The Turn of the Tide by Fred M. White — Read

Not more than twenty years ago the village of Cray had been a sporting estate owned by the Langley family, of which Major Owen Langley had been the head at the beginning of the twentieth century. He had distinguished himself in the Boer War, from which he returned with every prospect of a successful career. But the unfortunate death of his wife in the hunting field had left him a comparatively young man with one little girl, and he had sent in his papers and devoted himself to the managing of his estate and the bringing up of his child, Patricia.

In those days, the brick and mortar octopus ever stretching out from the Metropolis in search of fresh land to devour had been checked in a south-easterly direction by the barrier of the Moat estate, and for some years this had been a sort of oasis in the dreary waste of jerry-building orgies. But eventually Major Owen Langley had found himself drawn into the vortex. His revenues were falling, and he was compelled to find fresh avenues for the upkeep of the family dignity. So he began mildly to speculate in building land, under the guidance of the last of the Veritys, who lived then in an old Manor House on the edge of the estate, and when Jasper Verity was no more, Mortimer Croot took his place and, under his guidance, Major Langley plunged still deeper.