Alongside this glittering throng, we have the other section of the novel: the servants, the keepers, the beaters, the cooks and maids and footmen and valets, who made this life possible. Isabel Colegate is one of the first writers to treat these people equally as a part of the narrative. She does not patronize. She does not sentimentalize. We have the head keeper, Glass, with his sense of history and his clear understanding of the country but also with a kind of fear of the modern forces that are dragging his son, Dan, away from him. And Dan, too, who is both aware of his natural sympathy for science, aware too of the possibilities that are opening before him, but still sad at the thought of losing touch with the old ways he has grown up with. Should he turn his back on the opportunities promoted by Sir Randolph? Or should he go forward into the unknown? In this simple struggle Colegate encapsulates so much of the schizophrenic nature of the dawn of the twentieth century.

Dan did not know what to think. He was perfectly content with his life as it was, but to work on the subject which seemed to him more interesting than anything in the world with other people who felt the same would obviously be wonderful … He was as yet a stranger to worldly ambition, except in the sort of dream-like way which requires no action. Glass had said no, but his conscience nagged him. Sir Randolph insisted the offer was still open. Dan tried to forget about it, expecting that Providence must surely speak, one way or the other.

But finally Glass and Dan are shown to better advantage than Lady Lilburn because, by the end of the novel, they stop trying to evade the future that is beckoning, however unsettling it might be.

What of the character who is given the task of vocalizing the opposition to the way of life of the shooters and their wives, Cornelius Cardew? He is the classic anti-blood-sport proselytizer, with his pamphlets and his slogans. Does he speak with Colegate’s voice? I don’t think so. His social insecurity, that makes him easy prey to Sir Randolph’s courtesy when it is extended, his failed and loveless marriage, his inability to communicate with anyone in the countryside that he professes to love, his fundamental ridiculousness, indicates a man as damaged as the rest. Colegate does not condemn him. She does not even dislike him. But she has no faith in his formula for improvement.

‘Oh,’ gasped Cornelius again, clasping and unclasping his hands more furiously than ever, and moving from one foot to the other in an ecstasy of embarrassment, excitement, horror and apprehension of revelation. ‘If only I could make you see how utterly absurd you all are.’

They looked at him; all the faces turned towards him with expressions varying from total aloofness to mild enquiry. Cornelius stared back, aghast at his own bad taste.

‘I cannot think that a helpful observation,’ said Sir Randolph eventually.

‘No,’ said Cornelius, wringing his hands and retreating step by step across the grass. ‘No, it is not helpful.’