Helen put her arm around her shoulders and they sat in silence as Chloe fought to stifle the sobs.

‘Listen,’ she said at last. ‘Just listen to her.’

Pansy’s voice rippled all round them, soft with a new velvety warmth.

‘I can’t even be angry,’ Chloe said bitterly. ‘They have just fallen in love. Luminously, simply. Just like I wanted it to be for me.’ Her shoulders shook with the weight of racking sobs and she buried her face in her hands.

Desperately, Helen searched for a consoling word and could think of none.

‘Chloe, Chloe,’ she murmured, rocking her as if she was a little child. ‘Don’t cry like this. He isn’t worth it.’

‘To me he is,’ Chloe said. ‘At least he came to tell me. At least he was honest. You should have seen his face when he talked about her, as if she was the most precious thing in the world, as if nothing else would ever be important to him again. I said what about Beatrice? and he looked quite blank, hardly remembering her name. I’ve never seen anyone fall in love like that.’

‘And Pansy?’

‘Something has happened to Pansy, too. You know that butterfly quality, the way she’s always flitting on to something new and more exciting? Well, now she’s calm, and still, and smiling. I saw her looking at him tonight with pure, triumphant happiness. Helen, I want to hate her for it, but I can’t.’

Chloe sat up and pressed her fingers to her cheeks. ‘I can’t stay here. Tom’ll be needing me. And I don’t want anyone to see me looking like this.’ Deliberately, Chloe was pulling herself together again. ‘The show must go on, eh?’ There was even the glimmer of a real smile, and Helen smiled her own admiration and encouragement back.

Chloe would survive, she saw, because deep down she wanted to. But Oliver was a different question. Helen couldn’t guess at the answer, and she knew that she didn’t really even understand what the question was. Thoughtfully she went down to the public call box outside the theatre and dialled Darcy’s number at Mere.

By the end of the third act, he was at her side.

Quickly Helen told him the story. ‘Oliver wanted to see me?’ he asked. ‘Where is he?’

They found him alone in his dressing room, sitting out the interval.

‘Darcy?’ Oliver said. ‘You are here. How odd. You know, the strangest thing. I suddenly thought how good it would be if we played chess again. Like we used to, at home? Do you remember, it was the only thing you ever beat me at?’

Helen realised gratefully that Darcy knew what was needed of him.

‘I’ll still beat you,’ he said calmly. ‘Where are the pieces?’