Lady Montcalm made a tiny gesture and Darcy moved to pull back her chair. As she stood up, she bent her head towards Helen and said, ‘I’m so very, very pleased. Darcy must bring you to Montcalm very often. But now, I’m afraid …’ she sighed again, ‘… I must go up and have my rest.’

A brief kiss was bestowed on the air close to Darcy’s head and his mother was gone. ‘Take me home,’ Helen said. ‘Please, let’s go home. To Follies.’

She thought that she would never be happier to see the square bulk of the old red house.

They left Montcalm behind them, the dome and turrets leaden against a heavy grey sky.

‘I’m sorry,’ Darcy said humbly as they drove.

‘I don’t want you to be sorry.’ Helen was fierce. She was thinking of the warmth with which her own mother had welcomed Darcy. But then that isn’t quite the same, she thought, struggling to be fair. ‘We’ve done it now anyway.’ They smiled at each other, more relieved than triumphant. You’ve done it now, she echoed to herself. Today’s tense little encounter had had one surprising effect. It had made her want to love Darcy more than anything, and to be a new family for him. And if she wanted it enough, she told herself almost grimly, then she could do it. For Darcy.

And Tom …

Helen stared at the Oxford road unwinding in front of them. He still seemed tangibly close, his features vivid inside her eyelids.

There could be no Tom. No more thinking about him, no more seeing him as anything but a friend. In time, the hurt of that would fade until it was no more painful than an old bruise. In time, she thought.

Helen had made her choice.

TWELVE

Summer began in Oxford that year, just as it always did, on the morning of the first of May.

For hours before dawn the streets were packed with surging crowds. They spilled out of parties and continued their celebrations in the cobbled alleys and courts. Under the trailing branches of the willows fringing the river, the punts slid down to Magdalen Bridge. They were packed with more noisy party-goers, heading for the focus of the night’s festivity. Behind them empty champagne bottles bobbed in the black and gold-rippled water. As the city’s clocks struck five, and then the half-hour, the revellers in the streets were drawn to the river too. They massed on Magdalen Bridge in the brightening grey light. A cold wind blew off the water, more reminiscent of March than the first summer’s day.

As six o’clock approached faces began to turn upwards to Magdalen Tower, waiting. A scarlet kite with a tail of streamers dipped in the wind, higher than the tower’s flagpole, and was greeted by a hubbub of cheering.