facts of his career were known to all, for his riches made him
notorious; but of the secret and intimate man none knew anything
except Anna, and what little Anna knew had come to her by divination
rather than discernment. A native of Hanbridge, he had inherited a
small fortune from his father, who was a prominent Wesleyan
Methodist. At thirty, owing mainly to investments in property which
his calling of potter's valuer had helped him to choose with advantage,
he was worth twenty thousand pounds, and he lived in lodgings on a
total expenditure of about a hundred a year. When he was thirty-five he
suddenly married, without any perceptible public wooing, the daughter
of a wood merchant at Oldcastle, and shortly after the marriage his wife
inherited from her father a sum of eighteen thousand pounds. The pair
lived narrowly in a small house up at Pireford, between Hanbridge and

Oldcastle. They visited no one, and were never seen together except on
Sundays. She was a rosy-cheeked, very unassuming and simple woman,
who smiled easily and talked with difficulty, and for the rest lived
apparently a servile life of satisfaction and content. After five years
Anna was born, and in another five years Mrs. Tellwright died of
erysipelas. The widower engaged a housekeeper: otherwise his
existence proceeded without change. No stranger visited