She got out of bed, felt her way to the window, drew back the curtains and unlatched a shutter. In later years it might occur to her that, seeing that view for the first time, she saw it without thought of Jonty or Francis and was entranced. What she saw was a stretch of moor etched starkly by the moonlight above a wooded valley. To the left of the woods lay a pattern of silvery fields round a group of stone buildings. Barns? A farm? A glint of water zigzagged through the fields to a large pond, to reappear wider and swifter on its way through the woods, to a valley, to the sea, perhaps? It was difficult to judge distances. As it cut through the fields she felt a longing to follow. The curve of the lane up which she had driven in the dark was delineated by high black hedges, but the moor, rising and dipping, hid the gate she had wrestled to hold for the taxi to pass through. In the distance hills rose steeply up, but nearer the house stood an avenue of beeches whose branches bowed to the wind and etched the sky.
