Darcy had been determined. He had insisted on coming, and as soon as he and Helen were seated side by side on the sofa, with her hand in his, he said, ‘Mrs Brown, I want to marry Helen, and I’m amazed to find that she wants me, too. Will you give us your blessing?’ Helen loved him for his simplicity and his will to do what was right, but she felt the lifelines being severed all around her.

After her first stunned surprise, Mrs Brown had reacted just as Helen had imagined. Happiness was mingled with relief. Not only could she stop worrying about her daughter, but her daughter would be in a position to see that none of them had to worry any more. She was awed when she discovered who Darcy was, but she firmly believed that he was no better than her daughter deserved.

Now, alone together in the kitchen, she hugged Helen. ‘I’m so surprised, but in a way I’m not, either. I knew you would be someone special. I’m so proud of you, Helen. Dad would have been too. If only he could have been here.’

For a moment they held one another, unspeaking. Then Mrs Brown said cautiously, ‘What will it mean, the title and everything? What will you have to do?’

‘Just be a farmer’s wife, at first. Until he inherits, at least. After that, I suppose we’ll work together to keep Montcalm going. It’ll be a business, just like any other except for a few trappings.’ Helen thought her voice sounded hollow.

‘And there’ll be your children. They’ll expect children.’

‘Yes,’ Helen whispered. ‘Children too.’

Mrs Brown put away the cups and saucers. ‘I just want to see you happy, whether you’re a countess or a cleaner. I’d rather you were a countess, of course.’ She giggled like a young girl, pink with pleasure at the resonant word. ‘Imagine it. But I couldn’t have hoped for you to bring home a nicer boy. He seems so gentle. And I can see how much he loves you just by looking at his face. I know he’ll make you happy.’

‘Yes,’ Helen said again, unable to escape her dismal sense of being cut adrift.

Later, Darcy took them all out to dinner. They went to an Italian restaurant in the nearby shopping parade. The food was bad, a depressing travesty that still brought back Venice, and the erotic elation of her spirits there. Where has it all gone? Helen wondered, looking around her. No-one seemed to notice the inadequacy of her mood. Darcy was calm and fully at his ease, and her mother opened to his attention like a flower. Graham, owlish behind his spectacles with the effects of the wine, seemed already to regard Darcy as an unofficial elder brother.

On the drive back to Oxford, Darcy said, ‘I like your family.’