The Squire's Daughter

"It seemed ages ago that she was the centre of the set, courted, feted, bustling... She felt herself dead, a ghost returned, and her place already knew her no more" At the age of twenty-one Ron is witty and assured, delighting in the glamour of her London set and resisting her role as the Squire's daughter. She is used to the adoration of men and, "busy in an existence that made deep feeling difficult," is so far untouched by it. Now the Squire is faced with the necessity of selling Carne, the ancestoral home which symbolises so much for him, yet means little to his children. This acute, elegaic novel, first published in 1929, presents the fragmentation of upper-class life between the Wars. Whilst the older generation acknowledges change with pain and reluctance, Ron and her contemporaries are dismissive of the values their parents uphold. But Ron's bravado is as impermanent as the privilege of her class and her life will be changed when she falls in love...