Bess of the Woods by Warwick Deeping

Jeffray had taken lodgings at Tunbridge Wells over a stationer's shop, Peter Gladden, pompously indefatigable, having discharged all the petty preliminaries for his master. The windows of the parlor gave a slanting view of the Pantiles, and a broad glimpse of the common, gilded with gorse, its may-trees bursting into snow, the rocks sleeping like toads on the sunny slopes. The woods of Eridge bristled beyond, and Crowborough Beacon climbed purple into the south-western sky. The village with its biblically-named hills seemed gay with spruce gentlemen, beflowered ladies, lackeys, and such gaudy beetles. The frivolous little Sybaris nestled amid the dazzling freshness of spring, orchards still white upon the slopes, flowers thick in every meadow.

It was a dewy morning after rain, the landscape a-shimmer in the sun when Peter Gladden shaved and valeted his master, and prepared him for a parade upon the Pantiles and the public walks where he might study the life of the place. Jeffray, who still wore black and dressed without great respect to fashion, discovered himself scrutinized with some closeness by the smart idlers whose lives appeared consecrated to studying the shape of a buckle or the cock of a hat.