	Smiley's estranged wife Ann had lived in Carne as a child, and upon his arrival, he becomes the subject of snide gossip. He also is a witness to an invidious class division between "town and gown" which is superimposed upon a religious division between adherents of the Church of England and Nonconformists. As the wife of a public school teacher, and as a nonconformist, Stella Rhodes occupied a low rank in the local social hierarchy, especially in the estimation of Carne's upper crust. 