That afternoon Helen was back at her usual desk in the brown somnolence of the Bodleian Library. In the carrels that stretched all around, other people were industriously bent over their weighty books, sheaves of notes, card indexes. Librarians trundled up and down with trolleys of books that had been ordered up from the vast stacks underground.

Helen loved this library. It had existed for hundreds of years for the quiet academic pursuits which were going ahead now in exactly the way they always had. It was the easiest place in the world to concentrate.

Helen was reading The Rape of the Lock. Pope’s elegantly frivolous couplets danced in her head, suiting her mood to perfection. She felt calm and secure. Darcy and she understood each other. Her friends had scored a huge success. All was as it should be.

She was so intent on her book that it was a long time before she became aware of someone pacing up and down the aisle, stopping and moving hurriedly on again. Looking for somebody.

Tom was almost alongside her when she looked up and, with astonishment, saw who it was. She couldn’t have imagined that Tom, so deeply engrossed in his theatre world, would even know that this place existed. His peacock blue leather jacket looked very out of place among the ranks of crumpled dons and shabby students. And what could be so important that he would look for her here?

He leaned over the partition of Helen’s desk.

‘Thank God I’ve found you. D’you really sit in this warren all day?’ He was gathering up her books and papers. ‘Come on, Helen, I need you.’

‘Ssshh.’ There was a sibilant whisper from the girl in the seat next to Helen’s.

‘What’s going on?’ Helen asked, bewildered. She was delighted to see him because it meant that they were completely friends again. But she saw that he was preoccupied, and serious.

‘Will you be quiet?’ hissed the girl, desperately.

Tom took Helen’s arm and half dragged her from the room. She could hear the tutting of irritation behind them. Tom was hustling her down the steps so fast that she almost fell.

‘I know,’ she panted. ‘Pansy’s broken her ankle. You want me to step in and play Rosalind. “A second, even brighter star is born.”’

‘Don’t joke,’ Tom groaned. ‘It’s infinitely worse.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s Oliver.’

Helen went cold. The smile froze on her face. ‘Tell me. Tell me what’s happened. Now, Tom.’

‘Can’t you guess?’

Helen saw with a rush of relief that Tom was angry. Oliver wasn’t hurt, then.

‘No, I can’t guess,’ she answered a little sharply. Then, ‘Wait … yes, I can. It’s Pansy, isn’t it?’