I love this book because the characters are awful and snobby and wrong about so many things. Just like we’re awful and snobby and wrong in our own times. No historical revisionism, and still a happy ending. There’s great beauty within.
Not far from the lodge there was a nasty little climb, and the road, always in bad condition, was edged with dog roses that scratched the paint. Blossom after blossom crept past them, draggled by the ungenial year: some had cankered, others would never unfold: here and there beauty triumphed, but desperately, flickering in a world of gloom. Maurice looked into one after another, and though he did not care for flowers the failure irritated him. Scarcely anything was perfect. On one spray every flower was lopsided, the next swarmed with caterpillars, or bulged with galls. The indifference of nature! And her incompetence! He leant out of the window to see whether she couldn’t bring it off once, and stared straight into the bright brown eyes of a young man.
Note: there’s a Spanish edition that uses the same cover photo as Martin Goodman’s Lessons from Cruising, and dare I say it’s a better fit.