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had begun to feel involved in Long Crendon and its problems, and before leaving I tried to secure a base there by buying Charmers End, but the asking price was beyond my means. Nevertheless, I kept in touch with Dorothea and we exchanged letters two or three times a year. Things continued to go fairly well for them. Her first letter informed me that she had sold her horse, and that she and Dick now owned a veteran but serviceable MG. After that, their gracious but shattered house with the remnant of its incomparable vegetable patch and its cracked rear wall, went to a buyer from London and they moved into a brand-new bungalow. Their view was of other bungalows.
    Dick had had remedial treatment enabling him to stand up straight, and had taken a course in public speaking. Most of her news was concerned with Jane. ‘It’s just as they told us it would be,’ she said. ‘The year’s not up yet and you can hardly believe the difference. It’s really wonderful what they can do.’
    By the next year Jane’s speech had been dealt with to everybody’s satisfaction. ‘You remember the way she used to mumble? I could hardly understand what she was saying myself. Now she speaks as clear as anybody. But she doesn’t sound too la-di-da with it, if you know what I mean. Which is rather nice.’
    In her third year Jane sounded as though she might have started to think for herself. ‘She’s been awarded a prize for social awareness, whatever they mean by that,’ Dorothea wrote. ‘I suppose we’re the tiniest bit disappointed because modelling’s out. She says it’s not for her. Mrs Amos says she’s clever enough to do anything she wants, but we shouldn’t attempt to sway her. While we’re on the subject did you hear about Patricia? She’s always in the papers these days. Do you remember when she was just off to Brazil? Well, she married a Brazilian landowner with an estate the size of Essex. The bit in the paper said he was the seventh richest man in the world. The latest story is the marriage is on the rocks. Money isn’t everything.’
    In her last letter Dorothea’s disappointment with her daughter seemed to have deepened. ‘Mind you, whatever we’ve done for her, we’d do it all over again. Her father and I have written to suggest that she might consider being something like a personal secretary to an MP, or a television presenter. She says we’ll talk about it when she comes home for the holidays. She hasn’t much to say about herself, which doesn’t seem a good sign. The news of Patricia isn’t so good. I sent you a cutting about her divorce from the Brazilian. Now she’s married a French count with a castle in Angoulême. He’s more than twice her age. Sometimes I wonder. Her mother can’t see this one lasting long either. I always say happiness is what counts.’
    When I found myself once more in Long Crendon the changes that awaited me, although more radical than expected, had not been unforeseen. It was remarkable that so dramatic a face-lift could have been carried out in so short a time. The villagers had done whatever they could to uglify the place within the limit of their resources, adding a little raw red brick here and an atrocious plastic ornament there, but it was the newcomers who had set to work to strip it of every vestige of its character. There were many of these now, and in their total isolation they formed almost an ethnic minority. In their search for the picturesque they were able to finance change from limitless funds.
    Certain iniquities had been suppressed. The smouldering dump had been removed and the police had ordered the pigfarmer to bury the corpses of diseased animals. Main drainage had come to the long street at last, thus—except in the case of outlying houses—putting an end to collection of night soil by the aid of which so many superb vegetables had been produced in the past. All three austere old pubs had been sadly tarted up. I stayed at the Pied Bull. Its simple but