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estate management was not something to be picked up in a few weeks, or even months. Neither did its slow pace appeal to him. His had been an active and often dangerous life, he was constitutionally unable to be idle and he was restless with the quiet existence he was forced to follow. He had been a leader of men, enjoying the discipline and framework of army life and the variety it offered. He had served in five different parts of the Empire, fought in three wars and distinguished himself in all of them. After that, managing an estate seemed tame. He had decided, without much conscience-searching, that there was no reason why the status quo should be disturbed.
    It did not, however, resolve the dilemma of how to occupy himself in his newly acquired freedom. He rode a great deal,
and spent time in Town, where all the usual occupations available to an eligible man without ties offered themselves, until he discovered with dismay that he was not cut out for this life, either, which now seemed aimless and vapid. He stayed at his club, and tried to renew old acquaintances, only to find that most of them had settled down to raise a family or else were ‘killing time till time killed them’, spending their life in the pointless way he had come to despise. He was beginning to worry about what he should do with the rest of his life, for he had no intentions of growing into a crusty, frustrated old man, when he came with surprise upon the thing which was destined to give him the keenest pleasure he had yet experienced.
    Wandering around his echoing, empty house, seeing it with different eyes after his long absences, he had discovered that some of the pictures which had surrounded him since birth, and which familiarity had prevented him from ever examining with a critical eye, were in fact of some interest. There was, for example, a Caravaggio in the private chapel; a couple of Poussins hung in the drawing room, and several Reynolds portraits of his mother’s ancestors graced the hall. He knew little about art, but the quality of these paintings was at once very apparent to him, and stimulated him to find out more. With his usual energy and decisiveness, he immediately set about a process of self-instruction which included reading as much as he could, visiting museums and art galleries, talking to – and learning from – those who did know about such things. Occasionally, he travelled abroad, to Italy and Greece, in search of works of art and antiquities. He had gradually become something of an expert himself. Indeed, the reason for being here at Charnley for the week before the birthday was to catalogue and assess the value of Amory’s pictures. This was causing him no little disquiet. If the purpose was to provide Amory with cash, as seemed probable – and extremely disturbing - Wycombe didn’t think he was likely to obtain it from the sale of anything he had ever seen hanging on the walls at Charnley. Mediocre family portraits, dull landscapes … his friend was almost certainly doomed to disappointment. However, he would have to see what the next week brought. Meanwhile, he did not intend to restrict his time here to the
valuation of pictures.
    For as he had become more knowledgeable about works of art, he had realised he was on the way to becoming happy, except for one thing.
    He was made painfully aware each time he visited Charnley nowadays that he was the last of his line. He realised, perhaps too late, what he was missing when he saw them together, Amory and the incomparable Beatrice, who had given him a son and heir. Hitherto, despite everything, Myles had never found the absence of a wife any great disadvantage - thirty-odd years of army life and his own nature taught one ways of dealing with that sort of need. As for the lack of an heir – well, one must regard that as the luck of the draw, the way life had turned out for him. Of late, however, he had begun to feel differently. The idea