It’s okay, Tom told himself. Oliver was doing fine. His physical presence was enough to hold them, but he could act too. In this role, at any rate. But the moment that Tom was waiting for came when Pansy made her first appearance.

You can do it, the refrain ran in his head. Show them.

And Pansy did.

As soon as she began to speak, she held the packed theatre in the palm of her hand. There were subtle, intelligent nuances of feeling in her acting which never appeared in the Pansy of real life. She moved and breathed the merriment and poignancy of Rosalind as if no Pansy Warren had ever existed. She’s a born actress. Tom had known it ever since her first audition, and now he smiled in triumph. And as he listened to her liquid voice, something else sang in his ears.

Silence.

Beyond the edge of the stage there was not a cough, a rustle or a whisper. No-one moved, and no-one thought of anything but the play. Tom had heard that silence only once before, and that was at the opening of New York’s greatest hit in ten years.

Got you, you bastards.

When the house lights came up for the interval, there was a second’s quiet before the rush and jostle began for the bars. Helen and Darcy smiled at each other through it and squeezed hands again.

‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ Darcy asked anxiously. ‘Surely it is?’

‘Yes. It’s very, very good. Spectacular, in fact. If only they can carry the rest of it off.’

Squashed together in a far corner of the bar, they watched and listened. No-one was talking about anything else.

‘Greg Hart’s son. The impresario …’

‘Better than the one at Stratford …’

‘Rather clever, wouldn’t you say? …’

‘Of course, you know who she is? Masefield Warren’s daughter. The shady tycoon …’

‘I like the whisper of bleakness. The play should be a synthesis of light and shade …’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. But aren’t they pretty? …’

Helen need not have worried.

The production gathered momentum until the last, spellbinding moment.

Pansy spoke the epilogue from a small circle of light on the darkened stage. Helen had forgotten everything, forgotten that this magical Rosalind was the girl who lived downstairs at Follies House.

‘When I make curtsey,’ Pansy’s slow smile embraced all of them, ‘bid me farewell.’

The storm of applause broke instantly. Wave after wave of clapping rose to the stage as the cast took their bows. Pansy and Oliver, hand in hand, stepped forward and the applause redoubled.