These rooms stood empty for the greater part of 20 years, the owner in a nursing home, so the story goes. One spring evening, walking in the back yard among daffodils that seemed none the worse for wear from the inattention, I heard kids playing off in the valley below, and felt that the owners probably had a good life here. But who knows? The artwork was in a pile of rubbish elsewhere in the house, which has since been torn down.