“Or rich young one,” answered Johnson. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more lovely. I expect that’s why they’ve come back, if the truth were told. If her aunt took her up and ran her for a season in London there oughtn’t to be much difficulty.”
“Except perhaps the girl,” suggested Anthony.
“Oh! they look at things differently in that class,” answered old Johnson. “They’ve got to.”
The house and shop in Platts Lane where Anthony had been born had been taken over by the old jobbing tinker and his half-witted son. The old man had never been of much use, but the boy had developed into a clever mechanic. Bicycles were numerous now in Millsborough, and he had gained the reputation of being the best man in the town for repairing them and generally putting them to rights. A question of repairs to the workshop had arisen. The property belonged to a client of Mowbray’s, and Mr. Johnson was giving instructions to a clerk to call at the place on his way back from lunch and see what was wanted when Anthony entered the room.
“I’m going that way,” he said. “I’ll call myself.”
Anthony stopped his cab a few streets off. He had carefully avoided this neighbourhood of sordid streets since the day he and his mother had finally left it behind them. The spirit of hopelessness seemed brooding there. The narrow grimy house where he was born was unchanged. The broken window in the room where his father had died had never yet been mended. The square of brown paper that he himself had cut out and pasted over the hole had worn well.
Anthony knocked at the door. It was opened by a slatternly woman, the wife of a neighbour. Old Joe Witlock was in bed with a cold. It was his son’s fault, he explained. Matthew would insist on the workshop door being always left open. He would give no reason, but as it was he who practically earned the living his father thought it best to humour him. The old man was pleased to see Anthony, and they talked for a while about old days. Anthony explained his visit. It was the roof of the workshop that wanted repairing. Anthony went out again and round by the front way. The door was wide open, so that passing along the street one could see into the workshop. Matthew was repairing a bicycle. He had grown into a well-built good-looking young man. It was only about the eyes that one noticed anything peculiar. He recognized Anthony at once and they shook hands. Anthony was looking up at the roof when he heard a movement and turned round. A girl was sitting on a stool behind the open door. It was the very stool that Anthony himself had been used to sit upon as a child watching his father at his work. It was Miss Coomber. She held out her hand with a laugh.
“Father sent me out of the room last time I saw you,” she said, “without introducing us. I am Eleanor Coomber. You are Mr. Anthony Strong’nth’arm, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Anthony. “I heard you had returned to The Abbey.”
“I was coming to see you—or rather Mr. Johnson,” she said, “with a letter from father; but I ran into a cart at the bottom of the hill. I’m really only a beginner,” she added by way of excuse.